[mikefreeman]

No. Stick with what you have and be outdated, or go and do the update to get bleeding edge.

I did use Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. And the xbmc xvba thingy for my htpc until a few month. I thenn did upgrade to saucy and installed xbmmc as stated in this thread and i have to say xbmc is mmore reliable/stable then the xvba shit. Xvba did break my Harmony 650 remote controll and took me hours to get it semi-good done once again.

I would recomend switching to this xbmc-with-oss, since it currently is stable and will be soon completely mainline.

You could keep what you have and do the upgrade once gotham is out, but i am fairly sure you have to upgrade your mint installation anyway.

There HAS to be some sort of middle ground for those wanting stability AND usable hardware support, other than either being "outdated" or "bleeding edge". It's frustrating that xvba was stopped with 12.2 instead of simply waiting just a short time and releasing a compatible 12.3. It's frustrating that no one makes a Precise-compatible PPA for Mesa 10 binaries - it's the current supported LTS for pete's sake! It's frustrating that I either have to deal with bad video for months, spend money I don't have to get different hardware, or use bleeding edge software that'll have to be completely re-installed in a few months.

I never had any difficulties or broken devices with xvba, and it really did make my system run better in general.

As for using Saucy, there's a reason why I only use LTS on my HTPC. I don't want to have to reconfigure the stupid thing every few months. I honestly don't have time for that, and can't imagine how most people do. It'd be nice if things were supported to the end of a complete version cycle if nothing else.