Show Posts
376
Feature requests & roadmap / Establish KISS
« on: June 23, 2008, 02:20:15 am »
I have been attempting to get LMCE running and integrated for about two months now and have gotten it installed, but that's about it.
TV:
I'm choosing to hold fire on setting up TV functionality for now as hardware limitations are a major concern of mine with quality. I'm a DirecTV customer so I'm anticipating the release of the HDPC-20 and hoping that LMCE will be able to support it in the future. That said I am also a cable subscriber and do not see any good hardware available for that at the moment either. Sure there are QAM cards and some that will accept a cablecard, but you are still limited quite drastically from a conventional box. There is also the other route of using a cap card with the box, but I have two issues with this setup, mainly HD is not really an option (yes I'm aware there are HD cap cards out there now, but they're few and far between). The other issue I have with this is that you also end up with a double UI because most boxes won't let you turn off their UI so it will be displayed through the cap card along with LMCE's UI. To be clear, this is not my gripe, I understand these limitations are hardware and until a proper hardware solution is available software can't fix the problems presented.
Phone:
If you use VOIP then setup is straightforward, but what about people who are using PSTN lines? Is it not possible to have a built in option to just select a PSTN line without all the troublesome setup I still have yet to figure out?
Security:
There seems to be a general consensus amongst those with fully working setups (again, few and far between that have fully working setups...at least not many are documented). There are several people wanting to integrate with their existing panels, and from what I've seen most people have the same unsupported panels, but they're told time and time again, just buy a GC-100 and do away with your existing panel. I wouldn't exactly call that integrating the system, it's more like fixing something that isn't broke. I've looked at and attempted to use the GSD setup, but it is complicated, not documented well, and makes perfect sense why NOBODY seems to have had any success integrating their existing panel.
Home Automation:
I haven't even attempted this area yet after failing miserably with the other categories. I've decided before going any further I need to get my existing projects working, namely phone and security. If those configurations have been any indication of what's to come I'd just be throwing money away investing in hardware anyway.
My Conclusions:
I decided to give LMCE a try because it seemed to me it was being targeted for the average end user, but after researching and attempting to get some things working, it is apparent I was gravely mistaken. I've seen a few productive users here on the forums answering questions and trying to help, but for the most part I've seen a negative attitude and not many resolutions here on the boards. I agree that what is done currently is probably more robust than an easier and simpler setup/configuration, but what good is robust if nobody can use it without months of work to get it going. In my opinion the development track of LMCE should be re-thought, and should be put on a feature freeze until better hardware support can be implemented along with a more intuitive setup. There is just so much custom work and admittedly so many variables that each user could possibly have that answers to questions almost come across as "code it yourself". I guess my point is that from my experience I almost feel like you have to be a programmer to get it going, and this is coming from someone who's been working with 3 other IT experts who have been in the industry for over 15 years each. Of that accumulated experience we have not been able to decipher or make heads or tails of half of what LMCE is supposed to be doing, it's just not clearcut.
That said, I am going to continue trying to get it working, but I would like to get other people's opinions on whether or not they think LMCE is on the right development track or if they should start adopting the KISS philosophy to attract and actually keep more users as it seems to me on a weekly basis people come and go from the boards, straying away from the complexity that is LMCE.
TV:
I'm choosing to hold fire on setting up TV functionality for now as hardware limitations are a major concern of mine with quality. I'm a DirecTV customer so I'm anticipating the release of the HDPC-20 and hoping that LMCE will be able to support it in the future. That said I am also a cable subscriber and do not see any good hardware available for that at the moment either. Sure there are QAM cards and some that will accept a cablecard, but you are still limited quite drastically from a conventional box. There is also the other route of using a cap card with the box, but I have two issues with this setup, mainly HD is not really an option (yes I'm aware there are HD cap cards out there now, but they're few and far between). The other issue I have with this is that you also end up with a double UI because most boxes won't let you turn off their UI so it will be displayed through the cap card along with LMCE's UI. To be clear, this is not my gripe, I understand these limitations are hardware and until a proper hardware solution is available software can't fix the problems presented.
Phone:
If you use VOIP then setup is straightforward, but what about people who are using PSTN lines? Is it not possible to have a built in option to just select a PSTN line without all the troublesome setup I still have yet to figure out?
Security:
There seems to be a general consensus amongst those with fully working setups (again, few and far between that have fully working setups...at least not many are documented). There are several people wanting to integrate with their existing panels, and from what I've seen most people have the same unsupported panels, but they're told time and time again, just buy a GC-100 and do away with your existing panel. I wouldn't exactly call that integrating the system, it's more like fixing something that isn't broke. I've looked at and attempted to use the GSD setup, but it is complicated, not documented well, and makes perfect sense why NOBODY seems to have had any success integrating their existing panel.
Home Automation:
I haven't even attempted this area yet after failing miserably with the other categories. I've decided before going any further I need to get my existing projects working, namely phone and security. If those configurations have been any indication of what's to come I'd just be throwing money away investing in hardware anyway.
My Conclusions:
I decided to give LMCE a try because it seemed to me it was being targeted for the average end user, but after researching and attempting to get some things working, it is apparent I was gravely mistaken. I've seen a few productive users here on the forums answering questions and trying to help, but for the most part I've seen a negative attitude and not many resolutions here on the boards. I agree that what is done currently is probably more robust than an easier and simpler setup/configuration, but what good is robust if nobody can use it without months of work to get it going. In my opinion the development track of LMCE should be re-thought, and should be put on a feature freeze until better hardware support can be implemented along with a more intuitive setup. There is just so much custom work and admittedly so many variables that each user could possibly have that answers to questions almost come across as "code it yourself". I guess my point is that from my experience I almost feel like you have to be a programmer to get it going, and this is coming from someone who's been working with 3 other IT experts who have been in the industry for over 15 years each. Of that accumulated experience we have not been able to decipher or make heads or tails of half of what LMCE is supposed to be doing, it's just not clearcut.
That said, I am going to continue trying to get it working, but I would like to get other people's opinions on whether or not they think LMCE is on the right development track or if they should start adopting the KISS philosophy to attract and actually keep more users as it seems to me on a weekly basis people come and go from the boards, straying away from the complexity that is LMCE.
