[Discuss] MythTV: from bad to worse. Start over?

[richb at pioneer.ci.net (Rich Braun)]

I wrote:
> MythTV doesn't directly support PVR archival through its UI

David Kramer <david at thekramers.net> argues:
> Sure it does!  It even has an archive export that throws the
> metadata in XML files, so when you want to import them again
> you don't lose anything.  I've done this.

Hmm, I wonder if we're talking about the same thing?  If it does have support
for this, then help me understand where to look in its UI.

The PVR function has been embedded in the main app, and archival playback (DVD
iso, home videos, other recordings) has been a separate plugin (mythvideo), up
until the next rev 0.25 which has been delayed more than year.  (Currently I
am running 0.24.1, as distributed on the Packman repo.)  Hence moving things
from the main app into the video storage (both disk directory and database
meta data) has not been readily possible.

What I find myself doing is disabling auto-expire within the PVR menu, and
after a year or so of doing that I run low on storage and have to move those
videos into the long-term (6TB+) archive from the short-term PVR (400GB) menu.
 When I do that, the metadata sits in the PVR database but you have to switch
over to the "Watch Videos" menu instead of "Watch Recordings".

So yeah, if there's a better way to do this (that would transfer metadata from
PVR to mythvideo storage) in 0.24.1 then I'm all ears.

The whole UI in 0.24.1 is begging for a complete rewrite from top to bottom,
in addition to about 20 urgent-priority bug fixes. I suppose this is all in
progress in 0.25 but the wait is agonizing.

-rich