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A sad day.
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Well... yesterday I finally threw in the towel, and decided to build myself a mythTV box.
The Hummy is a great box, but... the support is just so slow, and I get the feeling that before everything is even sorted out properly, they'll pack up development and concentrate on a new bit of hardware.
It's probably the best conceived of all of the PVRs on the market - except perhaps Sky+, but you have to pay subs for that - even for just freesat channels. To be quite honest, the dev guys have really pulled their finger out and tried to get a lot of new stuff implemented, but it's just taking so long, and some of the long standing problems are still there - USB not working, loss of recordings, 20 timer limit, padding still not right, non-persistent EPG.
I can't see many of these changing for a long time, and I have real doubts about the implementation of some of the Freeview playback stuff.
So... I'm going the myth route! Most of this stuff is already sorted out on MythTV. It even has some kind of intelligent commercial detection algorithm built in for skipping the adds, plus a whole other bunch of fancy stuff. I can add my DVD burner, watch DVDs, burn new ones, rip them. You can even play things slightly faster/slower than broadcast! Oh... and I stuck 3 DVB tuners in it!!
Most of all... if there's something I don't like... well, I have the source code. I can check what I need to do, implement it, and then provide the patch to the community for everyone else to use. I only wish I could do that with the Hummy!
So... next week my Hummy goes on ebay. I'll be holding a memorial later tonight.
The Hummy is a great box, but... the support is just so slow, and I get the feeling that before everything is even sorted out properly, they'll pack up development and concentrate on a new bit of hardware.
It's probably the best conceived of all of the PVRs on the market - except perhaps Sky+, but you have to pay subs for that - even for just freesat channels. To be quite honest, the dev guys have really pulled their finger out and tried to get a lot of new stuff implemented, but it's just taking so long, and some of the long standing problems are still there - USB not working, loss of recordings, 20 timer limit, padding still not right, non-persistent EPG.
I can't see many of these changing for a long time, and I have real doubts about the implementation of some of the Freeview playback stuff.
So... I'm going the myth route! Most of this stuff is already sorted out on MythTV. It even has some kind of intelligent commercial detection algorithm built in for skipping the adds, plus a whole other bunch of fancy stuff. I can add my DVD burner, watch DVDs, burn new ones, rip them. You can even play things slightly faster/slower than broadcast! Oh... and I stuck 3 DVB tuners in it!!
Most of all... if there's something I don't like... well, I have the source code. I can check what I need to do, implement it, and then provide the patch to the community for everyone else to use. I only wish I could do that with the Hummy!
So... next week my Hummy goes on ebay. I'll be holding a memorial later tonight.
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IMHO all the original problems should have been sorted before adding 'extras'.........
Martin,
the mythTV sounds exciting - perhaps a new thread in the PVR section on DS?? I must say I've enjoyed reading your post and views over the months. You certainly have a good insight into these things. The rate of updates from Humax is really slow - to the point where I am wondering if they are going to release an update before November now - so agree with you on the rate of change there! Best of luck with the MythTV - you certainly like to get your teeth into these things! All the best - and if you keep the hummy - will you wtill be able to spare some time as a tester?
Good luck!
I didn't want a noisy, powerful PC in the lounge, together with its high power consumption.
I did try with a mini ITX (1GHz) PC but it just wasn't fast enough.
I ran my Myth under Linux of course.
Frank
If I wanted someting to play with I think I go for a Topfield... lots of fun loading taps that expire every 6 months and even more fun with tap incompatibility ... but those are very minor issues and just add to the fun fun fun.
I think the real score is...
HUMAX 9200T ... lots and lots of happy owners
Bugs ... a few sad departed unlucky owners
Richard
Still like to get the autopadding bug fixed as soon as possible - at the moment I am having to use a workaround whenever I see two same channel consecutive programmes - you dont want to have to think about these things. We had a major software update at the beginning of summer and I would have thought another software update at the end of summer should have been acheivable. But when I got a call from Humax about testing some software this week it was clear they still have a way to go yet.
If elinker is fixed before autopadding then one group would be happier and the other not so. But if autopadding was fixed before elinker, then people having problems transfering recodings will grumble that fixing a bug in a new feature isnt as important as fixing a problem in a standard feature. There is no need for a toss up between whether autopadding bug or elinker should be dealt with first, as they are both getting treatement at the moment anyway
USB is dependent on hardware in the 9200T and PC to which it is connected.
