Hi

i'am living in switzerland, in the last few months windows media center pcs are comming up. In our village was a industrial show from the local industry and the company i work for present a media center pc. the people were fascinated me too because it really works well. the problem is that it does not support common interface over satelite.

whats about mythtv is it ready for the consumer market, can anybody use them allday without big discrepancy and whats about HDTV Pro7 and Sat1 are broadcasting H.264/AVC over sateliete is it possible to receive them with a SkyStar 2.

G'day Drabo,

>is it ready for the consumer market
I think yes a no! useful eh?

If it was preinstalled on a chunk of hardware then I think yes, but there are so many variables, motherboard, cards, disks etc that there are too many variables for the average joe (My personal opinion)

I someone said 'buy x, y and x and do this' then it would be ready, but this is nearly impossible given the rate at which hardware changes and firmware versions of stuff etc.

There is always going to be a need for some tweaking.
Mine did install and work, but I need to make some changes. And it was about the 5 install I had done just to get it working...

Nearly there though!

I think that last comment was a little misleading (just my opinion)

mythtv, once setup is quite stable. I agree that, depending on hardware selections, your path from today a stable, production ready system may vary.

If you read the forum, read the Tier 1 -2 -3 sections as they detail good and bad hardware for this project. hardware that others have listed in Tier 1 will ease the effort.

My mythbox is in my livingroom. My wife and 7 year old use it everyday.

With all that said, I would concider the step into Mythtv a 'project' or a hobby. I think most of us here spend at least some time, tweaking and tuning. (all the while the box is generally availible).

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R5F1 - Dell P4 2.4Ghz 500MB - PVR250 x 2 - GeForce FX 5200 - Onboard sound/NIC 80GB ATA/250GB ATA/400GB SATA

To make MythTV available to the masses is what Human is working on with the KRP called the Dragon. You can buy a computer with everything working and stable.

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Girkers

G'day all,

If I built a box and gave it to my mother, then yes it is ready, other than the occasion lockups, but other boxen do that as well.

I answered the question from an install perspective, I.E. tell my mate about it and he can download/buy hardware/install/watch.
My mate knows nothing about linux but can install hardware.
Then it is not ready, overscan/underscan/gui sizing/alt tabbing for radiotimes download/refresh rate/having to tweak X*4 config file etc. Jitter/remote issues, he would just give up.

If you stick to tier 1 hardware, it should 'just work'

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R5F1 - Dell P4 2.4Ghz 500MB - PVR250 x 2 - GeForce FX 5200 - Onboard sound/NIC 80GB ATA/250GB ATA/400GB SATA

MythTV is very stable. While there are a lot of configuration options, since using MythTV (over 2 years now), I yet to had a need to try and tweak the default configurations for it to just work...

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cesman

When the source is open, the possibilities are endless!

I had one version of Myth that was very bad, but the knoppmyth version
I have now is excellent. Solid as a rock and does just what I need from it.
This was on the exact same hardware, so it's definitely a matter of getting
the software right.

I would say it seems to be getting easier. In mythtv 0.17 adding in a high def card was a challenge, I had to get my transports by hand and enter them, then scan per transport, while with 0.18.1 there is a handy scan function. (good grief, I'm already a geezer. "Why in my day...")

KnoppMyth adds on to that by adding in a lot of the really handy tools (like the script that fixes high def channels for zap2it purposes) and doing a lot of the heavy lifting (setting up e.g. mysql, lirc,...) of installing a mythtv system.

Yes, there are challenges. For instance the under scan, overscan and XF86Config-4 file. But once those are setup, they're solved. They don't usually need more feeding.

And I will admit, that I suspect non-North Americans suffer more variables and get more headaches with their listings as they don't use datadirect.

I have a system at my vacation cabin that just runs. I visit the cabin once a month or so and the system just keeps a chugging. I have it set up for autoexpire with a 1 Gig threshold, I keep it's clock synched with ntp and that's it. It just runs.

Drabo,

I'm in Switzerland too and have also wondered about Myth. The totally unanswered question for at present is how practical it is to get TWO DVB-S (Satellite) cards that will work together in the same PC. (This is already an issue in Windows World from what I have read)

The last time I looked at Myth (6 months or more ago), there was alot of discussion about recompiling DVB drivers and how these weren't compatible with all cards etc etc

I'm a Windows guy and I found that I could easily install KnoppMyth with little knowledge of Linux. Unfortunately, even the simple task of copying JPEG's and MP3s into the image and Music folders almost defeated me.

As, khrusher suggested, I think Myth TV needs to become a hobby. I like to watch the TV I recorded, Ski, Cycle Ride, play some PC Games and other things too

If you just want to watch tv and you're not computer literate TIVO is cheaper and easier. If you already know windows and linux it's not that difficult.

MythTV for cable or standard OTA is pretty dang stable! However 3 of my 5 boxes are HD OTA and..ummm not stable at all.. though useable. Focus issues also creep their heads up as well.. in xine.. or sometimes mplayer.. other times the menu's dont get a select dialog box.. other odd things can happen in myth.. Myth is alot like a harley.. owners love them even though they spend more time under it then on it.

It's stable enough for a project but not stable enough for the masses.

First you've got hardware issues with mass produced commodity hardware. It's not like a hardware box for satellite or even a Tivo. Even off-the-shelf Sony or other boxen will probably have problems over time.

Second it's just not finished. There's a reason both Cesman and the Myth guys consider the project alpha. I mean, look at the version numbering. It's at .18. That's about .82 away from a 1.x release. The IR blaster stuff needs to get alot easier (i.e. working post-install by itself), the music manager needs a major overhaul, internet streaming radio needs to be there by default, and a hundred other things.

Third, it's stability comes from a great huge pile of admittedly unstable software, namely Debian unstable. Other distros could be better or worse. Before anyone mentions it, yeah I know Debian 'unstable' can be reliable, but the Debian devs don't look at it that way.

Someday, probably in a year or three, MythTV 1.x will be released, will support any hardware you can think of, and will install with 3 clicks and a beer. It has come a very long way but has a long way to go as well. I just feel lucky that it's usable for me and thousands of others at this point.

The only reason R5 is still called alpha is because the graphical installer (which we promised) isn't ready yet. While there maybe a few other rough spots, R5 has been very stable for me (and no, I don't do anything special for LinHES). With the exception of an earlier release of MythTV, the "stable" releases have been rock solid for me.

I think the greatest obstacle to stability is the hardware itself. One fella earlier was having issues and started to install Windows. The he discovered the issue was with the placement of RAM on his motherboard. The hardware tiers are there to try and help users choose the right hardware (and hardware to avoid). I started KRP of this exact purpose as well.

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cesman

When the source is open, the possibilities are endless!

issac (the main dev) has said many times.. he is not going for version 1.0.. in a way.. .19 will be version 19.0 I love myth.. it is WELLLLLLLL worth the trouble learning it.. but if your a couch potato not wanting to get his hands dirty.. buy a tivo.. and drool over your friends mythbox!