[mythtv-users] The future of MythTV

[Max Hodgson]

Hi

I was a long time user of MythTV until about 4 years ago (so some of my
thoughts maybe a little dated). I left MythTV not because of any intrinsic
fault of it. Hardware failure and personal circumstances dictated a
different solution (a Humax). I'm in the UK, which is probably slightly
different to the rest of the world.

What I loved about MythTV:

MythWeb
Clever searches (record anything with Michael Caine in for example). I used
this a lot.
Remember all the episodes of something and don't record them again.
Automatically rearrange schedules to accommodate recordings that clash.
The distributed nature of the architecture. Central recordings multiple
front-ends all over the house.

The things I wasn't so keen on:

Installation.
Upgrading.
Ongoing maintenance.

These are what has put me off returning (though I will soon, as overall the
system is better than the Humax).

But, for all it's faults a can just switch on the Humax and it works.

So with that in mind, it maybe good to look at what some of the other open
source projects have done to make getting it up and running easily and
without having to have a masters in IT things to get it working. I think
this maybe a barrier to entry. If you, for example take Home Assistant,
which is probably one of the bigger ones. When I started using it, it was
mostly configuring yaml files to to automations and configure devices. With
every recently release, they have progressively removed the need to have
devices configured with YAML and also removed the need for the unskilled
user to setup automations using YAML. All these have been moved to a nice
easy to use GUI. Those techie enough can still do automations using YAML,
Python etc).  Upgrades are now easier if you have the OS provided by them
as you can snapshot and roll back if it goes wrong. I think there is a lot
to be learnt from a project like that which is keen to attract the man on
the street. It might also be useful to have a Home Assistant integration
(or any other automation systems) for MythTV, this may have the side effect
of attracting more users in your direction.

Also, yes the world is moving on for broadcast TV, you are competing
against big subscription services and you will never win against those, but
I think the FTA still has a place. Not everyone want to pay 10 quid a month
to 10+ subscription services.

and embrace free steaming TV services Youtube, bitchute etc.

If you do improve Youtube, please make it skip ads,the experience on
android TV Youtube app drives my up the wall :-)

These are just the views of an outsider looking to get back in.

:-)

Max



On Fri, 4 Jun 2021 at 14:26, Paul Harrison <mythtv at mythqml.net> wrote:

> We can see from the number of Scheduled Direct users and the Smolt data
> that MythTV is losing users at an ever increasing rate.  We think one
> reason for this is it's getting harder and harder to record stuff
> because more services are becoming encrypted requiring proprietary boxes
> to view and record content and some services are moving to an on-demand
> type of service that are hard or impossible to record.
>
>
> So the question is what improvements would you like to see in MythTV in
> the future that would persuade you to continue to use it? Would you like
> to see better support for YouTube for example or a better video media
> library. Better music player? Support for IPTV services? What plugins do
> you use?  What plugins would you like to see? Are you happy with the
> user interface or would you like to see a more modern one?
>
>
> Give us your thoughts on what direction you would like to see MythTV
> take now it's original purpose is slowing being killed of.
>
>
> Paul H.
>
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