Do HTPC's become obsolete?

Windows 7 is the OS of choice for HTPCs because Windows Media Center is excellent

Click to expand...

No it is not the OS of choice, for several reasons. For one thing, look up the digital and analogue "Broadcast Flags" and related Digital Rights Management garbage found in Windows to see the various ways in which Media Center takes away your rights to record what you want, when you want. How dare they make those choices for you, especially when there are no such laws or regulations in existence? Another problem is that Microsoft does not allow you to add Canadian OTA TV stations. You would need to use the extensive workarounds developed by pnear that Microsoft has never bothered to fix after years of complaints here. The object of building an HTPC is seriously eroded when the OS is tying your hands.

and it lets you scale the UI (Control Panel\Appearance and Personalization\Display)

Click to expand...

Screen scaling, transparency, PIP, captioning, and a variety of other visual effects are done excellently and routinely by MythTV on Linux, and with a choice of many, many UI themes too. Streaming, transcoding, ripping, video capture/authoring/editing, web browsing, archiving, widgets, program guides, signal analysis tools, and much more, are all in there.

Having said all that, Linux/MythTV is the OS of choice for HTPC, but if it is too exotic for you then look for a Windows-based HTPC app or solution that properly supports Canadian OTA and that respects your consumer rights.

Since the topic of the thread is "Do HTPCs become obsolete?" the answer to that question is no, because the consumer always has good options to adapt and improve their hardware and software.

When a person is building an HTPC they need to be honest with themselves as to whether or not they are computer-savvy and/or are willing and able to learn how to do it properly in order to meet their requirements. Saying that Windows is the OS of choice is misleading and incorrect. MythTV runs on Linux, Mac OS X, and on Windows too, and there is a great deal of support on how to make it all work. Linux driver support is not only commonplace but is also irrelevant to an HTPC builder who follows the MythTV hardware guide. It is a moot issue.

Does MythTV have support for something equivalent to Media Center Extenders/SageTV Client/BeyondTV Link, so that you can watch TV and schedule recordings from TVs other than your "primary" HTPC?

Click to expand...

MythTV can be setup according to your needs, such as in a Mythbackend (server) capacity, a Mythfrontend (client) role, and in other permutations that allow what you asked for. MythTV also streams to a variety of UPnP client devices. Anyone can find all that out about MythTV with only a bit of reading, so we're not in need of a "can your OS do this?" discussion.

Now that we're past all this, the topic of this thread is about whether HTPCs become obsolete.