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On 05/27/2011 06:27 PM, Fluf wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:BANLkTi=9r_3D0_eT4Y2SJrEE-FA9D5AVtA@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">Heya,<br>
<br>
I've spent about 2 months now tinkering with DVB in various ways.<br>
Along the way I've tried MediaPortal, ForTheRecord, MythTV, the
various bits of terrible software you get with USB DVB sticks,
looked closely at freevo and almost mustered the enthusiasm to
configure it. I've even looked at / tried RitzDVB, AltDVB,
dvbguide and the utterly obscure and out of date on Windows and
Linux.<br>
I got to trying Myth because it has an aura of "That's the
ultimate way to do it", and I've run Linux since Redhat 5.2, so
that side didn't daunt me. Usually. Once you configure something
in Linux, it works as you want it to, reliably, all the time ..
(until a distribution upgrade breaks it). It's no effort getting a
continuous uptime of days on Linux, so yup. Nice base for a PVR.<br>
After several weeks of trying to configure Myth 0.24, learning
mistakes, going back, correcting, starting again ... it actually
manages to mess up more and more often rather than less and less
often. The last "gotcha" was from watching the logs and seeing a
message that a transponder wasn't responding so I should do a
re-scan. So I did. What it broke I have no idea. I gave up when it
only managed to actually start recording 1 of the following 5
programs.<br>
<br>
Perhaps Myth 0.21 or something WAS a great bit of software that
worked reliably and could be debugged by someone reasonably
proficient with Linux. But 0.24 just plain isn't. You're limited
to either the TV style setup system or directly digging in to the
database. The TV style setup is slow to go though, (has good help
prompts in places for options! I'll give it that!) .. but then it
fails horribly. If "Import channel.conf" doesn't fully work. Why
not say "It doesn't fully work" or something? In fact seeing as
entering your own frequency details also seems to mean you don't
get EIT data, that's pretty pointlessly included as well. "Delete
ALL" on the channels page. Doesn't "delete all". I'm not sure what
it does, it clears what you can see but leaves a pile of mess in
the database. Same with transponder details. Trying to fine tune
the thing with a setup program that's leaving a trail of mess
every time you try to do something is really NOT good.<br>
<br>
Then there's the error logging.<br>
When it comes to the "It should be working" stage. And it doesn't.
More often than not, the logs have not even mentioned the fact
anything went wrong. Start times are missed and expired. I've even
had it start recording something then forget and leave it
recording till I killed the backend. Not a blip in the log when it
comes to the end time. Just nothing. I've had it record zero
length files as well but log that all is fine and dandy. The one
thing it does nag about in the logs is all the various frontend /
backend / artwork / video / fanart folders ... why? I mean ...
just ... DOH! What do I care if the pretty pictures gets loaded
from the backend or the frontend directory? In fact ... why are
you trying to store two copies of everything? And .. if your not
.. then .. ARGH!!!<br>
<br>
One thing it hasn't done is crash the backend on me. Which is
actually a shame. If it crashed I'd know it had fouled up and not
leave it for hours thinking it's managed to record things.<br>
I'm sure all of you lucky people that installed 0.21, 0.22, 0.23
back when it was great are very happy. And well done! But .. uhm
.. maybe don't upgrade yet?<br>
<br>
What it actually needs is a well thought out NOT TV screen format
configuration utility. Something in QT perhaps that actually
checks and verifies what settings are entered and lets the user
tweak and delete .. and actually do it safely to the database. You
know. "Are you sure you want to delete" "Yes" then actually clear
all the relevant database entries? Hell I'd even go for a very
long text config file!<br>
<br>
But for now. Myth. I give up on you. I've spent 2 weeks now
tweaking and re-tweaking just myth. It doesn't take that long for
me to download, compile and configure all of X11 up to XFCE
including 3D acceleration, sound and all of the optional goodies
libraries. Myth shouldn't be *that* bad.<br>
<br>
So inside 2 hours. I now have ForTheRecord v1.6.0 installed on a
Windows 7 machine. (<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.4therecord.eu">http://www.4therecord.eu</a>).
In that time, it's been possible to tell it *exactly* which
frequencies I want it to use for each channel. All the EPG data
works fine, and it's scheduling weeks ahead including skipping
repeats from the 2 USB DVB sticks I've got, and I'm using DirMon2
to queue compressing the recordings with Handbrake and run
comskip. The only drawback is. It's running on Windows. But what
the ..... it works.<br>
<br>
I don't know if Myth developers read this email forum or not. But
if so. Guys. IMHO. Somewhere along the line, it must of become a
bit of a mess. Even Windows comskip does a better job than
Mythcommflag .. which stunned me! I'd of guessed the windows one
was modelled on the myth code .. but apparently not!<br>
<br>
Sigh. Well .. guess it kept me busy for a couple of weeks. Think I
might watch some telly now.<br>
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</blockquote>
My story,I never tried Linux before setting up Mythtv...I won't say
it was easy,but the satisfaction of finally getting it to work was
one of the best computer experiences I've had..This from a guy who's
first computer was a Sinclair z80,put together from a kit.. <br>
I have for several years run trunk (now Master) I can't think of a
time It didn't work...<br>
If you couldn't get Mythtv to run,you just weren't trying hard
enough...<br>
I am off to watch commercial free TV....<br>
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