The Secret TV Revolution    While you have surely read about HP
Media Centers and new DVRs from cable providers, the real action
is underground: a slow and steady invasion of incredible
products created by slick young coders who are sick of products
designed not to make life easier but to appease a Hollywood
preoccupied with digital rights management. The leader in this
effort is MythTV, perhaps the most powerful DVR yet devised.
MythTV is all the rage among high-level engineering types in
Silicon Valley. It's the brainchild of 26-year-old Isaac
Richards, who told me he started it two and a half years ago
because he "was bored." MythTV is a free software system written
in C++ that, when combined with various TV tuner, audio, and
other cards, will turn a small computer into a slick, powerful,
feature-rich DVR. Do you hate commercials? You can set it up so
that it doesn't just skip commercials in playback but never
records them in the first place, so there's nothing to skip.
The software also incorporates MP3