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good OS for HTPC

F

FuryofFive

Golden Member
im looking in the near future building a HTPC,now id love to go linux to avoid overhead.problem is funtionality. not to mention support. if i get a wireless remote,or presantion mouse for it...i wanna be able to use it, not cross my fingers and try.
would Suse or unbuntu perform with the same functionality i would with windows
 
Originally posted by: FuryofFive
im looking in the near future building a HTPC,now id love to go linux to avoid overhead.problem is funtionality. not to mention support. if i get a wireless remote,or presantion mouse for it...i wanna be able to use it, not cross my fingers and try.
would Suse or unbuntu perform with the same functionality i would with windows
Click to expand...

There are always some purpose-made distributions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythbuntu

http://www.mythbuntu.org/

I can't say I've used it or the similar ones they mention (Mythdora, et. al.), but I'd give it some research to see what the pros and cons are as reported by various people who have used the various options.

If I was going to install a totally custom system and put the applications together myself, I agree, I'd look at SUSE, Ubuntu as primary possibilities.

If you get the commercial version of SUSE or Ubuntu I think you have some easier choices in having some multilmedia support for things like MP3 available out-of-the-box, as opposed to adding in various paid or free 3rd party tools to support certain formats.

In general you'll probably find it problematic to at least SOME extent to:

* Play encrypted DVDs; you can get some commercial or freeware for it, though.

* Non-encrypted DVDs play somewhat more easily with a few kinds of freeware or commercial ware though; then it's just an issue of having a MPEG-2 decoder and AC3 decoder utility installed.

* Play encrypted HD-DVDs; I don't know if it's possible though if it is, you're probably going to be buying some software to do it. Same problem as for Windows, though.

* Play back MP3 audio. There are free and commercial options.

* Play back MPEG-2 format video from HDTV or DVD-rips or whatever. There are free and commercial options.

* Play back certain AVI / older DIVX type files. There are various free codecs that should handle most formats.

* You'll need to get RealPlayer to support most / newer Real format files; I think there are some limitations as to the versions of their software available for LINUX... 64 bit? Not sure. Check.

* You'll need to get QuickTime to support most any Quicktime MOV files; I'm not even sure if it's available, I think it is... it's been a while.

* There are some free codecs that can handle at least some (older?) kinds of WMV format files and streams. I'm not sure about the newer stuff.

* You'll be unable to use a cable-card and tuner to receive and decrypt most any modern digital cable encrypted channels. Same problem as for most build-it-yourself Windows PCs, though.

* You can get HDTV and Analog TV over the air with the right hardware (make sure a good driver exists) and mostly / totally free software.

* You can get normal analog and maybe some digital terrestrial radio stations over the air too with the compatible hardware / driver / free software.

* You can get satellite radio in the same ways as you could with a Windows PC, I think basically you just have to record the analog that comes out of the radio to time-shift it or whatever.

If you did this on Windows Vista Home Premium or Windows Media Center you'd get:
* Basic DVD playback out of the box.
* Media Player 11 support of WMV formats etc.
* A newer/"better" version of RealPlayer available.
* A newer/"better" version of QuickTime available.
* A newer/"better" version of FlashPlayer.
* More simple / versatile choices for 3rd party HD-DVD / Blu-Ray DVD playback software if you have the drive to go with it.
* About the same MP3 playback options as LINUX, though you'd have things like WinAmp or WindowsMedia Player or whatever which you may find more stylish / familiar as players.

The actual quality of the free vs. commercial DVR software is probably similar for Windows and LINUX, DRM and hardware compatibility issues aside.

 
I don't have any experience with wireless mouse or keyboard, but I ran Knoppmyth for a couple of years and am now running Mythbuntu.
You will have to pay like 15 bucks to get listings (for a year) to watch programming. (it's worth it IMO)

It plays DVDs fine, it plays all my mp3s fine, I can watch and record TV. It flags commercials properly (and skips them for me).

I have digital cable where I live, however, they broadcast most of the channels in analog too, so my Hauppage pvr150 can tune most of the channels without a cable box.

It pretty much plays back all xvid/divx movies that I've tried. (though files that have separate subtitles don't seem to work, I haven't cared enough to try to fix it or research it though)

Also, it's a PITA to get it to autotranscode. By default, everything I record is in mpeg2. I'd prefer to transcode to Xvid so that I can fit more programming on the hard drive (only have a 200GB drive in the box currently) I can do it manually, but I'd rather not invest the time to do it.
 
Originally posted by: QuixoticOne
In general you'll probably find it problematic to at least SOME extent to:

* Play encrypted DVDs; you can get some commercial or freeware for it, though.

* Non-encrypted DVDs play somewhat more easily with a few kinds of freeware or commercial ware though; then it's just an issue of having a MPEG-2 decoder and AC3 decoder utility installed.

* Play encrypted HD-DVDs; I don't know if it's possible though if it is, you're probably going to be buying some software to do it. Same problem as for Windows, though.

* Play back MP3 audio. There are free and commercial options.

* Play back MPEG-2 format video from HDTV or DVD-rips or whatever. There are free and commercial options.

* Play back certain AVI / older DIVX type files. There are various free codecs that should handle most formats.

* You'll need to get RealPlayer to support most / newer Real format files; I think there are some limitations as to the versions of their software available for LINUX... 64 bit? Not sure. Check.

* You'll need to get QuickTime to support most any Quicktime MOV files; I'm not even sure if it's available, I think it is... it's been a while.

* There are some free codecs that can handle at least some (older?) kinds of WMV format files and streams. I'm not sure about the newer stuff.
Click to expand...

These problems can be fixed with VLC Media Player.
 
I can't comment on using Linux for a HTPC as I used Vista, but I hear the Microsoft Media Center remote works well with Mythbuntu. I would have gone with Mythbuntu, I just didn't feel like messing around with it.
 
Mythtv is awesome IF you can get through the install and setup process properly and you have good hardware.
 
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