[mythtv-users] MythTV vs XBMC

Gary Buhrmaster gary.buhrmaster at gmail.com
Wed May 7 22:08:30 UTC 2014


On Wed, May 7, 2014 at 9:36 PM, Brian J. Murrell <brian at interlinx.bc.ca> wrote:
> On Wed, 2014-05-07 at 22:27 +0100, Paul Harrison wrote:
>> With all the talk of users preferring to use XBMC my question is simple.
>>
>> What needs to change to make you want to use MythTV again?
>
> To be clear, all of the talk is about XBMC as a mythfrontend replacement
> only.  We are all happy (enough) with the backend.
>
> I looked into XBMC initially for it's streaming/casting capabilities, to
> see if I could cast a stream from my tablet, say to XBMC and onto my TV.
>
> I think ultimately XBMC just has more of a critical mass and therefore
> more contribution and therefore more possibilities in terms of what you
> and your TV can do.

We should think about the experience of the future, not
the past.  Given the life cycle of the project, building things
for yesterdays experience could be a waste of effort.

The Mythical convergence box, perhaps, needs to go
on a diet to focus on what it can do better, not just
duplicate the efforts of what is available elsewhere,
or require hoop jumping to make things sort of work.

For example, in 4 years (probably less) I suspect all
TVs sold will be "Smart", and/or have "Smart" thingees
attacked to them (i.e. chromecast, roku, fire tv).  As
such, do you need (want) MythTV to be the intermediary
(especially since the DRM requirements make MythTV
a less than viable intermediary for some of the streamed
content).  If so, why?  "Because it could do it" *may*
not be a good enough reason to invest the effort (unless
you are going to be the one making the effort).

Imagine a clean slate.  What are the critical features
for your future?  "Everything" is not necessarily the
answer.  If you get one (and only one) vote, what
capability is the most important in your future world.

For me, it is easy.  MythTV is primarily about TV,
and that is it.  I pretty much never use the other
features MythTV offers.  Continue to make the
BE/FE work well for recording/playback of TV.


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