[mythtv-users] Watch TV works, but recording doesn't.

[Andrew Haigh]

Darius Hardy wrote:
[various edits made to keep things brief]
> The whole point is that MythTV really needs to know what channel your 
> cable box is showing, it can't do that if it can't control the box.

I see. So if I feed it (say) a vcr that happens to contain 'x' as its 
input, it won't let me record it. Unless I lie and say it is 
channel/program 'y'. And what happens when the broadcaster doesn't exist 
n the web/gets the data wrong?

> MythTV works very well... It just _has_ to be set up first!

Well, my point is that as a 'consumer', I don't want to know all of that 
  complex stuff. I want it to 'just work'.

> Erm, not with anything like what MythTV gives you, the windows software 
> is a basic VCR, if you want that MythTV is not for you.

I see no reason why it should not _also_ work as a basic vcr.

> The basic UK set-up gives you just about everything you need. You have 
> to tell it which channels you're subscribed to but that takes all of 
> about half an hour (you'll need to know the xmltvid names that 
> radiotimes uses for each channel [tv_grab_uk_rt --list-channels] gives 
> you them - they look like URLs.)
> 
>> I figured I should be able to use it just record the current input 
>> stream - much like a vcr. But it doesn't seem to work that way.
>>
> MythTV isn't a VCR, it's a PVR - it relies on knowing what is on and when.

Ok. I still don't think it should be an essential. But if thats what it 
is then thats what it is.

> If you've not set it up properly it won't know which (radiotimes) 
> channel maps to which (in Myth).
> 
>> Does this give any more clues? Is the 'record' function really 
>> predicated on the channel info being available?
>>
> Yes because when you tell it to record it uses the tv-guide to know when 
> the program ends.
> 
> Once you've got it set up you'll never go back ;-) A few hours fiddling 
> around is really worth it!

I would say its consumed a lot more than a few hours. And I'm a software 
engineer with a fair bit of linux experience. How many non-software 
engineers get it working?

Finally, thanks to those people who replied, it gives me (some) hope.

-- Andrew