[mythtv-users] Zap2It fiasco - what can we as users do?

[brian]

Victor Perez wrote:
> On 6/26/07, brian <turbo at talstar.com> wrote:
>> A deal with TMS or any other listing provider (if any) is not good 
>> enough.
>>
>>    Says who?
> 
> 
> Me, (IMHO) as long as mythtv depends on a third party commercial entity to
> work we risk these situations happening.

   In the US (and Canada), most of the television stations are, themselves,
   "third party commercial entities", and MythTV is dependent upon them to
   supply content for recording in the first place.

>>    They (the devs) seem to have managed the entire MythTV project, thus
>> far,
>>    without need of your (or any user's) stewardship.
> 
> 
> And look where they've taken us.

   ... to the point of meeting or surpassing the capabilities of most of
   the commercially available alternatives to MythTV.  Shame on them!

   and, while you're up there on your mount, let me shout up the following query:

   What situation would, for example, Tivo, be in if their listings provider suddenly
   yanked the rug out from under them, and gave them a 60-day "drop dead" date for
   their listings data?  Would their devs be working on an alternative? (ans: probably so)
   Would their users be demanding a daily status of their progress?  (ans: probably so, but
   in that case, they'd be _paying_customers_ who might reasonably make such demands)

> And before you all jump with "if you don't like it do something about it",
> I'm already on it. More on this later.

   please, oh, please don't be "solving" the "bandwidth issue" (again), and (basically)
   ignoring the fact that bandwidth issues, *if they existed*, will be immediately
   solved by the lack of data to transport, if that issue isn't addressed first and
   foremost.