[mythtv-users] MythTV and the "average" user...

[jedi]

On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 03:44:33PM -0400, Ronald Frazier wrote:
> >    Have you guys had a Tivo too. You might be giving the Tivo more credit
> > than is it's due. While you don't have to "set up" a Tivo, you still have
> > figure out how to work the thing to record what you want.
> 
> I've had a TiVo for 4.5 years, and other than maybe 3 times that I had
> to unplug it to reboot it, it has worked flawlessly. On the other
> hand, the mythbox needs regular intervention and behaves irratic on a
> regular basis.

    From what I've seen of this it is mostly the frontend crashing or
locking up and that's pretty easy to create simple workarounds for. The
backend even crashes infrequently but that too is rather simple to 
workaround. A decent INNODB setup on mysql might even solve the problem
of a hard box crash on the backend borking the db.

> 
> As for how to work the thing? Again...tivo is way ahead on that front
> too. Mostly because it is a much simpler, less flexible device, it
> doesn't have nearly the degree of complication in the scheduling.
> Personally, I think myth's scheduling screen is a bit of a nightmare.
> Even I can't always figure out where the option I'm looking for is. I
> find the web interface much easier to use, and thats where I direct my
> wife. TiVo, on the other hand, is quite elegant.

     Yes, I could definitely see someone comfortable with Tivo scheduling
being overwhelmed by the Myth UI.

> 
> Same thing with the schedule priority. Tivo is quite simple and
> sensible...If there is a conflict, stuff at the top of the SP list
> gets priority. With myth, you've got individual show prioroty +
> recording type priority + channel priority + hdtv priority +
> individual schedules preference for 1 tuner vs another + probably some
> other priorities I'm forgetting. Again, it's nice that myth has all
> this flexibility, but it is incredibly confusing for a lot of people.
> 
> Don't get me wrong...I love the mythbox, but it's several orders of
> magnitude higher on the maintenance scale, and the usability for the
> features it does support is typically much better.
> 
> -- 
> Ron
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