[mythtv] Padding of recordings

[Peter Schachte]

Martin Long wrote:
> Well, it currently allows for, but doesn't require padding. The global
> setting will add padding, but remove it if a program starts at the same time
> it finishes, even if a tuner of equal priority is available, doing nothing.

As I understand it, you're not meant to think of that as padding, but as a
little extra time for sluggish hardware to get ready to record.  So the extra
time is not needed if that tuner is already recording.  I believe Isaac has
said he will not accept a patch that changes that.  IMHO, it would help to
avoid this misunderstanding if Myth started *tuning* a tuner this far in
advance of the program start time, but didn't actually start *recording* until
the scheduled time.

> All I really want is for a different tuner to be selected in this case. Now,
> if the second program is scheduled to start just a minute earlier, then all
> the padding will be preserved! 
> 
> I'm not after fancy rules, I agree with that sometimes you wouldn't want
> padding dropped in favour or a less important program, but like Mike says
> when we start to think of this, there's the whole mind reading thing, and
> really, it's just best to keep it simple.

But don't mistake changing things as little as possible for keeping things as
simple as possible for the user.  If low priority programs cancel the padding
of high priority programs, then users can't count on padding for their most
important programs.  Suddenly program priority doesn't mean what they thought
it meant.  They could use start early/end late instead, but that is never
dropped, even if that's the only way to record the program at all.  So there is
the complication of having two different features for the same thing, but
neither of them both respects program priorities and drops padding when that
would allow more programs to be recorded without affecting higher priority
programs.

The simplest soft padding feature for the user would be a single kind of
padding, but would allow the user to set a policy for when it can be dropped.

-- 
Peter Schachte              "The customer is always right" does not apply to
schachte at cs.mu.OZ.AU        an inexperienced passenger insisting that a
www.cs.mu.oz.au/~schachte/  pilot fly the plane in a particular way.
Phone: +61 3 8344 1338          -- Peter Thorne