[PLUG] MythTV experiences?

[Tim]

> I'd like to get rid of my tivo/comcast combo. Is anyone here using
> MythTV (or similar) to record over-the-air HD broadcasts?
> 
> I have most of the parts I need except for a few important ones (like a
> recording card) and I was wondering what experiences people have had
> with whatever hardware they are using.

I've posted a few times over the last couple of months in relation to
my MythTV and recording cards experiences, so check out the list
archives.

In short, I'd say it can be a fun to tinker around with all of the
things you can do with a mythbox.  Besides having a nice TV DVR (which
actually skips commercials and is generally pretty smart), you can get
game emulators running, install free games, play karaoke discs with
pykaraoke, of course watch movies and all kinds of other things. 

However, it can also be *a lot of work*.  There are several MythTV
distros out there that might take some of the effort out of it.
Myself, I'm just used to maintaining lots of Debian boxen, so I run a
standard install with packages from http://www.debian-multimedia.org/.
These can be rather unstable though.

I recently upgraded my mythbox to do over-the-air HDTV (ATSC) and it's
been working out nicely.  It does have some bugs, but it's working ok
for us, and over time I slowly squash those things.

Feel free to ping me off list if you have specific questions.

HTH,
tim