Preview the New MythTV User Interface 229
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.
Just dumped MythTV (Score:5, Interesting)
I just dumped Mythbuntu and switched to XBMC Media Center [xbmc.org]. I don't actually have a TV signal, just use the machine for DVDs and recorded movies, music and pictures across the LAN. And for those purposes, I found it so awkward to work with as to be unusable. Particularly the interface for managing your music collection.
This article seems to focus entirely on the aspects relating to managing TV signals and shows. Is there anything in this new interface that might make me want to switch back?
Re:Pointless chrome (Score:3, Interesting)
There are other MythTV distros than Mythbuntu (Knoppmyth, Mythdora) that you might want to try if you find the Muthbuntu installer difficult. That said, Mythbuntu 8.04 was the first version of MythTV that I got my wireless card to work without fuss (Atheros based), and with that one point, made the install heaps easier than previous versions.
Re:Pointless chrome (Score:3, Interesting)
That's what came to mind when I looked at it. Most of what they were doing seemed like adding thumbnails and transition effects all over the UI. I usually turn off thumbnails in any UI I use because each one tends to require one or more disk seeks to retrieve, so scrolling lists becomes sluggish and clunky. As for transitions, IMO they just add delays.
What I'd rather see is making an alternative UI for those using a computer interface (or logging in from another machine) in addition to the current TV remote oriented UI. If all of the configuration could be done through an app similar to the KDE control center, that would make MythTV much easier to set up, manage and understand. The TV-oriented interface is just too constraining to effectively present many of the complex concepts in the configuration options.
(Of course, I really can't complain since I'm not pitching in to improve things myself. I'm just putting my feedback out there in case anyone finds it useful.)
Re:Getting people in the door (Score:2, Interesting)
After my parents saw my Mythbuntu box with a 'professional' theme, they were interested. But, there are just a few issues and such when things like running out of hard drive space or log files that aren't limited in size grow and end up bringing down the system until someone troubleshoots it and fixes it.
I think visually, using a theme like Pear-TV (but replacing the pear with a mythbuntu/mythTV logo) would be all the improvement they need to make with the user experience in normal operation. It works just fine.
But it's the boring bug fixes, confusing menus and sub-menus, and coming out and approving hardware as mythTV-compatible that would make it a better product.
And I would like to see more guides on how to go from a pile of money to a working, functional MythTV box. I hope some are out there, but it would help a lot of people I think.
Is it easy to install yet? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Just dumped MythTV (Score:2, Interesting)
Agreed - it would be nice if foreign media could be seamlessly integrated into the MythTV interface. Mythvideo is very primitive by comparison (the interface used for random avi/ogg/mpg files/etc).
One issue is that mythtv implemented their own media player, which means that only a few codecs are supported and there are very strict limitations on the video stream. For example, if keyframes aren't spaced completely uniformly the seektable breaks and any attempt to seek causes all kinds of problems. I think a better approach would be to use some other media player as the actual playback method and have myth focus on the value-adds like indexing the content, maintaining cutlists, GUI, etc. Mythtv would basically be a front-end to something like xine/mplayer. Why re-invent the wheel?
Re:Just dumped MythTV (Score:4, Interesting)
Mythvideo can be a frontend to Xine/Mplayer.
It has _always_ been that way.
The built-in "Internal" video player is default but it is completely optional. It appeared a couple of releases ago.
Re:Pointless chrome (Score:5, Interesting)
Like all things if you want the all the bells and whistles you have to get the best hardware. I have MythTV working on an old PIII box. I think I spent $200 and most of that was for the Hauppage TV card. Bear in mind, I can't play games and do a lot of the nifty features. But it served the basic purpose of a DVR on my 27" CRT. Now if I wanted digital and the best picture, I would have to drop some money. It still works but I've upgraded homes and now have a networked system. But the old one is in a closet and would be functional had I not used the HD in another machine.
So you're complaining that MythTV doesn't work well when you used cards (ATI) that do not have very good Linux support. When I built my DVR, I researched the type of card to use. By far, everyone said not to use ATi as there wasn't very much support. Not that some people couldn't get it to work, but that the support was lacking. There are other cards that you could have used. I would say rather it's a testament to Linux that it works at all.
To be fair, the problem is Linux doesn't have much support for your cards. The problem is not exclusive to MythTV.
For years now, Linux people have complained about ATI support. Until recently they have not helped the community much. If they had released a spec, an API, etc. Instead, all the work to date has been done by reverse engineering. nVidia has done a little more and in fact, nVidia has released binary drivers.
Now I don't mean to sound rude, but you're complaining that the free help with ATI you have gotten from the Linux community hasn't been enough. You're complaining that all the time and work these people have done for you without asking, without thanks, without compensation isn't adequate. Well, open source software has a solution for you. Learn C and write your own driver.
Re:Just dumped MythTV (Score:3, Interesting)
As a dyed in the wool nerd, I've been using MythTV for a while now. But its .21 user interface (prior to
update in the slashdot story) leaves a lot to be desired even for TV watching. Try cancelling a scheduled
recording sometime and getting the damn tuner back, for instance. It certainly has MCE beat to hell and back
with its separation of front and back ends. Yeah you can do with MCE it on an xbox. So what. I don't own an xbox.
