I guys, I live in New Zealand and we don’t' even have (and may not get for a few years yet) HDTV. So from what I understand MythTV is not really that useful to me?

What I would like to do is have a media centre PC or maybe even just an Xbox that I can play movies on, DVDs, maybe games, and music. I would also like to have the functionality to record TV programmes, sports events and movies however I won't be recording HD content, just analogue (free TV) and digital (Sky TV) signals.

Can you record television onto an Xbox? If not, what software would you recommend? I don't mind paying money as long as its not subscription based!

I guess possibly in the long run I would rather have a PC because it’s easier to upgrade. Can you use an external hard drive with an Xbox for instance?

I would appreciate any of your thoughts.

go with the media center and use MCE05. It's what i use, and i get great functionality. Plus you can download a free plugin that gives you the ability to strip commercials, and MCE is infinitely easier to configure than MythTV, BeyondTV, or SageTV IMO. this is the system i recomended to someone on another site:

Intel Pentium D 805 Smithfield 2.66GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor 89.00 >>combo deal on New Egg
GIGABYTE GA-8I945GZME-RH Socket T (LGA 775) Intel 945GZ Micro ATX 64.99 >>**
ASUS EN7600GT/HTDI/256M Geforce 7600GT 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card 203.99 OR
SAPPHIRE 100167L Radeon X1600PRO 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 129.99
DIAMOND XtremeSound XS71DDL 7.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Sound Card 52.99
mushkin 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 533 (PC2 4200) Desktop Memory 99.99X2 for 2 GB
Hauppauge 1062 PCI Interface WinTV-PVR-150 MCE Kit Tuner Card 92.99
Antec FUSION Silver Media Center Computer Case 430W Power Supply 179.99
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD4000KD 400GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA Hard Drive 119.99
Western Digital Caviar SE WD400JD 40GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA Hard Drive 41.99
Total: 1045.91 before shipping

Optional but sure to enhance your experience:
Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 SP2b w/Upgrade Coupon for Vista 109.99
BenQ FP241W Black 24" 16ms (6ms GTG) HDMI Widescreen LCD Monitor 899.99
Total: 1009.98
Grand total: 2055.90

which would give you a rig that is future proof (Windows Vista ready) great for what you want for now. will have the ability to multi-task. plus you can either up or downgrade components, just a starter for what you should get at minimum. I would go with the more expensive video card as the Nvidia drivers are a bit more mature than the ATI drivers, plus it has both DVI and HDMI outputs equiped with HDCP. gives you flexibility to choose a good compliant monitor with either option later on down the road if you decide to piece meal this thing together. since recompiling video is so intense a process, i wouldn't suggest less than the 2 GB's if you plan on doing anything else. That case is the same case I have for my rig, which isn't as good as this one (it's older).

that system is mid-level, I can spec out a system for much less if need be, and remember that the other half of the cost was for optional upgrades. I wouldn't skimp out on the video card, or processor, but you can make adjustments for the other parts. let me know if you decide to build one, I have a ton of spare computer parts that i'm not going to be using in the near future, if at all. Throw in a blu-ray or HD-DVD player and you got a system that can handle pretty much anything the RIAA throws at us.

Also look at GBPVR. It is FREE. www.gbpvr.com It is very easy to configure, has an active forum for support and I believe SUB the developer is from New Zealand.

I've been using mythtv in a split setup (pc backend, xbox frontend) for about 2 years now, watching/recording analog cable, DVB-T and DVB-S. Works perfectly for my needs (recording off 5 sources, in 2 different timezones, with some really weird cable lineup)

If Sky TV in NZ is encrypted like the UK one, you're in for some fun... you basically have two possibilities:

The analog way: you'll need an IR blaster to control the Sky receiver and an analog card to record the output of the receiver (quality isn't that great doing it this way).

The digital way: you buy a dreambox 500s, flash it with the neutrino image, use your sky sub card (and receiver serial number) in the dreambox and setup the dreambox as a remote recorder in mythtv.



Recording tv on the xbox is not something I'd even try. It may be technically possible (tv tuner through USB1), but due to the low specs of the xbox I don't really see a point in it. Same remark for the hard disk, I'm not sure USB1 would give you decent speeds for good quality content. This is why I'm using a split setup... that way I have the xbox under the tv, one network cable going downstairs to a more serious machine doing the recording and storage.

I'll concede to reality_storm that MythTv isn't exactly trivial to setup, but it gives you a very flexible solution that runs no problem on old machines (been running the backend on a celeron 667 for close to two years, before upgrading for transcoding).

Hope that helps,
Meushi

Meushi's reply is pretty bang on. It is probably the most cost effective way of getting PVR functionality on the cheap. Keep in mind that I don't think you can play XBOX games on the XBOX after you convert it into a Myth front end. Meushi can correct me if I am wrong. Since your XBOX is converted into a linux PC, you can however use it to play emulators of the older generation games (PlayStation 1, N64, SNES, NES, Genesis, MAME, etc), as well as use it to stream other sorts of media like music and pictures from your server.

I was going to go the same route, but still wanted to play XBOX games on my XBOX so I decided to use XBMC (XBox Media Center). With XBMC, I can play Xbox games, emulators, watch DVDs, downloaded TV shows, play music, look at photos (not that I do), and much more. I stream movies and music that I have backed up on my NAS to my XBOX and it all works quite well. I had a concern with leaving my PC on all the time as I find it to be a waste of electricity. My NAS uses hardly any electricity compared to my PC so it just made sense. Of course, if you want to have PVR functionality than this is not going to cut it, but for me it works just perfect.

In fact, with the notable exception of Xbox Live games, you can still play all games if you go the soft mod way (which adds a Linux entry in the Dashboard instead of the Xbox live entry). The soft-mod isn't a possibility for the last xbox generation tho, for those you *have* to modchip the beast.

So a NAS is like a network storage device which your PC and Xbox is connected to?

I think MythTV is the better solution when all is said and done if you have the knowledge and or time to play around with it. MCE is easy, easy to configure, easy to use. But it costs money. I might wait for Vista drivers to mature and also wait for Cable card readers for media center computers if I was WM.

If anyone is really interested in HTPCs they should go the the fourms at www.htpcnews.com. They have all the information you need.

Yup.

That site isn't updated as often anymore, but yes, they do have quite a lot of good info there. I believe some of the people who were working on HTPCNews started up a new HT site called missingremote.com.