[mythtv] Video Sources - time to call them what they are?

f-myth-users at media.mit.edu f-myth-users at media.mit.edu
Wed Nov 21 20:07:48 UTC 2007


    > Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 10:11:55 -0500
    > From: Daniel Kristjansson <danielk at cuymedia.net>

    > On Wed, 2007-11-21 at 08:21 -0500, R. G. Newbury wrote:
    > > Justin Hornsby wrote:

    > > Yes. 'TV Guide data sources' sounds like what Schedules Direct offers.
    > > 
    > > Something like 'TV Channel Groups' might be more descriptive of the 
    > > things which are contained in that container. A 'Channel Group' is 
    > > clearly a collection of TV channels which, as it happens, can be 
    > > captured by one type of defined capture card.

    > Channel Group, Tuning Lineup, are both better than "TV Guide data
    > sources". A single lineup provider or source can update multiple
    > "Video Sources" and multiple lineup providers can update a single
    > "Video Source" (EIT + XMLTV for example). When you have something
    > Like DVB-S with a rotor the "Video Source" corresponds to a single
    > orbital location, but multiple orbital locations may be on the
    > same network getting EIT from a single transport at a single orbital
    > location and multiple "Video Sources" may be associated with the
    > same orbital location because satellites in different networks are
    > parked in a cluster occupying the same orbital location.

This paragraph (with appropriate links to other pages) might make a
great little squib in the wiki somewhere for explaining what's going
on for new (or even not-so-new) users who are confused about the large
crossbar of possibilities in mapping where video comes from to where
listings data comes from.  (Lots of examples w/pictures would be even
better, though that's a lot of work.  Maybe if someone can quickly
sketch up napkin-style drawings [really! just photographed hand-drawn
stuff], someone with time & ability but w/o the domain knowledge can
then draw pretty diagrams.)

And speaking of the wiki---if "Video Sources" -does- change names, I'd
recommend a big prominent page (maybe called "Terminology" if it grows
to something more) explaining what the OLD name was, and what the NEW
name is, and WHEN it was changed, precisely so that people reading the
thousands of old pages out there (and the archives) about how to
configure their myths know how to read the older documentation.

    > I don't think there is any doubt that the existing "Video Sources"
    > is confusing to most people new to MythTV, and will become more so
    > when/if we start doing lineups for DVB Radio and the like.

I agree.  I'm hoping someone comes up with a name that most are happy with.
I absolutely agree that "Video Sources" is needlessly confusing.

The problem we're seeing here (and it's endemic to just about -all-
domains where there's an existing set of terminology that's confusingly
close to what you're trying to do, but is not quite right) is that
most plausible terms are "taken", and so using any one of them will
mislead someone.

Frankly, calling video sources "Freds" might almost be clearer---at
least newcomers don't -think- they know what a "Fred" is and thus (a)
read the documentation and (b) don't get faked out later by the
connotations of the term.  This is why "Season Pass" in TiVoland
works---there's a vague analogy to sports events (and, perhaps, The
Theatre), but nobody was already using the terminology when talking
about scheduling broadcasts, so it wasn't going to confuse anyone.

    > PS "TV Guide" is also a registered trademark for channel lineup
    > and listings services, so we can't use that as part of the name.

Yeah, that was my first thought as well, but I assumed that it
wouldn't get too far before someone pointed that out.


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