[mythtv-users] Comcast Cable encrypted channels

[Brian Wood]

On Tuesday 04 August 2009 12:53:42 Andrew Gallatin wrote:
> Alan Marchiori [alan at alanmarian.com] wrote:
> > On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 11:06 AM, Brian Wood<beww at beww.org> wrote:
> > > On Tuesday 04 August 2009 10:52:43 Alan Marchiori wrote:
> > >> On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 10:24 AM, Brian Wood<beww at beww.org> wrote:
> > >> > On Tuesday 04 August 2009 10:18:35 Michael T. Dean wrote:
> > >> >> And, since those of you who want to use Netflix Watch Instantly can
> > >> >> go out an buy a Roku Netflix Player for $99 or less, there's
> > >> >> absolutely no reason to put the MythTV project and developers in a
> > >> >> dangerous position.
> > >> >
> > >> > Much less in some cases. The PlayON server will allow you to watch
> > >> > Netflix on any UPnP/DLNA device, and costs $40, though it's often
> > >> > available for less.
> > >> >
> > >> > The main problem is PlayON is Windows only.
> > >>
> > >> If you setup a PlayON server wouldn't that make it also possible to
> > >> watch Netfilx et. al. from a mythfrontend? ?Are there any good
> > >> upnp/dlna clients for linux that would be easy to integrate into
> > >> mythfrontend (if it is not so already)?
> > >
> > > I've been looking for such a beast, and haven't found one yet.
> > >
> > > I'm certainly open to ideas, so far I've been using a PS3, an Xbox, a
> > > D-Link DSM-520 and a Myka. All work quite well, but having it
> > > integrated into a Myth frontend would be great.
> >
> > have you tried XBMC?  It seems to support both linux and is a UPnP
> > client.  I'm thinking of trying it at least... then just put a button
> > on the main myth menu to launch XBMC..?
>
> I tried XBMC with a trial version of PlayON (which was running on XP
> in a Virtual Box VM on my Hardy server) to stream Hulu.  It worked
> tolerably well, except that fast foward and rewind did not work at
> all. This is apparently a well known bug with PlayOn and XBMC.

FF/REWing with any UPnP device can be problematical, and varies a lot with the 
implementation of the UPnP control point/renderer.

For example, my PS3 does a fair job of shuttling Hulu via PlayON, while my 
DSM-520 is much worse.

Part of the problem is that users reporting problems often do not understand 
the inherent limitations of the system (like you can't shuttle into material 
you have not received yet), so they have problems determining what is an 
actual problem and what is just the nature of the beast.

So the PlayON developers have to first figure out what are legitimate 
complaints and what are not.

I have actually seen complaints from users who can't understand why they can't 
immediately shuttle at 32X to the end of a 2-hour movie that started 
streaming 3 seconds ago. One complaint actually said "My $20 VCR can do this, 
why can't something I paid more for do it?"

My house can't take me to LA, even though I paid more for the house than my 
car. Perhaps I should complain.

Non-technical users expect a VCR or DVR experience, possibly from ambiguous 
promotion of the devices and systems. A good case for better expectation 
management.

>
> I finally just decided to use Boxee for Hulu, until Hulu shuts them
> out again.

Who knows when that might be, all I can get is FUD as to what actually 
happened, whose fault it was and whether it might happen again.

PlayON handles not only Hulu but Netflix and many others as well, making it 
the most useful such solution I'm aware of. With the addition of local file 
serving it is much more useful than TVersity or Media Tomb, for example (just 
a personal opinion, of course).

-- 
Brian Wood
beww at beww.org