[GTALUG] best choices for tiny mlinux media centre in 2016?

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Wed, Dec 30, 2015 at 12:13:41PM -0500, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
> This is an excellent question.
> 
> Rogers is dropping analog a bit at a time.  At our house, they've
> dropped all channels above 20 except for 26 (old NewsWorld) and
> several things below 20.

We have no analog channels left at all.

> Rogers really wants you to use their PVR.  Inferior to MythTV is so many 
> ways.

No thanks.  I am sticking with mythtv.

> Some people use IR blasters to let MythTV switch channels on Rogers
> set-top boxes.  That always seemed nasty to me, mostly because it
> seems unreliable.  Because it is "open loop" the computer has no way
> of knowing if it worked.
> 
> Lennart's MythTV setup used to use firewire with Rogers boxes, but
> that became encrypted or worse, so he stopped.  But I suspect that it
> could still be used for more reliable channel changing.  I just never got
> around to investigating.

I only stopped recording through firewire, I still tune through it and
it reports status and is VERY reliable.  The recording is now through
an HD-PVR (not the HD-PVR2 that is now available since it does not have
linux drivers last I checked).

My new box that uses an ir blaster has so far been reliable.  I use the
ir blaster that is in the HD-PVR.

> At some point we may drop Rogers and just go "over the top".  Since we
> are pretty careful to only do authorized things (i.e. no piracy),
> we'll still be subject to the indignity and inconvenience of arbitrary platforms.
> 
> Where you live you should be able to get reasonable amount of stuff
> over the air (HD Digital, no DRM).  Not an option for us.

-- 
Len Sorensen