Preview the New MythTV User Interface

Tombstone-f sent in a cool update on a project that I continue to keep an eye on. MythTV has become a dominant force in the do-it-yourself media-mega-box space, so any improvements to the UI matter significantly. "One of the biggest new features of the next version of MythTV (version .22) will be its new user interface. This new interface will offer many new features to MythTV, including animation, better interactivity, and faster and easier development for themers and developers alike." I think it still has a ways to go to compete with some of the more mainstream PVR boxes in terms of minimalism and good use of whitespace, but hopefully the improvements will get more people into the door.

Comments

Pointless chrome

[Hognoxious]

Rather than add pointless chrome, I'd rather they fixed the installer. 8.04 was a PITA, especially on a small screen like the one I keep just for headless installs.

Re:Pointless chrome

[LordKronos]

Huh? What installer? This is MythTV. It has no installer (other than a makefile). If you are thinking of Mythbuntu, Mythdora, Knoppmyth, or something like that, the guys on the MythTV team have little or nothing to do with any of that.

Re:Pointless chrome

[SevenHands]

There are other MythTV distros than Mythbuntu (Knoppmyth, Mythdora) that you might want to try if you find the Muthbuntu installer difficult. That said, Mythbuntu 8.04 was the first version of MythTV that I got my wireless card to work without fuss (Atheros based), and with that one point, made the install heaps easier than previous versions.

Re:Pointless chrome

[Anonymous Coward]

That's Ubuntu, not MythTV. MythTV doesn't have an installer.

FYI, you can use the Ubuntu alternate install CD, or the server CD to install the OS. They're both text-mode installers (from Debian), so there's no problem with small screens.

Mythbuntu is just Ubuntu with MythTV installed. They have a guide on how to add it to an existing Ubuntu installation:

http://www.mythbuntu.org/existing-ubuntu

Re:Pointless chrome

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what came to mind when I looked at it. Most of what they were doing seemed like adding thumbnails and transition effects all over the UI. I usually turn off thumbnails in any UI I use because each one tends to require one or more disk seeks to retrieve, so scrolling lists becomes sluggish and clunky. As for transitions, IMO they just add delays.

What I'd rather see is making an alternative UI for those using a computer interface (or logging in from another machine) in addition to the current TV remote oriented UI. If all of the configuration could be done through an app similar to the KDE control center, that would make MythTV much easier to set up, manage and understand. The TV-oriented interface is just too constraining to effectively present many of the complex concepts in the configuration options.

(Of course, I really can't complain since I'm not pitching in to improve things myself. I'm just putting my feedback out there in case anyone finds it useful.)

Re:Pointless chrome

[Moryath]

Meh. I've tried a number of the various MythTV flavors and it all comes down to the stupidity that the "We're Linux, We Can Fix Anything" crowd insists that I blow upwards of $800 buying new hardware to get it to work.

Keep in mind: I've got an Athlon X2, 4 GB of RAM slotted, and the "incompatible" parts are (a) my video board and tv capture board (ATi All-In-Wonder 9600XT and HDTV Wonder respectively) and my remote control (Remote Wonder 2).

They work fine. I'm currently looking at XBMC's windows port as the 'replacement' for the aging ATi interface, but that interface has served me well and solidly for a few years now. MythTV, on the other hand, has not had support for my hardware in any of the flavors I've tried and has been annoying to get running even just to play back things I previously recorded.

If I had a no-name brand capture card from some fly-by-night taiwanese company, this might make sense, but there is NO excuse for Linux not supporting hardware from one of the two big players in the industry. I can stick to other solutions and be happy, and they can sit around congratulating each other on adding little bits of chrome to the interface while not paying attention to the big picture issue, which is that they can only grow their user base by making their software friendly to as much hardware as possible (especially when it's made by one of the "big 2").

Re:Pointless chrome

[Lumpy]

I also prefer they fix how crappy the media section works.

MythTV is an awesome TV recorder. It is utter crap as a media center.

XBMC on Linux kicks the utter crap out of MythTV when you are watching or listening to anything other than recorded TV.

Re:Pointless chrome

[duguk]

Have you checked the MythTV Wiki for your HDTV card, the MythTV Wiki for your Remote Control, oh yeah and the MythTV Wiki for for Graphics Card? All three are listed on the Wiki, looks quite well supported to me.

Re:Pointless chrome

[dfdashh]

Perhaps he's talking about mythtv-setup.

Re:Pointless chrome

[Albanach]

If I had a no-name brand capture card from some fly-by-night taiwanese company, this might make sense, but there is NO excuse for Linux not supporting hardware from one of the two big players in the industry.

Let me correct that for you.

If I had a no-name brand capture card from some fly-by-night taiwanese company, this might make sense, but there is NO excuse for one of the two big players in the industry not supporting their hardware on Linux .

Myth shouldn't be struggling to support hardware. You think Microsoft have to reverse engineer and hack away at every card to make it work with their media center? The folks at ATI should be making sure something like a capture card works properly on linux with mythtv.

Re:Pointless chrome

[dfdashh]

This release is anything but "pointless chrome." They are moving from QT3 to QT4, which will enable a lot of things (not the least of which being IDE support). Relevant thread here.

Re:Pointless chrome

[LordKronos]

About the remote control, that (like the installer) has nothing to do with the myth team. For remotes, you are looking for lirc support (the linux standard system for IR input). Once lirc supports it, myth will work with it just fine.

As for the video, I don't know about that particular card, but I know a lot of the All in Wonder cards have notoriously poor driver support under linux. If yours is one of those, I don't know how you expect a miracle when ATI would provide neither an adequate driver nor the necessary specs for an open source version to be created.

Re:Pointless chrome

[Narfubel]

I made a mythbox for less than 200 dollars. The point is to buy compatible hardware from the start, don't blame the myth team though, it's hard to write drivers for devices that they get no support at all from the manufacturer. They do what they can and they do it well.

Re:Pointless chrome

[UnknowingFool]

Meh. I've tried a number of the various MythTV flavors and it all comes down to the stupidity that the "We're Linux, We Can Fix Anything" crowd insists that I blow upwards of $800 buying new hardware to get it to work.

Like all things if you want the all the bells and whistles you have to get the best hardware. I have MythTV working on an old PIII box. I think I spent $200 and most of that was for the Hauppage TV card. Bear in mind, I can't play games and do a lot of the nifty features. But it served the basic purpose of a DVR on my 27" CRT. Now if I wanted digital and the best picture, I would have to drop some money. It still works but I've upgraded homes and now have a networked system. But the old one is in a closet and would be functional had I not used the HD in another machine.

Keep in mind: I've got an Athlon X2, 4 GB of RAM slotted, and the "incompatible" parts are (a) my video board and tv capture board (ATi All-In-Wonder 9600XT and HDTV Wonder respectively) and my remote control (Remote Wonder 2).

So you're complaining that MythTV doesn't work well when you used cards (ATI) that do not have very good Linux support. When I built my DVR, I researched the type of card to use. By far, everyone said not to use ATi as there wasn't very much support. Not that some people couldn't get it to work, but that the support was lacking. There are other cards that you could have used. I would say rather it's a testament to Linux that it works at all.

They work fine. I'm currently looking at XBMC's windows port as the 'replacement' for the aging ATi interface, but that interface has served me well and solidly for a few years now. MythTV, on the other hand, has not had support for my hardware in any of the flavors I've tried and has been annoying to get running even just to play back things I previously recorded.

To be fair, the problem is Linux doesn't have much support for your cards. The problem is not exclusive to MythTV.

If I had a no-name brand capture card from some fly-by-night taiwanese company, this might make sense, but there is NO excuse for Linux not supporting hardware from one of the two big players in the industry.

For years now, Linux people have complained about ATI support. Until recently they have not helped the community much. If they had released a spec, an API, etc. Instead, all the work to date has been done by reverse engineering. nVidia has done a little more and in fact, nVidia has released binary drivers.

Now I don't mean to sound rude, but you're complaining that the free help with ATI you have gotten from the Linux community hasn't been enough. You're complaining that all the time and work these people have done for you without asking, without thanks, without compensation isn't adequate. Well, open source software has a solution for you. Learn C and write your own driver.

Re:Pointless chrome

[neo8750]

You can use XBMC to browse you recorded shows that are on the mythtv backend

just add the source myth://computer-ip-address/ and bang you have your recorded shows (just no commercial skip), You can browse live tv also, and it gives you a guide that im pretty sure allows you to record (that part is a little shaky if ask me i never use it i use the mythtv webui)

if they added the commercial skip feature to XBMC it would make a very nice mythtv frontend (with little tweak here and there)

Re:Pointless chrome

[Minwee]

Meh. I've tried a number of the various MythTV flavors and it all comes down to the stupidity that the "We're Linux, We Can Fix Anything" crowd insists that I blow upwards of $800 buying new hardware to get it to work.

Keep in mind: I've got an Athlon X2, 4 GB of RAM slotted, and the "incompatible" parts are (a) my video board and tv capture board (ATi All-In-Wonder 9600XT and HDTV Wonder respectively) and my remote control (Remote Wonder 2).

I think you're confusing the stupidity that the "We're ATI, Of Course We Have Drivers, Which Version of Windows XP Do You Have?" crowd with the "We're Linux, Please Just Release Some Damn Specs So We Can Support The Hardware Already" crowd. There's a difference, you know.

If I had a no-name brand capture card from some fly-by-night taiwanese company, this might make sense, but there is NO excuse for Linux not supporting hardware from one of the two big players in the industry.

Remember, that address again is Investor.Relations@amd.com.

Re:Pointless chrome

[Anonymous Coward]

You think Microsoft have to reverse engineer and hack away at every card to make it work with their media center?

No, Microsoft sits down for a bit and thinks about how they can best support a particular kind of hardware. They sometimes call up the relevant hardware manufacturers and say "hey, helps up define the API for this." After a few months they come away with an API that clearly defines what they hardware manufacturer is responsible for, what Microsoft is responsible for, what the basic functionality is. Then they stick to it. They don't change shit on a whim because "it's better this way." Thus the hardware vendors don't have to rewrite their drivers every few months just to provide the same functionality they had in the first place.

True, sometimes Microsoft fucks this process up and the standard just isn't right (wrong functionality, wrong prediction of what the future holds for a particular technology.) But quite often they're right, or at least right enough.

Linux might get more buy in if hardware vendors didn't have to commit to a full time employee rewriting drivers to suit the whims of some hobbyist on a caffeine and sugar bender.

Re:Pointless chrome

[WaXHeLL]

Actually, the ATI HDTV Wonder is compatible with mythTV. In fact, the HDTV Wonder works better with MythTV than it does with Windows (since it natively supports QAM decoding, but is crippled in the windows drivers).

I will admit that it took me a long time to setup my HDTV Wonder, but that was primarily because I was impatient in the channel scanning process (and would cancel it before it found any channels).

Re:Pointless chrome

[Hognoxious]

You are correct, I was indeed thinking of mythbuntu. Must have had a brainfart. But what the heck, first posts always get modded down anyway.

Re:Pointless chrome

[Anonymous Coward]

Also it's not Linux that is lacking support for ATi but ATI that lacks support for Linux. They have recently changed their position on Linux drivers but they are behind when compared to NVidia.

Re:Pointless chrome

[JayAitch]

With all the searching I've done for the perfect HTPC how come I never came across this? I'll have to check it out. That's exactly my problem with MythTV browsing videos is poor. I'd like one simple feature (I''ve yet to find) where it marks videos you've watched.

Re:Pointless chrome

[dwandy]

-1: Wrong

Re:Pointless chrome

[Lumpy]

Mediaportal does this by default.

problem is that it's windows based, so you need a crapload of processor to run it compared to XBMC linux.

I have used mediaportal for over 2 years now, but the underlying Windows makes it sucky for HD playback and stability.

Re:Pointless chrome

[denis-The-menace]

Linux might get more buy in if hardware vendors didn't have to commit to a full time employee rewriting drivers to suit the whims of some hobbyist on a caffeine and sugar bender.

Linux doesn't need to have ATI commit to a full time employee for writing drivers. Just the same level of access to the specs like the 5+ employees writing the windows drivers.

Re:Pointless chrome

[Rockoon]

...and by the "same level of access" you mean give the specs to someone not employed by ATI or under any obligations to ATI, who then might eventualy produce a driver if they are lucky.

Re:Pointless chrome

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, it's very simple; ATI hated Linux. AMD now owns them and is making them play nice, but it started with the GPUs, TV tuners won't be on AMD's 'open source it now' roadmap for years at this rate.

It's YOUR fault for buying hardware from a company KNOWN to be wildly antagonistic to open specs. Particularly with TV products, ATI has NEVER been a good choice for anything but full Windows operation.

My ATI TV Wonder was a generic Brooktree chipsetted BT878 card, but EVERY OTHER BT878 CARD IN THE WORLD was supported first because ATI refused to let out ANY info on the changes they'd made to the BT878 reference. It took a long time for the OSS hackers to reverse-engineer and document the bits they needed, and ATI was ZERO help.

Simply put, NOT IN ANY WAY LINUX'S FAULT.

Re:Pointless chrome

[Andy Dodd]

"If I had a no-name brand capture card from some fly-by-night taiwanese company, this might make sense, but there is NO excuse for Linux not supporting hardware from one of the two big players in the industry."
There is plenty of excuse. The biggest players in the industry tend to be the ones that don't give a damn about Linux and hence refuse to provide documentation. ATI TV cards are notorious in this regard - The AMD purchase/merger seems to be helping in this regard, but ATI cards (not just TV cards but graphics in general) had a very long track record of poor Linux support due to lack of manufacturer cooperation.

Maybe you should've given your business to a vendor that actually cares about Linux and has even given sample hardware to select Linux driver/application developers for driver development and testing. Hauppauge is a good place to start - they don't officially support Linux but are VERY cooperative as far as giving driver developers documentation, support, and even in some cases early access to new hardware (such as with the HD-PVR 1212).

Re:Pointless chrome

[Anonymous Coward]

crowd insists that I blow upwards of $800 buying new hardware to get it to work.

Keep in mind: I've got an Athlon X2, 4 GB of RAM slotted, and the "incompatible" parts are (a) my video board and tv capture board (ATi All-In-Wonder 9600XT and HDTV Wonder respectively) and my remote control (Remote Wonder 2).

Are you sure you didn't already blow some money? Did the aforementioned hardware just fall out of the sky into your lap?

Before I buy hardware, I check to see if it might work. If Yes, then I check to see if it will work. When we talk about video capture, you damn well know that the industry has been compromised by HDMI and related concepts, so you have to be very careful before spending money. And if you don't know, maybe you're part of the problem: if people like you would pay attention to the industry's hostility toward customers, and choose too pirate instead, they might decide to stop telling customers to go away.

Re:Pointless chrome

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost every single remote control these days registers with Linux as a human input device, and looks like a keyboard to X windows applications. That means for *most* applications, LIRC is not needed at all.

There are two reasons why they don't work with MythTV. The first is that MythTV is based on QT3 which does not understand keysyms greater than 255. That means standard qwerty keys plus the volume up/down and play/pause etc you find on multimedia keys. Keys like "record" or "menu" have keysyms greater than 255 and QT3 cannot handle them at all. So you will often find that half the buttons on your remote work and half don't. This has everything to do with the Myth programmers since they are the ones that chose to use QT.

The other reason is that the keyboard setup of Myth is totally crap. You might be clever, and patch the driver for your remote so that instead of sending keysym "record", it sends eg. the keysym for "r". This would work really well, except that every different screen in Myth uses a different key layout. So in liveTV, you might press "r" to record, while in the listings menu, you have to press enter. So even after you have patched the kernel driver to send keys that Myth can handle, you still have to spend several hours remapping all the keys for every single screen. Using an extremely fiddly interface to boot.

So to work around these two problems, enter LIRC. Here is how LIRC works in the setup. First we have to prevent X from opening the hiddev for the remote, using an XML HAL script. Then we tell LIRC to use it instead. LIRC takes the input events, looks up the matching MythTV command in a big text file, and then sends that command to Myth over TCP connection, and then Myth converts it back into an event and processes it. So basically this method requires an extra daemon running in the background, and a listening TCP port for Myth. Just to handle keyboard events.

Another crap thing about the Myth interface is that it does not handle mouse input at all. Even though it has buttons in some screens, you can't click on them!

Re:Pointless chrome

[Moryath]

So you're complaining that MythTV doesn't work well when you used cards (ATI) that do not have very good Linux support. When I built my DVR, I researched the type of card to use. By far, everyone said not to use ATi as there wasn't very much support. Not that some people couldn't get it to work, but that the support was lacking. There are other cards that you could have used. I would say rather it's a testament to Linux that it works at all.

