[mythtv] Is DB/XMLTV really a requirement?

Erik Arendse erik_nospam.arendse at bigfoot.com
Thu Jan 23 08:12:48 EST 2003


At 22-1-03 18:38, Patrick.Debois wrote:
>just wondering. For a lot of countries no information exist within XMLTV.
>I have a lot of stuff really installed for mplayer and so on. But i don't
>see the need for a database. Maybe for the user recordings but therefore a
>simple txt/xml file could be used? It would give a lot of user a more
>out-of-the-box experience (i.e. they want have to setup a Mysql db and
>administrate it ...)

You need more storage than the recordings. MythTV at the moment uses the 
database to store all recording info, profile setup, lot of settings, etc. 
Why put some in the database and some in textfiles? Although I would have 
preferred more non-enduser settings out of the SQL database, but it doesn't 
hurt if the frontend setup is OK. All basic network settings are accessible 
with vi over telnet.

Secondly until a free-to-be-entered recording (like an oldfashioned VCR) is 
implemented, the program is next to useless without an EPG. And for a few 
hundered channels for a full week that definitely needs something more 
powerful than plain textfiles :-).

Thirdly a SQL database should relieve you from a lot of administration, not 
add to it. A clean MySQL install _should_ run forever if you use it only 
for MythTV. If not, it has to be solved from inside MythTV in the future. 
Installing the database is handled by MySQL, if the process hasn't been 
flawless for you it is because you are probably running a CVS version.

And at last: MythTV has a zillion dependencies (especially if you add 
MythMusic and MythGame), MySQL is ust one of many. And some of the others 
don't have RPMs, so MySQL isn't that bad...

Erik



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