[mythtv-users] Hardware databases

[Brian Phillips]

Brad DerManouelian wrote:
> On Jan 28, 2009, at 10:00 PM, jedi wrote:
> 
>>    Yes, the "I can do it therefore everyone else can" approach.
>> 
>>    This breaks down far too easily, especially in a user community
>> that may be comfortable with assembler, C++ or SQL.
> 
> I promised myself I wouldn't respond any more to this thread, but
> when you suggest it's too hard for someone to read a wiki page to
> find hardware recommendations (right up there with programming
> assembler), I really am at a loss for what solution you would propose
> that would be easier. Please enlighten me.. I'm all ears.    

I agree the wiki is a valuable resource.  It can provide minute details
about how to get a piece of hardware working and, depending on the author,
can be quite easy to follow.

However, the biggest drawback I see with a wiki, and the reason I suggested
an automatic script that submitted a hardware listing, was two-fold:
1) create a "behind the scenes" submission.  I know I haven't edited the
wiki for every piece of hardware I'm running.  Mostly because I'm running
fairly common hardware and there is either a wiki page already created
and/or it works out of the box.  Editing the wiki to say "yup, works for me
too" is just a bit too much work I guess.

2) create a "popularity" listing.  Usually when a wiki page is created for a
piece of hardware, that's that.  There's no way of knowing if that piece of
hardware is used by 99% of the myth community or 1% of the community.  How
can we let new users know what they can expect to receive help with?

A wiki is great and fulfills it's niche, but it just isn't seeming to get
the job done when answering the question "What are the most common pieces of
hardware out there?"  Really, I could edit it and say "well this is the most
common hardware in my experience," but I doubt there's a person on this list
who could definitively state with 100% certainty which pieces of hardware
are popular choices and which aren't.

Just spitballing here anyway...

Brian