And my counterpoint is: the linux nerds who keep bugging me about "you should use our software its so much betterz"... I've given them their fair shot. I've had my stable, reliable machine through years of (inexpensive) upgrades myself. It works well. Linux, on the other hand, has NOT served it well despite numerous attempts (probably FAR more than I should have wasted my time on) attempting to give them a fair shake.

The Slashdot crowd loves to sit around and attack Microsoft. I don't exactly love some of the things they've done myself. What I do know, however, is that on my MS-based setup my box works fine and Linux has never even come close to functionality or ease of use.

THAT is what Linux needs to get past if they want decent market share. Get back to basics, get functionality solid and as easy to use as possible, rather than having to hunt through ridiculous amounts of message-board posts and wiki hunting to find "instructions" for distributions 2-3 generations back that no longer even work for the latest distro.

Re:Pointless chrome

[Moryath]

Are you sure you didn't already blow some money? Did the aforementioned hardware just fall out of the sky into your lap?

Pretty close, actually. I got a hell of a deal.

Before I buy hardware, I check to see if it might work.

Funny. Mine's worked fine in the system I set up for years now. I try Linux because I'm giving them a fair shake to SEE if their claims hold up... and they don't.

When we talk about video capture, you damn well know that the industry has been compromised by HDMI and related concepts, so you have to be very careful before spending money. And if you don't know, maybe you're part of the problem: if people like you would pay attention to the industry's hostility toward customers, and choose too pirate instead, they might decide to stop telling customers to go away.

Uhm... WTF?

Re:Pointless chrome

[Anonymous Coward]

OB car analogy

The LIRC situation is like the department of transport writing all road signs in Latin, and then recommending that people who can't read Latin hire a translator to sit in the passenger seat and translate for them.

Re:Pointless chrome

[jedidiah]

You try the same crap hardware that's known not to work well in Windows, nevermind Linux? ...and anyone is at all surprised at the outcome?

Even 10 years ago I was doing better than jokers like you just by
avoiding the 2 extremes (total crap & bleeding edge).

Re:Pointless chrome

[UnknowingFool]

My point was that your specific problem was foretold and you either didn't do your research or ignored it. For years now, anyone making or building a MythTV machine has known that using ATi cards would present problems. But instead of owning up to it, you blamed the developers who have tried to help the situation. Without the APIs or basic documentation, there's only so much they could do. The nVidia drivers are better because nVidia has helped the community more, even releasing their own binary drivers.

I don't know about all your Linux attempts, but if they're like your MythTV attempts, ignoring general advice will not make your Linux experience any more pleasant than Windows. I've run Linux, Windows, Mac, and BSD (sometimes all at the same time). I would have to say the one machine that requires the most attention and does the least is my Windows machine. Linux, BSD, and Mac have been the most stable. Linux and BSD require the most upfront setup.

Linux, I would grant you is harder to setup. But it is far more stable. In fact, my #1 problem with configuring my Linux machine is that when I need to make a change, I have to do research. Once I made the initial configurations, the machine would run for years and I would forget how to do it because I didn't need to make any changes. People should not get Linux thinking that it is Windows. It is not Windows.

In terms of the best of both worlds, my Mac is the clear winner. Easy configuration, extremely stable. It costs more, and I don't regret it considering the time I've saved not dealing with issues./p>

Re:Pointless chrome

[LordKronos]

1) I'm not sure it's the MythTV developer's fault that QT3 doesn't support all these extra key commands.

2) Another big part of this new update is the switch to QT4 (4.3, I think).

3) In my experience, IR devices that get recognized as HID devices are quite rare. Almost everything I've used require lirc drivers.

4) Yes, configuring myth to map things nicely does take a bit of work, but I'm not sure what the ideal solution is. Myth will support everything from a 6 or 7 button remote to a full keyboard. I'm not sure you you setup defaults that can nicely accommodate everything in that spectrum. Yes, they could include several default configurations and let you switch between them, but honestly stuff like that is probably better suited to being prepared by the distribution. If' you are installing myth from CVS, chances are you are going to be more that happy (probably even insistant) with remapping everything yourself.

5) I beleive mouse (and thus touchscreen) support are supposed to be an addition to the new MythUI.

Re:Pointless chrome

[phoenixwade]

THAT is what Linux needs to get past if they want decent market share.

Though there may be something to your rant about Linux (and open source in general) in that the free work done by hobbiests tends to follow the "i do it because it's cool" or "I need a tool to do X" model, and therefore doesn't follow the "I need granny to do it without too much effort" solution that you seem to need to make it work for you, that's irrelivent to MythTV and the problems you were having.

Try before you buy is an important part of any product cycle, and the problems with the use of ATI cards with any open source project are well documented... In other words the "System Requirements" list on the box specifically states that ATI cards are not recommended, and now you're upset when you found out why. Honestly, you are the kind of user I'd tell to box up your computer and take it back to the store. You'll be much happier with a TiVo, just plug it in to the wall and the Television set, and your pretty much done. The manufacturer has already matched up the software and the hardware for you and you don't need to do anything so mundane as read the directions. (and much more importantly, their support forums are elsewhere.)

For others who are reading your rants, I'd say.. Do diligence, MythTv works fine if you do the same research you'd do when you bought any bit of software, hardware or anything else. Know if the hardware you are using is supported, or, rather, how well your hardware is supported, and if it's not, use something else, or use different hardware, depending on your need.

This guy is not worth the time though, he's already been dishonest in his assessment; he gives the product a 'Fair Shake' buy test driving it on hardware with known and well documented support and driver issues.

Re:Pointless chrome

[cayenne8]

The best way to approach a Myth project is to first find out the hardware that works best with it and start a custom build boy for it. A T I is about the only thing that doesn't work well but haupauge Does and it is hardly a no name brand.

For H D tv the silicon dust HDHomerun Unit works like a charm and works on many platforms.

Re:Pointless chrome

[cayenne8]

I find the install pretty easy:

emerge mythtv

Re:Pointless chrome

[eldepeche]

If the system you have works fine, then there's no need to mess with it. I applaud you for giving Linux a fair shake for this application.

However, no one actually claimed that it would work with your video card and capture card (and a lot of people made claims to the contrary). So don't go around saying it doesn't live up to its reputation. Instead of saying LINUX AND MYTHTV SUCK, you should say LINUX AND MYTHTV SUCK IF YOU ARE USING AN ATI ALL-IN-WONDER 9600XT AND HDTV WONDER SO DON"T TRY IT OR YOU WILL BE DISAPPOINTED.

Re:Pointless chrome

[norminator]

My mythbox was running on gentoo for a while. But eventually I started having problems with upgrades... Compile errors or dependency problems. For a long time, the errors were for less important packages, so they weren't show stoppers. Then for some reason, it wanted to upgrade the main myth package from .21 to .22, but it couldn't actually do it... I think it had to do with all of the myth plugin packages being at .21 still. Then one day it wanted to take myth back to .20, but again, it wouldn't actually do it because of dependency problems (and I didn't want to go back to .20).

I backed up my database and redid the box with Ubuntu, and it's been great ever since. It even handled the 8.04 - 8.10 distro upgrade without any issues at all.

As a relatively long-time linux user, my only Gentoo experience was that myth box. It worked fine for a while, but after a couple of years, all hell broke loose. I think I would need a better understanding of how portage works, and of all of the configuration files involved. USE flags and package masks get to be more than a little confusing for anyone who isn't willing to dedicate their life to Gentoo.

In summary, gentoo may make it relatively simple to install mythtv (although Ubuntu deals with more of the initial configration for you), it's the long-term maintenance that really kills it.

Re:Pointless chrome

[LarsG]

And my counterpoint is: the linux nerds who keep bugging me about "you should use our software its so much betterz"

At the danger of being downmodded, I'll just add that Linux fanbois are probably doing more damage than good when it comes to bringing new users to the platform.

Linux is great if it works, and if one has the interest/need/time to customize a system there is practically no limit to what one can do. However, the out-of-box experience tends to be worse and one will need to enter the command line a lot faster than on a Windows system due to GUI configuration tools not covering enough aspects of the system yet.

Then there is hardware support. Some hardware is unfortunately not supported, or Linux drivers are only able to use a limited subset of the functionality of some hardware. Most linux users will be quick to tell you that this is due to hardware makers not providing drivers (or the information required to write drivers), and that is for the most part true. Still, the reason why a piece of hardware doesn't work doesn't really matter to the average end user. Complaining about Vista because of driver problems tends to get +1 Insightful around these parts, but doing the same for Linux tends to get a -1 Troll and replies telling you that it is really ATI/nVidia/Creative/etc's fault.

hunt through ridiculous amounts of message-board posts and wiki hunting to find "instructions" for distributions 2-3 generations back that no longer even work for the latest distro.

That situation has been getting progressively worse over the years. It used to be that you could give google a sensible set of search terms and you would get back good and updated documentation, these days one often ends up finding half-baked howtos and forum postings that were valid a couple years ago but no longer today. Many of them also just list the steps needed to get a particular thing working with a particular version of some software on a particular distribution, they seldom explain why (i.e., the Linux equivalent of listing the steps of how to fish with a particular fishing rod using a particular line and lure in a particular river, while neglecting to also include some of the generics of fishing so that a user has a hope to use the instructions if he happens to use a slightly different lure).

Also, a Linux distribution is really a collection of a lot of software from a lot of different sources; which also means that documentation for the different pieces are spread all over the place instead of one or a few places. There are a few places that are decent (like tldp.org and some distribution documentation/wiki sites), but it is getting increasingly harder to find good up-to-date instructions by googling.

That said, I for the most part love Linux. But that should not make us blind to the fact that Linux is not perfect, and that for some uses and some users going with Windows or Mac is the better option.

Re:Pointless chrome

[Moryath]

Fuck you.

No, seriously, fuck you.

The conversation (which I have had NUMEROUS times with brain-dead linuxites like yourself) goes as follows.

Me: "This is what I've got doing my recording. It works pretty well."

Linuxite: "Dude, you should TOTALLY be using MythTV instead, it's open source and it'd go in your system no problem! You could even record multiple shows that way and everything. And if you've got any problems at all all you have to do is go on ForumXYZ and the wiki and they'll get it all fixed up!"

Me: "Hey guys, I'm having problems with this, here's my hardware configuration, here's the distribution I'm using, here are the errors I'm seeing."

Somebody Like Phoenixwade: "How DARE you use ATi, don't you know they're the devil? You need to spend $400 each on a pair of Happauge cards and a motherboard of X spec and then you need to blip fraggle toggle the command line and zorp waggle blizzle the driver and..."

My assessment is not "dishonest", you annoying ass. It is based PRECISELY on the legions of linux nerds who keep telling me I should convert my system, which works perfectly well, over to the software they claim is superior. And no, in these economic times, I am not going to waste $500+ just to try them out. It either works on the hardware I already own, the hardware I know for a fact works correctly with the software I currently use, or it is flawed on that basis.

Honestly, you are the kind of user I'd tell to box up your computer and take it back to the store.

Honestly, you're the kind of jerk who should never be let around another human being.

Re:Pointless chrome

[Moryath]

My point was that your specific problem was foretold and you either didn't do your research or ignored it. For years now, anyone making or building a MythTV machine has known that using ATi cards would present problems. But instead of owning up to it, you blamed the developers who have tried to help the situation.

Know what? I've had dozens of linux nerds like you bugging me about how their software was "superior" and how I should convert MY box to it. Every time, they give me the same crap assurances like that asswad previously who pointed me to wiki pages he obviously hadn't even read and that are horribly outdated.

MY point is, whether or not you can point your fingers and blame ATi or anyone else, the failure of Linux/MythTV to run correctly on pretty ubiquitous hardware is Linux's problem.

I don't know about all your Linux attempts, but if they're like your MythTV attempts, ignoring general advice will not make your Linux experience any more pleasant than Windows.

I have not "ignored general advice." I have ignored STUPID advice from people who are self-assured, annoying, and convinced that everyone's system should be an exact carbon copy of theirs. I have ignored people who say that I'm not giving MythTV a "fair shake" if I don't shell out tons of cash and rebuild my already-working system just to install it.

Re:Pointless chrome

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that they need to improve their handling of videos and mp3s. I can see how it can work, but it will take a lot of time to get it working. And even then, I would still like to see a few things changed (which it looks like they started to do in this most recent release.)

Re:Pointless chrome

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus Christ. Why don't you go complain to ATI about your damned problem? They're the only ones who could possibly fix it for you.

You sure have a sense of entitlement, expecting people to waste their time reverse engineering proprietary hardware so that *you* can save a few bucks on your PVR. Maybe you should pitch in and convince ATI to release either drivers or specs for their wares.

Re:Pointless chrome

[PatDev]

No, Microsoft sits down for a bit and thinks about how they can best support a particular kind of hardware. They sometimes call up the relevant hardware manufacturers and say "hey, helps up define the API for this."

Man I really wish there was a '-1 Just Plain Factually Incorrect'.

Re:Pointless chrome

[hairyfeet]

Have you tried Mediaportal? I have had much better results with it than the XMBC Windows port. Like you I had nothing but trouble with getting MythTV to work,but adding this to a stripped down WinXP box(If you don't want to strip it yourself,and have an XP license,find yourself a copy of "TinyXP Beast Edition". Only uses 64Mb of RAM with full networking capability) and it really runs like a champ. And with the wealth of plugins and extensions you can really make Mediaportal YOUR way,so it has the features that are of most interest to YOU. And of course free is always of the good. try it,I bet you'll like it!

Re:Pointless chrome

[spoco2]

No, what they state still isn't wrong.

The article you link to states that people are offering to go into companies and write drivers for them.

This doesn't really solve the problem:
* They have to want to let someone in to their company and have access to things they'd rather only let full time employees access to.
* They may get a working driver, but then the next time the API is changed again, that's all ruined.
* It just doesn't address the problem the poster is talking about.

To get companies to want to support a platform you have to have some real stability in how it's interacted with. Any changes to the API better be add ons that don't break existing drivers OR if there is a real need for a complete redesign it better be very few and far between and have a good long think about everything you want to change as it should stay that way for a LONG time.

Re:Pointless chrome

[Beardo the Bearded]

Moryath, I agree with you completely.

I had problems with running a video card correctly in Ubuntu. It's an Radeon 9200, hardly a rare card. The help I got was along the lines of "lol get a new card" or "it runs at 800 x 600. That should be good enough for email."

Riiiight. That's why I reinstalled Win2k. (The problem was resolved in 8.10, which I'm now using at home.)

It is the Linux crowd's fault, and it's the Works on My Machine problem. The people I've seen may be able to program, but their are horrible at fixing problems or relating to the public.

The new thing is Flash. It's slow on Ubuntu. Guess whose problem it is...

Yep, it's Adobe's fault for making a bad version of Flash.

Re:Pointless chrome

[Anonymous Coward]

If only their were some kind of legal device to solve these problems.

Re:Pointless chrome

[OverlyGenericUsernam]

I had a similar problem that my hardware didn't work with MythTV/Linux. So I went with BeyondTV for Windows http://www.snapstream.com/products/beyondtv/, had for awhile now and works great for me. If your still looking for something to do TV on your computer should give it a try, however it costs about 80$ which is a turn off for some.

Re:Pointless chrome

[Moryath]

Thanks, I'll give it a look!

A few questions since you say you use it:

- Does it do overscan correction in software? My TV has two settings, "black edging" (~3-4% on all edges) and "lose 5% under the bezel", and regrettably the ATi drivers don't accomplish this all that well. XBMC has very solid software-based overscan correction.

- Can it upsample audio to 5.1, either dolby or dts? I've got an Audigy2 with the front panel outputs and would love to be able to push true 5.1 through the sound system like my current Xbox (XBMC converted) does.

Those are the two main things I'm looking at needing. I have an old Xbox that handles a lot of this well (softmod, XBMC) but it lacks the power to handle true HDTV-encoded (720p and up) content. If I could get my PVR box to do this fully, I'd be a really happy user.

Re:Pointless chrome

[Vengeance_au]

As a counterpoint to this - I love my MythTV, and learned Linux building my original one 4 years ago; but it is a family device sitting in the lounge room, so it has to appeal to the rest of the family. My brother in law runs Windows MCE and the "bling" factor is a real drawcard. If it wasn't for auto-ad skipping and overlapping recording on the same card for the same channel working so well in MythTV (and being non-existant in Windows MCE), I would have lost the argument ages ago. Getting a shinier interface will just bolster the competitiveness of MythTV. As for alternative configuration options, MythWeb has some nifty configuration features available - after the initial scan in setup, I do all my channel configuration and key setup there. I also find a remote X session to a laptop makes configuration a breeze - nothing worse than plugging a keyboard into the PC sitting under your TV and working on a 42" screen from 4 feet away :-)

Re:Pointless chrome

[AmberBlackCat]

I think they usually use +1 Insightful for that.

