[mythtv] why is vbi device kept busy?

[cafeschintze]

Hello all,

  as I can see, mythtv keeps the vbi-device busy during the use of the
  tuner chip. Is it really necessary to have that done? The reason IŽm
  asking is that for foreign mythtv-users (Austria, Germany,
  Switzerland, France, Italy and Turkey) there exists a very good
  alternative to using the tv_grab_<cc> application called nxtvepg
  (http://nxtvepg.sourceforge.net/). The interesting thing about it
  is, that it constantly gathers the programm information over the
  tv-tuner card, not over the internet. This also makes it very
  interesting for using mythtv in standalone hardware, so no modem or
  lan connection is needed.
  Christian Hoenig (www.christianhoenig.de) wrote a few example
  scripts for importing the nxtvepg data into the mythtv database.
  Thanks again Christian.
  
  Nxtvepg uses a passive acquisition mode that gathers its
  information only when
  a) the tuner is not used by another application
  or
  b) the tuner is used, but the channel is set to one of those
  providers that transmit programm data (see
  http://nxtvepg.sourceforge.net/provnets.html to get an idea of what
  I mean)

  All provided that the vbi device is not kept busy. Maybe it would be
  possible to select wether mythtv should open the vbi-device or not.
  Another solution to the problem would be the possibility to execute
  a shell skript, that could run each time mythtv changes from or to
  using the tuner chip and which would start/stop nxtvepg. Using
  nxtvepg whenever the tv-card is not in use, would be already great.

  Also I have talked to the programmer of nxtvepg. He says, that it's
  planned to write a daemon which could provide the vbi data between
  different applications in a more centralized manner. But in order to
  use this with mythv, a few changes would have to be done to mythtv.
  I really don't know much about it.

  Ok, enough for now. I can't really code (unfortunately). But maybe
  someone who can, could just tell me if I'm thinking in the right
  direction?

--
Best regards,
 cafeschintze                          mailto:cafeschintze at gmx.net