[jp2code]

I understand that there are several plug-ins for PVRs that can work with XBMC.

However, it seems like in order for someone to get a PVR to work with XBMC, two (2) obstacles must be overcome:

1. Learn how to read from television streams, and
   
2. Learn how to implement these streams in XBMC
   

Neither hurtle is particularly easy.

It just seems like people on the XBMC Team already know how XBMC works and how to work with video streams, so they would naturally have a simpler time getting a television stream working correctly and seamlessly with the interface.

I understand there are various different operating systems, but XBMC already comes in various different flavors. It seems (to me) like once the core functionality was figured out, different code segments could be created and called for the different XBMC versions.

Currently, there are Tvheadend, VDR, MythTV, MediaPortal, Argus, NextPVR, and WMC as the backend. That is a lot of other people working on very different projects, all in an effort to get PVR functionality to working in XBMC.

[joebrady]

As you mentioned, there are all those projects. Why reinvent the wheel and add more bloat to the core of XBMC?

Same reason we went towards add-ons.

[jp2code]

But all of those projects are all struggling to make something work, and nothing seems to work great.

If all of that effort could be channeled into one tool that is already built in and doesn't require a lot of configuring and PC expertise to get up and running - my family would be using this instead of WMC.

As it stands, my family can not figure out how to get PVR stuff to work reliably. For me to do it on the family entertainment system involves me sticking my butt in their face while I try to get stuff configured using the mouse and keyboard.

I desperately want to move away from WMC (Windows certainly has shown no interest in moving the platform forward since its release with WinXP), but so far there are no PVR plug-ins with XBMC that can do as much as it did when it came out all those years ago.

[negge]

All those different projects didn't crop up to provide functionality for XBMC, most of them have existed way before that. XBMC tries to not reinvent the wheel by leveraging on these existing projects.

Configuring PVR support in XBMC isn't particularly difficult once you have your backend configured (WMC in your case). Granted there may be bugs and missing features, but you have to take into account that XBMC PVR support has been around considerable longer than most other solutions (including WMC which is almost 10 years old).

[clayfree]

Also XBMC does not operate on a server client model so it might get tricky to set a networked DVR. All of the above backends already have that functionality.

[nickr]

But all of those projects are all struggling to make something work, and nothing seems to work great.

Where does that comment even come from? Mythtv, vdr, nextpvr, mediaportal are all pretty stable relatively mature projects. I don't know much about the others.