Preview the New MythTV User Interface

Tombstone-f sent in a cool update on a project that I continue to keep an eye on. MythTV has become a dominant force in the do-it-yourself media-mega-box space, so any improvements to the UI matter significantly. "One of the biggest new features of the next version of MythTV (version .22) will be its new user interface. This new interface will offer many new features to MythTV, including animation, better interactivity, and faster and easier development for themers and developers alike." I think it still has a ways to go to compete with some of the more mainstream PVR boxes in terms of minimalism and good use of whitespace, but hopefully the improvements will get more people into the door.

Re:Pointless chrome

[LordKronos]

Huh? What installer? This is MythTV. It has no installer (other than a makefile). If you are thinking of Mythbuntu, Mythdora, Knoppmyth, or something like that, the guys on the MythTV team have little or nothing to do with any of that.

Re:News?

[LordKronos]

Actually, this isn't a minor update. It is a significant rewrite of the user interface that has been in the works for years (the ticket for this new UI was opened in June 2005). However, this isn't something that is going to be so significant to the end user directly. A lot of what you'll see come out of this will be subtle. The bigger benefit of this is for developers. Both code developers and theme developers. I have a bit of experience doing both for MythTv, and from what I've seen this is going to be a cool change. It's not news for TV watcher, but I think it is for nerds (or at least some of us).

Re:Pointless chrome

[duguk]

Have you checked the MythTV Wiki for your HDTV card [mythtv.org], the MythTV Wiki for your Remote Control [mythtv.org], oh yeah and the MythTV Wiki for for Graphics Card [mythtv.org]? All three are listed on the Wiki, looks quite well supported to me.

Re:Is it easy to install yet?

[Lumpy]

If you went windows, then why not mediaportal?

http://www.team-mediaportal.com/ [team-mediaportal.com]

I switched from SageTV to it because it kicked SageTV's butt hard.

Now I Use linux plus XBMC. Myth is awesom at Recording. it's is crap at music and media.

Re:Pointless chrome

[dfdashh]

Perhaps he's talking about mythtv-setup [mythtv.org].

Re:Considering now...NOT

[Remloc]

I built my 1st Myth system by hand without one of the new "nice" installers. Using apt-get and Jarod's guide. I got 95% of functionality working in one evening on the first try. Then proceeded pulling my hair out for 3 months to get the $@%ing remote to work. Totally existing P3/450. Only new hardware was the PVR-350.
Getting it working should be simple. Making it "wife friendly," maybe not so much.

Re:Pointless chrome

[LordKronos]

About the remote control, that (like the installer) has nothing to do with the myth team. For remotes, you are looking for lirc support (the linux standard system for IR input). Once lirc supports it, myth will work with it just fine.

As for the video, I don't know about that particular card, but I know a lot of the All in Wonder cards have notoriously poor driver support under linux. If yours is one of those, I don't know how you expect a miracle when ATI would provide neither an adequate driver nor the necessary specs for an open source version to be created.

Re:Pointless chrome

[Narfubel]

I made a mythbox for less than 200 dollars. The point is to buy compatible hardware from the start, don't blame the myth team though, it's hard to write drivers for devices that they get no support at all from the manufacturer. They do what they can and they do it well.

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[ShieldW0lf]

MythTV really is meant to be for watching and recording TV, there's a clue to that in the name. For what you describe XBMC, especially with some of the newer high resolution themes, is easily a better choice.

XBMC on Linux had some serious bugs that just got fixed in their most recent release, so it only became the better choice last week. I tried the last release, and every time your mouse drifted across the section for handling weather, XBMC would crash because it failed to wait for the data to come across the network before trying to display it.

But the new version works great.

Re:Is it easy to install yet?

[moasat]

MythTV itself is easy to install. I think the problem most people have is getting their hardware to work under Linux. I have the most problems with ALSA but it is getting better. Once your hardware works, Myth is a breeze to install.

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[djtachyon]

And I switched to the open-source MediaPortal [team-mediaportal.com] for Windows and haven't looked back since.

