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

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?

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: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.

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.