So I pulled the trigger a couple weeks ago, and now I'm a Comcast Cable TV customer. As a switcher from DirecTV they had some sweet deals going on. In particular, if you allow them to take away one of your receivers (I had one sitting around gathering dust that I bought back in 1996), they offer a $55/month switch package with 2 premium networks (HBO and Encore, although you might be able to pick your own), including HDTV channels, locals, and unlimited rooms.
Compared to the $80+/month DirecTV offered with only half of the same number of HD channels, not only was the service itself better from Comcast, but the price was lower too. Um, OK, twist my arm.
Only problem is, the DVR kinda sucks. Compared to my DirecTiVo, the UI is pathetic, the remote is awful, and using is a pain in the ass. Nice thing about having cable service, though, is that with a nifty CableCard ready HD DVR, I should be able to swap out the Motorola beast they gave me with one off the shelf, which brings me to enquire, "what is the best HD DVR on the market?"
Is it a TiVo? ReplayTV? Should I put Linux/MythTV on a MacMini? Help me out here. The most important factors are HD, ease of use (including tangibles like remote control and intangibles like UI look and feel), followed by capacity, and at a distant fourth, price.
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URL: http://rus.berrett.org/blog/
Title: Re: DVR recommendations
Comment/Excerpt: If I were going to do it....I would build and configure a mythTV backend on a dedicated Linux box somewhere on my home network and then run the mythTV frontend on the Mac Mini. That way I could hide a beefy backend box built on Linux (or FreeBSD) that does all of the heavy lifting in my garage, and then have something nice and stylish like a Mac Mini sitting in the TV cabinet running the frontend and slurping all of the video files down from the backend server over my home network. I believe that the mythTV frontend will compile on OSX. hth. --rus.
Name/Blog: Khan
URL:
Title: Good advice
Comment/Excerpt: Although I don't know if I have the patience to build out my own MythTV box. From what I have heard, it's less than a "fun" tech project.
Name/Blog:
URL:
Title:
Comment/Excerpt: Yes, MythTV can be hard to set up. But I'd still vote for MythTV, although I admit I don't do HD. If the KnoppMyth (http://www.mysettopbox.tv/) distribution works for you then it's pretty easy to set up (not quite "15 minutes or your money back", though). The reason I like it is because I have the freedom to do what I want. For example, I ran out of space for recordings (I record way too much TV) so I got a bigger drive. No problems. I also have a perl script that scans the TV schedules and sends me mail about shows I might like. On the other hand, things occassionally go screwy and I have to figure out how to fix it.