Re:Pointless chrome

[beav007]

The vast majority of Myth has supported mouse/touchscreen for quite a while. There have been notable parts that didn't, however (such as the music player), which made the system nigh on useless for an in-car touchscreen system.

Re:Pointless chrome

[cayenne8]

"In summary, gentoo may make it relatively simple to install mythtv (although Ubuntu deals with more of the initial configration for you), it's the long-term maintenance that really kills it."

Yeah...I'll give you that to a point.

For a myth box...it could get hairy upgrading it...but, with a myth box...since it is dedicated pretty much only to myth...you don't really need to upgrade it much at all, if ever (unless there is a major upgrade to myth).

For using gentoo as a normal computer...keeping it up to date isn't that bad. I pretty much set my USE flags at install, and don't often change them. I periodically do an update or system and world....and it works pretty well.

But, for a mythtv box...no, I just usually install it...and once I get it working..leave it alone. I'd do that on pretty much any distro...it is a utility IMHO, and once you get it working, no real reason to upgrade it.

I'm about to redo my boxes.....I moved to a new place with multiple rooms....and I'm going to break myth into server and client boxes. Once I get them up and running with latest versions...I'll not be changing much on them at all. If I have to change the server...I'll back it up (I also may reserve a box for a back up server too, I've got computers laying around)..that way if the upgrade when I have to do it blows up....I can switch to that one till the main one gets fixed. Actually...probably will configure one of the client boxes to be either or....and if server blows up, switch the client box to be a server while the main box is being fixed.

Yes...I'm hooked on TV..can't be without it for long...

:)

Re:Pointless chrome

[Cylix]

Video4Linux addresses this, but getting the driver writes to support v4l2 is where the push is at.

The ivtv project is a good example having both the legacy and v4l interfaces. For NTSC I have a PVR400 in place and it works very well. (Though I need to fix my initialization routines as they tend to compete with my DTV/QAM tuner)

Re:Pointless chrome

[Cylix]

You can configure and IR device to act as a HID device.

It's annoying and you lose functionality. Also, the HID device ID is remapped depending on what devices are plugged in at the time.

When I first set up my myth box I went this route out of ignorance.

As for point 4, there are a ton of myth lirc file examples. Though things change and are dependent on lirc setups and usually require some conversion.

Re:Pointless chrome

[pintpusher]

I've read pretty much all of this thread and so far as I can tell, there is a serious misunderstanding going on here and everyone is now so pissed off that it's hopeless. Here's how I read it:

You *already had* some PVR gear that has been working fine for a number of years.

Some folks occasionally recommend that you try a mythtv solution. So you try it and it fails because of known hardware compatibility problems. Whether these incompatibilities were known by those making recommendations or not is debatable.

This causes you to feel that linux is an epic failure at pvr's.

lather rinse repeat.

Is that a fair assessment of the situation?

Assuming so, and moving on.

So you are correct, IMO, to be upset at people recommending you spend a bunch of money to get the linux solution to work for you. You already have a working solution with already-paid-for hardware. There is no reason for you to spend money just to *try out* another solution.

Likewise, those involved with the linux solution are correct to be upset with you for expecting known incompatible hardware to work properly without serious hoop jumping. They try to maintain reasonably accurate compatibility lists and are rightly annoyed when someone bothers them about their incompatible stuff not working.

The solution is this: In the future, if you decide to upgrade the hardware you might think about choosing hardware that is known to work with *both* products. Then you can actually try out the mythtv solution and make a real comparison and decide which you like, or which suits you better.

But, until someone with authority (like a driver dev) says that your stuff definitely works with linux, don't bother trying because you'll only be frustrated. Meanwhile, you should take a deep breath and stop being overtly inflammatory towards people who are probably genuinely, if misguidedly, trying to help.

hopefully I've provided a balanced approach to this silliness between all of you and we can move on... heh...

Re:Pointless chrome

[hairyfeet]

Sorry but I wouldn't know. My TV doesn't have that problem,and I'm using a big honking 80's home stereo for my speakers. What I can tell you is to place those questions on their forums and you'll probably get an answer VERY quick. The forums there are not only patrolled by those that love the software but by the coders and they are quick to answer any questions and take feature requests.

I did notice that your ATI hardware is supported,and since it is free and easy to uninstall if you don't like it why don't you give it a try and see if it does what you need it to do. And with the plugins and extensions it is pretty easy to make it your style. But with there being so many different TV sets,capture hardware,and PC setups I've found the best way is simply to give something a shot. Like I said I tried MythTV and couldn't ever get it running right,XBMC for Windows was okay but it seems to be more for playback than anything else,while Mediaportal just seemed to play nice with my gear out of the box. Sorry I couldn't be more of a help,but your gear is about as opposite to mine as you can get. Sorry.

Re:Pointless chrome

[Rockoon]

See you in contract court while your IP gets spread across the globe.

"Wasn't me"

News?

[clickclickdrone]

Really, if every program's minor update gets front page, we'll be here all day reading the damn things. MythTV is lovely program and all but from the article, nothing really earth shattering is new.

Re:News?

[entgod]

Some people (like me) actually like reading about the updates in (open source) software. I don't think it would be a bad idea to include a software section into slashdot. And besides, we already spend all day reading the stuff here, don't we? ;)

Re:News?

[LordKronos]

Actually, this isn't a minor update. It is a significant rewrite of the user interface that has been in the works for years (the ticket for this new UI was opened in June 2005). However, this isn't something that is going to be so significant to the end user directly. A lot of what you'll see come out of this will be subtle. The bigger benefit of this is for developers. Both code developers and theme developers. I have a bit of experience doing both for MythTv, and from what I've seen this is going to be a cool change. It's not news for TV watcher, but I think it is for nerds (or at least some of us).

Re:News?

[Anonymous Coward]

They already have a website for this, it's called Freshmeat.

Re:News?

[Cylix]

The interface overhaul is a bit news worthy.

Tons of bugs have been fixed over the last year and improvements in DTV setup have come our way. The UI in some areas could use a face lift. (The recent addition of the click and point overscan setting was a huge plus).

Moving to a more development friendly and improved UI is good news to the myth users out there.

Just dumped MythTV

[ShieldW0lf]

I just dumped Mythbuntu and switched to XBMC Media Center. I don't actually have a TV signal, just use the machine for DVDs and recorded movies, music and pictures across the LAN. And for those purposes, I found it so awkward to work with as to be unusable. Particularly the interface for managing your music collection.

This article seems to focus entirely on the aspects relating to managing TV signals and shows. Is there anything in this new interface that might make me want to switch back?

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[Jellybob]

At a glance, I would say no - at the moment it looks more like technical infrastructure for new themes, rather then a full blown new look for the software.

MythTV really is meant to be for watching and recording TV, there's a clue to that in the name. For what you describe XBMC, especially with some of the newer high resolution themes, is easily a better choice.

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[Tombstone-f]

Honestly, I focused on the TV part of MythTV because that's the part I use. I haven't used the Music plugin for quite some time, and I don't use MythVideo too much either. MythMusic wasn't very good when I last used it, I hope this new UI library will allow themers to make some better user interfaces for Mythmusic.

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[Rich0]

Agreed - it would be nice if foreign media could be seamlessly integrated into the MythTV interface. Mythvideo is very primitive by comparison (the interface used for random avi/ogg/mpg files/etc).

One issue is that mythtv implemented their own media player, which means that only a few codecs are supported and there are very strict limitations on the video stream. For example, if keyframes aren't spaced completely uniformly the seektable breaks and any attempt to seek causes all kinds of problems. I think a better approach would be to use some other media player as the actual playback method and have myth focus on the value-adds like indexing the content, maintaining cutlists, GUI, etc. Mythtv would basically be a front-end to something like xine/mplayer. Why re-invent the wheel?

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[Anonymous Coward]

Mythmusic is truly awful.. but I don't know how to improve it's usability.

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[Dan667]

You can do this already with any media player you like for Myth Video. I have mine setup to use Xine.

For recorded shows, the internal player is actually quite good. The killer feature for me is that it skips commercials without any need to press any keys on the remote. It just happens automagically. Since Mythtv recorded them, there is no need to worry about codecs.

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[Chang]

Mythvideo can be a frontend to Xine/Mplayer.

It has _always_ been that way.

The built-in "Internal" video player is default but it is completely optional. It appeared a couple of releases ago.

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[ShieldW0lf]

MythTV really is meant to be for watching and recording TV, there's a clue to that in the name. For what you describe XBMC, especially with some of the newer high resolution themes, is easily a better choice.

XBMC on Linux had some serious bugs that just got fixed in their most recent release, so it only became the better choice last week. I tried the last release, and every time your mouse drifted across the section for handling weather, XBMC would crash because it failed to wait for the data to come across the network before trying to display it.

But the new version works great.

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[Abcd1234]

Is there anything in this new interface that might make me want to switch back?

Why would you want to? MythTV isn't *supposed* to be a simple media player. It's primary goal is specifically to be a PVR. The rest of the features are implemented as plugins because they aren't part of the project's core mission.

So stick with XBMC. It does exactly what you need, and does it better than Myth... and it probably always will. There's nothing wrong with that.

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[djtachyon]

And I switched to the open-source MediaPortal for Windows and haven't looked back since.

Slap it on an old XP machine in a decent media center ATX case, and you have a great media pc. No hassles with linux makes, XP media center BS, or compatibility. Throw in a blowout on an Logitech media center remote package with the Setpoint Uberoptions driver to open up all the button options, and you are set. Just share all your media folders on your home network for any other media you want to show.

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[eudaemon]

As a dyed in the wool nerd, I've been using MythTV for a while now. But its .21 user interface (prior to
update in the slashdot story) leaves a lot to be desired even for TV watching. Try cancelling a scheduled
recording sometime and getting the damn tuner back, for instance. It certainly has MCE beat to hell and back
with its separation of front and back ends. Yeah you can do with MCE it on an xbox. So what. I don't own an xbox.
Or a windows machine for that matter right now, lol. So MythTV has Windows beat for no vendor lock in. But
it just doesn't pass the wife acceptance factor test for intuitive user interface.

Cable TV watching has bigger problems, however. Many cable companies gladly drop VCT information, and Myth and MCE's
scanners can't find channels without that info. They both advise you add channels by hand to fix it.
You can go vendor lock in and get a cablecard solution - tivo or mce+cablecard, both of which are pricey.
Unfortunately open-source PVR is a very niche market. The mythtv guys are to be commended for that they've done,
but at the end of the day I'll probably go back to satellite just because their PVR doesn't require me to
script up stuff for the wife to restart mythTV when it isn't happy.

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[jedidiah]

MythMusic is passable and MythVideo is easy to tweak. This easy
tweakability quickly allows it to become something much better
than competitors and is very good for the WAF.

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[smoker2]

I used MediaPortal for a while on XP but all my media files are on a linux box. I have drive Z: mapped to the linux server and I can always access the files from explorer. However, MediaPortal almost always fails to read the network drive. When it works it's great, but if it doesn't it's worthless (for me). I have since removed it from the system, and gone back to using my clunky system of a firefox live bookmark pointing to playlists, which are then played using VLC, and that always works. It is all controlled by my tv cards remote too.
I would use mythTV but my tv cards have a proprietary remote that has its IR receiver plugged directly into the card. LIRC can't communicate using that, so myth is on hold until I find a way around it. I'm using DigiTV cards BTW. Nice cards but not supported by the manufacturer anymore. I can record as many muxes simultaneously as I have cards in the system. That works out to needing 4 or 5 cards to record the whole gamut of available DVB-T channels, all at the same time. I would probably need faster drives to do that though !

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[Stiletto]

Do what I do: Use both!

XBMC can act as a front-end to MythTV. Recent builds have very good MythTV support. Just add a video source called myth://whatever and browse away. It doesn't support all of the MythTV frontend's advanced features, but basic browse/playback works fine.

I have a machine in the closet running the MythTV backend, and my XBMC in the living room for playback. I never have to touch the (IMHO) horrible MythTV GUI interface, except to configure the backend*

*Side note: The fact that you NEED the MythTV gui (running on X) to configure the backend is an awfully lame design decision on MythTV's part. Whatever happened to editing text files or a simple command-line based configurator?

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[jerkychew]

You're confusing products a bit. The two pieces of Myth that handle non-tv media, MythMusic and MythDVD. These are both plug-ins to Myth and while they do tend to ship with most Myth setups, they are not part of the core MythTV product. I agree with you that they both suck - The UIs and overall management of media are just terrible - But don't poo-poo MythTV because of them. In essence it's like saying Firefox sucks because your Yahoo toolbar has a bad interface.

XBMC is awesome but it's not a replacement for MythTV. It has no mechanism for recording tv shows or hooking to any type of tuner card. What it excels at is, as you said, media management. I modified my MythTV menu to include XBMC, so when I want to watch my DVD ISOs on a Windows box I launch it from the MythTV interface. A quick blurb on how I did it is here.

FWIW, you can add MythTV as a video source in XBMC using the mythtv:// prefix. You can then view recordings as well as live tv, although it was buggy the last time I tried it.

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[Abcd1234]

Try cancelling a scheduled recording sometime and getting the damn tuner back, for instance.

You mean, where you go to the Upcoming Recordings, hit enter (IIRC), select "Add an exception" or whatever the menu option was called, and select "Don't record this showing"?

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[Anonymous Coward]

but mythtv is a front end for mplayer if you want it to play anything other then mythtv files...

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[jedidiah]

No. He's probably talking about LiveTV. This is something that is always stated as a LOW development priority.

If you want a separate tuner, you probably should have one and not fight with your PVR (even if it's a Tivo).

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[PitaBred]

ssh -X is your friend. Why install an X server on a machine that'll never use it?

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[LordKronos]

As has been pointed out, you can use an external player. The reasons why the internal player exist are numerous. Using an external player, you can only so do much in the way of integration. Themeing, automatical commercial skip, displaying OSD popups on screen related to other (non video) events, picture in picture, live TV while looking at the program guide, video preview thumbnails embedded in the recording list screen, etc.

Rewriting and existing player to handle everything myth needs would be a major task. Basically, all you'd be using it for would be its video decoding abilities. MythTV has already farmed that out. I believe they use ffmpeg to handle this. However, for certain compatibility issues I don't recall, they don't use an external copy of ffmpeg. They've copied a snapshot of ffmpeg directly into the myth tree. That means you can't just install the latest copy of ffmpeg and upgrade mythtv (though they do update it in the mythtv tree from time to time)

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[norminator]

Why install an X server on a machine that'll never use it?

I think that was his point.

And forwarding X over ssh is alright if you're working from a linux box, but if you're coming from a Windows desktop you have to install Xming before you can do it. X Forwarding is also a little slow, especially if you're trying to do it remotely.

You'd think there could be an easier way. Some of the config stuff you can do via mythweb, but not all (or enough) of it. Sometimes you can find the settings you need via phpmyadmin as well, but I always wonder how likely it is that I'll pooch the entire myth install by entering a bad value for a setting. Having a text file that you can edit using your favorite non-GUI editor via ssh would be nice. I realize that there would be people complaining about that situation, too, but at least you could get in and edit it from a Windows box with nothing more than putty.

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[Anonymous Coward]

you NEED the MythTV gui (running on X) to configure the backend is an awfully lame design decision on MythTV's part. Whatever happened to editing text files or a simple command-line based configurator?

I run a headless (no video card) mythbackend and configure it using "ssh -Y mythtv@mythtv"
mythtv-setup

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[babyrat]

couldn't you simply add an external IR receiver (Serial or USB) and have LIRC use that?

Or alternatively try using NFS instead of windows file sharing.

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[ColaMan]

*Side note: The fact that you NEED the MythTV gui (running on X) to configure the backend is an awfully lame design decision on MythTV's part. Whatever happened to editing text files or a simple command-line based configurator?

You can use a command line, you just need to know SQL. Jeez, kids these days.... :-)

I haven't used the newer versions of mythTV - I had run a system with upgrades from .12 to one of the .21RC's. You do that kind of thing and you learn SQL pretty quick. But I guess all media centres are still in a state of flux and get wiped/installed on a semi-regular basis, with a clean slate each time.

For long-term users, there's no real database maintenance done by MythTV. Some manual trimming/compacting of the database at times helps speed. eg your liveTV seek tables - they get rather large and can tend to glue things up..... and never seem to be deleted. Recorded shows - MythTV keeps the database records *forever*, so it can avoid recording them again. Good in theory, bad after a few years.

Personally, I prefer MySQLNavigator for tinkering with MythTV's database directly when I've got X, but I've done the command-line thing before when I've hosed the database via filesystem corruption and I've had to selectively restore chunks of it from a mysql dump.

And there's some things that still don't have a gui interface. Changing the transcoding presets for the DVD-ripper, for instance. You need SQL if you want to change the author's original presets.

But all in all, it works ok, and I've learned a lot of stuff about my linux system over the years because of it.

