[mythtv-users] MythTV vs XBMC

Matt Emmott memmott at gmail.com
Wed May 7 22:57:17 UTC 2014


On Wed, May 7, 2014 at 5:27 PM, Paul Harrison <mythtv at sky.com> wrote:

> With all the talk of users preferring to use XBMC my question is simple.
>
> What needs to change to make you want to use MythTV again?
>
> Paul H.
> _______________________________________________
>

As a front end, XBMC isn't good. It's just a bunch of ugly Python scripts
and doesn't work so well. And MythTV's back end is pretty great. The
underlying technology and how well it works is really a great system. That
being said, Myth has some serious drawbacks in this age of
content-everywhere:

1) Its media organization and playback, in a word, sucks. It was a nice
start when MythVideo became an integral part of MythTV and the interface
controls were united, but it's still just plain terrible. Navigation is
awful, metadata parsing is awful, usability is awful. XBMC and Plex for the
most part "just work" with media files. Back in the day I used to set up
XBMC and Boxee shortcuts in the MythTV menus and switch to those apps when
I wanted to watch any of my ripped media. Nowadays I switch to either my
Roku or Chromecast and use Plex. The devs should scrap the media playback
altogether and just find a way to bake XBMC or Plex into its interface.

2) Playback on different device - Now that I have the Plex plugin for
MythTV recordings, I can play my recordings virtually anywhere, on any
device. Plex transcodes the data for me based on my connection speed, and
it works rather well. Unlike MythTV's HLS, I can seek, pause, and resume
shows where I left off. I can watch recordings at home, at work, in the
car, and anywhere else there's internet access on my phone, tablet, work
PC, iPod, iPad, Roku and Chromecast. The closest Myth came to this was the
Torc iOS app (which is a fantastic interface as a remote but not so much
for playback), but in the end using Plex is so much easier.

3)  Setup, even of front ends: Setup has grown in leaps and bounds over the
ten+ years I've used Myth, but it's still not as easy as it "should" be
(Yes, it's a free product and no, I'm not a developer, so I'm sorry if I
sound like a pompous end user but I'm comparing products here). I have
several front ends throughout my house and rarely ever is it as simple as
install Myth and go. I usually have to have the mysql password, unlock the
proprietary drivers, and set up my video & audio settings. I will say that
the setup wizard is fantastic compared to the 'old way' and really makes
life easier. And yes, setting up XBMC or Plex Home Theater, especially on
Linux, takes some tweaking, but for whatever reason Myth just takes /more/.
I've resorted to putting an HDMI splitter in the basement and driving three
monitors from one Front End, just to make life easier.

4) Lack of a decent ARM or $100 solution - We see all of these threads on
"would this work with Myth" and "why not this cheap box", but nobody can
ever get them to work. Meanwhile a Roku device can render 1080p video for
$50 with a remote! Why isn't there a low-end version of Myth FE tailored to
some specific devices? If somebody came out with a Myth front end device
with a custom build of MythTV for $199 or lower, I'd buy it in a second.
Why hasn't this happened yet? Resources? Funding? Lack of interest? Surely
somebody can build a no-frills FE interface similar to a Roku or Boxee Box,
no?

5) Apps and the ability to use Myth as an all-in-one appliance: I use
MythTV for two things: LiveTV and recorded programs. That's it. When I want
YouTube I switch to my Xbox. Anything else I use the Roku. For all the
horsepower MythTV needs, I'm surprised that nobody has written a decent,
/simple/ application framework. MythNetVision is too clunky and hard to set
up. With Plex, Roku and XBMC, I load up an app and go. This is another
piece that Myth should just integrate from XBMC and call it a day.

7) *Cast support: When the Airplay support came out, it was pretty sweet
and a great way to send media to my front end. But the more Apple locked
things down, the less Myth supported it. Now it seems to be abandoned
altogether, or I'm just doing something seriously wrong because I can't
send data from my Apple devices anymore. Why not adopt the Chromecast /
Allcast / Whatevercast protocols that are out in the Google world? If my FE
showed up as a *cast device and worked, I'd use it with my phone for a lot
of the YouTube and other media viewing options I currently use my Roku and
Xbox for.

I've used XBMC since it was on the original Xbox, and I've used Myth since
at least 0.24, but I've never had a good reason to use just one over the
other. However, the world of media consumption is changing rapidly, and
more and more I find myself watching my media on something like a Roku or
Chromecast device. I hope Myth can keep up with the changing techs and come
out with a product that somebody like me could use for all my media. I'd
gladly pay real money for it.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-users/attachments/20140507/fd5924c5/attachment.html>


More information about the mythtv-users mailing list