I'd been meaning to set up a Freevo box for some time, but I hadn't come across MythTV yet. Thus far, I like the look of MythTV better (and both look better than GeeXboX). I've got some spare time on my hands right now, so I think I'll give that a shot in the very near future...
I've been meaning to build one of these myself with MythTV. A friend of mine beat me to it and built one for about $650 including case, video, disk, etc. Current solutions require a lot of CPU power because of a lack of Linux drivers for native MPEG-2 hardware encoders (this may change soon). The magic of TIVO (with a 54 Mhz processor) is that it uses a native MPEG-2 hardware encoder.
The main reason I wanted to build one is that I refuse to set up a phone line (or even share one) and pay a monthly fee for TIVO or Replay "guide" services when perfectly good free Internet guides exist.
However, I may never get around to building one, because I've read that TIVO will soon release a TIVO BASIC that will not require a subscription or a phone line connection. If that is true, I could never build one as cheaply as TIVO. On the other hand, if you want all the other goodies of MythTV (like MP3, photo, weather, etc.) it may still be worth it to roll your own.
Best Regards, Keith -- LPIC-2, MCSE, N+ That's your shadow on the wall Got spam? Get spastic http://spastic.sourceforge.net
