[mythtv-users] The future of MythTV

[G Ui]

We've used mythtv for at least 15 year, my children, now 15 and 17, grew up
on it and found it easy to watch shows unattended even before they could
read.

It takes time to set up an instance, then to tweak it the way you want.  i
started with Knoppix distro, then moved over to mythbuntu, but still the
tweaks were necessary.  I run a main backend and nuc front ends and now
they just work, but every dist-upgrade, every mythtv major upgrade seems to
bring its own problems.  I held off for a while upgrading from ubuntu 16.04
to 18.08, and now finally 20.04 for fear of spending a weekend
troubleshooting and repairing mythtv.

Mythtv used to be my main media player using the scheduler for cable, first
analog then clear QAM and now cable card with HDhomerun and mythvideo
managing my media.

Nowadays mythvideo can no longer handle the size of my media collection and
PLeX handles that duty.  Plex also shines allowing easily sharing my media
with family and friends both inside and outside my household.  Plex handles
the playback of almost all media and recording from myth via mythlink.

I prefer using mythtv's player because it handles everything, without
transcoding.  I configured the playback setting to playback everything at
120%, along with commercial detection, skipping and the lightning fast
seeks when commercial detection fails, I can catch up on all the nonsense I
record in no time.

Outside the main dedicated frontends, I also use the android frontend,
which has great potential.  It is a drop in app that mostly just works.  I
have used it on FireTV 4k and nVidia Shield, both playback smoothly.  But
the startup and shutdown times are a downer, I fear anyone not familiar
with mythtv will think it's locked up and become frustrated.  Using the
barebones remotes takes some getting used to, but for anyone familiar with
streaming dongles, it should be a short learning curve.  But the lack of
button minimizes the features of the frontend player, which the next
logical step is a dedicated player for android that strips out or hides all
the extras that aren't needed but presents the familiar interface we all
know and love.

Leanfront is fine and playback is exceptional, but the media UI needs some
help.  I don't find it intuitive enough to give it to my grandparents or
Inlaws

LiveTV is a double edged sword and I haven't found a solution better than
mythtv yet.  Yes mythtv's live tv is buggy, but it mostly works, there's no
to very little buffering, a small blip in between guide programs.  There is
the occasional lockup, but not enough to complain too much.  I wouldn't use
live tv but the older generation grew up with linear TV and must watch it
that way.

The main problem with mythtv is there are too many moving parts and an
enthusiast can't understand them all: mysql, xmltv, lirc, not to mention
tuning hardware.  Someone looking to set up a media manager can just run
plex, emby, or jellyfin in a docker container and be done.  Docker being
the only "new" technology to learn, but even with today's NAS's like unraid
or synology, that isn't much of a hurdle.

With all my ramblings above, I intend to continue to use mythtv to record
as long as possible, but I've moved on from my youthful tinkering and have
new hobbies that I want to spend my time on and getting the "TV" to work
isn't high on the list.  If the bar gets too high I would likely move on
out of convenience.  I've just come up on the next renewal for schedules
direct and I will be signing up for another year and I hope for more to
come.

Thank you everyone for all the dedication to MythTV, it has been a great
journey so far.


On Sat, Jun 5, 2021 at 7:47 AM John Hoyt <john.hoyt at gmail.com> wrote:

> So I've been using mythtv since 2007 when I replaced my replayTV with an
> HDPVR.  At the time, the main driver was to have a new hobby to tinker with
> plus record video at 720p/1080i resolutions.
>
> Over the years, my family still uses MythFrontend on most of our TVs via
> small low powered computers (was zotac ions, now nucs), but of late I've
> been seeing the family (and even myself) starting to use Plex on our
> Rokus/Firesticks more and more often for music, videos, and photos. A large
> reason is that they can pick up where they left off with their ipads
> (...they have mac laptops and will use mythfrontend there, but that's
> probably just a bit of an appeasement to me and my more recent. compiling
> hobby :) ).  I've also noticed, we tend to watch fewer recorded shows these
> days as the family has moved to online media (youtube and other streaming
> services).
>
> I guess this is a long winded way of saying I agree with many of the past
> posters.  Focus on the backend and recording capabilities.  These are still
> top notch and I won't be using any other similar services while MythTV is
> still available and working. Either keep mythweb going and/or complete the
> update (I still use mythweb to manage recording - as does my family -
> because it is so easy).  FInally, I'd definitely be supportive of a better
> Plex or Jellyfin plugin for accessing (and maybe managing) recordings.
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users at mythtv.org
> http://lists.mythtv.org/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
> http://wiki.mythtv.org/Mailing_List_etiquette
> MythTV Forums: https://forum.mythtv.org
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-users/attachments/20210605/6dacb3f1/attachment.htm>