I'm planning on buying some old P4 Dells for the use of a media center.
I don't know if I'll be using it for recording TV ala Tivo, but I do want the ability to browse and play xvid videos and mp3s (lossless aac's would be an added bonus as well.) in addition to having a frontend to emulators -- especially MAME.
From what I've seen, MythTV looks like its the best fit in terms of functionality.
However, I'm not a Linux person and although KnoppMyth promises to be simple, I have a feeling that configuring and maintaining it on my network may be challenging.
Does anybody know how Windows Media Center Edition compares in the areas I am interested in?
I assume I can install it on a box without a TV tuner, but please correct me if I'm wrong.
MythTV vs Windows Media Center
This thread was primarily me bitching about a capture card, but from this post down, I start discussing my thoughts on WMCE.
Welp, I run MythTV. There are many things I like about it -- primarily, the usual network functionality of unix. If anything goes wrong, I can secureshell into the box and the wife needn't be upset for long. But within the past five months, after a major upgrade in the SVN branch, I haven't had to do that once.
In fact, MythTV has its tentacles spreading out through every room in the house. Again, its a networked beast -- so I have a major box with several capture cards in it which all the nodes can utilize. In the guest bedroom, in the living room, in the theater room -- over wireless G, people watch cable TV where no cables reach. Its good stuff. The commercial autoskipping is quite cool, too.
I have _no_ experience with any Winders based media center. I'm sure they are fine, and probably easier to setup. I, however, like the grandual controls MythTV offers, the ability to script things into it, the frequent updates -- oh, and did I mention its networked based?
If you go that route, I can certainly help if you get stuck on any documentation and the various forums don't have an answer.
I run the buggers off of Gentoo linux, btw. KnoppMyth -- don't like it.
In fact, MythTV has its tentacles spreading out through every room in the house. Again, its a networked beast -- so I have a major box with several capture cards in it which all the nodes can utilize. In the guest bedroom, in the living room, in the theater room -- over wireless G, people watch cable TV where no cables reach. Its good stuff. The commercial autoskipping is quite cool, too.
I have _no_ experience with any Winders based media center. I'm sure they are fine, and probably easier to setup. I, however, like the grandual controls MythTV offers, the ability to script things into it, the frequent updates -- oh, and did I mention its networked based?
If you go that route, I can certainly help if you get stuck on any documentation and the various forums don't have an answer.
I run the buggers off of Gentoo linux, btw. KnoppMyth -- don't like it.
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lordofduct
- Next-Gen
- Posts: 2907
- Joined: Sat Apr 01, 2006 12:57 pm
- Location: West Palm Beach
I have used both...
First off, if you don't know Linux... stay the hell away from MythTV! Just don't even climb into that mess as even the easy install disks are a bit cumbersome for some.
Right now I personally use MCE; I was buying a new license and well it is 40 bucks cheaper then professional and it is basically professional with added features (you actually get the Professional disk with 2 extra MC disks). So I went that route.
As for functionality, MCE is easy as PIE. Seriousily it is just install and ride like windows usually is. 10 foot GUI (what MS calls it) is beautiful and very intuitive. Downsides include very little manual upgrading (it is all done through wizards... grrrr) and it doesn't like a lot of capture cards. Stick to the "MCE Certified" cards. One last problem is the extender problem... that I'll go over in MythTV.
As for MythTV, oh dear God is that an amazing beast! The functionality is superb and its hardware compatability is very diverse. I loved it... downside was getting the damn bastard to work on my 60inch HDTV. Geforce drivers on Linux are OK at best. They got the basics through (no fault of Myth) but extras like HDTV support is really buggy. Getting the text to a readable size on my TV was very difficult. Outside of display problems (if your using a monitor then no concerns really arise) the stuff is made of magic.
1) IT IS FREE!
2) It's sys req. are lower then MCE (especially when running one machine as a backend for multiple different machines).
