[mythtv-users] Ubuntu Media Center team dumping MythTV for Elisa (yuck!)

[Brian J. Murrell]

On Wed, 2007-05-16 at 02:00 +0100, Justin Hornsby wrote:
> 
> Elisa hasn't yet shown any signs that it could even be a contender for
> a serious PVR application - it just doesn't have the necessary
> framework in place yet and that isn't going to happen overnight.

I've yet to look at Elisa deeper than it's webpage fluff and
screenshots, but if they were smart (and I suppose they are) they would
leverage Myth's backend while they develop their own scheduling,
recording and storage and retrieval framework.  That is, lean
development heavy on the front-end -- plan for their future as they do
it, but provide a hugely useful tool for the present using the Myth
backed.  Really, backends should be a pluggable option.

They could have grander plans than myth's backend infrastructure, but
why not use it as a bridge to attract more developers by making the
project hugely more useful more quickly while they build up their
infrastructure on the backend..

> I've seen the screencasts of Elisa's UI & the new Freevo2 UI.  They
> *do* look er.. nice (well, Freevo2's does at any rate) but at the end
> of the day how much time do you spend watching the UI?  See, you
> don't.  If you're about to argue that users care about UI effects I'd
> try to shoot you down with "yeah, maybe they do but at the cost of
> usability & functionality?  Get real".

Well, Myth's video playback "widget" it not exactly something to write
home to mom about either.  It does not compare to (say) mplayer in it's
ability to play material of different encodings, well.  Give it certain
files and while it plays them decent enough for the most part, it sucks
as seeking in them (yeah, even with seek table) and quite often jumping
in them ends up in a few seconds of mush until another "full frame"
comes along to get things back in order.

> Anyway, since when was MythTV about some kind of genital measuring
> test against other applications?  This project - as far as I can
> ascertain - has always been about fulfilling a need of the developers
> & other contributors.  I don't think it 'needs' users per se.

Indeed, it does not.  As long as it's scratching the itch of the
developers, who really cares if nobody else is using it.

> 
> I love MythTV very much & find it hard to imagine my life without it.
> I don't honestly see any of these newcomers as a threat at all.

Why even use the word threat?  Why not envision a world where the PVR
backend and frontend are actually separated by an open stable API and
you mix and match as you desire features.

Personally, I'd give my left nut to get the hell off of X on the
frontend and on to something far more sane for a PVR FE like DirectFB.
AFAIK (and please! correct me if I'm wrong), there is not a single video
card and driver in X that works as well for natively displaying
interlaced material on interlaced display as the Matrox G{400,450,550}
cards do on DirectFB.  You just give the card the interlaced material
and it displays the odd and even lines properly without all this need
for de-interlacers to compensate for bad tv-out video drivers.

b.

-- 
My other computer is your Microsoft Windows server.

Brian J. Murrell
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