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[Cylix]

The trick for the X headend.

I have a simple script which is launched in run level 5. It cleans up a few things and then launches X. X has a simple xinitrc which either launches the mythfrontend or mythsetup. (In case I need to access setup. If I could flag a file from the remote that would be awesome).

If X crashes or is exited (which is easy if you go on an exit button rampage) it simply restarts.

The mythbox is headless so if I need access to X I use a vnc server.

I keep hoping someone will reverse engineer the cable card in the tivo.

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[maino82]

But it just doesn't pass the wife acceptance factor test for intuitive user interface.

I think your problem is that you're running on wife 0.78. I just upgraded to wife 0.92 in July and she very much appreciates the interface and finds it pretty intuitive (and she gets giddy when she thinks about the web interface).

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[Cylix]

Is it still an issue. Maybe it's because I'm using a svn build, but I've been fully able to edit the recording schedule for a while.

I also have a dual tuner setup so one is free for live tv and one is free for recording. It will also prompt me to watch one of the tuners or cancel if both tuners are recording.

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[Rich0]

I was talking about using an external player WITHOUT using mythvideo.

The whole point is that external video files aren't handled well by mythtv. At best you can use mythvideo which is very stripped down compared to the interface used to play recorded TV shows. For example, you can't set up a cutlist or remove commercials using mythvideo.

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[macdaddy]

Me thinks you should share your script with your fellow man... :-)

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[Rich0]

No it isn't.

MythVideo - which is a mythtv plugin - is a frontend to mplayer for external files.

You can't integrate external video files into mythtv proper (the interface where you can easily fast-forward, rewind (not skip), and do editing/cutlists/commercial-flagging/etc). That is the component that could be improved by allowing the use of external video.

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[Rich0]

How do you use an external player for watching TV (with commerical skip, etc)? Everybody here is talking about mythvideo - I was talking about the main interface used for TV.

I'd lke to be able to watch a TV show as if it were recorded by myth, even thought it wasn't recorded by myth. I don't want some plugin that doesn't support 90% of the mythtv feature set. Sure, I use mythtvideo because I have to - not because I want to... :)

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[LordKronos]

Now you've confused me, because the item you chose to use as your example of why they should let someone else take care of the player was codec support, but if you are talking about LiveTV then where does the codec issue come into play there?

If codecs aren't your problem, then please explain what other issues make it so vital they they use something external as their player.

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[Rich0]

Ok, the post I replied to pointed out that mythtv didn't handle TV shows obtained from sources other than off-the-air well. I agreed.

Sure, you can play them via mythvideo - but this is a kludgy interface. Fast-forward/rewind don't work well. Cutlists and commercial skip don't work at all. The shows aren't organized in the main program list, there is no autoexpire, etc. Basically mythvideo is just a browser and then it can spawn an external player (or use its more limited internal player).

What I'd like is for a media file off the internet to look just like a show I recorded an hour ago. If I have a media file with commercials in it, I'd like to be able to flag them. I'd like to do that even if myth didn't record that media file.

Try sticking a random avi in your mythtv video directory. There are tools to try to put it into the regular program list, but the file probably won't seek correctly. I can't tell you how much trouble I've had just trying to transcode myth-recorded shows without using mythtranscode (in my case I want to transcode hi-def to standard-def while preserving the AC3 audio stream).

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[LordKronos]

OK, now you are back to talking about codec issues, even though your last post basically said you weren't talking about codec issues, but live TV. :-)

Anyway, again, what do you want them to do? They use ffmpeg for their codec support, so that important stuff has already been moved out. If you think they should use something other than ffmpeg, thats fine, but I suspect there'd be tradeoffs there as well (unless you know the perfect library that solves every problem).

Other stuff like cutlists...I'm not familiar enough with various media formats to know, but how feasible is that? Right now, myth uses a frame precise seeking method (if you are going to cut out commercials and then transcode it, you want that precision). Is that feasible to do without building the seek table that myth requires? Perhaps...I don't know enough to say. How I/O intensive is such seeking without the seek table? Intensive enough to make it difficult with a distributed system over a network? Perhaps that's not the issue either, but did you think about that?

My point is that there are a lot of aspects to consider before just saying "they're doing it wrong". It's easy to criticize a piece of software, but it's another to know all of the tradeoffs that had to go into play in making each decision.

By the way, regarding your troubles transcoding myth's recorded shows, that highly depends on your hardware. My PVR-350 outputs MPEG-2 data and myth just dumps it to a mpg file. My HDHomeRun does what most HD capture cards do....outputs whatever raw data (usually MPEG-4) was transmitted over cable or broadcast and just dumps that to an mpg file, too. The PVR-1212 gives myth h.264 data which gets dumped to a file. At least with this sort of hardware, myth has little say in what's happening. If you've got an analog, non hardware assisted capture card, then perhaps you've got a point, but I wouldn't know because I've never bothered with one.

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[Rich0]

I'm talking about better codec support for live TV. :)

Don't get me wrong - I think MythTV is wonderful, which is why I use it. But there are areas where it could use improvement. I won't be overly critical, since I'm not exactly volunteering to rewrite the whole thing.

I agree that a seektable probably wouldn't hurt with stuff like cutlists. So, implement the seektable for foreign media - you import a foreign media file into myth and it builds a seektable. That isn't a reason not to support foreign media - just one more thing to implement when you do support it.

As far as HD video formats - couldn't agree more with what you said, but I'm not sure how it is relevant. My HD card records the ATSC MPEG-2 stream off the air - often with AC3 5.1 audio. I'd like to turn that into an mpeg-2 or mpeg-4 lower-resolution video stream with the AC3 5.1 audio remaining intact. That is very hit-and-miss in my experience. Myth is very fussy with the video format (particular with keybrame spacing). It also doesn't help that most of the transcoding tools don't handle the AC3 well either - you can run into problems with re-interleaving the audio into the container.

Again, mythtv is wonderful. However, just a few tweaks would make it better. If nothing else the smaller change of indexing frame numbers rather than keyframe numbers in the seektable would probably help (the devs have discussed this very change - the change is very simple but the pain would be for those upgrading their databases as you'd need to update all the frame numbers). I completely sympathize that these changes aren't easy to make.

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[LordKronos]

But the player has no codec problem with live tv. It plays it's own livetv stuff perfectly fine, so how does switching players in any way help that. When it comes to imported files (or if you want to transcode using an external utility to a format it isn't fully function with), I'll give you that point, but the thread started off talking about using another player instead of their own internal player, so how specifically thier own player fails for live tv I'm not sure. Perhaps the discussion got silently sidetracked onto something else.

With the transcoding stuff, I'm unclear. Are you trying to transcode it inside of or outside of myth? You said "I can't tell you how much trouble I've had just trying to transcode myth-recorded shows without using mythtranscode" so I took that to mean you were trying to use other (non-myth) tools to do the transcode and they were choking on the file format generated by myth. If that's not what you are saying, please clarify.

If you are talking about limited transcoding ability of myth's built in transcoders, I'll definitely agree with you there. The nice thing, however, is that you can let any program do the transcoding. If you look in the database, there is a variable called JobQueueTranscodeCommand that you can set to the path of whatever you want to handle the transcoding. For example, mine is set to: /usr/local/scripts/transcode %JOBID% %CHANID% %STARTTIME% %DIR% %FILE% "%TITLE%" "%SUBTITLE%" %TRANSPROFILE%

which calls a perl script I've written, passing it all of the relevant info. I have it do some housekeeping, call nuvexport to do the transcode, and then do a little more followup housekeeping. If mythtranscode can't do what you want but you can find an external utility that can, this is your route.

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[Rich0]

the thread started off talking about using another player instead of their own internal player, so how specifically thier own player fails for live tv I'm not sure

The thread started off with this.

Their issue was that mythtv didn't really handle external video well. I agreed and wished that external video was handled seamlessly as if it were just a regular TV show (ie it showed up in the regular program list and didn't need a separate plugin with a separate interface).

Are you trying to transcode it inside of or outside of myth?

Outside.

If you are talking about limited transcoding ability of myth's built in transcoders, I'll definitely agree with you there.

Yup - that would be why I'm using an external transcoder.

The nice thing, however, is that you can let any program do the transcoding.

Yup - as long as you don't mind the video not actually playing back correctly, which brings me back to my complaint. :)

If you can supply a working command line that will transcode MPEG-2 with an AC3 audio stream down to 720x480 or thereabouts while keeping the 5.1 AC3 audio track intact such that it can play back as a regular TV program and work with commercial detection, I'm all ears. I can transcode the files and play them with mplayer just fine (including with mythvideo calling mplayer). I just can't play them in the program guide, which means I can't use commercial flagging and I lose all those wonderful features myth has for organizing my shows and displaying metadata from the program guide.

Trust me - I didn't start using mythtv last week. The whole reason I want to downsample the HD (besides saving space) is that my EPIA M10000-based diskless frontend can't playback hi-def video, but it handles the 5.1 AC3 audio just fine via SPDIF. I could care less about the high-def output (and I'd already be more at DVD-quality than off-the-air quality even with the downsampling), but I do appreciate true 5.1 sound.

Again, I'm not exactly volunteering to rewrite all of mythtv and I've contributed all of one patch to the mythtv source, so I don't expect all the devs to cater to my every wish. However, that doesn't mean that I can't see the room for improvement either. If the devs don't have the same itch as I do, fine - they can work on what suits them - I'm getting far more than I paid for, right? :)

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[LordKronos]

I don't use 5.1, just Dolby Pro-logic....yep, a 1080p TV matched with a stereo using 1980's audio technology :) So, sorry....no specific advice there.

However, is it safe to assume that you've asked such a question on the mythtv users mailing list (and if it was a long time ago, have you asked again recently). Seems like a problem somebody would have solved at some point. Here's a thread that might be relevant:
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/253940?search_string=transcode%20AC3%205.1;#253940

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[Rich0]

Yup - I tried that script a while ago actually. :) That script works better than any I've tried, but it isn't 100% effective.

Last I looked into it the devs were actually looking into this very scenario, so we might see this in mythtranscode sometime soon.

Getting people in the door

[MaxwellEdison]

I'm not sure this will really 'get people in the door' so to speak. Most people looking to build media box probably already had MythTV in mind. In order for a product like this to be mainstream, it needs to be integrated for the customer out of the box. Unfortunately the media mafiaa would come at any manufacturer selling Mythboxes with all guns blazing. So until they're taken down or at least safely muzzled, proprietary DVR devices will likely be all most people know.

Re:Getting people in the door

[Anonymous Coward]

After my parents saw my Mythbuntu box with a 'professional' theme, they were interested. But, there are just a few issues and such when things like running out of hard drive space or log files that aren't limited in size grow and end up bringing down the system until someone troubleshoots it and fixes it.

I think visually, using a theme like Pear-TV (but replacing the pear with a mythbuntu/mythTV logo) would be all the improvement they need to make with the user experience in normal operation. It works just fine.

But it's the boring bug fixes, confusing menus and sub-menus, and coming out and approving hardware as mythTV-compatible that would make it a better product.

And I would like to see more guides on how to go from a pile of money to a working, functional MythTV box. I hope some are out there, but it would help a lot of people I think.

Re:Getting people in the door

[MaxwellEdison]

My point wasn't really that MythTV couldn't be made an attractive alternative to consumers, but that it couldn't make it into the mainstream. I'm guessing your parents would not be building said Mythbox if they decided to go that route but would have you do it. Thats fine on a 1-1 scale like that, but when you try to actually form a business configuiring PVR boxes using MythTV as your platform you won't just be running into Linux's open source adoption problem. But also with the various **aa groups that would attempt to go after you from the legal side. It would be seen as a commercial tool for piracy, no matter how founded that argument may be. And until people like your parents are able to purchase such a box, via B&M, home shopping network, Amazon or what have you, it will be relegated to the category of "Look at this neat gizmo my clever boy cobbled together"

Re:Getting people in the door

[Abcd1234]

Unfortunately the media mafiaa would come at any manufacturer selling Mythboxes with all guns blazing.

You mean like these, or guys, or maybe these, or guys?

Re:Getting people in the door

[monkeyboythom]

I'm not sure this will really 'get people in the door' so to speak.

Maybe the "people" referred to here are not consumers but companies that should have a vested interest in producing at the very least minimally functioning drivers. (Hello, AverMedia where is that linux driver for the M780? Hello? Hello?)

Until these companies get in the door, Microsoft wins this space by default. Also, making it simple enought to use is paramount. We are still dealing with people who never knew how to change their VCR to stop their clocks from blinking "12:00."

Re:Getting people in the door

[MaxwellEdison]

Actually yes, that is what I mean. Unfortunately they still need to get over the first hurdle, which is grabbing a share of the market. They'll face the **aa's after they go toe to toe with TiVo.

Re:Getting people in the door

[OolimPhon]

Hello? People in the rest of the world use Mythtv, not just those in the 50 states.

Re:Getting people in the door

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it's amazing how many people forget about Guam and Puerto Rico.

Fix the installer please

[mandark1967]

I have to echo FPs mention of the installer being a complete PITA. It was so much of a pain that I loaded (*gasp*)Vista Media Center instead.

While I like the new interface of MythTV, I'm going to find it more than a bit difficult to switch now that I'm used to the interface in Vista Media Center. It's relatively simple, it's uncluttered, and it just works. Oh...it was a snap to install as well.

Style over substance

[Conor Turton]

MythTV needs a lot more than an interface makeover. For a start, DVB-T channel searching and setting up an EPG is a joke. WTF do you need to run a server just to get a sodding programme guide?

The whole thing is such a PITA to set up and keep going without something or other packing up (usually the programme guide) that it makes it worthwhile paying £60 for Windows MCE just to save your sanity.

Re:Style over substance

[UnknowingFool]

MythTV needs a lot more than an interface makeover. For a start, DVB-T channel searching and setting up an EPG is a joke. WTF do you need to run a server just to get a sodding programme guide?

To clarify you don't need a server (hardware) but you need to run a daemon that is a server process. I've been able to get it working on a PIII 800MHz desktop. The structure of MythTV is the classic server/client relationship. The UI to the user is the client (mythfrontend) and the background process is mythbackend. This is not new in any OS; Many applications run this way. For a standalone MythTV installation, the client and server are on the same machine.

If you think Windows MCE is any easier, good luck. Maybe they've made it easier but the only people I know to get it work (and not crash all the time) have been Windows admins. And they used the best hardware and the latest version of MCE.

Really, the setup in MythTV is ridiculous easy if you have a standalone. There are many versions that allow you to install it easily, even some are live CDs: MythDora, Mythbuntu, KnoppMyth. Now if you wanted something complex like a networked system, that's more challenging.

Re:Style over substance

[Conor Turton]

If you think Windows MCE is any easier, good luck. Maybe they've made it easier but the only people I know to get it work (and not crash all the time) have been Windows admins.

It's really simple, fire it up, follow the prompts to set up your TV. DVB-T is really simple. You put in your postcode, it gives you a list of possible transmitters in your region, you select the one you receive and then it goes off and scans the channels. Once it's done that, it connects to the internet and downloads a full EPG that spans 14 days AFAIR. Job done.

Re:Style over substance

[Conor Turton]

Really, the setup in MythTV is ridiculous easy if you have a standalone.

..once you've edited the channels.conf file for DVB-T (because there's only a handful of transmitters included in the package) which requires you to know a lot of not easy to find information on MUX frequencies, what mode each MUX is transmitting in, channel spacing, offsets, error correction rates, channel bitrates etc for the particular transmitter you're using.

Re:Style over substance

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you using the current version?

I set up my first MythTV about two years ago and it was a PITA like you describe. I got my hands on some other hardware and so decided to go server with multiple front ends. I use a dual-tuner DVB-T card in the UK. I simply popped the latest version of Mythbuntu onto the server with the tuner card in and went through the set up. It scanned and found all our channels with no manual configuration needed.
Another great thing about the current version is it allows simultaneous viewing/recording of two channels using one DVB-T tuner. So if both our tuners are recording programs, we can still watch a third (or forth) program as long as it is on the same thing (forgotten the word, is transponder, frequency group, something like that?). E.g. if its recording BBC1, I can also watch BBC News 24 or BBC2 on the same tuner.

The only config files I had to edit by hand were the apache config files when I set up MythWeb, but only because I use apache for other purposes on the same box.

Considering now...

[binaryspiral]

I was just about to order a TiVo for the wife who is always missing the few TV shows she actually enjoys. I figured it was worth the subscription to make her life a bit brighter... I wrote MythTV off as a hacker's Tivo but I'll take a longer look and see if I can give it a go.

Just for the sake of sanity and not having to support it - I may go with the Tivo anyway.

Re:Considering now...

