[LINK] US going digital TV in 2009

[Carl Makin]

On 05/03/2007, at 1:04 PM, Rick Welykochy wrote:

> Regarding alternatives, one acquaintance was using a home-built MythTV
> box. It gradually stopped working because it needed constant  
> maintenance
> and tinkering. Sounds like the software was at at the "enthusiast  
> hobby"
> level at the time (a year ago). He has since loaded WinXP onto the
> same box and just pumps video from the box to a huge plasma display.

I've got MythTV running on a 1Ghz AMD based Linux box using both a G5  
iMac and an xbox as frontends.  The MythTV server has two cheap  
digital tv cards and can easily record two tv streams at the same  
time as it is serving 2 different video streams  to the frontends.

The biggest problem in Australia is the lack of decent electronic  
program guides.  You can purchase a subscription from IceTV or, as  
I'm doing, piggyback off the OzTivo group's collaborative effort.

I've had the Myth based system going for a year or so now and it's  
very reliable.  We're another household that now rarely watches live tv.

Actually my biggest problem now is how to upgrade the thing.  My wife  
would kill me if it went away for any appreciable length of time!


Carl.