Review: MythTV 0.18.1

Video Asylum

TVs, VCRs, DVD players, Home Theater systems and more.

I just updated my wife's PVR to MythTV 0.18.1, and I'm really impressed. MythTV is an open source (free) TiVo like application for linux, and, like linux, it's jammed with features that commercial implementors wouldn't dream of.
Here's my setup:
Shuttle SG51 case, 2.6GHz P4, 1GB DDR RAM
Hauppauge WinTV PVR250 TV tuner card
nVidia GeForce FX 5600 video card (fanless)
250GB hard drive, LG DVD+RW drive, ATI RF remote control
Gentoo Linux 2005.1, Kernel 2.6, nVidia drivers, all optimizations
The CPU is *way* overkill for this setup, but I like having clock cycles to spare.
Features at a glance:
Full Tivo-like operation with free program guide content from zap2it
Supports multiple tuners and distributed front and back ends (one MythTV box can connect to several others and share content and recording jobs)
Sophisticated recording priorities system to automatically resolve recording conflicts, with manual override
Automatic commercial flagging for fast skips
After you watch a recording, you can have it automatically recompress to a lower quality and smaller size to save space
Extensive list of plugins: DVD player/ripper, music jukebox with CD ripper based on cdparanoia (almost as good as EAC,) Skype plugin, weather plugin with TV news style graphics and weather radar, RSS reader, picture viewer, web browser, emulator plugin to play MAME games, web server plugin to program your MythTV box over the internet

/*Music is subjective. Sound is not.*/

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Kimber Kable

Topic - Review: MythTV 0.18.1 - jbmcb 07:55:48 10/03/05 (0)

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