[rmcd]

I use Myth under Debian for OTA recording (we don't have cable). It's been running for about two years and it has been great but it was *not* easy to set up (I viewed it as a hobbyist project and boy did it fit the bill :-) I'm sure it would be easier now with one of the prepackaged distributions, but here is my recommendation:

If you enjoy tinkering and you want to see how a DVR can be put together under Linux, give Myth a try. If you are even close to on the fence, go with Tivo. If you have cable, encryption could be a hurdle to using Myth, make sure you explore that first.

Good luck!

Re:Considering now...

[Abcd1234]

wrote MythTV off as a hacker's Tivo but I'll take a longer look and see if I can give it a go.

That's exactly what it is. :) That said, while it's not as polished as some of it's competitors, it does it's job quite well, IMHO, is perfectly usable, and in my judgment, is far more flexible than any other solution out there.

Re:Considering now...

[Abcd1234]

If you have cable, encryption could be a hurdle to using Myth, make sure you explore that first.

Yeah, but unless you can get CableCARD working, the same thing is true for TiVo. In either case, you may end up with an analog capture from DSTB + IR blaster-based solution (which, BTW, is the setup I use with Myth, and it works just fine).

Re:Considering now...

[UnknowingFool]

You should look into the Live CD versions to test out if you want to proceed. Many people are happy enough with them. KnoppMyth, MythDora, Mythbuntu.

Animation is a waste of time

[greg1104]

My MythTV box had this intermittent problem where it would overheat. Finally tracked it down recently--it only happened when the program guide page was left open, and the animated content preview (showing you a thumbnail preview of the program) was running. Turned that feature off and problem went away. So there's a case where some silly eye-candy was actually causing the system to have dramatically lower reliability, as the CPU and hard drive would have both been under dramatically lower load had it never been invented.

It makes me kind of sad that anyone has wasted programming resources on animating "transitions between screens" when the basic UI still needs so much work to be friendlier. It looks like some of that has managed to get done anyway though, the sample program display with the categories in a tabbed view is a huge improvement over the old default here. Accidentally scrolling the category up or down instead of the program listing is the most common thing Tivo users trying a MythTV box do if you sit them down in front of one for the first time. I still fall prey to that myself sometimes.

Re:Animation is a waste of time

[LordKronos]

First off, if your system can't run at full load without being unstable, then you have a hardware issue that needs to be looked at.

With regard to animations, they do have a valid purpose as far as usability. Often in programs, when you click a button and something in the UI changes, you can't tell exactly what it was that changed. You can see that something switched, but you aren't really sure what. With animations, you see the change before it has actually occurred, and your attention is focusing directly on it while it is occurring. When the change is complete, you know exactly what it was that changed.

Re:Animation is a waste of time

[greg1104]

I didn't say it was unstable, just that it would run much hotter than it should. All the fans were running around the clock sometimes, and I was looking into whether I needed even more of them in the larger enclosure because it was cooking the rest of the stuff in the cabinet. That never led to a crash, only the inevitable reduced system life that results from extra heat.

Re:Considering now...NOT

[InsaneProcessor]

It is a hacker's TIVO. I have tried it and had nothing but difficulty in getting things the way I wanted it. I spent hours...not to mention that ATI drivers in linux just suck.

I ended up with XP and SageTV. That product took a total of 20 minutes to install and configure (including my huge media library) and not hours to get nothing like mythtv.

MythMusic

[dfdashh]

This release (and namely the UI improvements in it) is really going to benefit the plugins in particular. For example, here's hoping that "faster and easier development for themers and developers" will open the doors to a better UI for MythMusic!

Bravo to Isaac and the MythTV team. You've all done a great job in creating one of the coolest projects for media junkies out there. I look forward to the upcoming release.

Re:MythMusic

[norminator]

I'm also looking forward to a much improved Myth Music. I just got my hands on a new box that makes a great frontend piece, while the backend has been down in the basement and I've been stuck using the web interface from my desktop PC.

Now that I have a dedicated frontend at the TV, I'm finding that MythVideo isn't as useless as I had remembered it being (although it could use some polish), but MythMusic is still pretty painful to use. I'm also really liking the functionality of the MythStream plugin included with Mythbuntu, although the UI for it is terrible, and the setup screen for it is ridiculously lousy.

Is it easy to install yet?

[CastrTroy]

I'm only worried about whether it's easy to install. When I was looking for making a PVR a couple years ago, I tried with Myth. I really did. I tried for days reading through the docs, trying to configure MySQL and set up databases. Trying to get my TV Tuner to work correctly. In the end, I downloaded a trial of SageTV and had everything up and running in 20 minutes. Haven't looked back since. Best $80 I ever spent. I use open source when possible, but not when it's that much more work than the alternative.

Re:Is it easy to install yet?

[Lumpy]

If you went windows, then why not mediaportal?

http://www.team-mediaportal.com/

I switched from SageTV to it because it kicked SageTV's butt hard.

Now I Use linux plus XBMC. Myth is awesom at Recording. it's is crap at music and media.

Re:Is it easy to install yet?

[Yosho]

Try Mythbuntu. I've installed it on three systems now and it's very easy to get working. I have never had to actually touch MySQL, let alone manually create a database, and the only time I've had to look in the MythTV docs was when I wanted to reconfigure a few buttons on my remote.

Re:Is it easy to install yet?

[moasat]

MythTV itself is easy to install. I think the problem most people have is getting their hardware to work under Linux. I have the most problems with ALSA but it is getting better. Once your hardware works, Myth is a breeze to install.

Re:Is it easy to install yet?

[Hognoxious]

I found it not to be the case; I think I'll wait till 8.10 stabilises and give it another go.

Re:Is it easy to install yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't ease of install of any linux application really dependent on your distribution and whether or not they package it? Mythbuntu is a good choice if you're making a dedicated myth box, but I've never had to do anything more than type apt-get install mythtv, and then run mythtv-setup.

Re:Is it easy to install yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. I'm no Linux pro, but I can get around Ubuntu, at least enough to be functional and do most things I want. I even use open source on my iPod. I made getting a Mythbuntu box up and running a kind of hobby to avoid just getting frustrated and quitting. I spent about 6 months (you can stop laughing now) and never got it working correctly. Before that I had no problem getting my other Ubuntu boxes running and playing nice with the network, our Apple computers, and our Windows computers. I don't think hardware was the issue. I finally gave up and loaded up XP MCE. It took forever to install, but since then has been flawless. For non Linux pros, I think it still needs some work.

Re:Is it easy to install yet?

[prestomation]

To answer your question. Yes. My brother has been running Myth under various distros for years and I've heard of the work that used to go into it.

I built a mythbox out of spare parts just a few weeks ago using Mythbuntu 8.04. All of the installation was automatic. I had to do some configuration, mostly choosing the correct video driver, V4L driver, and pointing at the right sound card, but basic functionality was that easy.
Some of the younger plugins(Mytharchive. mythweb) took a little bit of config too.

It's certainly not as easy as a Tivo, or maybe SageTV(no experience there), but it wasn't as much has a trial as I was expecting.

Re:Is it easy to install yet?

[TrevorB]

For the past two years I've been working with MythTV on Slackware... one backend and three frontends. I loved the result, but it was an absolute struggle. Multiple packages to install and configure. Little tweaks here and there. Recently I tried to upgrade mplayer to the latest SVN and ended up trashing my system.

I'vee been toying with the idea for a few months, but finally bit the bullet and instelled MythBuntu on my HTPC. And it's an absolute dream to install. I was up and running and watching MythTV TV streaming from my backend in 20 minutes.

That being said, two years of tweaking MythTV has helped. I've customized the system so that I have that mplayer SVN (so I can play the latest MKV files without error), and tweaked lirc's config file so it's what I'm used to and not merely adequate to the task. But there's no way I'd go back to the old way.

Give the MythBuntu Live CD a try. It's worth seeing if it works for you now.

(Typed with a wireless keyboard from my MythBuntu HTPC, with the latest 60 Minutes playing in the background)

Re:Is it easy to install yet?

[shelterpaw]

If you're going to go with mythTV, then I highly recommend mythbuntu LTS (long term support). This is the fastest and easiest way to get it going.

Re:Is it easy to install yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, MediaPortal was great when they cared about fixing bugs instead of adding more and more flashy nonsense crap.

Their RC3 still has a bug that causes the audio to stay unmuted and playing like chipmunks if you fast-forward. Why haven't they fixed it? According to them, because "some people like it that way." Sure. Because everybody wants to re-enact that classic Spaceballs scene every time they fast-forward.

They were great, but I can't possibly recommend them ever again.

Re:Is it easy to install yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried Myth sometime ago and gave up, just to much effort to make all work as I wanted, right now Im using SageTV but I wish DigiTV worked with my set-up, with digiTV I could record complete streams if I wished, for example record four shows at the same time while watching other(with only two USB cards), I had PIP while watching a show I could have a small screen showing any channel that could change with the push of a button and change seamlessly between was I was watching and whatever channel was in the smaller screen, I could set what I wanted to watch for the whole day (or the whole week for that matter)in 5 minutes and while watching a show,to select the list of channels that I wanted was a doodle, ( I hate the way sage does that)
Sadly digiTV does not work properly with my actual system and I have to put with Sage, Sage eats memory as if the world has not end, Ill love to have a open source app as simple and capable as DigiTV but Myth aint it and doesn't look it will be any time in the future, hope I was wrong.
 

Re:Is it easy to install yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had no luck at all getting the "all-in-one" Myth distros to work (Mythbuntu, etc).

I gave up on that a while ago and installed plain old Ubuntu, then used Synaptic to install Myth. Works like a charm - first try. (It did take an hour or so to download all the packages...)

Once you've got it installed and configured (set up autologin and make mythfrontend start automatically), you've got a TV appliance.

I recommend that you go back into Synaptic and hold the packages you've installed, though. Automatic updates and Myth config files don't play nice. (Learned from experience...)

The new versions of Myth (0.21+) have DVD playback and IR remotes supported automagically. I haven't been able to get the Netflix plugin to work, but everything else is golden.

(I'm using Hauppage PVR-150 with the included remote and an AMD64 4200+ with 1.5GB RAM. As far as Myth goes, the more RAM, the better...)

Good luck!

Best hardware to put it on?

[ktappe]

I took a serious look at MythTV a few years ago to try to replace my ReplayTV and avoid going TiVo. The biggest problem to me was I did not want a noisy, large PC in my living room. I want the quiet, console-sized form factor of a TiVo. I searched around the internet and never became satisfied with any of the options I found, especially when the quieter they got the higher-priced they got--when the price started approaching $1K, I bailed and resigned myself to getting the HD TiVo I now have.

But I now have a family member in the market for a DVR. So can anyone here recommend a case/box/hardware solution on which to install MythTV that's un-PC like so that it will truly "belong" in a media center? Thanks!

Re:Best hardware to put it on?

[Dan667]

I bought the D.Vine 5 HTPC Case by Ahanix and like it.

Re:Best hardware to put it on?

[rmcd]

I got the Antec NSK2400. It's nice looking (as such things go ;-) and designed for silent operation. I bought a big passive heatsink for the CPU which I topped with a low speed fan. It all fit in the case, but just barely. The system is not completely silent but it's quieter than my home theater receiver, which has a fan. I found SilentPCReview invaluable. Good luck!

Re:Best hardware to put it on?

[Albanach]

It's worth remembering you only need a client in the living room.

I'd imagine you quickly end up with hundreds of GB of video, so you want some kind of RAID to protect from drive failure. That means multiple disks which tends to mean bigger box, more heat more fans and more noise.

Personally I'm using xbmc not having much need to record live TV. I run it on an eeebox that I picked up for $300. It's tiny. It draws 20 watts, is practically silent, runs 24x7 and can play up to 720P. It has DVI out so can be hooked up to HDMI and has optical audio out if you want to connect the sound to your amp.

It fills all my needs. If I was deploying Myth, I'd be looking for a tower with plenty of cooling to live in a cupboard and use something like an eeebox as the client.

Re:Best hardware to put it on?

[broen]

I've been very happy with a SilverStone LC-11M. Their HTPC cases will probably look better than any other component in your system, and they're generally very high quality construction. The LC-11 has two fans, which in addition to the CPU fan produce a gentle white noise that only seems to bother my delicate ears (that is to say, it is quite wife-friendly). The bedroom frontend is diskless and fanless running network boot with minimyth. No moving parts, so it's completely silent. Something of a bitch to setup (get used to it with MythTV) but more rewarding and ultimately superior in terms of features than commercial offerings. Would I recommend it to my parents? Absolutely not. Different strokes and all that.

Re:Considering now...NOT

[Big Boss]

I used Mythbuntu to install my current setup. It was as easy as anything else has been in Windows. Boot from CD, answer some questions, let it copy files and reboot. Then tell it that it's OK to install the binary NVidia driver and that all worked fine. I did have to tweak the XOrg.conf a little, but I understand that the new release of XOrg doesn't even require the conf file now. And my changes were more to make the TV output a little more how I like it than anything else, it worked fine out of the box. Then I told Myth what my tuner device was (HDHomeRun) and it found it and did a channel scan. Then I gave it my login info to Schedules Direct and it was up and running. Probably about an hours work from CD boot to working Myth install.

Note that I did pick my hardware for Linux and Myth compatibility. I knew that's what I was going to be using the hardware for, so I chose accordingly. It's still a hacker's TiVo, but I hacked my TiVo boxes, and Myth was easier than that.

Work on MythMusic and Video

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone without a cable subscription the PVR interface is not of interest. I had a Myth box for about 6 months (which was a freevo box previously) and they both fall heavily in the Music and Recorded Video (or downloaded) departments.

MythMusic is quite the most horrendously clunk interface, not making use of any mp3 tags or such to organise, so you end up with one big scrolling mess of files. Just awful.

XMBC is my next port of call once I pick up a consumer NAS

Re:Considering now...NOT

[Dan667]

For anyone considering SageTV, it has it's own problems and gotchas. Having to pay for it would really piss me off.

Re:Considering now...NOT

[Remloc]

I built my 1st Myth system by hand without one of the new "nice" installers. Using apt-get and Jarod's guide. I got 95% of functionality working in one evening on the first try. Then proceeded pulling my hair out for 3 months to get the $@%ing remote to work. Totally existing P3/450. Only new hardware was the PVR-350.
Getting it working should be simple. Making it "wife friendly," maybe not so much.

These are not the Drones you seek...

[ronadams]

You do realize it's ATI's fault their hardware support is bad, right? Linux developers can't make it any easier for ATI to make a good driver and API; they have the complete source of the OS at their disposal. If ATI doesn't release good drivers and/or APIs, you get bad hardware support.

CableCard Support

[MasterOfMagic]

Let me know when they support CableCard and then I'll be interested. I shouldn't need to do IR blasting or capturing through Firewire. It's great that there's a new interface, but if you can't record the shows you want in HD, it's pointless.

Re:CableCard Support

[fahrbot-bot]

Let me know when they support CableCard ...

Probably never. As I understand it, CableCard isn't available to third-party video card vendors - just TV and cable box makers. In addition, I believe CableCard will be going away and the future will utilize embedded VMs with control information downloaded from the Cable COs.

Re:CableCard Support

[nwf]

And it probably never will, which makes it all seem so pointless. I watch most of what little TV I watch in HD, and I'm just not interested in a DVR without HD capability. My cable boxes have HDMI and component. While it may be possible to get digitize the component video, why bother when the box is $10/mo and a box with DVR is $14/mo and I can record two shows simultaneously? Granted, it would be great if Verizon dumped their incredibly lame DVR software for Myth, but I just can't see that happening...

Please, just make it not suck...

[geminidomino]

MythTV is honestly a joke. (N.B. I've been running a mythtv box for 3 years)

For TV/PVR functionality, it's great. Want to watch a DVD or, gods forbid, a video file? Prepare for an exercise in pain.

Want to use some of the features it boasts (integrated emulators, image slideshow, etc...)? Suffer, worm!

Want to use an EXTREMELY COMMON remote(MCE)? Prepare to spend the better part of the evening manually remapping the buttons with vim. (I still have instances where I can't navigate DVD menus because of some weirdness on what is considered "up" and "down")

And if you DARE to want to record off of a non-tuned interface (RCA, e.g.) well, it will eat your face and lock you in the closet with a shoggoth.

But unfortunately, for TV, it is the best out there. :P

Re:Please, just make it not suck...

[jedidiah]

> For TV/PVR functionality, it's great. Want to watch a DVD or, gods forbid, a video file? Prepare for an exercise in pain.

          What pain? Just drop it somewhere Myth knows to look.

          If you have a more "complicated" setup. You will need to tell Myth to scan your collection again to pick up the new movie.

> evening manually remapping the buttons with vim.

          If you insist on using vi, that's your own problem and BDSM fetish.

          I use the same remote on all my machines so that everything is interchangeable and
          that no one gets confused going from room to room with the remotes. You don't have
          to go out of your way to make things hard for yourself.

          "vim" is a nice example of this.

