Practical MythTV: Building a PVR and Media Center PC

List Price: $29.99 Discount Price: $9.99

Customer Reviews:

Not worth the money [Posted on 2008-01-26]
The book is outdated for the state that mythtv has advanced to. I used MythDora to set my system up and most of the hard work has been done. There are also areas that the book does not cover. I actually found the book to be not be worth the money.

Perhaps Dated; Wasn't Very Helpful [Posted on 2008-03-21]
I fall within the vast range of Linux users who know just enough to be dangerous, but at least realize that this is where they happen to be.

I purchased this book brimming with enthusiasm and confident that with its assistance, I'd have no problem getting MythTV up and running.

In fact, my experience with this book was very ungratifying and downright frustrating.

To start with, I found that many of the command lines cited in the book just plain didn't work. In some cases, it was easy to discern where the commands strayed from reality, in other cases not so much. These discrepancies might arise from my using a later version of Ubuntu or MythTV than those to which this book was written. Frankly, I don't know.

I was also frustrated to find that while the publisher provided a web page for users to report errata, it was a purely one-way - You're free to leave your comments, but don't expect a compilation of earlier postings (or corrections)to be made available in exchange, and certainly don't look for any sort of response.

In the end, I set this book aside and installed Mythbuntu - Ubuntu and MythTV all rolled into one ISO package, and searched the web to resolve the myriad of issues and tweaks that had to be addressed. This was not the outcome I would have preferred, and what I was hoping to avoid when purchasing this book, but at least I've managed to get my crate up and running from scratch.

If you are already very strong in Linux, this book will easily give you the guidance you need, but otherwise, caveat emptor.

For what it's worth.

Not for the Novice -- Unfortunately  [Posted on 2008-04-10]
I have been using Windows for as long as it has been around. I have done web development. I have even been exposed to Unix a number of years ago, so I thought I would be able to follow directions in this book and be successful. Ubuntu was easy to install and looked like a good product. However, the directions in MythTV did not work. I finally gave up after installing Ubuntu five times and starting all over again. I even purchased a Ubuntu manual thinking that would resolve the problems I had. Unfortunately, it did not and I finally gave up and re-installed Windows XP on my computer and BeyondTV. That did work. I was reminded that Windows does make some things simple that the Unix platform still makes somewhat difficult. I would not recommend the book. I plan to give it away... The Open Source "Open Office" worked great on Ubuntu as it also does on Windows, so I judge MythTV or this books directions to be the problem.
Cecil Denney, Maple Grove, Minneapolis

An Excellent Book [Posted on 2008-04-15]
If you are interested in getting a Mythbox up and running, this is a great book to start with. True, all of the information you need is available on-line, but here it is organized and at your finger tips. The book is clear, well written, well organized, and reasonably complete and accurate. Things change very rapidly in an area such as this, but this book provides a great foundation. If you are willing to use the Ubuntu distribution and MythTV version that is used in the book, things should go well.

One thing to look out for, if you are new to Linux their recommended procedure for compiling from source will be a bit of a challenge. They do NOT tell you what you have to do to be able to compile something from source. There are many packages that need to be installed above and beyond the standard Ubuntu install. However, I just used Synaptic to install the version of MythTV that is available as a Ubuntu supported package and things went fine.

Well worth the money and highly recommended.

Almost Completely Worthless [Posted on 2008-07-21]
Look, I'm not going to say that these guys didn't try, or that this is a cynically written attempt to cash in on something, but this book is as close to worthless as I can imagine.

Now, again, this is not entirely the authors' fault. MythTV is highly dynamic. What's true today isn't true tomorrow. I'm a journeyman MythTV builder, and a lot of what I've learned in the painful progress I've made simply does not apply any more.

That said, a lot of stuff =hasn't= changed, and it's here where the book falls apart. They should have started with the basics of content flow, i.e., where is the media coming from? Because that's the first thing you need to know before you even decide if MythTV is right for you. (Over the air content, for example, is easily handled by Myth, while controlling a set-top box from a cable, satellite or fiber optic company is a whole 'nother kettle of fish.)

While support has been added since this book was written, the stuff they actually did mention that has been part of MythTV since its incpetion is not well covered. For example, to set up your MythTV backend, you have to select from various capture card types. There are V4L, MPEG2, DVB, etc.--how about explaining what these are? No explanations is the norm, and when there is an explanation it's often simply restating the on-screen text without actually clarifying.

Six months of having this book and I've never once found an answer to a question I had. Now, I don't go looking for product specific stuff, because (as I said) there's no way they could cover that, but just basic joints and cogs and so on.

See, the thing about MythTV is that if you have just the right hardware and a simple enough setup, it might take you fifteen minutes to set up. If you don't, it could take you weeks to set up, or you might never be able to do it.

To be useful, this book really should have explored =how= to troubleshoot. They couldn't do the actual troubleshooting for you--there are too many things that can go wrong--but they could tell you about the utlities and hardware settings that allow you see where your problems lie.

Maybe they just didn't have the space. But, as I say above, it makes the book almost completely worthless.

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