[mythtv-users] More problems than it's worth?

[John Biundo]

James Minihane wrote:
> Initially I thought MythTV was THE ANSWER. But reading these lists, it
> seems that MythTV is more of a headache than a godsend. I'm not about to
> invest a few thousand in hardware into a problem ridden system.
> Here's the question...
> How many of you actually use MythTV to...
> Time delay live TV, watch DVDs, schedule recordings, listen to music, and
> view pictures and actually have things work without reboots etc?
>  

Well Tivo isn't necessarily THE ANSWER either.

But you should go into MythTV with your eyes open.  It's great if you 
want another hobby.  It's incredibly satisfying to get to the point 
where you can really take advantage of the architecture and OSS aspects 
of MythTV.  I admit I'm not fully there yet, but I have some fun things 
planned, for example, for integrating my MythTV and Asterisk installations.

I think it would be hard to argue that MythTV is a "cheaper" solution 
than Tivo.  In the end, if you're willing to trade a lot of time and 
effort, it probably is.  But only you can determine whether that trade 
makes sense -- I think for a lot of us, the time spent with MythTV is a 
labor of (mostly) love (and an occassional tiny little bit of hate ;-) ).

But you should check out some of the Tivo message boards as well.  This 
PVR stuff, especially if you mix in any degree of advanced AV equipment, 
and integrate other media besides analog cable TV, gets pretty 
complicated.  There are so many moving targets.  Many of the Tivo folks 
have similar sounding problems; one big difference is that Tivo is 
proprietary, so there's no access to any hardware or software 
alternatives if you get stuck.

For me, the involvment in the OSS process, the chance to learn about all 
the related technologies, the ability to integrate with other (home 
automation related) technologies, the relative "future proof"-ness of a 
MythTV investment, and the shear pleasure of getting it running is worth 
it.

In short, it's a great thing to monitor this message board for a while 
if you're on the fence.  If you find these discussions more daunting 
than enlightening, that's a strong indicator to stay away. But don't 
take the volume on this board as an indication that most of us (and our 
"users") aren't generally using MythTV for exactly what we got it for, 
and with a significant amount of satisifaction.