[mythtv] Will the wife like it?

John S Flowers mythtv-dev@snowman.net
Fri, 20 Dec 2002 00:46:50 -0600


Forgot to answer your actual questions.

(inline)

On Thursday, December 19, 2002, at 11:42  PM, John S Flowers wrote:

>> I would like to have a better feel for:
>> - how the resolution/quality level of the video from MythTV compares 
>> to
>> Tivo/Replay

At 640x480 using MPEG-4, I think it compares very well to the Replay or 
TiVo "Medium" quality setting. I do not think the menu system compares 
well at all to the clean icons and text on the TiVo or ReplayTV, even 
with a VGA2NTSC converter. I've had to crank the font size up and play 
with fonts to get the text to a point where it is bearable, even on a 
large screen television.

(I might be missing some crucial detail here. Maybe others don't have 
this experience)

>> - what features of the Tivo/Replay software and remote will my wife 
>> forego
>> if I build a MythTV box

The remote is a pain. It's been discussed.

You're missing the ability to do keyword searching for shows, build 
show "theme" channels, create categories and a few other things. Most 
of them are not very interesting.

The feature I miss (from Replay) is the organization of shows in 
categories, by date recorded. That way, I always know what show was 
recorded most recently and which order I should watch the recordings in.

>> - reliability of MythTV: how many of you have lost shows or missed
>> recordings because of hardware/software or just configuration issues

I've missed a few shows. I can't seem to leave the unit alone long 
enough to see if it will run for weeks without a problem. My guess is 
it would run fine, but I have no proof past 4-5 days of uptime.

/-
| John S Flowers  <johnsflowers | j.flowers > @mac.com 
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