I’ve been toying with the idea of setting up a MythTV box on and off for a while, and with family members complaining about the difficulties of getting a VCR programmed for the correct time, the allure of a DVR where you could just point it at a show in the program schedule and say “record this” was getting high. Just before Christmas, I ran across a new startup company selling preconfigured dual-tuner Home Theater PC boxes with Ubuntu and MythTV preinstalled on them, and for a pretty decent price, so I wound up purchasing a Hannibal Duece+ from them. I got the machine a couple weeks ago, and have had a lot of fun fine-tuning it. Having a web interface on the box to point your browser at it and view the program schedule and schedule recordings is a kick, too. The machines are still a little rough around the edges with the initial configuration, but TVEase is showing a lot of promise, with an active forum and a definite open source attitude about how to configure the machines for new customers. The only current drawback is the deathgrip the cable industry has over the digital channels – trying to get off-the-shelf hardware that supports CableCARD® is a bit of a joke currently. If you’re in the market for a DVR, and aren’t married to all the high-numbered channels, I’d definitely recommend picking up one of these things.
I’d have to agree with you. I installed MythTV at home back in late 2005. I’ve since updated it a couple times and am now running version 2.20 on Fedora Core 4. My wife, who understands how to use computers but is far from an expert, absolutely loves it. We now have a 250GB drive for our recordings (my original was only a 20GB) and have enough shows scheduled that pretty much whenever we sit down there’s something to watch (right now I have about 200GB worth of unwatched TV). It’s nice not being tied to being home at a specific time to watch a show.