[mythtv] Next Scheduler Patch

Tako Schotanus quintesse at palacio-cristal.com
Wed Mar 3 14:39:53 EST 2004


Jay Love wrote:

> I still routinely watch LiveTV even though I've been a Tivo user for 3 
> years.  I just can't anticipate everything I want to watch, nor do I 
> have the time to go through and plan my viewing habits in advance.  
> That's why Tivo has its Suggestions feature,  which would be nice to 
> get into Myth eventually. But...
>
> What I'm here to talk about is a couple of things that are related to 
> this thread.  Often when I'm watching LiveTV, I'll find something 
> mildly entertaining and start watching it.  Then I'll wonder if 
> there's anything more interesting already recorded.  But in order to 
> check, I have to exit LiveTV and go to the Recordings screen.  I then 
> lose whatever I've been wathcing, both the history and whatever is 
> shown while I'm checking what has been recorded.  I would like to be 
> able to have the option of having LiveTV always running, and I can 
> exit out and check the weather or listen to a song and come back and 
> rewind LiveTV and see what I missed.  This must be a FAQ, because its 
> how Tivo works, but why can't we have LiveTV always recording to the 
> ringbuffer even if you're not on the LiveTV screen (or in the program, 
> rather)?  If the scheduler changes the channel on that tuner to record 
> something, when that recording is finished, it can just leave the 
> tuner on that channel and go back to recording to the ringbuffer.

Heeey.... that actually sounds quite workable. Never tear down the 
ringbuffer and never stop recording if you don't have to.
Of course you could add all kinds of options that would for example stop 
recording LiveTV if you're not watching it for a long time but that's 
just details.

>
> Perhaps the reason is related to my next issue, which is multiple 
> frontends and LiveTV.  If I'm watching LiveTV in one room on a 
> frontend, and someone else can't stand the smell of the chili I'm 
> eating and wants to go watch on another frontend in another room, they 
> can't watch LiveTV (with only one tuner) because apparently the 
> ringbuffer is local to a frontend.  Is there a technical reason why a 
> ringbuffer can't be fed to more than one frontend?  I guess this would 
> mean treating the ringbuffer more like a regular recording.  Is that 
> not feasible with the current architecture?

Sounds nice, but  thinking of a good interface that makes this easy for 
the user might be a challenge maybe?

>
> I'm not asking anyone else to implement this; if no one else is 
> interested but its feasible and noninvasive, I'll eventually take a 
> crack at it.  But I was wondering if there are architectural 
> limitations that preclude getting this done.  This is one of those WAF 
> things, coming from a Tivo household.

I would already be happy with the first part of your suggestions!
And I'm sure I would be just as happy with the second part if I would 
ever get more than one frontend :-)

>
> Thanks-
> Jay

Cheers,
 -Tako

>
>
>
> Tako Schotanus wrote:
>
>> I hear this a lot on this list but I just don't agree, for a number of
>> reasons:
>>
>> a) I don't always know what is "good", most things I just encounter by
>> accident because while browsing the channels it attracted me more than
>> everything else
>> b) There are times that there is nothing on that you consider good and
>> you're just looking for an alternative to while away the time _now_
>> c) Here in The Netherlands the channels all seem to conspire to put
>> their best movies on at the same time, and I don't have an unlimited
>> number of TV cards, in fact I have only one
>> d) I don't have unlimited harddisk space either to just go and record
>> everything that I might possibily want to watch
>> e) Some TV grabbers only provide the most basic information (title and
>> start/end times) and nothing more, making it very difficult to make any
>> good decisions about what to record and what not.
>>
>> So I don't mind that you and people like you don't need Live TV anymore,
>> but don't patronize us by saying that it's only because we haven't seen
>> the light yet. :-)
>>
>> Cheers,
>> -Tako
>>
>>  
>>
>>> 100% agree. I think of live TV as A/V test mode. Other than
>>> that, I think of using live TV to preserve channel surfing
>>> habits as sort of 'training wheels' for new DVR users. Once
>>> someone 'gets it' they realize that they can schedule all of
>>> the shows they might like to watch. When they turn the TV on,
>>> they can choose from any of the shows they think are 'good'
>>> rather than channel surfing hoping to find something 'good' on.
>>>
>>> When designing a bicycle, the training wheels should be sturdy,
>>> practical, and well designed but Lance Armstrong will never use
>>> them. I like to think of MythTV as a Tour de France DVR with
>>> on-going improvements to the training wheels ;-).
>>>
>>>   
>>
>>
>>  
>>
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>>
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