Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
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?
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
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.
-=Bang Bang=-
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.
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
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.
Conor "You're not married,you haven't got a girlfriend and you've never seen Star Trek? Good Lord!" - Patrick Stewart
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
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.
df -h
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.)
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.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
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!
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
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.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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.
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.
Perhaps he's talking about mythtv-setup.
df -h
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.
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.
df -h
For anyone considering SageTV, it has it's own problems and gotchas. Having to pay for it would really piss me off.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
To be fair, the problem is Linux doesn't have much support for your cards. The problem is not exclusive to MythTV.
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.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
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.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
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.
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)
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
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.
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.
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.
Remember, that address again is Investor.Relations@amd.com.
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.
Sexual intercourse is kicking death in the ass while singing. ~Charles Bukowski
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.
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.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
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).
The troll with karma.
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.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
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.
-1: Wrong
If you think imaginary property and real property are the same, when does your house become public domain?
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.
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
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.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
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.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
...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.
"His name was James Damore."
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.
"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).
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
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.
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.
"BSD is about people pissing each other.." (Moid Vallat)
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"???
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?
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
-- !todd erases a red dot! I steal music on the internet.
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).
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
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?
If you can read this sig, congratulations, you have your glasses on!
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>
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
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.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
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.
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.
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.
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
For H D tv the silicon dust HDHomerun Unit works like a charm and works on many platforms.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
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.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
emerge mythtv
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
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.
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.
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.
If J.K.R wrote Windows: Puteulanus fenestra mortalis!
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.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
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.
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'.
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!
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
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.
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.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
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.
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.
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 :-)
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.
I think they usually use +1 Insightful for that.
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.
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...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
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)
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
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.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
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...
man, I feel like mold.
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.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
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 :)
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
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.
See you in contract court while your IP gets spread across the globe.
"Wasn't me"
"His name was James Damore."
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