If my 62yr old dad can use MythTV happily, I'm sure no-one else is going to have an issue. From what I have seen of Windows MCE, that is pretty cool and easy to use too.

I was expecting some hard work installing MythTV, read quite a few walkthroughs first and set aside quite a long time to get it working. Literally after half an hour of installing my TV tuner cards I was watching 'Who wants to be a Millionaire' on my laptop over WiFi. It took a little while to get all the finer points working but again it wasn't hard at all. For a HTPC, there are plenty of distros that come with Myth 'ready to go'. After the standard OS installation, MythTV and its databases are already there and all you have to do is point and click to make everything work.

My server is a headless AMD Sempron machine with two Terratec Cinergy 1400 DVB-T cards, a gig of RAM and lots of disks. It was configured over a remote X session, and we watch TV/recordings using the Xbox, my Macbook or my sisters iBook. I tried to run WinMyth on my Windows desktop and had no joy at all.

So you're using different clients, in our situation we've already got a telly in the living room (plasma with scarts plus PC in) and one upstairs. I've got a Hauppage thingamy that I haven't used for years that acts as a media client, but that's running their own server.

I could locate the server (if I can get a quiet solution) in the living room, but would still need a client for the other telly wouldn't I? I've no use for an Xbox any other ideas (preferably small, quiet, and cheap)?

There is a distro called LinPVR which network boots a diskless computer of sorts into a MythTV frontend. It supports those diddy MiniITX motherboards and the like.

An old laptop with a busted screen from eBay could work well I'd expect. That would be small, quiet and also may have S-Video output.

Mac Mini would make a great Frontend. Not cheap, but works great and also has a remote control included.

The Original Xbox can be had really cheap these days. I am running XBMCMythTV which is a Frontend written in Python for XBMC. Watching Live TV does not work for me, and it is not quite perfect. The channel guide and setting things to record needs a bit of work (we use the web interface MythWeb for that, its great). Watching recordings works ok. XBMC clocks the fans down to a very quiet level. You can get the Xbox to boot Linux and have a proper MythTV frontend on it where everything will work, but that requires some more effort, booting time and I don't know whether you can control the normally loud fans. It is also big and ugly!

Good grief, Sein's Dad is 15 months older than me!
I've been using DigiGuide for a long time, I'm running a master and two slaves at the moment, I've had it recording 9 Freeview programmes simultaneously. It's linked to Digiguide, which must be the most effortless way of programming recordings and, if, for instance, a new series of a favourite programme starts and I don't spot it, the system reliably does.

It has all sorts of networking possibilities, which I haven't explored (Maybe I'll catch Cris on a free day, when I'm not a railway worker, soon!), a keen community and they are constantly improving and expanding the software.

Thanks guys, both solutions require PCs by each TV, is there nothing that'll work over a cat5 network a bit like my Slimp3s?

Aren't Apple releasing a product soon that will stream content from your PC to the TV? I forget its silly name though.

Edit: Yeah, the iTV

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5339470.stm

Thanks, hmm thought there'd be something out there already.

There are, but they're not very good. At least this is what I've heard. I'm waiting for Apple's thing - if its plug and play it'll do well.

I tried one from either Linksys or Netgear, I can't remember which, which was just so slow and clunky that it wasn't worth having, I got my money back from Amazon.

Ok, will wait, haven't had anything from Apple siince my MkII iPod

I have veryu little time at home, don't think I could be bothered to burn stuff to DVD and then watch it. What I was after really was something just slightly more complex than Sky's magic eye.