[mythtv-users] More problems than it's worth?

[Nick]

On 24/02/06, James Minihane <j.minihane at minihane.tzo.com> wrote:
> Initially I thought MythTV was THE ANSWER. But reading these lists, it
> seems that MythTV is more of a headache than a godsend. I'm not about to
> invest a few thousand in hardware into a problem ridden system.

Then don't. You have a choice. Start small if you're interested and
see how it goes. A second-hand PIII and a BT878 capture card is enough
to see if it works.

> Here's the question...
> How many of you actually use MythTV to...
> Time delay live TV, watch DVDs, schedule recordings, listen to music, and
> view pictures and actually have things work without reboots etc?

Reboots? We're not in Redmond any more ...

I don't have any real issues on my 2BE/3FE setup. However, I'd never
advise spending 'a few thousand' on hardware unless you know it is
supported from the outset (ditto for XPMCE). I've stuck to using
RHEL/Fedora (because that what I'd run before), PVR-350/150 cards, and
supported DVB cards and not had any real problems. The key issue I
faced were waiting for mainline kernel support for DVB. PVR support is
always improving. The fact that DVB and ivtv are entering the kernel
is causing issues when users move from older kernels. This is not a
MythTV issue.

I use 0.18.1 and haven't updated to 0.19 yet for the prime reason that
there will undoubtedly be (and are) some problems with the plethora of
different hardware/software combinations that users have. These will
be fixed. With a 'consumer appliance' like MythTV, I prefer to have a
stable running system that does wha I want rather than constantly
upgrade to the latest and greatest and face problems. A lot of people
run 0.19 without issue. I will upgrade in due course. The devs do a
fantastic job. Also remember, a proportion of MythTV users are new not
only to MythTV but also to Linux.

I'd say its worth persevering with if you're interested.

Nick