Screw MythTV. Screw Linux. Screw half-assed cobbled together software. This weekend I deleted MythTV, formatted the HD and installed Snapsteam’s Beyond TV. I don’t regret it a bit.

There are a lot of happy MythTV users, but I was never one of them. The days getting the system working turned into weeks. Even after the system was stable, it still didn’t work at what I’d consider 100%. I had tears in the video playback if there was too much motion. The system would bog-down if I tried to use both tuners at the same time. Live TV was problematic. Guide information was no longer free and required a subscription to a 3rd party service. That required an update to the MythTV software, and who knows what could go wrong in that procedure. It was all too much and I always had a nagging feeling that any day the whole thing would fail.

It took me less than three hours to go from MythTV to an up and running Beyond TV system. 2/3 of that time involved formatting the hard drive. In around an hour I:

• Installed Win2k
• Updated 75+ Windows components
• Installed Video, Video Capture & Wireless card drivers
• Installed Beyond TV

Best of all, it works. Right away. Without fiddling for hours or modifying .conf files. MythTV was honestly the biggest pain in the ass project I’ve ever tried. And I went the “easier” route by using MythDora.

Beyond TV isn’t perfect, there are a few things MythTV did better, but overall I’m very happy with it and glad I dumped MythTV.