I've been a Linux user and sysadmin for over 15 years, and I've been using
MythTV since the 0.9 release, or about a year and a half. These comparisons
are made using the currently released version, 0.19.
MythTV definately wins in the freedom-of-use category. You don't have
to worry about getting locked into propriatary hardware or software.
The most common complaint is that MythTV is hard to setup and get working.
This has some truth to it, as there are several prerequsite libraries and
helper programs that MythTV uses to provide much of its functionality.
There is a step-by-step guide that uses pre-compiled packages with a
Fedora Core installation, that has helped many people called the
MythTV on Fedora HOWTO.
Another option is the
KnoppMyth distribution
which provides a bootable CD-image with a working MythTV installation.
|
TiVo |
MythTV |
| Hardware |
Tivo has several packages to choose from, depending on how much
storage space you want, and how much service time you want to pre-pay.
|
MythTV is an application that runs on pretty much any hardware
supported by Linux. You may even be able to use some extra hardware
you have laying around. You will want some kind of video capture card
and a video card with TV-out (if you plan on displaying it on a
television). It's hard to set a price here because there are so many
different ways of building a machine.
|
| Software |
"Free". The Tivo software comes with the purchase of the hardware
and the TiVo service. You have little control over what version
gets installed on the hardware because it can get updated automaticly
by the TiVo service |
Free!. The Linux operating system, MythTV
and all its prerequsites can be downloaded for no cost and are
distributed under the
GNU Public
License which affords the users and developers
greater freedoms in how
they use and distribute the software |
| Service |
TiVo has dropped the option of getting lifetime service; all the
packages they offer have a monthly charge, which changes depending
on how long of a contract (1 to 3 years) you want to commit to. The
service provides software updates and program listings. A TiVo
without service has most of its functionality disabled. |
"Free". MythTV gets its program listings via the
XMLTV package
or the DataDirect service from
Zap2It. Both of these are free for
now, but may not be in the future. Software updates are available
for download for free, and only get updated when the user wants to |
| Feature |
TiVo |
MythTV |
| Single Recording by program |
Supported
You can choose a particular showing of a program to record. |
Supported
You can choose a particular showing of a program to record, or choose to
record that particular episode whenever it happens to come on. |
| Single Recording by time and channel |
Supported |
Supported |
| Recurring Recording by program |
Supported through their Season Pass feature.
Can record a program on a particular channel no matter what time it is
on. |
Supported
Can record a program when it appears in a particular timeslot each day,
each week or any time on the chosen channel, or whenever the program
appears on any channel. |
| Recording the show you are currently watching |
Supported. Pressing the record button
while watching a show in Live TV mode will record the whole show,
including any part of it you have already watched that is still in
the Live TV buffer |
Supported. Same as TiVo.
|
| Recording more than one program on at the same time |
Supported. The Series 2DT (recently
released) can record two channels at the same time. Another option
is to use multiple Series 2 boxes and schedule the recordings to
happen on each box, then watch the recording on the remote TiVo
using the Home Media Option |
Supported. One TV capture card is required
for each simultaneous recording. Scheduling recordings on each
card and handling schedule conflicts is resolved automaticly by the
system.
|
| Controlling a settop box (cable/satelite box) |
Supported. Choose your model of settop
box from the list of manufacturers. Can control settop boxes by either
a serial cable or the supplied IR blaster. |
Supported through the
lirc package for settop boxes without
a serial port. The package comes with configuration files for many
types of remote controls, or you may have to create your own
configuration. For settop boxes with serial ports, MythTV includes
channel-changing programs in its source archive for some Motorola
cable boxes, and programs for other types of boxes can be found on
the Internet. For STBs with active firewire ports, MythTV can
use that conenction to change the channel. |
| Identifying Duplicates |
When scheduling a recurring recording, you can choose to record only
the new episodes, or both new ones and the re-runs. |
Duplicate recordings can be identified (and not recorded) by a
combination of shows that MythTV has recorded any time in the past
and current recordings stored on the disk |
| Feature |
TiVo |
MythTV |
| Record and play back digital cable channels |
Not Supported directly. Recording digital
cable channels requires the use of the cable company's STB. |
Supported. Capture cards such as the
HD-3000, Air2PC or Avermedia cards can capture non-encrypted
QAM encoded channels. Depending on the local cable company, many or
most channels will be encrypted, and require the use of a STB. |
| Record and play back HDTV terrestrial broadcasts |
Not Supported |
Supported with several cards, including
the HD-3000, Air2PC or Avermedia cards.
|
| Record and play back HDTV satelite broadcasts |
Supported. DirecTV customers can purchase
a satelite receiver+TiVo box that can record and play HDTV channels.
