[mythtv-users] Live TV playback frustration

[Thomas Mashos]

<snip>
> 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.
>

I honestly question whether this works how you have explained it. How
could it let you go back to the beginning of a LiveTV broadcast unless
it had been recording every channel in the event you might want to
watch "Live TV". Now it might always be recording the current show on
the channel that the "Live TV" tuner is tuned to, but that A) isn't
what you described, and B) doesn't lend itself at all to using
multiple types of tuners/sources.

> 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".
>

Hmm, my brother (who isn't technical and I set up a MythTV system for)
hired a 15 year old babysitter who picked it up without an issue.

> 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?").

Further, does you wife actually say that? Does a theme exist that
calls it "Live TV"?

Like it or not, sometimes the different isn't the best way to do
something, and in that case I will most definitely tell someone the
better way to do it.

> 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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Thanks,

Thomas Mashos