Absolutely AJ deserves to stay at Red Bull. I'm quite surprised that they haven't signed him yet

I built my MythTV backend using the P180 in October of 2005: http://www.myhdbox.com/2005/10/new-3-tuner-hd-backend-system-finally.php and have been *extremely* happy. One of the things you didn't mention in your review was that it was co-designed with the folks at SilentPCreview.com and runs *very* quietly. Small touches are everywhere inside that make it very easy to upgrade/swap components, install new drives, etc...

One thing though, it is quite large, so anybody considering it for living room use should definitely consider this.

I purchased the Antec Fusion case for my MythTV *Frontend* (in the Living room) and it's the perfect compliment to the P180 server/recorder.

--
John

"While we're pretty happy with our free Windows Media Center and Orb setup..."

Free Windows Media Center? No such thing Let's try that again... this time with feeeeling:

"While I'm happy with my free MythTV / Mythweb / MythStream setup..."

ahhh now I feel better. ;)

Not sure why you would say 'Presumably any other networked PVR', everything I see on the site says "TiVo only". It's really a pity, because Orb had previously managed to stay away from any platform specific media sources. I see this as a step in the wrong direction for them.

They're not idiots, they're suckers, and there happens to be one born every minute. Our economy depends on it ;)

Do you think people going to McD's are going to rise up and demand that they get more for the $1.20 going towards $0.02 of coke syrup? I don't think so. There will always be people looking at them thinking.. "What an idiot", but there's good news. Those idiots are subsidising everything else for the 'rest of us', who *think* we get it.

They're not idiots, they're suckers, and there happens to be one born every minute. Our economy depends on it ;)

Do you think people going to McD's are going to rise up and demand that they get more for the $1.20 going towards $0.02 of coke syrup? I don't think so. There will always be people looking at them thinking.. "What an idiot", but there's good news. Those idiots are subsidising everything else for the 'rest of us', who *think* we get it.

Looks like Krakow has *FINALLY* made a correction in today's column: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11815573/from/RSS/

Christopher John Gores of Minneapolis, MN and many others wrote to remind me that U.S. lawmakers have postponed the deadline for switching over to digital TV sets.

Never fear, analog is still here! According to fcc.gov: Until February 17, 2009, most television stations will continue broadcasting on both their digital and analog channels.

The downside of the $300.00 device is its singlecast functionality. Whatever source you're playing from must be dedicated to outputting that signal. Assuming the source is a computer (Cat5 and VGA.. I'd say that's safe) then a media extender (pick one of many HD media extenders under $300.00) would be a much better option.

I just hope they get their program guide right. Last Summer, they butchered it when all they did was loop 6 hours with no detailed programming information. In order to find the show I wanted I had to record the six hour chunk (gee.. that used a bit of disk space) and skim through just to find that the six hours I recorded didn't have anything interesting.

Mis-spelled my own last name (Sturgeon.. E-O-N)!

I'm curious... if it supports MPEG-4, then why the 25 hour limit? Wouldn't it be logical to encode on the disk as MPEG-4? Even 2-pass encoding, with variable bitrates as high as 4k come in at around 2G/Hour in High-Def encoded with XviD. Now you're talking over 100 hours of High-Def.