[mythtv] Re: [mythtv-commits] mythtv commit: r8114 by bjm

[Bruce Markey]

Isaac Richards wrote:
> On Monday 05 December 2005 02:44 pm, Bruce Markey wrote:
>> Isaac Richards wrote:
>> ...
>>
>>> What's user friendly about making the user care what input/card it's
>>> using for livetv?  It shouldn't matter at all - the important thing is
>>> what program is on, not where it's physically coming from.
>> If there is more than one source, it matter to know which channels
>> are and aren't available for the selected input. I added the OSD
>> message long ago so I could tell what I was looking at when testing
>> and know what Ys and Cs to press to get to the input I needed.
>> If the objection is that any message appear on screen when changing
>> inputs, then displayname=" " should help get rid of these messages =).
>>
>> As for user friendly, it seems to me that some people may get higher
>> WAF with "VCR" on screen rather than "2: Composite1" or "Dish Network"
>> in place of "1: S-Video 0".
> 
> Change channels through the epg, then, instead of y&c?  I still don't see why 
> it matters which particular capture card & input the video's coming from.

I haven't watched live TV (whatever that means) for years. I use
A/V test mode to make sure things are good to go for my recordings.
My signal is sometimes poor for OLN on card 1, sometime poor on
card 2, maybe both, maybe card 4 is clearer. I want to know that
I'm looking at the output from card 1 and compare with card 2. I
want to match the picture setting and volume between analog and
digital so I use C to switch between 3 KVBC and 123 KVBC. I need
to know which KVBC I'm looking at before making adjustments.

I think it is perfectly legitimate to show which input is selected
when the input changes. I don't think I've ever seen a TV or VCR
with multiple inputs that didn't print a message on the screen
when you change inputs. I have a TV that has several inputs and
I can click through "CAB-A", "CAB-B", "LINUX" "RECVR" "FRONT"
(front panel s-video). It didn't come from the factory with "LINUX"
as one of the inputs but allows the user to input a custom string
in place of the default.

> Why not just display the video source name?

That's what I'd suggested in the ticket but it should also still
display the card number. The video source doesn't define which
input has a loose cable (other than the user knows) but the inputname
doesn't define the video source (other than the user knows) and the
card number doesn't define the hostname of the slave (other than the
user knows).

>   It's already user-created, should 
> be unique to a given set of channels, and seems to fit what you, at least, 
> would want.

I'd long since done what I want and this change is something to
address what at least three other people said they want so there
is some confusion here but I'll take the heat.

I too objected to this patch when I first saw it. The original
thread said something about the user wanted to show the model
number of his card rather than the cardid (don't ask me). The
ticket says video source in the title but the patch put a field
in the capture card table so a per card string would replace the
card plus input information. Each input is unique in cardinput.
Per card, per host, per video source, per inputname, etc. don't
uniquely identify an input.

I see no reason why myth shouldn't allow a custom string per input
if at least a few people have asked for this. The user could use
video source or hostname or card number or model number of the card
they are impressed with or any combination or " ". Heck, I don't
care if someone decided to name their cards "Billy" and "Jane".

I'm fine with seeing "4: Television" after I've changed the splitter
that goes to host "moktoo" but I want something to confirm that I'm
looking at the right signal. If someone else wants to see something
that tells them what they want to know about the input they switched
to, more power to 'em. If you want to revert the displayname because
you don't want this to be another creeping featurism option, it
won't bother me in the least.

--  bjm