3) It supports just about everything out of box with the easy install disk. (if you go knoppMyth route)
4) the extender support... yes, no outrageousily over priced God damn MCE extenders. Even the XBOX works so much better with MythTV. Using XBMC and the MythTV frontend you get access to everything. Best part is unlike XBOX MCE extender, Myth hands over all the video rendering over to the XBOX so it doesn't tax the backend server! This is a lot better then you think as if you use XBOX MCE extender you'll notice it's sluggishness... especially when you have more then one attatched to it.
5) supports encoding to other formats that don't have to be decrypted to move around. MCE puts their mpeg2 files in an .asf shell that isn't really transferrable. MythTV puts it straight to a divx, mpeg2, mpeg1... etc. of your choice and can be shared easily.
You get a lot on the MythTV side especially the free part. But expect to do a LOT of tweaking after install. Especially in the display sector and the guide set up. Setting up apache, tweaking little things and all the fun stuff gets really freaking boring. You'll find yourself hunkered over the bastard for a couple of hours just to then move it out to the living room and it looks totally different on the TV and you have to go back and work on it more (or drag your monitor out to the living room).
Yeah, you COULD do all of it on the TV... but have you ever seen text and command prompt on a TV? un freaking bearable.
So for ease, go MCE
for expandability and freedom go MythTV! but expect bugs left and right... oh God expect to be reading forums, asking questions and taking weeks to get it just right. Not like I'm some freaking idiot... it just takes patience and work... no one can deny that. It's not hard work, just freaking work you don't have in MCE. It just scans, does its thing and has WONDERFUL hdtv support.
[EDIT]
my crappy review is of:
Windows MCE 2005
KnoppMyth
Gentoo P4 with MythTV built on top of it.
First off, if you don't know Linux... stay the hell away from MythTV! Just don't even climb into that mess as even the easy install disks are a bit cumbersome for some.
Right now I personally use MCE; I was buying a new license and well it is 40 bucks cheaper then professional and it is basically professional with added features (you actually get the Professional disk with 2 extra MC disks). So I went that route.
As for functionality, MCE is easy as PIE. Seriousily it is just install and ride like windows usually is. 10 foot GUI (what MS calls it) is beautiful and very intuitive. Downsides include very little manual upgrading (it is all done through wizards... grrrr) and it doesn't like a lot of capture cards. Stick to the "MCE Certified" cards. One last problem is the extender problem... that I'll go over in MythTV.
As for MythTV, oh dear God is that an amazing beast! The functionality is superb and its hardware compatability is very diverse. I loved it... downside was getting the damn bastard to work on my 60inch HDTV. Geforce drivers on Linux are OK at best. They got the basics through (no fault of Myth) but extras like HDTV support is really buggy. Getting the text to a readable size on my TV was very difficult. Outside of display problems (if your using a monitor then no concerns really arise) the stuff is made of magic.
1) IT IS FREE!
2) It's sys req. are lower then MCE (especially when running one machine as a backend for multiple different machines).
3) It supports just about everything out of box with the easy install disk. (if you go knoppMyth route)
4) the extender support... yes, no outrageousily over priced God damn MCE extenders. Even the XBOX works so much better with MythTV. Using XBMC and the MythTV frontend you get access to everything. Best part is unlike XBOX MCE extender, Myth hands over all the video rendering over to the XBOX so it doesn't tax the backend server! This is a lot better then you think as if you use XBOX MCE extender you'll notice it's sluggishness... especially when you have more then one attatched to it.
5) supports encoding to other formats that don't have to be decrypted to move around. MCE puts their mpeg2 files in an .asf shell that isn't really transferrable. MythTV puts it straight to a divx, mpeg2, mpeg1... etc. of your choice and can be shared easily.
