[mythtv-users] Mything thomething

[Greg]

On 05/27/2011 06:27 PM, Fluf wrote:
> Heya,
>
> I've spent about 2 months now tinkering with DVB in various ways.
> Along the way I've tried MediaPortal, ForTheRecord, MythTV, the 
> various bits of terrible software you get with USB DVB sticks, looked 
> closely at freevo and almost mustered the enthusiasm to configure it. 
> I've even looked at / tried RitzDVB, AltDVB, dvbguide and the utterly 
> obscure and out of date on Windows and Linux.
> I got to trying Myth because it has an aura of "That's the ultimate 
> way to do it", and I've run Linux since Redhat 5.2, so that side 
> didn't daunt me. Usually. Once you configure something in Linux, it 
> works as you want it to, reliably, all the time .. (until a 
> distribution upgrade breaks it). It's no effort getting a continuous 
> uptime of days on Linux, so yup. Nice base for a PVR.
> After several weeks of trying to configure Myth 0.24, learning 
> mistakes, going back, correcting, starting again ... it actually 
> manages to mess up more and more often rather than less and less 
> often. The last "gotcha" was from watching the logs and seeing a 
> message that a transponder wasn't responding so I should do a re-scan. 
> So I did. What it broke I have no idea. I gave up when it only managed 
> to actually start recording 1 of the following 5 programs.
>
> Perhaps Myth 0.21 or something WAS a great bit of software that worked 
> reliably and could be debugged by someone reasonably proficient with 
> Linux. But 0.24 just plain isn't. You're limited to either the TV 
> style setup system or directly digging in to the database. The TV 
> style setup is slow to go though, (has good help prompts in places for 
> options! I'll give it that!) .. but then it fails horribly. If "Import 
> channel.conf" doesn't fully work. Why not say "It doesn't fully work" 
> or something? In fact seeing as entering your own frequency details 
> also seems to mean you don't get EIT data, that's pretty pointlessly 
> included as well. "Delete ALL" on the channels page. Doesn't "delete 
> all". I'm not sure what it does, it clears what you can see but leaves 
> a pile of mess in the database. Same with transponder details. Trying 
> to fine tune the thing with a setup program that's leaving a trail of 
> mess every time you try to do something is really NOT good.
>
> Then there's the error logging.
> When it comes to the "It should be working" stage. And it doesn't. 
> More often than not, the logs have not even mentioned the fact 
> anything went wrong. Start times are missed and expired. I've even had 
> it start recording something then forget and leave it recording till I 
> killed the backend. Not a blip in the log when it comes to the end 
> time. Just nothing. I've had it record zero length files as well but 
> log that all is fine and dandy. The one thing it does nag about in the 
> logs is all the various frontend / backend / artwork / video / fanart 
> folders ... why? I mean ... just ... DOH! What do I care if the pretty 
> pictures gets loaded from the backend or the frontend directory? In 
> fact ... why are you trying to store two copies of everything? And .. 
> if your not .. then .. ARGH!!!
>
> One thing it hasn't done is crash the backend on me. Which is actually 
> a shame. If it crashed I'd know it had fouled up and not leave it for 
> hours thinking it's managed to record things.
> I'm sure all of you lucky people that installed 0.21, 0.22, 0.23 back 
> when it was great are very happy. And well done! But .. uhm .. maybe 
> don't upgrade yet?
>
> What it actually needs is a well thought out NOT TV screen format 
> configuration utility. Something in QT perhaps that actually checks 
> and verifies what settings are entered and lets the user tweak and 
> delete .. and actually do it safely to the database. You know. "Are 
> you sure you want to delete" "Yes" then actually clear all the 
> relevant database entries? Hell I'd even go for a very long text 
> config file!
>
> But for now. Myth. I give up on you. I've spent 2 weeks now tweaking 
> and re-tweaking just myth. It doesn't take that long for me to 
> download, compile and configure all of X11 up to XFCE including 3D  
> acceleration, sound and all of the optional goodies libraries. Myth 
> shouldn't be *that* bad.
>
> So inside 2 hours. I now have ForTheRecord v1.6.0 installed on a 
> Windows 7 machine. (http://www.4therecord.eu). In that time, it's been 
> possible to tell it *exactly* which frequencies I want it to use for 
> each channel. All the EPG data works fine, and it's scheduling weeks 
> ahead including skipping repeats from the 2 USB DVB sticks I've got, 
> and I'm using DirMon2 to queue compressing the recordings with 
> Handbrake and run comskip. The only drawback is. It's running on 
> Windows. But what the ..... it works.
>
> I don't know if Myth developers read this email forum or not. But if 
> so. Guys. IMHO. Somewhere along the line, it must of become a bit of a 
> mess. Even Windows comskip does a better job than Mythcommflag .. 
> which stunned me! I'd of guessed the windows one was modelled on the 
> myth code .. but apparently not!
>
> Sigh. Well .. guess it kept me busy for a couple of weeks. Think I 
> might watch some telly now.
>
>
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My story,I never tried Linux before setting up Mythtv...I won't say it 
was easy,but the satisfaction of finally getting it to work was one of 
the best computer experiences I've had..This from a guy who's first 
computer was a Sinclair z80,put together from a kit..
   I have for several years run trunk (now Master) I can't think of a 
time It didn't work...
If you couldn't get Mythtv to run,you just weren't trying hard enough...
I am off to watch commercial free TV....
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