Are linux based boxes worth buying anymore, if so what?

[mscott]

Hi. Been out of the scene for 3 or 4 years. Got an old Technomate 9100 linux box that I fire up occaisonally. After some advice really

I've been reading up for a while and I see that now the cards have been locked to hardware. Given this, is there any point in buying a decent linux box such as a nice VU+ Solo 2 now? Or there is a nice new Technomate Nano C3, with twin sat and a hybrid Cable/DTT tuner less money ?190! Although I am wary about Technomate; Support for my 9100 vanished overnight, but old Dreamboxes 7020 etc are still going strong! Although there has been a massive shift towards E2 from E1 so could have been a lot to do with that that support vanished and will not happen this time so quickly.?

Whats the future now? Seems the game is changing. What does the tsmedia plug in get you that an android IPTV box can't that runs the full XBMC?

I don't really have much time to actually watch TV I just enjoy scanning, zapping and seeing what I can and can't get as a hobby really. But would love to get the HD channels. FTA or otherwise with a new box, and I did like playing about with the linux boxes. Any comments would be great!

[digicon]

Most will say IPTV and agree it does have its use if you like streams of SD quality, A motorised system is probably the preferred choice it is for me anyway as i managed to watch the Liverpool game on a Feed from 3? east in HD for free.

XBMC is great for Movies/TV shows and catchup, if you can afford it get a combination of all 3

[mscott]

Thanks. Yes I've been fully motorised for about 10 years but the dish will only see from about 50 east to 43 west or it will bang into the wall. I think that gets me most stuff anyway. So which xmbc solution would you recommend? An android box seems very popular.

[digicon]

XBMC is probably the preferred way to go at the moment, I suppose it depends on price i believe the Android boxes work quite well for the price range.