[TriLUG] Choosing a new home computer

[John Vaughters]

>Is this for xbmc or myth? Which is best?

Tim,

My use will be XBMC, because I had it set up on a laptop once, but that was a backup laptop that I ended up having to give to one of my College Children, and I have been wanting to get a small embedded system ever since. I have had Analysis Paralysis for quite a while and when I saw the CuBox, I just decided it had my two requirements, so tonight it will be bought. Not the first time I went through Paralysis on a subject like this, so I just reached breaking point after a short time reading about CuBox. Also not the first time I saw it, but I did forget about it. 

I really only use it to stream videos, show pics, play music and we shall see what else, I only scratchted the surface with those few items and loved it right away. The smart TV's are pretty stupid if you ask me and I am unimpressed and frustrated when trying to use a keyboard. The dang thing will not even allow you to type on a keyboard for Netflix. You have to use that foolish key array and arrow keys on the remote. Drove me so nuts that I bought a Chromecast for $35 so I could just be able to type my Netflix searches from a tablet and phone. Seriously, one cranky night and then Amazon was sending me emails about delivery.

Back to Myth vs. XBMC. I would not be the person to tell you, because I used to die to build a MythTV box as an awesome media server, but my interest was to create a great DVR. That is pretty much solved enough for me with cable and on demand type services. XBMC has a very simple interface with alot of great regular capability via ssh and web services, that I just feel it is fine for my needs. Been so long since I looked at MythTV that I couldn't even comment on it. All I know is that I saw this CuBox and it has well supported XBMC distributions, ie more than one media server that uses XBMC, so Credit Card is coming out.

At the end of the day it really depends what you want to do. Clear as Mud I imagine.


John Vaughters