I was wondering if anyone here has used both MythTV and Windows Media Center operating systems and can compare the two. Other than the fact that MythTV is free, are there other advantages of going with it? Is it less demanding on the hardware?

I tried the Windows Media Edition and in short I thought it was a total POS!! I currently have 4 tuners wroking in my Myth Box. A PVR 150, 250, 350 and a Bt878 tuner card. All of them work flawlessley!

I thought I would try the Windows Media Edition and installed it on a seperate hard disk. After installation, it wouldn't recognize ANY of my tuner cards, either sound card or my network interface. I spent about a day trying to install drivers to get it all to work and finally gave up. I realized that at this point in time, Linux is actually easier to get up and running than a new Windows install.

KnoppMyth is a truly great distribution and it has awsome support here on this message board. I don't really see much of a choice than to stick with Linux.

MCE is fine.. as long as you have 1 tuner.. and only encode and watch what you record.

If you say.. download some other videos, you enter into windows "Codec Hell".

MCE is fine as long as you do it the MS way with what MS provides and only what MS provides..

personally.. Myth is the best out there for a media center application. nothing else comes close. it does everything.. and everything WELL.

it's a pita to setup on some hardware sometimes.. but it's well worth it in the end.

the only advantage that I see MCE having over mythtv is VOD(video on demand) and I seriously doubt myth will have that for quite a long time, so if that is a top priority for you MCE might be a better bet.

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Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

mce 2005 will run 2 tuner cards.
but yeah.. windows has been kind enough to only support a few cards. they say this isnt cause they're pricks.. just that they want the mce experience to be the same for all users.. i guess it just makes it easier at this point. the plus side of windows is that you dont need to worry as much about hardware.. cept of course for the tuner card. its basically just win XP .. theres no problem with SATA drives, pci-e cards, ATI works good etc etc.. but of course windows uses bulk ram..but who cares cause its cheap.. and the minumim specs are higher than what you can get away with under linux.. (ie.. forget about using you 500mhz athlon.) .. you need a directx 8 or higher videocard... in fact it might even be directx 9 ..

you can use xbox frontends though.. which might be nice for some. and i think i read on their website something about connecting your fronted wirelessly.. but i know nothing about that.

its easier to setup than mythtv... but thats just my opinion given that im not linux savy at all. but its of course more limited casue its not open sourse. channel tuning and tv grabs are still a bitch in australia.. but i presume thats not an issue in the US.

initially many were disapointed with the picture quality.. but its better than it was... and patches will make it better.. i cant compare to myth cause im using different hardware.

in my small mind the single biggest advantage in MS doing this is that it will prompt video cards into improving their tv out. maybe.. or maybe everyone will just use a LCD.. dunno.

in case you didnt know.. there are open sourse projects that run under windows.. media portal is probably the most obvious.

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"enter witty comment here"

The biggest thing I have against MCE is that its not very cheap at all. I dont mind paying for software but $100 is to much for my blood. Plus MCE is rather limited. Most things will work with it cause its XP (basicly) but the tuner cards all have to be MCE compatable, and most MCE cards arnt very cheap either. I know I spent a good deal of money on my Myth system's tuner but it was worth it, plus my Myth system only cost me a grand total of about $180 to build cause I had an old pc laying around that just needed a bigger HD and a tuner.

MythTV has so many nice features, even if they are not easy to program for NON-Linux people. Its still quite rewarding to see it all come to life for you when your done. Took me 1 month and 4 installs to get it to work, but it was worth it (like I said "NON-Linux people"). I had never used linux before in my whol life but with KnoppMyth and the people of this forum I had few problems.

So I would say in short, if you want to build a PVR/HTPC try MythTV first and if you can get it to work after a month, then try Media Center (but I dont think KnoppMyth will disapoint.)

;-D

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System Spec:
KnoppMyth R5A16
Athlon-XP 1400
512MB PC133 RAM
GeForce 4 MX400 PCI (Using S-Video Out)
200 Gig Hard Drive
Happauge PVR-250MCE
nforce2 motherboard