MythTV to BTV - Convince me/Anyone else out there like me?

[shomann]

Greetings!

I am a brand spanking new member of these fine forums. I have been lurking around for around a week, boning up on the product that is BTV and like what I see. Much like the other PVR/HTPC communities out there, there are those very passionate and those very critical of the software. This of course makes for great learning potential for the uninitied (llike myself).

Here is my situation. I am currently a MythTV HTPC user. I have been quite happy with the service and features it provides. However, the lingering problem for me is that I am not a Linux expert. I have grown my knowledge a great deal in the past year about Linux due mainly to the desire to get a working HTPC up and running. The MythTV project is still rapidly maturing, but for me there are lingering hardware problems with my setup that I want to resolve (Specifically full support of on-board USB/Firewire).

A few months back I switched to the main competitve product of BTV, SageTV. This was just after they released version 2.0. I made a few enemies and a few converts quickly when I dared question "ease-of-setup" within Sage regarding MPEG decoding (something that you don't have to do within MythTV). The reason I choose Sage at that time was it was the only Windows product with integrated multi-tuner support. The interface was nice, but not as intuitive or feature-rich as MythTV (IMHO). As soon as the trial was over, I was back to MythTV and have stayed there since, living with the hardware difficulties.

Here we are today and I find myself in a Windows based HTPC forum yet again. From what I understand, the gold-standard of HTPC UI is BTV. The screenshots look very good as well. The ONLY reason I am here is what some would call a downside to the software...Windows. The reason? I am very, very tired of not having a driver for this, having to tweak this for several days to get it to work... and so on.

So the big question is, what am I to expect from BTV coming from MythTV? I am really only interested in the PVR aspects of BTV. The interface especially with regards to controlling the recording priorities and qualities.

Please note, I will not be making the decision to shift yet again until BTV officially (not beta) supports multiple tuners. Thank you for any advice you can give me and I look forward to your responses.