> And if you DARE to want to record off of a non-tuned interface (RCA, e.g.)

        You mean like svideo? That's a recommended configuration.

Re:Please, just make it not suck...

[geminidomino]

> For TV/PVR functionality, it's great. Want to watch a DVD or, gods forbid, a video file? Prepare for an exercise in pain.

          What pain? Just drop it somewhere Myth knows to look.

          If you have a more "complicated" setup. You will need to tell Myth to scan your collection again to pick up the new movie.

Unless it's in a less common format. For example, anime fansubs are often found in Matroska (mkv) containers with subtitles and even multiple audio tracks built in. Back to remapping...

There's more to watching a video than just copying it onto the system. And I've never been able to just put it on the system and watch it without doing the rescan. All my videos are in /myth/video.

Not to mention the lack of NAS media server support.

> evening manually remapping the buttons with vim.

          If you insist on using vi, that's your own problem and BDSM fetish.

          I use the same remote on all my machines so that everything is interchangeable and
          that no one gets confused going from room to room with the remotes. You don't have
          to go out of your way to make things hard for yourself.

          "vim" is a nice example of this.

Way to miss the point (I'll assume you did that and you're not intentionally obfuscating it).

The point is not that you have to use vim. I prefer vim as my text editor, since I access the mythbox via ssh. But whether you're using vim, emacs, gedit, or scite, you're still remapping an extremely common remote because the stock setups are ridiculously flawed, and there's not an easier way to do it that I've found than looking at the .lircrc in one window and the mythtv keybindings in the other and making them match up, somehow.

> And if you DARE to want to record off of a non-tuned interface (RCA, e.g.)

        You mean like svideo? That's a recommended configuration.

No, I mean like Composite (fka "RCA"). To get that to work is such an amazing kluge it makes my head hurt to just remember doing it. And it didn't even work well.

I know what I'm doing, and I still find all of this to be a PITA. Moreso when I have to repeat it on upgrades. For anything other than watching TV, it is not user friendly at all.

Re:Please, just make it not suck...

[langelgjm]

It's not a joke. I've never had a problem watching video files. You've got a point with DVDs; the default mappings for remote control buttons in xine are idiotic, and in distributions like KnoppMyth, this should probably be reported as a bug and fixed. But really, edit the configuration file one time, and it's done. If it's done properly, you shouldn't have problems navigating DVD menus ever again. (Also be sure to save the config file, in case you ever accidentally overwrite it.)

Oh, and as another poster said, don't use vi if if it's such a pain. I never use it. And if you don't want to have to ever edit text configuration files by hand to get something working, well, MythTV probably isn't the right choice.

Re:Please, just make it not suck...

[geminidomino]

Oh, and as another poster said, don't use vi if if it's such a pain. I never use it. And if you don't want to have to ever edit text configuration files by hand to get something working, well, MythTV probably isn't the right choice.

No, I like vi. but it's not just a matter of editing the file. You're constantly vgrepping to cross reference the lirc mappings with the xine mappings, mythtv mappings, mplayer mappings, whatever is being used in your system. It's somewhat irritating.

Not to mention the parts that just plain don't work. I put up some images to play with the slideshow function, go into that menu, open the image and wham... instant freeze-up.

As for it not being the right choice... the most important functionality for me is the PVR, which it does fairly well (better than the alternatives at least) and since I do know what I'm doing, it's a viable option.

I don't think that means that I should not wish for improvements on the areas that it falls short.

Re:Please, just make it not suck...

[Abcd1234]

Unless it's in a less common format. For example, anime fansubs are often found in Matroska (mkv) containers with subtitles and even multiple audio tracks built in. Back to remapping...

Yeah, I actually don't use the internal player for video. mplayer does a far better job. And I use Xine for DVD playback, which works quite well.

There's more to watching a video than just copying it onto the system. And I've never been able to just put it on the system and watch it without doing the rescan.

In 0.21, just tell Myth to browse the filesystem (it's part of the MythVideo config). That's how I have the List mode set up and it works great. Coupled with Azureus and some scripting magic to automatically played downloaded content in the correct locations, and I have a system that's incredibly convenient. I just add torrents through the web interface, wait a bit, and the content shows up in Myth when it's ready.

No, I mean like Composite (fka "RCA"). To get that to work is such an amazing kluge it makes my head hurt to just remember doing it. And it didn't even work well.

Buh? At least with Hauppauge, IIRC, it was just a matter of plugging in the composite cable, along with the audio cables, and configuring the card to capture from the composite interface. Granted, it's been a while since I did that, so I could be misremembering.

Moreso when I have to repeat it on upgrades.

Huh? Myth upgrades the DB. My upgrade from 0.20 -> 0.21 literally involved backing the DB, building the new version, and then firing up the backend. Everything on the backend worked OOTB (the frontend had to be tweaked to get the playback profiles set up correctly for my VIA frontend).

Re:Please, just make it not suck...

[geminidomino]

Unless it's in a less common format. For example, anime fansubs are often found in Matroska (mkv) containers with subtitles and even multiple audio tracks built in. Back to remapping...

Yeah, I actually don't use the internal player for video. mplayer does a far better job. And I use Xine for DVD playback, which works quite well.

As do I. But the buttons still need to be remapped.

There's more to watching a video than just copying it onto the system. And I've never been able to just put it on the system and watch it without doing the rescan.

In 0.21, just tell Myth to browse the filesystem (it's part of the MythVideo config). That's how I have the List mode set up and it works great. Coupled with Azureus and some scripting magic to automatically played downloaded content in the correct locations, and I have a system that's incredibly convenient. I just add torrents through the web interface, wait a bit, and the content shows up in Myth when it's ready.

That sounds very cool. I don't s'pose you kept notes on how you set it up?

No, I mean like Composite (fka "RCA"). To get that to work is such an amazing kluge it makes my head hurt to just remember doing it. And it didn't even work well.

Buh? At least with Hauppauge, IIRC, it was just a matter of plugging in the composite cable, along with the audio cables, and configuring the card to capture from the composite interface. Granted, it's been a while since I did that, so I could be misremembering.

I don't know if it's my PVR-150 card or what, but when I try to set it up that way, it detects no tuner and ignores the "change source" command. In order to make it work, I actually had to create a second instance of my card and create the input on that. Of course, that broke other things...

Moreso when I have to repeat it on upgrades.

Huh? Myth upgrades the DB. My upgrade from 0.20 -> 0.21 literally involved backing the DB, building the new version, and then firing up the backend. Everything on the backend worked OOTB (the frontend had to be tweaked to get the playback profiles set up correctly for my VIA frontend).

That one is probably more a matter of knoppmyth than MythTV itself, admittedly. It tends to clobber things (if you're lucky) or just hose the filesystem (if you're not).

Re:Please, just make it not suck...

[Abcd1234]

That sounds very cool. I don't s'pose you kept notes on how you set it up?

Well, the Myth config is trivial. In MythVideo, there's an option to set directory browse mode on for the various view types.

As for the torrent support, I set up Azureus with the Command Runner plugin , which executes a Perl script I've extensively hacked up to automatically handle video and audio content and process it appropriately. Azureus then runs headless on my backend, and I interact with it via the HTML WebUI plugin.

I can certainly publish the script if you're interested in it, though it's pretty heavily tailored to my own configuration. Basically, it does a few things to process any downloads:

1. Unrars any rar files it finds.
2. Re-indexes AVI files with mencoder.
3. Transcodes non-OGGs -> OGGs, retags, and runs vorbisgain on them.
4. Scrubs the filenames to remove annoying characters (bangs, parens, etc).
4. Copies the media either into my incoming video directory, or the appropriate place in my music hierarchy.
5. Triggers a reindex of my ampache installation (which is what I use as my web-based audio jukebox).

Re:Please, just make it not suck...

[jedidiah]

> Unless it's in a less common format. For example, anime fansubs

          I don't even have to say anything about this one [chuckle].

> Way to miss the point

          Nope. Holding up the single most user hostile editor on the
          planet as an example of what MythTV gets you is an obvious
          sign of someone intent on blowing their foot off by any means
          necessary.

> you're still remapping an extremely common remote because the stock setups are ridiculously flawed,

          This is not a "MythTV" problem or even a "Linux" problem.

          This is a "demanding whiney user" problem.

> No, I mean like Composite (fka "RCA"). To get that to work is such an amazing kluge it makes my head
> hurt to just remember doing it. And it didn't even work well.

            All I did was plug cables into it and tell MythTV to use it.

> I know what I'm doing, and I still find all of this to be a PITA. Moreso when I have to repeat it on
> upgrades. For anything other than watching TV, it is not user friendly at all.

            This would be more of you going out of your way to make the problem more difficult than it needs to be.

            "experts" are the bane of many professions.
         

Re:Please, just make it not suck...

[saintlupus]

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/MCE_Remote

Use the box that says "example lircrc config". Although you might want to remap one of the buttons to "stop trolling".

--saint

Re:Please, just make it not suck...

[geminidomino]

Nope. Holding up the single most user hostile editor on the

          planet as an example of what MythTV gets you is an obvious

          sign of someone intent on blowing their foot off by any means

          necessary.

I never said the problem was with the text editor. It's with the PROCESS.

> you're still remapping an extremely common remote because the stock setups are ridiculously flawed,

          This is not a "MythTV" problem or even a "Linux" problem.

          This is a "demanding whiney user" problem.

Where did I "demand" anything? I pointed out shortcomings in the system. This isn't a "whiny demanding user" problem on my end, it's a "who needs easy to use" attitude on yours.

> No, I mean like Composite (fka "RCA"). To get that to work is such an amazing kluge it makes my head
> hurt to just remember doing it. And it didn't even work well.

            All I did was plug cables into it and tell MythTV to use it.

I tried that. See my other post. After a certain version upgrade, a "bug" was fixed that broke this function, according to my googling.

> I know what I'm doing, and I still find all of this to be a PITA. Moreso when I have to repeat it on
> upgrades. For anything other than watching TV, it is not user friendly at all.

            This would be more of you going out of your way to make the problem more difficult than it needs to be.

            "experts" are the bane of many professions.
       

Then suggest an easier way. Chortling because YOU don't need the functionality (wrt matroska files) and making dickish comments implying that the 85% "simple" features should be enough for anyone and anyone who sees room for improvement in the other 15% is a "whiny demanding user" is no help to anyone. Neither is simply saying "It works for me".

Re:Please, just make it not suck...

[geminidomino]

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/MCE_Remote

Use the box that says "example lircrc config". Although you might want to remap one of the buttons to "stop trolling".

--saint

Pot kettle black. Try reading the text ABOVE said box. Those mappings are for the internal video player. If that doesn't meet your needs (and it's expected that it won't for some people, which is why they let you change it), then that mapping is pretty useless.

Re:Please, just make it not suck...

[geminidomino]

Very cool. I can hack out the script to do that, the key was the Command Runner plugin.

I'll work on that over holiday break. Thanks!

Re:Please, just make it not suck...

[Enigma2175]

In 0.21, just tell Myth to browse the filesystem (it's part of the MythVideo config). That's how I have the List mode set up and it works great. Coupled with Azureus and some scripting magic to automatically played downloaded content in the correct locations, and I have a system that's incredibly convenient. I just add torrents through the web interface, wait a bit, and the content shows up in Myth when it's ready.

That sounds very cool. I don't s'pose you kept notes on how you set it up?

I don't anything about his scripting magic, but to turn browse mode on in MythVideo go to Utilities/Setup->Setup->Media Settings->Videos Settings->General Settings. Page 2 has options for "Video (Browser | Gallery | List) browses files", select the one that corresponds to your listing method (or just select all 3). Your rescanning days are over.

Re:Please, just make it not suck...

[jedidiah]

> No, I like vi. but it's not just a matter of editing the file. You're
> constantly vgrepping to cross reference the lirc mappings with the xine
> mappings, mythtv mappings, mplayer mappings, whatever is being used in
> your system. It's somewhat irritating. ...more of this BS with the riot gun and the foot.

If you use multiple apps, then setup consistent behaivor between
all of them. This really isn't a Linux issue. This isn't a Linux
problem it's an "apps in general on any platform where the HID-Nazi's
don't rule" problem.

Yes, xine isn't mplayer. That's why it's xine.

Re:Please, just make it not suck...

[jedidiah]

> Chortling because YOU don't need the functionality (wrt matroska files) and making dickish comments
> implying that the 85% "simple" features should be enough for anyone

It's closer to 99%.

You're the one being a dick whining about the most obscure crap possible while screwing up the mundane details.

Re:Please, just make it not suck...

[geminidomino]

I think I tried that setup once and got tired of the wait every time... Not sure though, I'll have to try it again.

If it is, I suppose I can just hack something up to scan periodically instead of manual or at-need.

Re:Please, just make it not suck...

[norminator]

If I understand correctly, the frustration with the remote is more about how the same keyboard keypresses do different things in mplayer or xine than they do in the actual myth UI/player, is that the case?

If so, then I used to be frustrated by the same thing. But now that I've done a frontend using Mythbuntu, they have different conf files for each app (mythtv/mplayer/xine/etc), all automatically setup when you select your remote from a pull-down menu. That way you don't have to remember different remote buttons for the same functionality in different programs. It makes things very nice.

In my case, things got a little more complicated, because I had a receiver that wasn't tied to any particular remote, and a Harmony remote that I could program with any set of codes I wanted. I tried to set up lirc from the Mythbuntu Control Center to use the Windows Media Center remote codes, but then it set up the hardware.conf file to use the driver for the MCE receiver, instead of the one I had, so I did have to do some hand-editing of that conf file, but it ended up being not too bad, once I figured out a little bit about how lirc works.

Re:Please, just make it not suck...

[Pepebuho]

> For TV/PVR functionality, it's great. Want to watch a DVD or, gods forbid, a video file? Prepare for an exercise in pain.

          What pain? Just drop it somewhere Myth knows to look.

          If you have a more "complicated" setup. You will need to tell Myth to scan your collection again to pick up the new movie.

Unless it's in a less common format. For example, anime fansubs are often found in Matroska (mkv) containers with subtitles and even multiple audio tracks built in. Back to remapping...

There's more to watching a video than just copying it onto the system. And I've never been able to just put it on the system and watch it without doing the rescan. All my videos are in /myth/video.

Not to mention the lack of NAS media server support.

Says who?
I have the video directory mapped to a linux media server through NFS and it works perfect. I even have subdirectories to separate the series I have recorded to view later. I usually nuexport them to video in order to save space on the mythtv box

Re:Please, just make it not suck...

[geminidomino]

If I understand correctly, the frustration with the remote is more about how the same keyboard keypresses do different things in mplayer or xine than they do in the actual myth UI/player, is that the case?

Something like that. I understand why that's the case, they're different programs.

I just think an easier way to do the mapping would be useful, so you don't have to worry about stepping on your own toes when mapping. If "P" is play in one app, but "Space" is play in the other, then you can change them to match. But you have to make sure you check all of the other apps to make sure that "space" isn't "Delete file" somewhere else.

Gets kind of sloppy. Something as simple as cleaning up the keymapping page on the web frontent that, ostensibly, parses the mapping files... or even better, a similar page sorted by key instead of by function.

Purely a UI issue, but could make a world of difference.

If so, then I used to be frustrated by the same thing. But now that I've done a frontend using Mythbuntu, they have different conf files for each app (mythtv/mplayer/xine/etc), all automatically setup when you select your remote from a pull-down menu. That way you don't have to remember different remote buttons for the same functionality in different programs. It makes things very nice.

See,THAT sounds nice. That is the sort of thing I'm getting at. I'll have a look at it.

Re:Please, just make it not suck...

[geminidomino]

It's only obscure until you need it. If you don't, good for you. If it's in there, someone will want to use it, and it should work.

I noticed you ignored my request to suggest an easier way, and opted to just be a douche again, so feel free to fuck right off, useless twat.

Re:Please, just make it not suck...

[norminator]

I should also mention that once those .conf files are all in place (although they don't actually have a .conf extension), you don't have to do anything at all to make them work right. That is to say, when you go into MythVideo and select a file to play and mplayer is launched, mplayer then responds to the button presses as per the mappings in the mplayer conf file, and mythtv stop responding to them. Once you hit 'stop' to exit mplayer, you're back in control of mythtv. Those auto-generated mappings are there for mythtv, mplayer, xine, vlc, xmame, and a couple of others. It makes the user experience very smooth.

Because after all, my wife shouldn't have to know that recorded programs are playing with myth's internal player and MythVideo files are played with mplayer, and MythDVD launches xine, or however it's configured. She should only have to know that the buttons do what they're supposed to -- every time.

Re:Please, just make it not suck...

[Cylix]

I watch DVD's all the time and it wasn't something difficult. You may not have the library installed for decoding it.

