Media Center Edition 2004 vs MythTV
A quick recap on what we found when building our MythTV box a few weeks ago:
- MythTV is a third party application that runs on various Linux distros, including SuSE Linux 9.1, on which we based our PVR. A few others are Mandrake, Red Hat, and Debian. It can also install from a CD in about 20 minutes, with minimal configuration, using KnoppMyth. That's what we are using for this portion of the analysis.
- MythTV is compatible with various TV capture cards, including software and hardware based encoders/decoders (WinTV GO, WinTV PVR-250/350, AverTV Desktop PVR, etc). Generally, if hardware is supported in Linux, it can be at least forced to run on MythTV.
- MythTV does not have high hardware requirements. It will operate on a slower Pentium II machine with some quality loss, of course, but will compensate for weaker CPU configurations if a hardware-based capture card is used.
- MythTV supports plug-ins, which makes it a piece of software that can be expanded upon and, being open source, can be tailored to anyone's personal needs. Encoding capabilities, most importantly, can be expanded to allow use of various codecs and compression techniques.
We haven't posted much coverage on Windows Media Center Edition besides the original
introduction that we wrote about 18 months ago. Here is what we know about Microsoft's PVR OS:
- Windows Media Center Edition 2004 is, of course, proprietary software, which means that it cannot be altered or tailored to different needs. Since it is proprietary, though, it is fully supported by Microsoft when installed on certified hardware by certified vendors.
- Media Center Edition 2004 does not support software-based encoding, which means that a hardware-based capture card, such as the PVR-250/350 from Hauppauge, is required.
- Video encoding is based on Microsoft's own codec and cannot be changed to allow use of various other codec's such as DivX or MPEG2 codecs for DVD output.
- Configuration is just as simple as Microsoft's other products, like the original flavors of Windows. Some may disagree, but compared to Linux, Microsoft packages are a snap to install and configure.
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KristopherKubicki - Thursday, September 16, 2004 - link
Id consider it more functional except the feature of on-demand content, which is pretty neat in my opinion.Kristopher
dvinnen - Thursday, September 16, 2004 - link
MythTV wins because it is free, cheeper to build a machine with, supports more hardware, and almost as functional as the Windows version.mab0270 - Thursday, September 16, 2004 - link
That's the beauty of MythTV: It's free, so you don't have to "buy it for some future upgrade".I'd have to say Myth works pretty well straight out of the box, providing you know how to follow instructions on how to set it up. As mentioned in the article, KnoppMyth makes it pretty easy to get a functional Myth system in about 20 minutes.
As for wondering whether those future upgrades will happen, it's being actively developed, and its popularity is growing every day. If you want a feaature, and you have any programming experience, you can even look into implementing it yourself!
Questar - Thursday, September 16, 2004 - link
So MythTV wins due to a potential to get better in the future??Yeah, I always buy products for some future upgrade that may or may not happen, verses how well they work on the day I spend my money.
Price2Rise - Thursday, September 16, 2004 - link
It would be great to see how a review of MythTV and MediaPortal would look. MediaPortal is open source as well and runs on Windows instead. It is a young project, but it is looking good already -> http://mediaportal.sf.netPrice2Rise - Thursday, September 16, 2004 - link
mcveigh - Thursday, September 16, 2004 - link
mce 2005 is cominghttp://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&a...
10/12 acording to that thread.