[Discuss] Is MythTV dead?

[bogstad at pobox.com (Bill Bogstad)]

On Sun, Jan 15, 2012 at 6:01 PM, Tom Metro <tmetro-blu at vl.com> wrote:
> It also doesn't help that the non-MythTV clients are treated like 2nd
> class members of the MythTV ecosystem. With the increasing popularity of
> XBMC, it may become harder for MythTV devs to ignore the alternative
> clients.

I doubt it.   From what I've seen over the years, the core MythTV
developers are; in general; only interested in "scratching their
itches".   Unless one of the core developers suddenly decides to start
personally using XBMC as a frontend, I wouldn't expect any changes
here.   They MIGHT accept code contributions from the outside, but not
if this restricted their freedom to make internal code changes.   They
treat their MySQL database schema as an internal interface rather then
as an abstraction through which third party software could interact.
They do the same with the MythTV protocol.  If you aren't running only
their code (and preferably the latest release), don't bother them.

> Getting a smoothly running home theater setup with open source software
> is no different from how you approached building a Linux PC in years
> past. It takes research to find what hardware and software components go
> together well.

The problem is that the switch from analog to digital has drastically
upended the core MythTV functionality of capturing video streams.
This often requires new hardware which usually requires new versions
of MythTV.    The MythTV developers lack of interest in maintaining
abstractions from release to release didn't matter in the past because
analog capture of RF signals was fairly stable and once you had a
working capture system you could just freeze your version.  The MythTV
developers didn't cause the analog to digital change, but their way of
(not) interacting with third party software hasn't made things any
easier.

> So for example, if you knew you wanted to run XBMC as your front end,
> and found it didn't support MythTV 0.24, then use MythTV 0.23. (Granted,
> not a very practical option if you've already upgraded to 0.24.)

Which just isn't possible if you want to use what should be the right
hardware for the job (for example MythTV supported cablecard
compatible capture devices).    Not doing it this way involves any
number of problematic configurations if you are interacting with a
cable TV system.   You can forgo HD entirely and use composite analog
capture devices and IR blasting with set top boxes.  This is the
oldest and is the most reliable.   Or you can try your hand at doing
component analog capture devices (Hauppauge HD PVR) which gives you HD
but the trip via analog is going to lose quality (and reportedly the
reliability is lower).    Or you can try using FireWire to do digital
capture directly from a set top box which is (again reportedly) even
less reliable.   All of these require significant ongoing payments to
the cable company for set top box rental, lower quality recordings,
and/or major reliability issues.

A frequent response to this is that video capture is dead and we
should all just get our video fix via Internet streaming sites.   For
me and I suspect many others that just doesn't work.   I want access
to many shows that aren't available via streaming sites and I would
prefer not to have my kids one hour of television a night be dependent
on the vagaries of the Internet.

Bill Bogstad