[mythtv-users] MythTV review from a long-time TiVo user

[Ben Giddings]

On Feb 26, 2005, at 18:29, Donavan Stanley wrote:
>> Hitting the TiVo button from anywhere in the UI will bring you
>> back to the main menu.  In Myth, I don't think you can do this.
>
> Myth goes a lot further than that.  Check out the jump points you can
> bind remote presses to. (again in mythweb)  You can jump to any area
> within myth via a single remote press.
>
>> Although I mapped the "Go/Home" button on my Silver Hauppauge remote 
>> to
>> go to the TV recordings screen, it didn't work when I was in a setup
>> screen.
>
> That's because you need to explictly accept or reject settings.

Right, well I personally think it would be more useful if a jump point 
keybinding would always work.  If you were in the middle of changing a 
setting it would abandon the change and go.  But that's just a personal 
opinion.

>> Finally, it was nice to be able to decide for myself what the
>> remote buttons did, but the means of doing that was really awful.  I
>> either had to use the web interface to change the key bindings, or I
>> had to use MySQL.  Then I had to edit the lircrc text file to map
>> remote control keypresses to keyboard keys.  Ugh.
>
> Yep it could be a lot more user friendly, however it's a pain you only
> have to go trhough once.

True enough, "once" is relative.  I've been fiddling with it for a 
couple of days, and I'm still not done.  Aside from that, as you use 
Myth more often, you might decide you use certain features more than 
others, and might want to have a keybinding for them, or you might 
install a new module and want a hotkey for it.  Of all the things I 
mentioned, I really think better remote control integration is the 
feature I'd say is most lacking.

> Sound is useful, however doing UI beeps and the like gets fairly
> compilcated if your audio hardware doesn't support multiple opens.

Hmm, I don't know anything about the hardware limitations, but maybe it 
could be an optional feature.  OTOH, the visual "checkmarks" when you 
choose something could probably be added.  Anyhow, I don't think this 
is nearly as big a deal as the other things, especially because the UI 
is so much more responsive.

>> Another minor thing I miss from my TiVo is the "screensaver".  If you
>> didn't hit a button for a while on the TiVo it would by default go 
>> back
>> to monitoring Live TV after a while.
>
> Myth will allow your existing screensaver to kick in as needed,
> provided you have one of course.

Yeah, I know, but it would be cool there were some kind of integrated 
screensaver/dashboard type functionality, so if you left Myth alone, 
you'd still be in Myth, but you wouldn't have to worry about burn-in.  
The TiVo implementation of this is to always go to Live TV if you don't 
hit a key for about 15 minutes, but there are some flaws with this 
approach.  Anyhow, it's a "wish list" type feature.  Burn-in can be 
prevented with your system screensaver.

>> Finally, the only other thing I can think of that I really miss from 
>> my
>> TiVo is the red light that tells me it's recording.  It's nice to have
>> some easy reassurance that your favourite show is really being
>> recorded.  I know that Myth isn't quite as flexible because this is a
>> hardware thing, but some quick confirmation it's recording would be
>> really handy.
>
> Well, there's always the recordings screen and the system status
> screen.  However if you search the archives you can find info on how
> to build hardware to add LEDs for recording status.

That's cool.  I didn't know that.  I may go do that when I've got some 
of the other issues sorted out.

Ben