Exploring alternatives to MythTV

Conclusions

Despite the omnipresence and professional stance of the two major league media center projects, MythTV and VDR, practical and attractive alternatives are available (see Table 1). Elisa convinces with both its look and technology, and its easy configuration is unbeaten in the field. The lack of TV support and its showy visuals, which seem to be modeled on Apple products, might tip the user's decision in favor of a competitor in some cases.

Freevo is almost too feature rich, and the plethora of options means a steep learning curve for users. After negotiating it, the system rewards you with an array of online video sources, remote control options, a sophisticated client-server design, and add-ins.

GeeXboX is simpler and easy to configure. The approach of using a customized Live CD gives a second lease on life to older hardware and lends itself to new applications, such as embedded players or self-starting video media.

Infos

  1. Wikipedia on MPEG4: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264#Patent_licensing
  2. Medibuntu project: http://www.medibuntu.org
  3. Codecs for openSUSE: http://opensuse-community.org/Multimedia
  4. Fluendo codec shop : https://shop.fluendo.com
  5. Elisa wiki for Ubuntu: http://elisa.fluendo.com/wiki/Distribution/LinuxPackages/Ubuntu
  6. Elisa for openSUSE: http://www.susegeek.com/media-player/elisa-open-media-center-multimedia-player-for-opensuse-linux/
  7. Elisa Portal: http://elisa.fluendo.com
  8. Freevo: http://freevo.sourceforge.net
  9. Discussion on EPG in Freevo: http://www.mail-archive.com/<U>freevo-users@lists.sourceforge.net<U>/msg16287.html
  10. Freevo documentation: http://doc.freevo.org/Plugins
  11. Freevo Live CD: http://freevolive.tuxfamily.org
  12. GParted Live: http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php
  13. GeeXboX project: http://geexbox.org
  14. Channel list: http://www.linuxtv.org/vdrwiki/index.php/Syntax_of_channels.conf
  15. w_scan: http://edafe.org/vdr/w_scan/
  16. DVB-S transponders: http://linuxtv.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/dvb-apps/util/scan/dvb-s/

The Author

Kevin Read and Simone Schäfer have devoted less time to their studies ever since they installed MythTV. If they are not indulging in media center--related activities, you might find them developing browser games and, of course, working as freelance authors.

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