I'll admit remote's can be a pain, but I never had a probably debugging it. Installing the full lirc instead of some bastardized package helps there. (Though your mile may vary on the latter. I find it's best to use a newer lirc distribution). The problem with remotes I find is not so much the remote, but the IR interface. When I changed IR interfaces I just went the easy route and picked up a harmony remote.

Watching Video's is rather easy too. I have an smb share so I can just copy anything over. The settings for the video viewer need to be tweaked so it simply reads the directory. (Modifications can be made from both mythweb and I *think* the video preferences). Otherwise, it requires going into the video manager every time to refresh the database from the current files in the directory.

Switching interfaces is easy for me, but I have a button that I set to cycle interfaces. Another advantage of having a remote with lots of configuration options. I can see where the contention in scheduling might be. It would probably require binding a program listing to that interface and by default it does not do this. I don't have a reason to do this so I never had to fix it or figure it out.

I did start to setup the emulator stuff, but I need a wireless game pad first. It didn't really look that bad.

For me, it's been a hobby, so I like to mess with it on occasion and get it to do new stuff. I just have to remember to leave it in a working state when I'm done so it doesn't annoy anyone else when I'm finished.

On the last round, I setup/fixed mythstream to work with youtube, google and a few others. By far, the Apple tailors script was the best addition.

I really should set up a page that details all the fun stuff and how to fix all the little things.

Re:Please, just make it not suck...

[Cylix]

I think he is referring to a non-default interface. ie, one which does not have a program schedule attached.

ie, a vcr or other device connected to the auxiliary RCA interface. One which may not have a program guide attached to it.

It is also possible I'm thinking of the most complex setup and he just hasn't attached a program guide to his interface.

Re:Please, just make it not suck...

[Cylix]

When playing from Xine or Mplayer you need a specific section in your lyric config to detail what buttons map to what. Once an external application is running lirc is attached to that application. ie forground.

Here is a snippet. Yes, you have to know your buttons, but that is trivial with the lirc utility irw. Just press a button and it will spit out the lirc name for it.

### MPlayer lirc setup

# Show OSD
begin
prog = mplayer
button = menu
repeat = 3
config = osd
end

For myth video you can set the db settings from the web interface correctly or do it from preferences. (Preferences is probably safer)

VideoBrowserNoDB: 1
VideoTreeNoDB: 1

Next, just setup an smb share and make sure your default permissions are readable by mythtv.

When you create a second instance of a card you have to make sure they are not in the same group. (or are) I can't remember, but the mythsetup menu tells you what to do. This keeps them from being used at the same time. just creating a second interface will appear as two tuners.

This is exactly what I thought the problem was. You are creating two instances with probably guide listings attached two both. The system believes you have a dual tuner unit! (And get a PVR400, it occupies one slot and grants you two tuners).

For upgrades, I had one issue with the old old mythweather db settings and my new mythweather db entries. I ended up deleting and re-inserting the tables to fix it. (Most will probably never run into that and it's a product of using svn releases).

Re:Please, just make it not suck...

[Cylix]

Optionally, just download an example lirc file that has everything setup.

This actually wouldn't be difficult to create.

A script which can generate similar mplayer, xine and mythtv setups from your remote. However, the main problem is simply configuring the remote. (Lirc has a wealth of remote examples in the contrib directory though so that already exists as well)

It could be an interesting project to dump into a better myth wizard.

Re:Please, just make it not suck...

[LordKronos]

Actually, matroska files work perfectly fine on my 0.21 installation. I don't know anything about dealing with multiple audio tracks in one file (never had a file like that)

Re:Please, just make it not suck...

[saintlupus]

I don't really see what you're saying -- if you want a LIRC mapping for a different application than the internal video player, how is that Myth's problem?

The reason I'm confused by this is that I've got a couple of MCE remotes that I use with my Myth box, and I was able to do so with just the sample config I linked and another one from the mplayer site (for MythVideo). I suppose I must have misinterpreted your original complaints.

--saint

XBMC

[FunkyELF]

I am a long time XBMC user. I used it pre-fork when it was called XBMP (xbox media player). I am also a MythTV user.
I would love to see MythTV completely drop the entire frontend and have MythTV be only for backend recording. If you want that old crappy mythfrontend stuff around make it a separate project altogether and let users choose between mythfrontend or XBMC.
One thing I hate about myth's front end is the use of a DB for music or videos. Why can't you browse a NFS share, samba mount, or just a local directory live? You wanna build a DB so you can sort by artist, genre or whatever...fine. Do that, but let me just browse my files.
Seriously...drop the crap, write a good plugin for XBMC and be done with it.

Not trying to knock MythTV. It rocks as a recorder and has an awesome web interface...but thats about it. Playback is pretty lousy. XBMC is an awesome at everything it does.

Re:XBMC

[spagetti_code]

You know you can do that now right? Both mythbuntu and knoppmyth support backend-only installs.

Re:XBMC

[Anonymous Coward]

XBMC currently has built in support to act as a myth frontend for playback. There is nothing stopping you from doing this right now. That's basically my setup, I use mythweb to schedule recording, and XBMC as a front end.

The main problem is that you can't set picture settings by filetyle in XBMC. I'd like to be able to set it up so that all mpgs (my myth files) have certain zoom, aspect ratio and deinterlace settings, and have a different set for my downloaded avi's, but you can't do that.

Re:Considering now...NOT

[Abcd1234]

It is a hacker's TIVO. I have tried it and had nothing but difficulty in getting things the way I wanted it. I spent hours...not to mention that ATI drivers in linux just suck.

Which illustrates a vital lesson when building anything based on Linux: FFS, do your god damned research! Every MythTV FAQ out there tells you to stick with NVIDIA, as the Linux support is far superior. The fact you didn't do this basic diligence is your own damned fault.

MythTV is great, so long as you take the time

[compgenius3]

I absolutely love MythTV, yeah I'll admit it's cost waay more than I originally thought it would, and I've spent far too much time working with it and maintaining it, but that's part of the fun. This past summer I finally reached a point where I don't have regular issues. Mostly it was an issue of getting hardware that had strong support. My suggestion to anyone looking to build a MythTV box, pick out some hardware then look on the Wiki for any issues. Overall, while it has been a huge time sink, MythTV has been an amazing learning experience and has gotten me into Linux more than I ever would have otherwise.

Re:MythTV is great, so long as you take the time

[Cybershark302]

I agree 100% except for the point about cost. A few weeks ago I upgraded my first mythbox venture to the following for $307 shipped:

1TB HDD
E7200 CPU
2GB memory
Foxconn mATX board with HDMI out (nVidia 7100 onboard)

It runs a pair of Pinnacle 800i HD tuners and I haven't had any issues for it. I'm running mine in gentoo (control freak issues) and it even has the full support of the girlfriend...It's actually that simple.

It has taken a while to get it all tweaked out (3-4 weeks of intermittent playtime), but now it reliably grabs all my shows and I don't miss anything...

Re:MythTV is great, so long as you take the time

[Nesman64]

I second this. MythTV has been on my todo list for the last several years. Even though it took a while to get set up, it was a labor of love. If you are dreading the setup, MythTV isn't for you.

It's like the guys who buy hotrods and spend more time tinkering than driving.

Now that it's running, I haven't really had to tinker with it much. I keep it locked in a spare room and load the frontend on a laptop.

I think the coolest thing that I've done with it was using it for transcription assistance: I had a VHS tape with an interview on it to transcribe and it was taking forever. Type. Stop. Rewind. Rewind further. Hands back to Keyboard. Type. Stop...
Now, I connect the vcr to the input on MythTV and record channel 3 while the tape plays. Keyboard shortcuts let me skip back a few seconds, and I work that button with my foot. This was about 5x faster.

Re:Considering now...NOT

[jedidiah]

I would like to offer a ME TOO.

Sure, it can suck if you've already got some ATI video
card (why though, even in Windows). However, most of the
interesting stuff in MythTV is not stuff you are going to
typically just have lying around already.

You're going to have to buy a capture device and perhaps
a separate remote. So do a little basic checking and see
what's recommended. Nevermind about it merely "just
working". How about trying to figure out what "works well".

Linux works very well on the best low profile computing gear out there.

Do your research

[UnknowingFool]

Before trying MythTV, do your research. Many of the complaints so far are from people who had trouble getting to work tried to do too much. Here are some guidelines:

1. Do some research on hardware
2. DO NOT USE ATi cards.
   Some people have gotten them to work but support for ATi on Linux is lacking. Before anyone complains about the huge cost of getting a new card, you can get a cheap nVidia (FX5 or higher) for as little as $30.
3. Try it out using a Live CD
   Don't wipe out your system just yet wondering if it will work. Use a live CD and see if it work at all. If it doesn't, you can eject the disc and reboot without any harm to your system. Currently, MythDora, Mythbuntu, and KnoppMyth are the top versions
4. Understand what you want, what you need.
   For basic DVR functionality installing one the previous versions mentioned above is easy enough for most people. To get all the features, you might have to invest in some hardware. To get a networked system, you're going have to know more about Linux. For digital OTA HD TV, you need a digital OTA tuner and a video card with at least DVI out. If you are staying on analog cable and TV, you can get it running on very cheap hardware. Right now using a digital cable tuner is not fully supported as these boxes don't always have API documentation.

Re:Do your research

[Techman83]

+1 for Knoppmyth! It was one of the distributions I cut my teeth on. After hitting many brick walls with Windows based solutions, by hitting brick walls I mean a box that sat there and "Just Worked", I found Knoppmyth. It was a learning curve, but the documentation is very good, the forums are friendly and it is a pretty much set and forget solution which my better half can use.

Re:Do your research

[Techman83]

I should also say apart from My remote, capture card, case (Case was to improve WAF) and now video card (Improved HD Playback) the rest of the box was built entirely from parts I had laying around. I have been collecting parts to rebuild it when Knoppmyth R6 comes out, as I think the current box will be nearing the end of it's life (7 years old, the caps are looking bulgy!) and the Half TB of space is running out fast!

Could Write A DVR in Time Spent Tweaking MythTV

[glennrrr]

I have a MythTV in my basement. I've occasionally patched minor bugs in MythTV. I've even written a semi-popular iPhone remote control for MythTV. But the thing about this kind of do it yourself project is the amazing amount of time it wastes.

Think about it. If MythTV has (completely bogus numbers to follow) 100,000 users--and being MythTV users they are technically skillful--and it takes them an average of a 40 hour work week of tweaking to dial things in, then that is 4 Million hours which could be spent elsewhere. Like for instance doing something good for society like improving Linux's power management system; or writing a DVR which just works.

I did learn an awful lot about installing Linux packages.

And open source is supposed to compete with packages like EyeTV where the user is watching TV and scheduling shows in under an hour. I don't know about other people, but I would sell 40 hours of my time for somewhere in the neighborhood of $3000 for short term projects. It's like saying recycling cardboard is cost effective if you don't value the labor of the homeowner sorting it.

locking for a standard PVR backend

[toesterdahl]

MythTV is an as popular as unsuitable entry point for people to Linux. Lots of people seem to be trying Linux because of MythTV and just as many seem to be failing on it and leave Linux behind very frustrated. MythTV setup is probably allright if you work with databases and some system config on a daily basis, if you don't it is just to complicated. Unfortunately there is not so many good recording back-ends out there while there is plenty of good media-box apps. Best thing for the community would be if MythTV opened up to become the standard API for video recording and timeshifting. It definitely should do recording, timeshifting and playback. Perhaps it should do scheduling of new recordings. It does not need to do front-ends, tv-tables or managing channels. It might do also these things, but it would certainly do the rest of us a good favour if it openened up for using the backend with other front-ends.

Its Team MediaPortal for my PVR

[Whyzzi]

I had evaluated many-a-free pvr about 1.5 years ago. I explored KnopMyth, MythTV on Ubuntu using packages, LinuxMCE and even Windows Media Center. Iâ(TM)ll tell you that Windows Media Center didnâ(TM)t last because Microsoftâ(TM)s totally anal adherence to the broadcast flag.

Being a geek and an owner of the fabled nForce2 Soundstorm, I wanted to use Dolby Digital Live technology on any and every piece of audio (including 2 channel mp3s) played through the SPDIF connector of my home theater PC to my Dolby Digital Amp. Because of this my choices were pretty limited.

Now, there are Ubuntu âoehow tosâ out there that can help you enable DDL? (multi-channel SPDIF out) under linux. And it actually works pretty well. I ran that for a few months and thats when I discovered that the hard drive I was using was too small + I wanted to evaluate other pvr software.

Vista doesnâ(TM)t support DDL for nForce2 /w soundstorm, so Vista was short lived. And through a slashdot post like this one I discovered a Windows based Open Source PVR software from Team-MediaPortal.

MediaPortal allows me to avoid the broadcast flag, continue to use take advantage of proprietary windows drivers (XP on nForce2 /w DDL Soundstorm) and be proud to use Open Source (albeit on a proprietary o/s). MediaPortal's community continues to be vibrant and actively developed including windows executable scripts to pull xml tv listings for my area. It's also nice to drop out of tv record mode and play the odd windows game.

Mod Parent Up, Down With Mod Abuse

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on. Anytime someone has a REAL comment on Linux rather than a "OMG I wanna sux linux cock" comment, someone mods it "flamebait."

Get real. Linux has problems. If linux is going to grow into a real contender in the market, these problems need addressing. The fact that Parent poster has had problems with MythTV and gotten lousy support is not "flamebait", it is A PROBLEM WITH LINUX.

But of course to the abusive slashdot mod system, Linux is from god and anyone who says it's not perfect must be punished, apparently.

Re:Mod Parent Up, Down With Mod Abuse

[jedidiah]

Nope... it's the same old tired BS. It's nothing new.

You could have plucked this message from 1998.

Yeah, Linux doesn't "support everything". You're building an
interesting system. Howabout trying to use a couple of brain
cells while doing it.

Anymore Linux problems boil down to mindless consumer practices as much as anything else.

Get back to us when your monopolysoft variant has support for the Haupauge 1212.

Fine, I'll take you on.

[Moryath]

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/ATI_HDTV_Wonder

Instructions fail for 8.10.

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/ATI_Remote_Wonder_II

Again, instructions fail for 8.10.

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/ATI_All-in-Wonder_HowTo_(English)

All the page says is "will not work, will not record."

How do you call that "supported"???

Re:Fine, I'll take you on.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds more like a problem with Ubuntu than with your hardware or MythTV. Have you tried a different distribution?

Re:Fine, I'll take you on.

[PrescriptionWarning]

actually its a problem with ATI hardware, they have really bad linux support in general, at least mine have (both the standard tuner and the all-in-wonder)

You're missing the point.

[Moryath]

The point is not "to buy compatible hardware from the start."

I've run this box for years, through various iterations. Every time I mention what I have set up, some linuxtard has to bitch and moan about why I'm not using MythTV/MythBuntu/etc instead because "oh itz so much bettor the linuz guyz rox."

The point is, I built my box, I have used the software I wanted, and I gave the Linux guys their fair shot at earning their chops by seeing whether or not their supposedly "superior" software would run well on my setup.

IT DOESN'T. NEVER HAS.

Every time I've taken them up on their bet, sure enough, it fails. Just like the dork above who got modded "insightful" above for providing wiki-links that provide "proof" in his mind that the stuff is "well supported"... when what they ACTUALLY say is (A) here's a bunch of hoops to jump through and (B) once you've jumped through the hoops, MAYBE it'll work, MAYBE it won't, and the instructions are also based on distributions 2-3 generations old and don't work on the (not precisely recent) Ubuntu 8.10 even.

Re:You're missing the point.

[Anonymous Coward]

MythTV won't run on my lawn mower either. That's a load of crap! Every time I try to load it on my mower, it's epic FAIL! My lawn mower cost me hundreds of dollars, and it's MYTHTV's DAMNED FAULT!!!11 My money was wasted, and I want the mythtv developers to REIMBURSE ME FOR MY LAWN MOWER!

Re:You're missing the point.

[Medievalist]

The point is not "to buy compatible hardware from the start."

I agree totally. Screw that, I'm sticking with my 486 because it totally ROXXORS!

I've run this box for years, through various iterations. Every time I mention what I have set up, some linuxtard has to bitch and moan about why I'm not using MythTV/MythBuntu/etc instead because "oh itz so much bettor the linuz guyz rox."

The point is, I built my box, I have used the software I wanted, and I gave the Linux guys their fair shot at earning their chops by seeing whether or not their supposedly "superior" software would run well on my setup.

IT DOESN'T. NEVER HAS.

That's EXACTLY RIGHT! It doesn't run on my 1971 Buick 4-door either because IT TOTALLY SUCKS!!!

