Comments on: Why MythTV 0.22 Will Rock You

By: Andy

Andy — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 03:47:03 +0000

I also agree with this, and many of the comments, a love/hate relationship with MythTV. And the interface is what I dislike. I recommend LinuxMCE, it can (and I do) use MythTV for live and recording of TV. But cleans up the rough edges of MythTV. I has a much better interface, IMHO. By having an interface that’s gets out of your way, and focus’s on media, either what your playing, or a slideshow of pictures when not playing anything. It does focus on much more than TV or even media, home automation, lighting, climate, telephony, security, etc. But is nice, if your don’t mind the weight, and/or like the features. Just my 2 cents.

By: Patrick Wagstrom

Patrick Wagstrom — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 16:07:00 +0000

@Brian: The argument that most of the devs will make is NOT that MythTV is not about television, rather, that it’s not about live television. I’d have to agree with this, since getting a MythTV box, I just don’t watch live television anymore. You end up not channel surfing, just letting the tuners get everything for you.

The reason for slow channel changing is because MythTV needs to buffer a bit of the recording before it starts playing. Tivo does a similar thing, but it’s not as obvious because they’re able to manage their buffers a bit tighter than MythTV does. I’d assume the same thing is true for Windows Media Center.

Channel changing takes an even bigger hit when you’re dealing with HD signals, but this seems to be true on my TV’s tuner too, largely because it needs to acquire a signal lock and then wait for a I-Frame to start showing data. That means you’re dealing with about 1/2 second for a lock, and up to 1/2 second waiting around for an I-frame to come and refresh the picture.

With regards to Boxee and Elisa, they’re both great projects. However, neither one lets me watch and record television yet. Boxee is oh so close, but until it gets the ability to schedule and record programs, it will play second fiddle to my MythTV installation.

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 05:00:01 +0000

Even if you fix the GUI, mythtv has problems underneath it all. Lets start with the horribly slow channel change time of about 5 seconds+. If you approach mythtv developers about this problem, they’ll suggest that mythtv isn’t made for fast channel changes and that it’s more of a media platform. What?! MythTV without plugins is only for watching TV. I hate Windows Media Center, but the channel change time is less than about 1 second. Come on guys, get on it. Okay, so lets say it is just a media center app. Well then Elisa and Boxee are killing it.

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 21:35:14 +0000

That new theme is UGLY!

By: Patrick Wagstrom

Patrick Wagstrom — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 00:58:34 +0000

@uteck: The easiest way to find out when MythTV is planning a new release is just to follow on the roadmap page on the MythTV trac installation. Right now they still have a lot of work cut out for them, 27 tickets from 0.21.1 and 150 for 0.22. Of course, often times when they get near a release the devs will re-triage the bugs and punt scads of them to a new version. But given that it's been almost a year since the last release, I'd hope that once things like VDPAU are working we'd get a nice new release.

By: Patrick Wagstrom

Patrick Wagstrom — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 00:55:28 +0000

@Zach C: Thanks for the status update. When I wrote the article the VDPAU changes weren't yet backported, I see now that some folks have backported some of the VDPAU stuff. Definitely seems like something I should take a look at once I finish my dissertation. Thanks.

By: Patrick Wagstrom

Patrick Wagstrom — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 00:50:49 +0000

@Marc:

I totally agree with you Patrick. I have a love-hate relationship with Mythtv. I love its features but I hate its gui. I’ve tried all the alternatives but I always end up going back to myth. I’m really looking forward to .22, really really looking forward to it.

Totally agree with the GUI comment. Even if MythTV has a good underlying system, it still needs some folks to come up with great new themes. Luckily, it looks like the new default theme will be much better. It pains me when I see people use really old MythTV screenshots. Here's some shots of the new theme:

By: uteck

uteck — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 14:48:52 +0000

Good write up. Any idea on when .22 will be released? I think that will be the point I buy one of the Hauppauge boxes and upgrade my cable service to HD.

By: Zach C

Zach C — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 00:26:25 +0000

I’ve been running Myth out of trunk for a while now in order to take advantage of my HD-PVR as well as VDPAU. To my suprise HD-PVR support (and its drivers) have been completely trouble free. I also have been impressed with VDPAU, although it is under heavy development and some weeks are better than others. With VDPAU I can watch 720p from the HD-PVR on an old (circa 2004) Athlon 64 with about 5% CPU utilization. It really is a game changer.

Trunk isn’t really usable yet in my opinion, but it is showing a lot of promise.

By: Marc

Marc — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 22:07:47 +0000

I totally agree with you Patrick. I have a love-hate relationship with Mythtv. I love its features but I hate its gui. I’ve tried all the alternatives but I always end up going back to myth. I’m really looking forward to .22, really really looking forward to it.