[mythtv-users] TV-card only (with good quality)?

Jarod C. Wilson jcw at wilsonet.com
Wed Oct 1 14:31:08 EDT 2003


On Wednesday, Oct 1, 2003, at 12:16 US/Pacific, Dan Conti wrote:

> I have a lot of opinions on this, because i have a lot of opinions on
> everything. But my short take is this - if you dont know about 
> something
> it's best not to talk about it.

I second that! Though he was asking a question, not saying he knew 
something.

> In this case (as you understand now) you
> didn't really know about the different ATI cards.

But again, he wasn't claiming he did, so I don't quite think the "don't 
talk if you don't know about it" argument works here.

> I'm sure from isaac's
> position it's just as annoying to constantly correct people as it is to
> point out where in the docs people could find their answers.

This one wasn't in the docs, per se, it was a matter of him not knowing 
that there is a very big difference between an ATI TV Wonder and an ATI 
All-in-Wonder. Perhaps a quick look at ATI's web site would have been 
in order before asking such a question, as it should have been fairly 
evident that they are two VERY different beasts.

> I can see the whole thing about curt/rude responses going on, and i've
> definitely had my share of the latter (but only when it was really 
> really
> funny)

Likewise. I'd call the 'short' or 'brief' though, not necessarily rude. 
Why should someone spend a lot of THEIR time answering your question if 
it is already answered, when you didn't bother spending YOUR time to 
find the answer yourself?

> but you have to realize that this isn't a paid support forum. This
> is people in their free time trying to help other people out, and just
> like you expect other people to invest time in helping you, other 
> people
> expect you to invest time in trying to help yourself first.

YES, you are absolutely correct here. Too many people use lists as a 
crutch, without doing any real investigation on their own... Had I seen 
a post like mine about the ATI TV Wonder, I would have definitely 
looked at ATI's web site to see if the TV Wonder and All-in-Wonder were 
different things before asking this list about it.

> As an example,
> the replies i've received have been very helpful when the problem is 
> not
> documented and i have a solid explanation; they have also been very 
> short
> when my question is answered in the manual.

Yeah, you can't expect someone to take a lot of time to respond when 
you're asking something that is already covered in-depth.

> On Wed, 1 Oct 2003, Cooper Bethea wrote:
>
>> oh, okay, i get it. i just assumed that either people were 
>> abbreviating
>> "all-in-wonder" to "wonder" or that they were running under the same
>> drivers since they were made by ati under similar names.

Don't assume.

>> maybe someone
>> could add a caveat to that note in the faq to make it less confusing -
>> something like:
>>
>> NOTE: The ATI All-in-Wonder cards (these are different from the ATI TV
>> Wonder cards, which are supported under bttv) will not work as a 
>> MythTV
>> capture device, as the GATOS drivers that are available provide only a
>> limited subset of the V4L API.

I suppose that would help clarify for those that make bad 
assumptions... :)

>> and it may not be my place to criticize here, but honestly there's a 
>> lot
>> of curtness and unfriendliness coming into this list, which is 
>> nominally
>> here to help users get going with this project.

http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

>> i understand that isaac
>> may not have time to respond fully to each question on this list, but
>> maybe in that case it's best to let someone else field the question
>> rather than give me a rude answer like "An 'ATI TV Wonder' card is not
>> even close to the same thing as an 'ATI All-in-Wonder' card."

That doesn't sound rude to me. It sounds like he was making absolutely 
certain you got the point that the two are very different. It was a 
very brief answer, because that was all the matter warranted. Now you 
know.

>> i'm not
>> asking for anyone to hold hands, and i think we certainly all 
>> appreciate
>> the work put into this project, but rudeness is counterproductive to
>> building a good user community

So are questions that shouldn't need to be answered here.

>> which would help you spend more time on
>> development (or whatever else) and less time responding to newbie
>> emails.

If newbies would do a bit more reading on their own, they wouldn't have 
to send so many messages to the list...

>> just something to think about.

Though about it, still think people need to spend more of their own 
time before copping out and asking the list. You were correct on this: 
a high value is definitely placed on RTFM.

--Jarod

-- 
Jarod C. Wilson, RHCE

Got a question? Read this first...
http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

MythTV, Red Hat Linux 9 & ATrpms documentation:
http://pvrhw.goldfish.org/tiki-page.php?pageName=rh9pvr250



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