Media Center Options, Part III
Needless to say, I think this is the longest a single topic has ever remained the subject of my posts here. Aside from being a place where I can go back and see all these options written down for future reference, maybe some poor person doing a Google search will stumble across one of these posts when they are in the same predicament as me. Yes, I know the use of “they” in the previous sentence is wrong. No, I’m not going to change it.
As I’ve mentioned before, this whole “project” has two goals: 1) Be able to record multiple digital cable channels without needing multiple (or preferably any) set top boxes, and 2) Be able to stream live TV to (at the minimum) my dad’s study where there is no cable outlet. The first point has to be accomplished pretty much through hardware. A recording devide that utilizes CableCARDs will allow me to record the digital channels without needing a cable box, and if I desire an extra tuner, I can always run an IR blaster to a cable box. The options available now and in the near future are either a Series3 Tivo (~$800) or a Media Center PC running Vista. For the computer, apparently the CableCARD tuners are going to be strictly OEM, so I’d have to buy one from Dell, HP, etc. Point number two can be accomplished through both hardware and software, though my preference is for the hardware route. Media Center Extenders are really the only solution for this and have to work with the Media Center software in XP (and presumably Vista). The alternative is to have a separate computer acting like this and have it running the software that is being used to manage everything (MythTV, SageTV, etc.). With these software options there’s also just the option of controlling it all on a single computer, but then there is the potential for it to have issues with whatever else you’re trying to do.
For right now, I’m still in a holding pattern until a solution comes along that I’m content with. Then I’ll go to the phase of having my parents sign off on it (since they will the ones paying for it, after all). That might arguably be the even harder part.