[mythtv] Will the wife like it?

[John S Flowers]

I don't live in Portland or anywhere near there. ;)

I'm a little nervous about you building a MythTV system for your wife. 
It really depends on how forgiving she is and how long she's willing to 
wait for certain functionality. It also depends on how technical she 
is... a custom PVR can be a little sketchy at times.

Also, the amount of effort required to get a remote working is pretty 
severe. Sure, you can make a remote work almost "out of the box" with 
lircd or ati_remote from the Gatos project, but getting the buttons 
configured in a way that makes sense is an undertaking.

I recently built a PVR (using MythTV) for a friend of mine and his wife 
for the holidays. His wife is not technical at all. She even asked, 
after I walked them both through how the system works, "So, there are 
no tapes?"

I will say that I am completely happy with my own system (and so is my 
wife) and we couldn't imagine using a TiVo after getting the MythTV 
working. The ReplayTV on the other hand still sits in our bedroom and 
happily records "Sex and the City" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm."

My advice is this: If your wife is already suspicious of the value of a 
PVR, get a TiVo or ReplayTV. At least that way you can blame something 
not working on the manufacturer and it doesn't rest on your shoulders. 
Plus, if she hates it, Best Buy and places like that have a pretty 
decent return policy.

Having been married for more than 10 years, that's the best advice I 
have.

P.S. I've been meaning to put up a MPEG (or Quicktime) of my system in 
action, but haven't had a chance to do it yet. I think that would help 
you appreciate the interface and how it works for you.

On Thursday, December 19, 2002, at 10:21  PM, SMITH David wrote:

> I have managed to get my wife excited about the concept of a PVR, but 
> she is
> much more comfortable with a retail box (Tivo or Replay, for example) 
> than
> [another] pc in the house that is configured to do PVR work.  I have 
> never
> seen MythTV in action, so I do not know how well it performs in 
> comparison
> to Tivo/Replay.  I would like to have a better feel for:
> - how the resolution/quality level of the video from MythTV compares to
> Tivo/Replay
> - what features of the Tivo/Replay software and remote will my wife 
> forego
> if I build a MythTV box
> - reliability of MythTV: how many of you have lost shows or missed
> recordings because of hardware/software or just configuration issues
>
> I want to build a MythTV box, but I also want to stay married.
>
> I live in Portland, OR.  If anyone on the list with a working MythTV 
> box
> lives within driving distance please contact me --  I'd love to trade 
> some
> beer for the ability to see the thing in action.
>
> David
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> mythtv-dev@snowman.net
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>
>
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| John S Flowers  <johnsflowers | j.flowers > @mac.com 
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