I use largely the same.  Ubuntu and xbmc work quite well, though after 
my media box died now use a boxee box front-end (xbmc-ish with boxee, a 
xbmc port + more internet-ish features like netflix, hulu, and other 
commercial-cramming sites).  Honestly, I haven't had cable in umm... 15+ 
years now, and haven't needed it since I found out what a divx and 
usenet was.

I'm surprised it's taken this long to see cable mso's actually lose 
users to internet-only, but it began a good 3 years ago finally, and 
most that do don't look back.  My grandmother can barely navigate the 
netflix ui (back and forward in menus eludes her), but at 78 she's 
excused and will keep paying for service to up/down through endless crap 
channels.  Everything else needed to replace it is generally a polished 
ui, webapp, web service, or phone app that makes it astonishingly easy 
to see what you want, when you want, in whatever quality you want.

Now that media cartels and service providers are making it even more 
annoying to bother paying them to get media ala the 'copy once' flag 
nonsense and hdcp, I fail to see the point of bothering with 
"cable/ota/fios tv".  Considering anything worth watching is 
redistributed digitally cleanly (to the chagrin of the media industry) 
without incessant, nagging, annoying commercials/blipverts to make your 
head explode, it's a no-brain decision to me at least.

Put a hdmi nvidia card in your tv box, use xbmc with sabnzbd, 
couchpotato, and sickbeard - just add hard disks (and lots of them). 
You'll wonder why people bother wasting 17 minutes an hour on 
commercials in shows too, watching them in order, and actually getting a 
story/entertainment out of it.

Geeks.com has a refurb boxee box for $115 right now with hdmi/component 
out.  Mine gets cranky with 1080p mkv's occasionally, but otherwise 
works pretty well.

-mb


On 07/23/2012 07:24 PM, ChasM Marshall wrote:
> Hiya,
>
> XBMC (X Box Media Center) is a big part of the Sabayon 5.6 distro.
> I have no cable to connect to, so I don't know if this is a solution.
> -----
>  > Subject: Cox Cable TV
>  > From: doc_media@yahoo.com
>  > To: plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
>  > Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2012 10:42:44 -0700
>  >
>  > I think I know the answer to this, but I'll ask anyway: Anyone have
>  > experience setting up Cox Cable TV with a cablecard and anything other
>  > than Windows Media Center? I used to have a MythTV box working at my
>  > old place, but now that we've moved and got Cox, it seems that the only
>  > media player capable of dealing with the "copy-once" flag is WMC. Any
>  > insights would be appreciated.
>  >
>  > - Scott
>
> (-: Chas.M. :-)
>
>
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