[mythtv] Commercial replacement instead of skipping

Brad DerManouelian myth at dermanouelian.com
Tue Feb 27 23:23:55 UTC 2007


On Feb 27, 2007, at 3:14 PM, Peter Schachte wrote:

> Brad DerManouelian wrote:
>> On Feb 27, 2007, at 1:00 PM, Hal Lightwood wrote:
>>> Hi Brad,  thanks for the reply.  Watching LiveTV with a 15 minute
>>> delay isn't too bad, but do you think we could alter commflag so
>>> that it could replace the commercials instead of skip them?  If
>>> commflag takes alot of CPU we'll just make sure we have a very fast
>>> computer so it can do it quickly.  What do you think?
>>
>> I don't see the use case here. If you watch the program delayed
>> enough for the commflagger to do its job, there is no time to watch
>> something else. It just skips right to the next scene of your  
>> program.
>
> I think Hal's point is that by *replacing* commercials with some other
> equal-length programming while watching, and assuming the  
> commflagger could run
> at real-time speed, you would be in a steady state.  So you  
> wouldn't have to be
> 8 minutes ahead for every 30 minutes of program, you'd just have to  
> be far
> enough ahead for the commflagger's output to be available.   
> Essentially, as I
> understand the OP, you'd just be watching slightly delayed from  
> real time, and
> when a commercial came on, rather than skipping over it, myth would  
> show some
> other programming until the commercial finished.
>
> Sounds like a good idea to me.  It would make watching live TV much  
> more
> palatable if you could be watching some other recording during the  
> commercials.
>  But I don't think many myth users, and particularly myth  
> developers, use live
> TV much, so I don't think anyone will be rushing to implement it.
>
> Hal, I would suggest adding this to the feature wishlist on the  
> myth wiki.
> Probably
> http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Feature_Wishlist_% 
> 28Frontend_Addons%29#LiveTV_.2F_View_Recording
>
> would be the most appropriate place.

I understand his intent, I just don't understand how it would even  
possibly be implemented considering the fact that the comm flagger  
takes into account both what it sees at the start and end of a  
commercial break to determine if it's a valid commercial break. If  
you run it real-time, there's no end yet, so it would never tell you  
there is a commercial until it was over. Even if you could somehow  
predict that your commercial start flag is valid without seeing the  
end of the commercial, you'd then need a way to pick what to watch  
while the commercial was playing. Seems like a whole lot of work just  
to avoid not waiting a little while longer to watch your program.

I guess I'm just confused why people still insist on letting program  
directors control their personal time. I don't even think about what  
time programs are on any more. I just watch when I feel like it.



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