[mythtv] Ticket #4879: use some slack on recording starttime

[Stuart Morgan]

On Friday 11 Sep 2009 06:06:27 David Engel wrote:
> It's when things get into base the slop
> on the length of the program that I contend the wrong type of
> recording rule is being used.

Agreed, we don't want to make the scheduler that complicated. If you have a 
problem with guide data changing the lengths of a program frequently, then 
that's not a scheduler issue, you should be looking for a better source of 
data.

> BTW, trying to achieve a 'one touch' record ideal is the path to
> madness, IMHO.  If Bruce was still around, he'd probably describe it
> better, albeit much more bluntly.  I'll say it this way -- Myth can't
> read minds and never will.  The only way for the user to get what they
> want is to tell Myth what they want.  The best we can do is make it
> easy for them to tell Myth what they want.

I'm not contending that a 'one touch' record is actually possible, I'm not 
that naive, but I do believe that 99% of schedules could be setup with 2 or 3 
touches at the most. It's a question of striving for the ideal, even if it's 
not attainable, to get the best we can achieve.

By example - In most schedules that I setup, there are just three options I 
change from the defaults - the rule type, the priority and the duplicate match 
method. The latter I have to change for everything but one-off rules because 
the default of "Subtitle & Description" just doesn't work in the UK, our 
subtitles are always consistent and available, but descriptions change 
especially when an episode is repeated. 'Subtitle then Description' works 
perfectly, but it's a pain to change it every time, so as part of converting 
the schedule editor to mythui I've added a setting which optionally remembers 
a preferred method.

The intention of this setting isn't to make it public in the UI but instead it 
will be populated according to the locale-based defaults idea that I've been 
putting together for a while now - users in the UK would always get Subtitle 
then Description as the default value in that field. For that majority of UK 
users that means one less thing to change. For those that remain blissfully 
unaware of the benefits, they get improved scheduling behaviour with fewer 
repeat recordings.
-- 
Stuart Morgan