You get a lot on the MythTV side especially the free part. But expect to do a LOT of tweaking after install. Especially in the display sector and the guide set up. Setting up apache, tweaking little things and all the fun stuff gets really freaking boring. You'll find yourself hunkered over the bastard for a couple of hours just to then move it out to the living room and it looks totally different on the TV and you have to go back and work on it more (or drag your monitor out to the living room).
Yeah, you COULD do all of it on the TV... but have you ever seen text and command prompt on a TV? un freaking bearable.
So for ease, go MCE
for expandability and freedom go MythTV! but expect bugs left and right... oh God expect to be reading forums, asking questions and taking weeks to get it just right. Not like I'm some freaking idiot... it just takes patience and work... no one can deny that. It's not hard work, just freaking work you don't have in MCE. It just scans, does its thing and has WONDERFUL hdtv support.
[EDIT]
my crappy review is of:
Windows MCE 2005
KnoppMyth
Gentoo P4 with MythTV built on top of it.
All are good points.
Frankly, however, MythTV is much easier today than it once was. Downloading it from the SVN tree is the easiest of solutions. But before you do that, you need to configure X and whatever drivers you are using. You have to install/configure ALSA. You also have to install MySQL. Once those pre-requesites are done, you are ready for Myth (Apache, for a web interface, while very useful, is optional). You then need mod_php and apache. Finally, you have to consider lirc -- the infrared remote driver -- assuming you are not using a keyboard or joystick for controls.
None of these things are difficult, nor particularly time consuming, so long as you are familiar with UNIX. Do it once, and you can pop out a mythTV box in 30 minutes -- depending on compile times.
If you are unfamiliar with unix (not necessarily linux), you probably want to avoid it. Unless you want to learn, in which case, jump in.
It is great for running emulators, or playing your DVD collectoin which you converted to ISO images... But, again, I'm sure Windows is more than capable. I'm sure I'd have a hard time learning how to maintain a Windows machine on my network, these days; and I'm at the point of my life I don't want to learn it for the sake of learning it. If your Windows Media Center can act as a frontend, then you also get all those cool retro-sih games, like HamsterBall.
Frankly, however, MythTV is much easier today than it once was. Downloading it from the SVN tree is the easiest of solutions. But before you do that, you need to configure X and whatever drivers you are using. You have to install/configure ALSA. You also have to install MySQL. Once those pre-requesites are done, you are ready for Myth (Apache, for a web interface, while very useful, is optional). You then need mod_php and apache. Finally, you have to consider lirc -- the infrared remote driver -- assuming you are not using a keyboard or joystick for controls.
None of these things are difficult, nor particularly time consuming, so long as you are familiar with UNIX. Do it once, and you can pop out a mythTV box in 30 minutes -- depending on compile times.
If you are unfamiliar with unix (not necessarily linux), you probably want to avoid it. Unless you want to learn, in which case, jump in.
It is great for running emulators, or playing your DVD collectoin which you converted to ISO images... But, again, I'm sure Windows is more than capable. I'm sure I'd have a hard time learning how to maintain a Windows machine on my network, these days; and I'm at the point of my life I don't want to learn it for the sake of learning it. If your Windows Media Center can act as a frontend, then you also get all those cool retro-sih games, like HamsterBall.
Anybody used GameEX?
http://www.tomspeirs.com/gameex/default.aspx
I've downloaded it and it seems pretty well-rounded.
Sometimes it can be a tad slow, but the gaming support is top-notch.
http://www.tomspeirs.com/gameex/default.aspx
I've downloaded it and it seems pretty well-rounded.
Sometimes it can be a tad slow, but the gaming support is top-notch.
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Ramatut4001
- 128-bit
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lordofduct
- Next-Gen
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- Location: West Palm Beach
Is there any top-notch gaming plugins for MCE?lordofduct wrote:This is what im talking about... there is a lot to do for MythTV. I wouldn't tread those waters unless you've Linux before. Really MCE is SO much easier.Mozgus wrote:I'm *so* staying out of this one.
How about theming?
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