[mythtv-users] More problems than it's worth?

[Ross Campbell]

On 2/24/06, James Minihane <j.minihane at minihane.tzo.com> wrote:
> Initially I thought MythTV was THE ANSWER. But reading these lists, it
> seems that MythTV is more of a headache than a godsend.

You're obviously new to opensource, right?

A large fraction of the people who post here are actually *INVOLVED*
in making mythtv better in some way shape or form. Many of us "create
our own problems" on purpose and ask others to test out what we've
done or help us out in the name of adding features and functionality
as well we fixes to mythtv.

MythTV has a vibrant developer community. That's a good thing for any
software. I would hate to use software where *nobody* was working on
enhanements, bug fixes, and improvements. All software has bugs. A
large developer community means that bugs are fixed faster. If you'd
rather *PAY* someone to ensure that your MythTV system works, there
are people and companies interested.

> I'm not about to
> invest a few thousand in hardware into a problem ridden system.

Then don't. Or... buy what is known to work well. Or buy what is known
not to work well and start debugging it, adding support for it, fixing
it, and posting here with the rest of us.

> How many of you actually use MythTV to...
> Time delay live TV, watch DVDs, schedule recordings, listen to music, and
> view pictures and actually have things work without reboots etc?

My system never reboots unless I reboot it, unplug it, or the power goes out.
Everyone here uses MythTV for those things and many of us do more.

I'm not saying that getting all aspects of MythTV fully functional are
trivial, but they're getting better and easier all the time thanks to
the people on the mail lists.

-Ross