[mythtv-users] remote frontend on a Mac

lee lee at yun.yagibdah.de
Thu Dec 17 12:57:43 UTC 2009


On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 10:29:09AM +0000, Simon Hobson wrote:
> lee wrote:
> 
> > > You do it pretty much the same way you do under Linux. It works just
> >> fine on both my Mac Mini and MacBook Pro under Mac OS X.
> >
> >It doesn't work the same way. The settings are totally messed up ---
> >apparently mythtv is not able to handle multiple users and multiple
> >frontends.
> 
> Apparently it can - at least it does for most users. The fact that
> YOUR installation isn't working correctly doesn't mean that the the
> source package is broken.

Then why is it unusably slow? The Mac sucks, but not that bad.

> > > > 7.) the recordings of one user are available to the remote frontend
> >> > and thus to another user
> >>
> >> Huh? What's the problem here?
> >
> >It's another user, but mythtv doesn't seem to understand that.
> 
> Correct - MythTV doesn't deal with 'users', and since it's not a
> designed in part of the system, it's not broken. That may not be
> what YOU want, but it's how the system is designed.

Well, then it's broken by design --- or the design is broken.

> OK, turn that around, how do you prevent another user changing the
> timer settings on your VCR ? Or changing the tape and overwriting
> your recordings ? Or a very common one, changing channels on the Sky
> box when you've left it on a specific channel to record on the VCR
> later ?

You mean an old fashioned video recorder that can play tapes and
record to tapes? I can program computers, but I never found out how to
program one of those.

What is a sky box? If you mean a satellite receiver, there was no
sattelite TV when those tape recorders were around. There were three
TV stations you could receive with your TV antenna, and the recorders
had tuners built in to receive them, and that was all. They always had
problems with what you wanted to record not starting/ending at the
specified times.

With an external satellite receiver, these recorders became totally
absurd because they couldn't control the satellite receiver, and it
became too complicated to connect things. I've always considered them
as obsolete because they never really worked.

> >And how could you have remote frontends when they all use the same
> >settings? You would be required to have identical hard- and software
> >for all the frontends.
> 
> They don't have to have the same settings.

So I need to manually put different settings for different frontends
into the database? I couldn't really try anything out because it was
too slow on the Mac to use it. When you have to wait a few minutes for
something to happen every time you're trying to do something and when
you can just look at eventual error messages about communiction
problems that might come up because it is unknown what rights the
database user the remote frontend uses needs, there isn't much you
could do but conclude that it doesn't work.

> From your tone, I'd suggest that possibly Myth isn't the right tool
> for you because you seem to be after different functionality to what
> Myth provides.

What I'm looking for is a convenient way to use the TV card from
different computers --- it would even suffice if it was possible to
set up recordings from different computers. That requires the
possibility of having multiple users --- and a frontend that does tell
a user something like "hey, you can't record this because there is
another recording set up already" the very moment the user tries to
set up the recording. In such cases, the users can talk to each other
and figure out what to do about it --- but the way it is, the frontend
doesn't even have users, and it doesn't even tell anyone that setting
up a recording isn't possible because there's another recording
already planned.

The alternative is having only one user who then enters and
coordinates all recordings for all users. I can do that much easier
with kaffeine: without having to run a mysql server and a backend that
constantly blocks the TV card and without a frontend that is so very
awkward to use and has problems with playing back some recordings.

> If you want a system where one box in one room is totally separate
> from another box in another room, then you might be better off just
> getting a couple of off the shelf PVR boxes.

They cost a fortune and aren't even available yet.

> On the other hand, it might be that if you understood Myth a bit
> better, then you might decide it will work for you.

Unless it can deal with multiple users and multiple frontends, it's
obsolete.

> Launching into things with an attitude of "it sucks", "it's totally
> broken", and "it's ridiculous" isn't necessarily the best way to get
> sympathetic help.

Maybe, but that's what it is.

> If we start from the facts that :
> - You can have multiple frontends (which can have their own settings).
> - The Mac OS X frontend does work.

apparently not

> - Myth is (by design) a shared system.

Well, I don't get it how anyone could get the idea to make it like
that. So much work has been going into creating a client/server
architecture, and it's all for nothing and useless because there can't
be multiple users.

> then it sounds like you have several issues that need sorting out.
> Some of those are down to your understanding of how the system is
> supposed to work, some sound more like technical problems.
> 
> It might be more productive to try and work with people to resolve
> the problems you are having, rather than slagging the project off
> for what you perceive as design errors.

It seems to be broken by design. In that case, there's no point in
trying to get it to work. It's very disappointing.


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