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

James Orr james.orr7 at gmail.com
Tue May 20 14:26:30 UTC 2008


On Tue, May 20, 2008 at 10:05 AM, Mike Dent <mcdent at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> 2008/5/19 jedi <jedi at mishnet.org>:
>
>> 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.
>
>
> Does there exist a Tivo-esque theme for MythTV?
>
> I've had a Tivo in the UK (which is a few version behind the US stuff) for
> about 5 years now, as others have said it 'just works' and the UI, although
> now very slow in comparison to Myth, is simple to use and navigate, and
> causes little confusion to the wife :) which is a good thing.
>
> The standard Myth themes seem to make almost too many functions available
> to the average user, and choice of wording for some of the menus may be
> considered confusing to some?
>
> I guess what I need is a very simple theme which allows watching and
> recording shows and all the other stuff is hidden behind an 'advanced' menu.
>
> I love Mythtv and think all involved have done a really great job, my goal
> when building the mythtv box about 18 months ago was for it to replace the
> Tivo, which I just know will fail, up to now my wife still insists on using
> the Tivo for day to day use and calls me in to record something on the
> Mythbox if she needs it! :)
>

I agree, a lot of the scheduling could be trimmed off in a basic view.  Most
of the time the only option I set is whether it's record any time/any
channel (for series) or record one showing (for movies).

It could just display a few filtered options based on what kind of show it
is (record any time is unlikely to be used for a movie for example) with a
button to go to the "advanced" (current) screen.

I do use recording groups, stuff my wife watches that I am not interested in
goes in hers, similarly for stuff I want to see she is not interested in and
stuff we both want to see goes in the default group.  The basic view could
check to see if any groups are defined, and if they are display an option
for it, if not it doesn't show it.
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