It's been a while since we discussed Myth so I thought I'd get the ball rolling again with some random un-constructed thoughts
I decided to give it another go. Driven primarily by the frustration that is Vista on my Asus P5B-E. All driver related as near as I can tell. Slow or non connecting network. Bodgy sound drivers. Poor video drivers. The fault of which you can attribute anywhere you like, the manufacturer's, MS, Fred Flintstone.. The net result was that it's time for something new.
Other times I've installed Myth I've done it on my test box in my office. I have poor reception up there and never really gave it a good shot.
This time I've repartitioned my production machine and installed Myth on there. Knowing that I have perfect reception etc.
I started this on Sat morning. By mid Sat afternoon I had a working, untweaked Myth solution.
This time I started with a different approach. Previously (like MCE), I tried to install myth, then get the tuners, audio etc working.. That approach doesn't work and is confusing.
This time I decided to tackle each component individually.
- Installed lirc and the MCE remote config files and used the provided tools to get it working (done).
- Used Novells Yast to configure TV tuners( done, 1 click install for the tuners that were recognised), and I could use them in standalone TV apps.
- Audio worked out of the box on the Audigy 2 but I had to modify the myth config for SPDIF (which works perfectly).
etc. etc.
Once I had them all working I then installed Myth and configured it.
I gotta say. Out of the box myth is pretty ugly, but once you tweak it up well. It looks damn nice and feels good to use. I want to take a video showing it in action. Maybe I'll get around to it.
The obvious differences I've noticed so far compared to Vista are:
1. My network card works flawlessly. Unlike Vista.
2. My Audio works flawlessly (including SPDIF), via an Audigy 2.
3. My Video resolution is a prefect 1368x768 out of the box with the closed source Linux Nvidia drivers. It is also rumored on the myth Wiki that the current driver can do 1366x768 (i.e. the 8 pixel clock resolution limitation is now removed).
4. Network browsing is lightning fast.
5. Playback is better, No video tearing (as in Vista), due to a better tweaked refresh rate.
6. Media playback is better, more efficient on CPU utilisation etc.
7. I now have Picture in Picture!
8. The interface is not as intuitive as Vista.
9. The appearance of Vista is superior (but to me this is irrelevant), most of the time is spent watching the actual media, not the interface), but Myth is still attractive with the right skin.
10. Myth allows parental control at the file level so I can now prevent my kids from skipping from Doctor Who to SawIII.
11. A 2 min install of myth frontend on my office linux machine had me connecting to and using the backend HTPC to watch liveTV, schedule recordings etc... Built in extender with any other PC!
the list of functions in myth is comprehensive and as I play more I'll add more to this thread.
There is no difference in time shifting ability. Guide data works just nicely with IceTV and overall the functionality and capability of Myth is vastly superior to MCE.
For example:
You can use RTC based wakeup for the machine so it is completely shut down (powered off, not hibernate or standby), and will still wake (power on) to do scheduled recordings. If Vista used this things might work better as the machine would come up from a full power off negating any resume from standby issues.
Recording options are vast. Record only on this station in this time slot, record any time on this station, record anytime on any station, but ignore repeats etc etc. There is a very comprehensive list of methods to record, how to keep, what to do with shows etc. You can set up program groups and direct certain recordings to different directories etc.
Myth also has the ability to search every recording for advertising and tag the ads in the show so that you can skip them on playback.
Myth can transcode shows as and when you specify, with the ads removed if so desired (all automatically)
The beauty of it is that you have full control over every aspect of the experience. This is also the double edged sword for non technical people.
There's no denying that it's not a point and click install. There is much manual configuration to do and it is time consuming but for me I'd rather take two weeks to build a Myth box that continues to remain reliable ongoing than 2 hours to build a Vista box that continues to frustrate and fail at every opportunity. That being said I haven't used myth on a daily basis as yet so I really can't compare on stability terms.
I'm still playing and don't have any real world use by which to rate the transcode, ad cutting etc functions and I haven't even touched the surface on what is there and available via plugins but I can say that it looks sweet with the skin I am using.
At the moment only two of the 4 tuners in my rig are supported and I'm out of slots so I'm working on a way around that. Once I have it I'll cut over 100% and really use Myth so I have a basis for full comparison.
With the OpenGL renderer you do get nice fade transitions between menu's etc.
Everything that you can do with ffdshow etc is all available with Myth. ffdshow is actually derived from mplayer and ffmpeg source code.
e.g I scale all my video in Vista to 1368x768 using the lanczos scaler algorithm in ffdshow.
To do this in myth all I did was changed the mplayer command line to;
mplayer -vf scale 1768:-1 -sws 9
Which accomplishes exactly the same thing.. It's just that there is no gui as such to tell you what you've just done
Initial set up wasn't easy. Out of the box I had no network and no display (other than a text console). It didn't take long though to install what was required to build and install the network driver. Once on the net I could install the nvidia driver. From then on it was smooth sailing.
I used Opensuse 10.2 as a base. After setting up the necessary online repositories it literally was a 1 click install to get all the required myth files and remote support for the MCE remote. Once installed though it had to be configured which took longer.
I've got pages and pages of the MythTV wiki printed and scattered all over my desk at home but on the whole it's been a rewarding and fun experience.
Absolutely everything I have done to tweak or configure everything has been documented on the Web. It's just a matter of knowing up front that more effort will be required to go this way than a simple install from CD.
If anyone wants to have a go I'll be more than happy to help with the attempt
Cheers,
Arkay.