Slap it on an old XP machine in a decent media center ATX case [nmediapc.com], and you have a great media pc. No hassles with linux makes, XP media center BS, or compatibility. Throw in a blowout on an Logitech media center remote package [google.com] with the Setpoint Uberoptions driver [mstar.net] to open up all the button options, and you are set. Just share all your media folders on your home network for any other media you want to show.

Please, just make it not suck...

[geminidomino]

MythTV is honestly a joke. (N.B. I've been running a mythtv box for 3 years)

For TV/PVR functionality, it's great. Want to watch a DVD or, gods forbid, a video file? Prepare for an exercise in pain.

Want to use some of the features it boasts (integrated emulators, image slideshow, etc...)? Suffer, worm!

Want to use an EXTREMELY COMMON remote(MCE)? Prepare to spend the better part of the evening manually remapping the buttons with vim. (I still have instances where I can't navigate DVD menus because of some weirdness on what is considered "up" and "down")

And if you DARE to want to record off of a non-tuned interface (RCA, e.g.) well, it will eat your face and lock you in the closet with a shoggoth.

But unfortunately, for TV, it is the best out there. :P

Re:Considering now...

[UnknowingFool]

You should look into the Live CD versions to test out if you want to proceed. Many people are happy enough with them. KnoppMyth [mysettopbox.tv], MythDora [mythdora.com], Mythbuntu [mythbuntu.org].

Re:Pointless chrome

[WaXHeLL]

Actually, the ATI HDTV Wonder is compatible with mythTV. In fact, the HDTV Wonder works better with MythTV than it does with Windows (since it natively supports QAM decoding, but is crippled in the windows drivers).

I will admit that it took me a long time to setup my HDTV Wonder, but that was primarily because I was impatient in the channel scanning process (and would cancel it before it found any channels).

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[Stiletto]

Do what I do: Use both!

XBMC can act as a front-end to MythTV. Recent builds have very good MythTV support. Just add a video source called myth://whatever and browse away. It doesn't support all of the MythTV frontend's advanced features, but basic browse/playback works fine.

I have a machine in the closet running the MythTV backend, and my XBMC in the living room for playback. I never have to touch the (IMHO) horrible MythTV GUI interface, except to configure the backend*

*Side note: The fact that you NEED the MythTV gui (running on X) to configure the backend is an awfully lame design decision on MythTV's part. Whatever happened to editing text files or a simple command-line based configurator?

Re:Pointless chrome

[denis-The-menace]

Linux might get more buy in if hardware vendors didn't have to commit to a full time employee rewriting drivers to suit the whims of some hobbyist on a caffeine and sugar bender.

Linux doesn't need to have ATI commit to a full time employee for writing drivers. Just the same level of access to the specs like the 5+ employees writing the windows drivers.

Fine, I'll take you on.

[Moryath]

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/ATI_HDTV_Wonder [mythtv.org]

Instructions fail for 8.10.

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/ATI_Remote_Wonder_II [mythtv.org]

Again, instructions fail for 8.10.

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/ATI_All-in-Wonder_HowTo_(English) [mythtv.org]

All the page says is "will not work, will not record."

How do you call that "supported"???

Re:Fine, I'll take you on.

[PrescriptionWarning]

actually its a problem with ATI hardware, they have really bad linux support in general, at least mine have (both the standard tuner and the all-in-wonder)

Re:Is it easy to install yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, MediaPortal was great when they cared about fixing bugs instead of adding more and more flashy nonsense crap.

Their RC3 still has a bug that causes the audio to stay unmuted and playing like chipmunks if you fast-forward. Why haven't they fixed it? According to them, because "some people like it that way." Sure. Because everybody wants to re-enact that classic Spaceballs scene every time they fast-forward.

They were great, but I can't possibly recommend them ever again.

Re:Just dumped MythTV

[Anonymous Coward]

you NEED the MythTV gui (running on X) to configure the backend is an awfully lame design decision on MythTV's part. Whatever happened to editing text files or a simple command-line based configurator?

I run a headless (no video card) mythbackend and configure it using "ssh -Y mythtv@mythtv"
mythtv-setup