[mythtv-users] On the verge of giving up

[osma ahvenlampi]

On 9/20/07, Jay R. Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> MythTV is an Indycar.  If you don't *want* to go 200mph, buy a TiVo.
> But don't try bringing it to the track.

That's a fun line, but it aint true.

I have a perfectly functional MythTV box in my living room that hasn't
crashed in 3 months (after which I stopped updating it, since you
don't want to fix what isn't broken), "nearly" always records what
it's told to record, plays back pretty much everything I care to throw
at it, and as long as I don't try to transcode certain channels,
doesn't even f**k up my programs (the latter being half the channels'
fault, half MythTV's in my opinion).

But one thing it isn't is fast. Click OK for "Recorded programs", wait
5 seconds. Select a recording, wait anything from 2 seconds to 15 to
get a playback menu. Hit exit while in playback -- sometimes it
responds immediately, sometimes 20 seconds later. The only UI I use
daily that is even more annoyingly sluggish is my Nokia phone. And
that isn't as slow, I just have to use it more.

One thing that is clearly causing this is the two-page-long SQL
statements the thing throws to a completely unoptimized, chaotically
organised database that the fraction of a DBA in me gets a brain
seizure just looking at. I don't know what else there is, but calling
MythTV fast is a gigantic lie.

Now, I still use it. It does its job, and hasn't failed on me
recently. Indycar not, a tractor more likely.

-- 
Osma Ahvenlampi   <oa at iki.fi>       http://www.fishpool.org