Well, I upgraded my MythTV setup to version 0.21 not because I had to, but I was curious about one of the new features which it supports - MultiRec. This feature allows one tv tuner to record more than one channel as long as they are on the same multiplex. This currently is not too useful as the multiplexed channels are those like 7 and 7HD or 10 and 10HD which usually have the same programs for 95% of the air time. One where it may become useful however is that of ABC1 and ABC2. These are distinctively different and I can now record both at the same time as well as using my second tuner for other recordings or watching. Well, it seems to work quite well and without any major adjustments to what you do normally. You simply are now able to record the extra channels rather than getting an error.
So it all sounds wonderful, right? Well, not quite. I had lost a channel from my guide a week or so earlier and it did not seem to want to come back. I reconfigured shepherd to try and fix it and seemed to be losing more and more information! I thought the upgrade would help and so went ahead with it. I then found out I had no guide and the channels would not display either! On a little bit of examination I found the channel information was gone and the video sources seemed to be missing setting as well. When I went into the Default setting of the video sources, it picked up I had shepherd installed, so I reconfigured the source and assigned channels for it and everything started working again! Not only that, I now have a working guide that is functioning much better than it has in the past :)
Show would I recommend you upgrade? If you are in a rush, I would say be wary. However if you like ABC1 and ABC2 programs, it may be worth you while for the MultiRec feature.
Oh, one other feature with the MultiRec I forgot was that apparently you can now have that extra time at the start or end of a recording to catch it all, without losing out. That is, if you are recording two consecutive shows, instead of trusting the guide, the MultiRec will allow you to overlap the two recordings slightly, so I have yet to test this part of the new MythTV out yet.