Every time I've taken them up on their bet, sure enough, it fails. Just like the dork above who got modded "insightful" above for providing wiki-links that provide "proof" in his mind that the stuff is "well supported"... when what they ACTUALLY say is (A) here's a bunch of hoops to jump through and (B) once you've jumped through the hoops, MAYBE it'll work, MAYBE it won't, and the instructions are also based on distributions 2-3 generations old and don't work on the (not precisely recent) Ubuntu 8.10 even.

Yeah, instructions, hardware compatibility lists, and support forums are for LOSERS because REAL MEN NEVER FOLLOW DIRECTIONS!!!

Which reminds me - does anybody know how to get to Pismo Beach from here? I think I took a wrong turn in Albuquerque.

Re:You're missing the point.

[Anonymous Coward]

clearly you should not build your own PVR and instead should buy or lease a tivo/whatever.

Re:You're missing the point.

[UnknowingFool]

The point is, I built my box, I have used the software I wanted, and I gave the Linux guys their fair shot at earning their chops by seeing whether or not their supposedly "superior" software would run well on my setup.

What is the point of hardware compatibility lists then? It has been well documented that ATi cards will not work very well. Your unwillingness to change out incompatible hardware only meant you didn't really give MythTV a fair shot. I suppose if you couldn't get Vista to run on a PII, it would somehow be Microsoft's fault, requirements be damned.

Re:Considering now...NOT

[tchapin]

Yes, SageTV has it's problems (just check their forums) but when I was evaluating media center servers + front ends, it offered the best feature set and ease of use. I love the fact that you can buy client boxes (like the MVP or the HD one) that entail no maintenance, are silent, and use less electricity.

There are a lot of things in SageTV that point to the fact that it was originally developed by developers for developers. The default interface is butt ugly and not very user friendly. If it wasn't for the SageMC interface that some guy developed, I would not have purchased Sage. Many people still have to make a registry change to increase their Java heap size. Lots of people do report problems with their setups though. However, the software is now present on Mac, Linux, and Windows, which is great.

Also, the company is not very communicative. There is one "community liaison" type who frequents the forum, but he often gives snarky or non-helpful answers. There is a core of long-time users who answer lots of people's questions and in a sense throw their weight around. It's a lot like the typical open source community... :)

If you want to, you can tweak the hell out of the software and install all sorts of stuff (like a NetFlix watch it now viewer, etc). Most of the tweaking can be done via a remote control through the client box. However, the architecture for plugins makes them difficult to install and get working. They also offer a software client that you can use from a PC.

I don't like the fact that they have an obfuscated database format.

Overall though, I've been very happy with SageTV. It was easy to set up and get working and I've had no major problems. Plus, the transition from Tivo was pretty easy in terms of the user interface.

Todd

Mod Up, +1 Insightful Please

[M1rth]

All the responses posted to this one - especially those labeled "insightful" have themselves been either flamebait or ridiculous, while this one got the bad break of an early mod-down by a linux partisan who can't face the real problems within Linux.

Linux, at its core, is NOT user friendly. You can whine and complain all you like, but when normal hardware requires a ton of command-line stuff to push through and a script from a wiki site that may or may not work on YOUR particular distribution (and there's no standard between the distros) it is a LINUX problem that doesn't go away just because Linux people shout "we hate Micro$oft" really loudly.

The Linux community HAS to get beyond the idea that people ought to be building boxes specifically to run Linux. Parent post is a GREAT example of this: someone who's run a windows-based PVR for years, who gives Linux and MythTV a try, and finds out it doesn't work right.

This is the kind of person the Linux crowd is trying to convert to their cause, and yet what do they do when he gives them a shot? When he comes for help, does the Linux community help? Do they deal honestly and openly and say "yeah, we're having some trouble with this hardware right now, we're working on it and sorry it didn't work right"?

No.

He gets an insulting and completely undeserved "-1 Flamebait" moderation, he gets a dick posting a bunch of wiki links to old instructions that don't work on the latest distribution any more, and he gets spat on by a bunch of jerks who insult him for "buying the wrong hardware."

One actually insinuates that he's part of some giant DRM cabal simply for making a purchase of certain hardware years ago.

THIS IS WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE LINUX COMMUNITY. Instead of being honest and open, instead of working on solutions, instead of having the simple integrity necessary to admit that their stuff didn't work and may need to be improved, they shout "heretic" and "burn it at the stake" whenever someone from "the outside" comes in... and these are exactly the kind of people they will one day need to win over if Linux is to succeed and get out of being a niche thing.

You got that?

Re:Mod Up, +1 Insightful Please

[UnknowingFool]

My problem isn't that the user tried MythTV and found it lacking. My problem is the user tried MythTV with hardware that was documented would not work very well and then blamed MythTV and Linux that they didn't work very well. For years, on many websites, it was quite clear that ATi would not work very well. Users were advised to use nVidia or even VIA for onboard video. Had the user done some basic research, he would have saved himself some headache.

Re:Mod Up, +1 Insightful Please

[eldepeche]

Maybe the developers who maintain a website that clearly said "We are working on hardware support. X and Y don't work except for on version A of distro B, unless you can figure it out, sorry," are a little tired of people coming in and saying IT DOESN'T WORK all the damn time. It's a DVR, it requires specialized hardware, and a limited number of developers can't support everything. If, when it doesn't work, your reaction is, "This is shit," don't be surprised if they don't take it well. Without hardware support, they won't be able to convince you it's any good anyway, so why the fuck would you cop an attitude?

Re:Mod Up, +1 Insightful Please

[M1rth]

If you read the post, the following things were pretty clear:

(A) The hardware was designated LONG before he even considered trying Linux.
(B) The cost to purchase other hardware is prohibitive at this point in time.

My problem is the user tried MythTV with hardware that was documented would not work very well and then blamed MythTV and Linux that they didn't work very well.

As long as Linux's community is more content to groan and whine and point fingers rather than fixing problems, Linux is in trouble. Whether or not they particularly like ATi, Linux will not grow by insisting on only certain hardware - first because it needs as much compatibility as possible, and second because it causes just such bad experiences like this when linux zealots are overenthusiastic and tell people that their system will run find and be ultra-happy with Linux when it quite possibly won't be.

The other problem I see here is the sheer number of linux zealots outright flaming the guy for telling what his problems were.

Let's face it, the LAST thing you want to do is tell someone who eventually you'd like to become a linux user (and they claim they want everyone to use Linux) "you suck", "you shouldn't be allowed to have a computer", "you should just get a Tivo", "you're stupid for buying hardware X", or anything else of the sort. You only contribute to their negative impression of Linux by doing so.

Anyone with any marketing sense will at this point remind you: one upset customer is worth 100 happy customers. People may tell one or two friends about their good experience at Restaurant X, but they will tell EVERYONE about Restaurant Y where the food was burned, the waitress was rude and late and caught making out with the busboy rather than checking her tables, and the check came back with a 20% gratuity already added on despite the crappy service. The same holds true for this: instead of this guy having one experience and saying "oh well, I guess it didn't work out" he's tried again and again, each time being told "ok they fixed it now, it'll work", each time it doesn't, AND he gets flamed by idiots and linux zealots for even bringing his bad experience up.

In the long run, this kind of behavior has only hurt the Linux community, and Linux zealots really need to realize this. You've driven away a ton of potential users.

Downmodding someone who's had a bad experience with a Linux distribution or a piece of Linux software isn't going to help, and neither is badmouthing them.

Now for my personal issue:

The documentation I've found, for any flavor of Linux, is (in descending order of maddening potential)

(A) poorly written
(B) contradictory
(C) arcane (as in, has a bunch of steps and scripts that would work fine... as long as NONE of them has a problem, in which case good luck finding out how the problem occurred or how to fix it)
(D) written for the wrong version (instructions for Ubuntu Feisty Fawn no longer worked correctly on Gutsy Gibbon, no longer worked correctly on Hardy Heron, etc)
(E) simply not present.

That's a problem. That's at least as big a barrier to entry as insisting people build a new box for their Linux purpose, rather than being able to use existing hardware that they probably purchased long before anyone even asked them to try Linux out.

And just to be perfectly clear, and at the risk of repeating myself: you can't go around badmouthing people for having the "wrong" hardware when you are the ones trying to get them to use your software.

No wonder people don't take Linux seriously on the big market. I'm starting, based on the behavior of writers in this thread, to wonder if they actually want people to use Linux or not.

Re:Mod Up, +1 Insightful Please

[Anonymous Coward]

(A) The hardware was designated LONG before he even considered trying Linux.

Which means he did not have the appropriate hardware. He would have known had he done some basic research.

As long as Linux's community is more content to groan and whine and point fingers rather than fixing problems...

Either your definition of "linux community" only includes n00b zealots or you are not paying attention. The ball is in ATI's court, has been for some time, and there's really nothing the "linux community" can do about it.

Let's face it, the LAST thing you want to do is tell someone who eventually you'd like to become a linux user (and they claim they want everyone to use Linux) "you suck"...

The person doing this is apparently not the same person who was pushing linux. Has it occurred to you that within "the linux community" there may be different wants, personalities, and responses?

In the long run, this kind of behavior has only hurt the Linux community, and Linux zealots really need to realize this. You've driven away a ton of potential users.

This is just passive aggressive. "Really, I'm just trying to help you. You need to hear this." Please. Anyone who is turned off of a product because of someone using that product calls them a bad name is either an idiot or a liar. The fact is, linux didn't work for him. That's it. All the rest of it is just him whining about someone calling him a name and it has nothing to do with linux.

And that's the crux of the problem: He's conflating his interpersonal experience with "linux" and "the linux community". Assholes are assholes whether they use linux or not.

Downmodding someone who's had a bad experience with a Linux distribution or a piece of Linux software isn't going to help, and neither is badmouthing them.

How do you know "the linux community" downmodded this guy? All he has done is demonstrated his own unreasonableness and if you've read the entire thread you must surely realize that he is also an insufferable ass.

Now for my personal issue:

More conflating! Yay!

Re:Mod Up, +1 Insightful Please

[UnknowingFool]

Let's face it, the LAST thing you want to do is tell someone who eventually you'd like to become a linux user (and they claim they want everyone to use Linux) "you suck", "you shouldn't be allowed to have a computer", "you should just get a Tivo", "you're stupid for buying hardware X", or anything else of the sort. You only contribute to their negative impression of Linux by doing so.

No part of my post said anything of the sort. My post said that he used hardware that was not well supported in MythTV or Linux. His problems were not exclusive to MythTV.

And just to be perfectly clear, and at the risk of repeating myself: you can't go around badmouthing people for having the "wrong" hardware when you are the ones trying to get them to use your software.

No part of my post said anything negative about he OP. My post said that it was not a fair test of MythTV to use unsupported hardware and that he shouldn't complain about inadequate help when someone tries to help him for free. I tried to point that much of the issues around driver support in Linux occurs from the hardware companies not aiding the Linux community. Most of these companies will write a driver for Windows because they know that they have to do so, but they won't even release some specifications to help Linux. Now that Linux is more supported some of them are starting to see that it makes sense to do so. I also suggested that open source means he can go solve his own problems if he had wanted to fix it himself. It's like Gandhi once said: "Be the change you want to see in the world."

The problem isn't the GUI. . .

[kimvette]

Uh, sorry, the problem isn't the GUI. The problem is the extremely painful installation and configuration process.

Until there are easier methods to get tuners configured, finding the right firmware files (oh, sure, go grab the OEM Windows installer, extract a binary blob, place it somewhere under /usr/local, edit /etc/config/foo$, run insmod, watch it fail, retry with a different driver version, etc.), and then configure the dbms by hand, etc. it won't gain much acceptance. Add in major lag between remote clicks and seeing the response on screen (rendering cable guides somewhere painful and useless because the Myth display lags behind somewhere between 500ms and 750ms on a PVR-150 card) and you've got a recipe for failure.

I have a lot of patience in dealing with hardware configuration, but Myth is just too painful to spend any time on.

Improve the installation/configuration process. Include a proper compatibility list - and keep it updated.

Also where are component or HDMI input options? HDCP/DRM be damned, we need a high-def PVR option. Screw Tivo or cableco DVRs where the recordings are tied to that EXACT box. If the box dies, so does access to recordings on an external HDD.

That's not to say the new GUI isn't nice, nor to underplay the importance of GUI design. It's just that the GUI is not Myth's problem in gaining mass acceptance.

Re:The problem isn't the GUI. . .

[swb]

You're right, but I've had good luck using TivoDesktop and "Direct Show Dump Utility" to transfer programs from my S3 to a PC and get burnable DVDs. If you pay money to the partner DVD software company (Roxio?) you can do it without the hackery of DSDU (which was easy to download and use) and rolling your own DVDs.

Other that, though, you're dead-on. IMHO, Myth needs to be merged with or create their own bootable distribution and be done with it. The fscking around people seem to be willing to do to record the crap on TV boggles my mind; I have a hard time even watching the crap let alone investing hours making my own DVR. I'd much rather spend the $600 or whatever it is for a S3 and a lifetime subscription and be done with it for 5 years or so.

Re:The problem isn't the GUI. . .

[Cylix]

Maybe a few years ago, but the hauppage firmware files have been included forever.

Firmware files have been standardized in regards to location. ie "/lib/firmware" across many different drivers. The general sweep in this direction happened when I still used my dxr3. (looong time ago).

In fact, the ivtv driver is pretty much automatic now. It's been that way for a while unless you use the PVR350. (Which isn't bad for an all in one single tuner solution if you want to spend the time making it right).

In fact, pretty much all of your complaints are ancient from the early days.

HDMI is a duplicate of the video interface. Just like you configure svideo you can configure HDMI.

Setup is probably the largest complaint and it's almost valid. A lot of distributors and rpm repositories make it fairly easy. I still use fedora + atrpms, but the mythbunto setup sounds like they really worked towards ease of use.

The display handling has really improved, but again I use newer builds.

Mod -1 COMPLETELY UNINFORMATIVE

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when does posting off-topic, incorrect, out-of-date and irrelevant information count as "informative"??????????

Re:Mod -1 COMPLETELY UNINFORMATIVE

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a WIKI. If its out of date, why don't you fix it instead of complaining? He was just trying to point out a good starting point; and as others have said it seems to be a problem with Ubuntu, not with Linux or Myth.

No mention of VDR?

[ZERO1ZERO]

MythTV feels like using a computer to watch TV. Why does ther have to be so many menus and things? Look at VDR for a lesson on how to do a GUI.

SageTV

[PhotoGuy]

Disclaimer: I have no affiliate with SageTV (sagetv.com), but am a very satisfied customer.

I've used MythTV for years, doing all the tweaks, upgrades, fixes, as required. I never did get the remotes working as well as they should have, but that's minor.

Then I tried SageTV. It has a lot of the same "spirit" of SageTV, probably because it's largely developed by one person (if I'm not mistaken). It has a lot of Java, .property files, and hooks for plugins, extensions, video subsystems, etc..

It just works, and it works well; better than Sage, I'm sorry to say, but would be lying to say otherwise. Purchasing the server (OS X, Linux, or Windows) gives you official listings (without all the grief of Myth listings).

If you're a Myth fan, I think it's worth checking out. It's not open source, but there comes a time when one has to figure out what's more important; ideology or watching TV :)

Re:SageTV

[PhotoGuy]

Actually, one other point worth making. SageTV really has the "remote client" thing down. You can buy SageTV Client copies that work on a specific PC/Mac/Linux box. Or, you can buy a "placeshifter" license that keeps track on the central server, how many units are connecting to it. The placeshifter (again) "just works." It finds the media server, it plays the media, handling all the licensing automatically. (If you go beyond the license count, you get a "TRIAL" work printed here and there on your screen.) Placeshift also auto-adapts to the bandwidth available, so you can even use it over the 'net.

Yes, if you never want to pay a dime, Myth is a good option. But the amount of time I put into configuring myth, and the lackluster ability to have multiple network viewing clients, make Sage a good alternative.

Again, sorry if this looks like spam or astroturfing; it's not, I'm just a very happy customer who's been through the SageTV thing.

I had MythTV. . .and I miss it

[lisnter]

I had a ~900GB MythTV box for three or four years until I recently upgraded to FiOS TV. Unfortunately, my TV capture card (Hauppauge) doesn't recognize the channels I care about most (SciFi, BBC America). I don't know if this is fixable but in my limited free-time it didn't make the cut to figure out.

I really miss that machine. Aside from having hundreds and hundreds of hours of record-time, I found the interface and functionality far superior to my Verizon-provided DVR. Other posters are correct in that getting MythTV up and running can be a bit of a chore, though it has improved a lot, once you spend the time to get it going it's quite bullet-proof.

Waiting for the CLI only recorder

[njdevil_0]

With all these pointless colorful interfaces, Im still holding out for a nice CLI based recorder and X.264 encoder for HD or SD.... # python record.py (show_name) (channel) (start_time) (record_for_Y_hours) > Generates an output file such as: PushingDaisies_11-19.avi # ls (to display a list of recorded shows) # python play.py (show_name).avi