That particular box can also capture terrestrial DTV broadcasts |
Not supported The best you can do is
record the SD resolution picture output by the STB's composite or
Svideo connection. |
| Record and play back HDTV cable broadcases |
Not supported This feature is expected
when the Series 3 box is released. |
Supported with some caveats. For
Motorola 6200-series boxes with firewire ports, when the local
cable company has chosen to activate them, and when viewing a
channel the cable comany has chosen to allow to be sent unencrypted
over the firewire. |
| Feature |
TiVo |
MythTV |
| Search by Title |
Supported. Titles are entered by selecting
the first few letters of the show's name on a virtual keyboard on
the screen with the remote, and then selecting the right one from a
list of shows matching that pattern. |
Supported. Titles are selected by choosing
the first letter of the show's name and then scrolling through all
the shows starting with that letter to find the one you're looking
for. |
| Search by Genre |
Supported. The TiVo interface can present
a list of genres and subgenres, and allows searching for titles
limited by the genre you select. |
Supported. The user can select from a list
of genres (categories), and then choose a show from the list of shows
in the selected genre. |
| Search by time and channel |
Supported. The TiVo has an onscreen
guide where you can select a channel and see all the shows coming
up for the next several hours. It also has a familliar TV Guide-like
time/channel grid to select shows (Series-2 only). |
Supported. It has a TV Guide-like
time/channel grid to select shows. |
| Automatic recording of similar shows |
Supported. TiVo uses anonymous, aggregate
data from its subscribers which allow it to record shows similar to
the shows the user has selected to record in the past. |
Not Supported. An add-on to MythTV was
under development at one point. |
| Search by criteria |
Supported through their Wishlist feature.
You can select shows with some combinations of actors, directors,
genres, titles etc. The Wishlist feature also allows the user to
schedule a recording that isn't actually in the upcoming program
list yet. |
Supported The user can put in what
amounts to portions of an SQL where clause to match shows in the
Program table. |
| Feature |
TiVo |
MythTV |
| Remote access to the user interface |
Not supported |
Supported. Since the interface is just
another X application, you can remote-display it to another terminal.
Video can not be played back in this way because it uses the Xvideo
extension, which requires local access to the video card. |
| Scheduling recordings over the netwok |
Supported. Series-2 TiVos with the Home
Media Option can schedule recordings through their account on
the TiVo webpage. Schedule updates only happen when the TiVo
makes its daily call for the service update. This is not supported
on the older Series-1 TiVos. |
Supported. An add-on module called
MythWeb allows the user to, among other things, schedule shows
to record. These changes are scheduled immediately. |
| Playback of shows recorded on a remote device |
Supported. Series-2 TiVos with the Home
Media Option, and that are in the same household, can play back
recordings made on another Series-2 Tivo. |
Supported. Because of MythTV's client-server
architecture, all recordings are essentially remote to the frontend
that plays them back. This architecture allows the user much
greater flexibility in deploying backends (machines where the recordings
take place) and frontends (where the playback happens), possibly
multiples of both types of boxes. |
| Storing and playback of recordings on a remote fileserver |
Not Supported |
Supported. Since MythTV runs as a normal
application on a Unix machine, any of the available network filesystems
can be used to provide remote storage |
| Moving recordings to another machine or burning them to disc |
Not Supported. There is a TiVo box that
supports burning recorded shows to a DVD, but it is more expensive
then the basic television-only box. |
Supported. Recordings captured with a
hardware mpeg card such as a Hauppauge PVR-250 are normal mpeg
recordings saved to the filesystem, and can be moved and processed
with any program that supports it. Recordings made with a bttv
card are made in a MythTV-only modified NuppleVideo format, but are still
normal files that can be moved around. There are patches for mplayer
to understand this format, and another program called nuvexport that
can translate these files into other formats such as svcd images or
xvid files. |
| Feature |
TiVo |
MythTV |
| Playing DVDs |
Not supported. There is a TiVo box that
includes a DVD player and recorder, but it is more expensive than
the basic television-only box. |
Supported. Playing DVDs is accomplished
by calling another program that supports DVD playback such as mplayer
or xine. Once it is configured, the MythTV interface can call that
program without additional user intervention through the MythDVD
plugin. |
| Ripping DVDs |
Not supported. |
Supported. The MythDVD plugin provides an
interface for calling another program that does the actual ripping.
|
|
| Playing other computer video media (.avi, .mpeg, etc) |
Not Supported |
Supported. Playing other video media
files is accomplished by calling another program that supports their
playback such as mplayer or xine. Once it is configured, the MythTV
interface can call that program without additional user
intervention through the MythVideo plugin. |
| Playing Music Files |
Supported. Series-2 TiVos with the
Home Media Option can play back mp3 files stored on a MS-Windows
computer elsewhere on the local network |
Supported. The MythMusic plugin supports
playback of mp3, ogg and flac files on the local machine, or mounted
as a network drive. |
| Ripping Music Files |
Not supported |
Supported as part of the MythMusic plugin |
| Displaying pictures |
Supported. Series-2 TiVos with the
Home Media Option can display picture files stored on a MS-Windows
computer elsewhere on the local network |
Supported through the MythGallery plugin. |