[mythtv-users] Live TV playback frustration

[Ian Wilkinson]

On 23/08/2012 03:24, Paul Gardiner wrote:
> Thomas Mashos <thomas at mashos.com> wrote:
>> As much flak as I'll get for saying that you should change your
>> expectations, I still think that the people that use Live TV are
>> missing out on a better TV experience.
> As far as I understand, the people arguing for the use of Live TV, aren't suggesting using it in preference to recording. I imagine most record almost everything they watch. So they aren't missing out on the "better way". The argument is just that there are on occasion circumstances where the feature is more appropriate than setting up a recording.
>

Exactly, I find my self watching Live TV when there is only long shows
recorded and I've only got 20/30 minutes to fill.

I record everything I want to watch and have things going back years
(imported from my old box) that I'm yet to watch, but this doesn't stop
me from wanting to just watch live TV sometimes.  If I find something I
like when surfing, I'll set a rule up, and I have rules like this for
several shows, as suggested earlier in this discussion by the
anti-LiveTV fraternity.

When we got our first PVR (a Topfield Freeview box), our viewing habits
changed within a few weeks.  We went from watching most things live,
with some recorded on video to watching hardly anything live.  Most
stuff was recorded and this allowed us to watch things appropriate to
the available time.  We could also stock up on something and watch many
back to back which was great for series with long story arcs (stops the
questions referring to something that happened 6 weeks back).  So we
spend 98%+ of our watching time on recordings.

However, what this commercial PVR got right, which Myth doesn't, is that
the content is the heart of the experience.  Not LiveTV, not recordings,
but just TV.

You could setup a recording and watch it live from the recordings list
(as is the recommended method in Myth).  However, if you were channel
surfing and stumbled across it (perhaps you'd forgotten it was on but
fancied watching it there and then), you could wind back to the start of
the show without going to the recordings list.  It just used the
recording file when you reached this channel when surfing.

Does myth do this? No, it insists on creating two recordings of the same
thing, because myth is not looking at providing the user with the
content, myth is just looking at it as two different consumers that both
happen to be receiving the same data.

Don't get me started with the problem with two recordings on the same
mux using both tuners and stopping LiveTV from receiving any other mux,
or the fact that you have to /Manually/ change input to use an inactive
tuner, or to see channels on the other mux if two recordings are in
progress.  My wife asks almost every week why it won't let her see
something on ITV2 when she knows it's recording ITV1 and BBC1, the
Topfield just worked and sorted it out and she knew she couldn't get to
channel 5, etc, but was happy with the experience.

A failing hard disk pushed me towards myth from the Topfield, but the UX
from myth is terrible when compared to commercial boxes and is pushing
us away again. There is a learning curve that just wasn't there with the
Topfield, or with any commercial box I've every used Sky+, Virgin, etc. 
No visitor has ever got the hang of myth except one of my geek friends,
everyone has understood the Topfield without anything more than "Here's
how you switch it on".

Please don't misunderstand, I'm not having a go at Myth or at the Myth
developers, you've done exceptionally well to build something that can
replace 98% of a commercial product.

The fact is that most people who would want to use the software are not
developers, and so are likely to have different usage patterns/needs
/because /they don't think the same way as a developer.  They're not
wrong to think differently and you shouldn't be trying to tell them what
to think (I've tried several times, but perhaps you can explain to my
wife when she wants to watch the X-Factor live, why she has to go to the
recordings list and not LiveTV, her response? "But it is live now, so
why can't I watch it from LiveTV?").

As Mike Dean said earlier "The point is make your DVR work for you",
well it does, 98% of the time.  The 2% is the difference between a good
piece of software and a great product, and between something that we 1%
of the population that are developers can put up with and use day to
day, and what the other 99% of the population who are users are prepared
to use.

Myth is like Symbian, very flexible and very configurable, but difficult
to setup and use without a reasonable amount of knowledge of its
idiosyncrasies, when most people just want an iphone because it just works.

Sorry for the long rant, no offence was intended.

Ian.
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