Or a windows machine for that matter right now, lol. So MythTV has Windows beat for no vendor lock in. But
it just doesn't pass the wife acceptance factor test for intuitive user interface.
Cable TV watching has bigger problems, however. Many cable companies gladly drop VCT information, and Myth and MCE's
scanners can't find channels without that info. They both advise you add channels by hand to fix it.
You can go vendor lock in and get a cablecard solution - tivo or mce+cablecard, both of which are pricey.
Unfortunately open-source PVR is a very niche market. The mythtv guys are to be commended for that they've done,
but at the end of the day I'll probably go back to satellite just because their PVR doesn't require me to
script up stuff for the wife to restart mythTV when it isn't happy.
XBMC (Score:4, Interesting)
I would love to see MythTV completely drop the entire frontend and have MythTV be only for backend recording. If you want that old crappy mythfrontend stuff around make it a separate project altogether and let users choose between mythfrontend or XBMC.
One thing I hate about myth's front end is the use of a DB for music or videos. Why can't you browse a NFS share, samba mount, or just a local directory live? You wanna build a DB so you can sort by artist, genre or whatever...fine. Do that, but let me just browse my files.
Seriously...drop the crap, write a good plugin for XBMC and be done with it.
Not trying to knock MythTV. It rocks as a recorder and has an awesome web interface...but thats about it. Playback is pretty lousy. XBMC is an awesome at everything it does.
Re:Pointless chrome (Score:3, Interesting)
Do your research (Score:5, Interesting)
Some people have gotten them to work but support for ATi on Linux is lacking. Before anyone complains about the huge cost of getting a new card, you can get a cheap nVidia (FX5 or higher) for as little as $30.
Don't wipe out your system just yet wondering if it will work. Use a live CD and see if it work at all. If it doesn't, you can eject the disc and reboot without any harm to your system. Currently, MythDora [mythdora.com], Mythbuntu [mythbuntu.org], and KnoppMyth [mysettopbox.tv] are the top versions
For basic DVR functionality installing one the previous versions mentioned above is easy enough for most people. To get all the features, you might have to invest in some hardware. To get a networked system, you're going have to know more about Linux. For digital OTA HD TV, you need a digital OTA tuner and a video card with at least DVI out. If you are staying on analog cable and TV, you can get it running on very cheap hardware. Right now using a digital cable tuner is not fully supported as these boxes don't always have API documentation.
The problem isn't the GUI. . . (Score:3, Interesting)
Uh, sorry, the problem isn't the GUI. The problem is the extremely painful installation and configuration process.
Until there are easier methods to get tuners configured, finding the right firmware files (oh, sure, go grab the OEM Windows installer, extract a binary blob, place it somewhere under /usr/local, edit /etc/config/foo$, run insmod, watch it fail, retry with a different driver version, etc.), and then configure the dbms by hand, etc. it won't gain much acceptance. Add in major lag between remote clicks and seeing the response on screen (rendering cable guides somewhere painful and useless because the Myth display lags behind somewhere between 500ms and 750ms on a PVR-150 card) and you've got a recipe for failure.
I have a lot of patience in dealing with hardware configuration, but Myth is just too painful to spend any time on.
Improve the installation/configuration process. Include a proper compatibility list - and keep it updated.
Also where are component or HDMI input options? HDCP/DRM be damned, we need a high-def PVR option. Screw Tivo or cableco DVRs where the recordings are tied to that EXACT box. If the box dies, so does access to recordings on an external HDD.
That's not to say the new GUI isn't nice, nor to underplay the importance of GUI design. It's just that the GUI is not Myth's problem in gaining mass acceptance.
Re:Pointless chrome (Score:2, Interesting)
Fuck you.
No, seriously, fuck you.
The conversation (which I have had NUMEROUS times with brain-dead linuxites like yourself) goes as follows.
Me: "This is what I've got doing my recording. It works pretty well."
Linuxite: "Dude, you should TOTALLY be using MythTV instead, it's open source and it'd go in your system no problem! You could even record multiple shows that way and everything. And if you've got any problems at all all you have to do is go on ForumXYZ and the wiki and they'll get it all fixed up!"
Me: "Hey guys, I'm having problems with this, here's my hardware configuration, here's the distribution I'm using, here are the errors I'm seeing."
Somebody Like Phoenixwade: "How DARE you use ATi, don't you know they're the devil? You need to spend $400 each on a pair of Happauge cards and a motherboard of X spec and then you need to blip fraggle toggle the command line and zorp waggle blizzle the driver and..."
My assessment is not "dishonest", you annoying ass. It is based PRECISELY on the legions of linux nerds who keep telling me I should convert my system, which works perfectly well, over to the software they claim is superior. And no, in these economic times, I am not going to waste $500+ just to try them out. It either works on the hardware I already own, the hardware I know for a fact works correctly with the software I currently use, or it is flawed on that basis.
Honestly, you are the kind of user I'd tell to box up your computer and take it back to the store.
Honestly, you're the kind of jerk who should never be let around another human being.
No mention of VDR? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:XBMC (Score:3, Interesting)