[mythtv-users] 0.25 Music & Videos Questions

[Matt S.]

On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 8:32 PM, Scott & Nicole Harris
<snharris99 at live.com> wrote:

> Has MythMusic actually been reduced to such a level that it is actually this
> clumsy and unusable?

Yes.


Hate to say it, but mythmusic is next to useless for me now.  The last
thing I want to do is complain about such a core part of MythTV, as
I'm a huge evangelist for MythTV, but I feel as though I'm obligated
to give my opinion in the hopes that the developers will see that
there are basically no users out there who like and/or understand how
to use it - and that UX is pretty much in the tubes at this point.

- No way to just easily play the music you want
- Everything is playlist based (really????)
- Menus and options are extremely confusing and convoluted
- Counter-(and non)-intuitive interface

I was looking forward to Paul's work for so long, but it's obvious to
me that in this case the fact that it sat in his private branch for so
long, without input and feedback from users and developers, led to a
product built without a feedback loop and on one person's vision on
what people might want versus what they actual want.  Now, it sounds
as though he's backed away based on the negative feedback instead of
listening to what users are saying - that we love MythMusic but it's
just too hard to use - and trying to do something about it.  While I'm
definitely appreciative that Paul took on the challenge, I'd rather
have the old, basic mythmusic back at this point.  Although it was
simple, it worked - it was easy to navigate, it was a good "10 ft
from-the-couch" interface, etc.  My wife basically said that she'll
just revert to using itunes and our airport express hooked to our
receiver since she has no clue how to use the new mythmusic.  I don't
blame her - if someone who's career is in tech and has been using
MythTV for 8 years can't figure it out after 30 minutes, how would I
expect the average TV viewer/music listener figure it out?

I think the key goal should be:  Allow a user to play the music they
want to play in less than 10 seconds.

Anyway - Perhaps the foundation that Paul's built is strong enough
that it'll take little effort to make this one of the best
"from-the-couch" music players available.  But right now, I just can't
convince people to overlook the faults, since they seem to be pretty
core to the experience - which from all reports, is extremely
frustrating.  I'm really hoping that a developer will step up and take
on the challenge of interacting with our music libraries as great of
an experience as it is interacting with our recording and video
libraries.

Thanks!
Matt