Talk:MythTV

I once went to a presentation by a friend who made himself a wicked cool little MythTV box in one of those sexy transparent plastic cases, about one cubic foot, and he did a demo of all kinds of wild and fascinating stuff. I got greedy for one, but couldn't find enough knowledge to do it, and ended up with a Tivo (with the lifetime subscription).

I'd be interested to see a comparison of the merits of a MythTV box compared to a Tivo box. What I myself know on the topic is that a MythTV box can do some things a Tivo can't, and the video is in an open format. The Tivo gets commercially supported, which is good and bad; the bad side is that there's a lot of advertising for what studios and broadcasters want me to see, and a bit less emphasis on my own choices. I know MythTV uses XMLTV listings and other stuff. Do you find that gives full coverage of what's available? Are there lapses for some cable TV providers? Just curious.

-- WillWare 18:14, 29 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

(Note: I started this wikibook and added the first wave of content.)

I hope people are finding this wikibook helpful for setting up their own functional MythTV. Mine is working great and I love it. The fact is (as it says in the wikibook), MythTV can do a LOT more than any commercial offering. The downside is that you have to get your hands dirty sometimes to configure and maintain it. It's been worth it, for me.

MythTV is NOT for people who want a "just works" machine. They should get a Tivo. I've heard lots of good things about Tivo, but I'm a control freak. I want to be able to transfer shows to different places. For instance, burning episodes of TV shows to DVD is very useful... or I can transfer them to a laptop for a trip (as far as I know, that's not possible with Tivo).

XMLTV has always been pretty accurate for me. I have digital cable, so I get a listing with my cable box (although MythTV has to use XMLTV, the cable company doesn't make it possible to interface with the cable box). Whenver the XMLTV listing is wrong, so is the listing in my cable box... that is, the only problems occur when they change around show times at the last minute (or when sports shows run long, etc.). You can't blame XMLTV or MythTV for that. Again, I emphasize that XMLTV had a full listing for every channel that I get (I'm in Canada, by the way), but obviously it might vary from region to region. This is just my experience.

Kebes 19:09, 14 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

I'd like to split this book up into sections. Anyone opposed? -Matt 04:52, 8 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

Splitting. -Matt 00:05, 16 March 2006 (UTC)Reply