One thing I like about MythTV, as opposed to most Windows-based options, is that it allows you to exercise your Fair Use rights to store digital copies of your DVDs on the hard drive and keep the originals in a safe place. With kid-oriented DVDs especially, that’s an important feature. It also pays no attention to the Broadcast Flag, which networks aren’t supposed to be using, but as we found out a few months ago, sometimes they do.

To me that’s the biggest advantage of open source vs. commercial software for DVR purposes. Open source authors couldn’t care less about what the content producers want consumers to be able to do and not do.

Don’t worry about flames–exotic hardware is rarely easy to get going under Linux. And it could be that they want it to be a little bit difficult. If any regular joe could slap a $139 TV card into an old PC, drop in a CD that works perfectly and automagically, and end up with a full-blown DVR that ignores everything Hollywood thinks it ought to be able to do, somebody probably would get sued.