[TriLUG] Building a Mythbox

[Tom Eisenmenger]

Hi all,

Long story short - my daughter moved to Annapolis taking her DVR with her 
(more on that) so I'm thinking it's time to build a replacement.  Part of 
this is driven by the fact that out-of-box DVRs are near impossible to come 
by these days, probably due to the switch to digital, cable providers 
scrambling their channels, and the increasing popularity of streamed TV a la 
Roku.

I'm looking to build a MythTV box with the following capabilities:
1) Recording cable television.  Thankfully, Roanoke Rapids (where I live) 
still has analog service but the writing is on the wall so I'll need a 
Linux-friendly TV tuner card, preferably with dual tuners so that one could 
be watched while the other records.
2) Play Blu-Ray - will any internal Blu-Ray player do?  Do any come with 
service subscriptions similar to out-of-box Blu-ray players?
3) Burn DVDs - that's the easy one, I do that now on my notebook (when I've 
booted into Ubuntu - hanging my head in shame realizing that I'm typing this 
in Windows Live Mail :( )!

Simple, right?  Any tips, suggestions, or caveats are welcome!

Tom