It would be very sad to see any delay to auto-padding fixes because USB changes (i.e. not fixes it works fully as described for most that use it) can not be delivered within the same time frame.
I have kind off given up on my humax too, the 20 timer limit makes it pretty much useless. I cant program it for all the shows I want to watch and spend far too much time manualy adding repeat shows becuase of the timer limit.
I have moved onto EyeTV on the mac mini which is awesome, i have two cynergy T2 tunners on the box and it does everything that the humax does and far more, the last update to the software made it work with the apple remote and provided a proper full screen menu system so now there is virtualy nothing i would use the humax for, i only use it as a set top box now, when i have have something i want to watch when the mini is recording two shows.
The eyetv/mini thing is fantastic, It has classification of programs so i can create categories for the different program types, it exports automaticaly to itunes, in ipod format so i can take shows on the road with me, it has both ethernet and wifi, and i have can hook as much storage as I like into it, add to that the fact that it has a DVD writter built in it great. Plus i have a CVI (HDMI) connection from the mini to my 30 inch lcd, and thus get georgeous pictures. The latest version of eyetv also integrates with front row, so its fantastic.
Cost wise its out of the ball park, it cost me 3 to 4 time the price of the humax, but its is so much better and extendable.
It does sound excellent. These freeview PVRs are a bit boring. What would be the cheapest option out of MythTV, EyeTV/Mini and say mediacentre and reelbox?
My setup costs about £850, but it is also a dvd player and music center too.
You will definatly pay more for a Mac based solution, but you get a computer that can also play games etc to. Ditto with the media centers.
The Mac media center scene is exploding at the moment, Equinox have just launched MediaCentral, that does everything EyeTV+FrontRow does except the scheduled recordings, but will integrate with EyEtV for that, MediaCentral will also integrate with YouTube and GoogleVideo to allow you to play content from those sites, plus it supports several web based TV stations, mostly educational and US PBS, but there are some gems like NASA TV. You need a good broadband connection for that to work, but everybody seems to be going to 8Mb anyway.
Im setting up a site over the next few weeks to record all my experiences with Mac Mini's its called http://macminimedia.co.uk
A quick question. Do you know whether MythTV supports MHEG / digital text ?
Like most readers here, I'd be interested in knowing how you get on.
Best Wishes,
Toonie.
EDIT: Just to answer my own question, it looks like it's coming in the next version. I found this link:
http://www.mythtvtalk.com/mythtv-0.20.php
Regards,
Toonie.
Point taken however personally speaking I was more than aware of the price difference.
The cheapest option that covers some of what I'd like is the reelbox so far which hasnt been mentioned yet
Yes.. it is in the next version. Although it's not stable yet. I just upgraded to the SVN trunk, and when I enabled MHEG it was crashing the box... I'm sure it'll be fixed in time for the 0.20 release.
My MythTV setup cost me around £300, which is a good price compared to the Mac EyeTV solution. However, you have to go with the pace of the community (about 5x the pace of Humax
I've just spent an additional £80 for an XBox to go in my bedroom - this will be formatted with Linux, and be a MythTV frontend, allowing me to watch LiveTV or any of the recorded shows on my main box downstairs... I've tested this, and it works well so far - so, £380 for a PVR in 2 rooms, with 3 tuners between them... that's more like it.
Reelbox looks great, although it doesn't seem to do much more that my currently system. More stable though, I'd imagine.
I think it's opensource too (I must check), but possibly doesn't support the cards I'm using - just their proprietary versions, and I don't know if I could boot it on my system.
Oh yeah... I put in a DVD burner, so it plays / burns DVDs, music CDs, mp3s off CD/DVD/network etc etc.
When they have this working, it'll be very tempting indeed.
That's a really neat trick I didn't know it could do. As you say, Xboxes are very cheap nowadays. Thanks for the update.
Toonie.
Main problem was failure to record when in standby (single non-contiguous programmes - nothing to do with overlap padding bug). Humax couldn't offer a solution. I can't be doing with flaky software on the machine's main function.
Now pondering an alternative - first stop Toppy forum.
These forums dont point to a major problem with the hummy and recording non-contiguous programmes in standby. There are some documented problems with failure to record from standby position in the toppy forum in recent weeks. Though, like potentialy yours, those reports may all be from people with slightly duff units
Me to never had a problem with recording from stanby... well once but I had the TISR bug at the time. :mad: