[mythtv] mythtv protocol future

[gettler at acm.org]

Hi all,

I am currently leading a project to implement an open source media player
for the Hauppauge mediamvp (http://mvpmc.sourceforge.net/).  One of the
features of this media player is its ability to act as a frontend for
mythtv.  It currently makes very little use of the mythtv protocol, but does
allow users to browse and watch their recordings with backends running
mythtv 0.14 or newer.

Recently I have started adding functionality to delete recordings, view the
upcoming recording schedule, and so on.

The question I have, however, is where is the mythtv protocol going?  It seems
like it keeps expanding its reach, which is great for a frontend like the
mediamvp, which is a 250mhz powerpc 405 with only 16mb of memory.  It's good
because not having to add sql to the load saves on memory and complexity,
and that allows me to support other features.

However, I'm starting to run into things that don't seem to be supported in
the protocol.  Support for commercial skip, for example.  I don't see any
way to retrieve the cut points via the mythtv protocol.

Is the intent to eventually do everything via the mythtv protocol, so that the
frontend doesn't need to directly access the database?  Or is that just
wishful thinking on my part?

Thanks.

Jon