[vox] Tivo question

[Dave Margolis]

On Mon, 8 Dec 2003, John Mark Walker wrote:

> Why bother? You can get a slim PC with cheap, commodity components, a TV
> tuner, a graphics card with video out, install Freevo or MythTV with MPlayer,
> Xine or your favorate DVD-capable video software, use XMLTV, and voila,
> you've got your total Linux multimedia hub where you can rip DVD's to your
> personal libraries, record TV shows, burn whatever you want to Video CD, DVD,
> or whatever format you choose, and without any stupid DRM or pay-for-play
> service restrictions.

I agree with this statement, and I have been actively researching doing
just that for the last couple of days.  However, I have almost decided
that the price in both money and time might be way to much too invest.

A super-bad linux based home-brewed DVR (probably based on an XPC) would
cost quite a bit more than the used Tivos I'm looking at run from
$100-$200.

$12.95 per month will add up fast to the amount of said linux box, but I
don't think the $299 lifetime subscription would.

MythTV looks pretty amazing, but getting all the harware to cooperate
would be no small chore.  For example, getting TV-out to behave under linux
is pretty tough.  Lirc is really neat, but that took WAY to long to even
get to where I thought the remote was working, and I still haven't tied the
remote signals to anything useful.  TV-card support through BTTV is good
so that's no big deal.

I've been playing around with these ideas for a couple of days now and I
haven't made my decission yet, but I'm pretty ready to save time and
energy and let Tivo do the dirty work.

>
> By the way, No Starch Press is actively looking for a book on the subject :@)

I'd buy that book!

>
> -John Mark Walker
> No Starch Press
>
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