Troubleshooter
04-20-08, 02:57 PM
Well I gave it a shot on an XP laptop and a Vista Desktop and since this the really the Mythtv hangout on AVS I figured I'd share:
The software is a build that is checked out of Mythtv-svn. This contains both front and back end but I only played with the front end.
The Good:
Driver support for wifi, video, remotes, VFDs etc.
Wireless has been driving me crazy for a long time in Linux. Now certainly lots of smart people have worked very hard on getting things right, unless you have rather specific hardware, it takes time to get working and honestly, I've yet to find Linux wifi, except on the Intel cards to be as stable as on Windows or MacOS even after getting it working (madwifi and Network-Manager still give me nightmares). Additionally, you can have your hardware working in 80211N mode which is still absent on Linux and really helps out with streaming HD. Yeah, I know, we have ndiswrapper and many people will trash me on criticizing Linux wifi, but really, it can be annoying and basically ANY wireless device has simple windows drivers. This is all the vendors' fault, not the open source developers'. You'll also get better video card drivers, easier gui based remote config (debatable) etc.
Easy (easier) to install.
Run setup.exe. Well one small issue here is that the installer needs a little more work. It doesn't create a mysql.txt for you so you have to do it yourself. Other than that, quite straight forward.
Direct3d support.
Can plug into d3d which at least theoretically can give us lots of offload capabilities and filters. I didn't go any further than turning this on, so I can't say for sure what it can do as of yet.
Can be integrated into Mediacenter.
Now Myth has it all over Mediacenter for TV in my opinion but there's things like Netflix that you need to be in windows to use and Netflix has a plugin for it to run right from the remote. I suppose you can also integrate PowerDVD or whatnot to playback Bluray, again from a central interface. That's pretty useful.
The Bad:
It's WINDOWS.
I have no reason to believe that a working configuration will stay working over time based on my past experiences. This is the reason I dumped Windows for my HTPC to begin with. 'Nuff said.
Limited plugins.
Not all of the plugins are available it seems. Though DVD playback is available as an option, I didn't get it working in my short test. Not saying it doesn't work at all, just that I didn't take the time to look into it.
The Ugly.
Still not quite 100% stable. The XP install crashed quite often, the Vista not so much but still not quite 'production ready'. I'm still amazed at how good it is over all though and thankful for the efforts made and that continue to be made.
So there you have it. Definitely something to keep our eyes on.
-Trouble
The software is a build that is checked out of Mythtv-svn. This contains both front and back end but I only played with the front end.
The Good:
Driver support for wifi, video, remotes, VFDs etc.
Wireless has been driving me crazy for a long time in Linux. Now certainly lots of smart people have worked very hard on getting things right, unless you have rather specific hardware, it takes time to get working and honestly, I've yet to find Linux wifi, except on the Intel cards to be as stable as on Windows or MacOS even after getting it working (madwifi and Network-Manager still give me nightmares). Additionally, you can have your hardware working in 80211N mode which is still absent on Linux and really helps out with streaming HD. Yeah, I know, we have ndiswrapper and many people will trash me on criticizing Linux wifi, but really, it can be annoying and basically ANY wireless device has simple windows drivers. This is all the vendors' fault, not the open source developers'. You'll also get better video card drivers, easier gui based remote config (debatable) etc.
Easy (easier) to install.
Run setup.exe. Well one small issue here is that the installer needs a little more work. It doesn't create a mysql.txt for you so you have to do it yourself. Other than that, quite straight forward.
Direct3d support.
Can plug into d3d which at least theoretically can give us lots of offload capabilities and filters. I didn't go any further than turning this on, so I can't say for sure what it can do as of yet.
Can be integrated into Mediacenter.
Now Myth has it all over Mediacenter for TV in my opinion but there's things like Netflix that you need to be in windows to use and Netflix has a plugin for it to run right from the remote. I suppose you can also integrate PowerDVD or whatnot to playback Bluray, again from a central interface. That's pretty useful.
The Bad:
It's WINDOWS.
I have no reason to believe that a working configuration will stay working over time based on my past experiences. This is the reason I dumped Windows for my HTPC to begin with. 'Nuff said.
Limited plugins.
Not all of the plugins are available it seems. Though DVD playback is available as an option, I didn't get it working in my short test. Not saying it doesn't work at all, just that I didn't take the time to look into it.
The Ugly.
Still not quite 100% stable. The XP install crashed quite often, the Vista not so much but still not quite 'production ready'. I'm still amazed at how good it is over all though and thankful for the efforts made and that continue to be made.
So there you have it. Definitely something to keep our eyes on.
-Trouble