[mythtv-users] Re: [mythtv] Some bugs, suggestions

[James Knight]

On Wednesday, March 26, 2003, at 01:17  PM, Cedar McKay wrote:
>> 1) mythbackend segfaults way too easily. At first I couldn't get it 
>> to run at all, because all it did was segfault when I tried to start 
>> watching live TV. It turned out there were two problems, both of 
>> which caused it to crash horribly with no indication of what is 
>> wrong. 1) the directory I told it to write video to had the wrong 
>> permissions and was therefore not writable. 2) The vbi device was set 
>> to use /dev/vbi but that device didn't exist (it was actually called 
>> /dev/vbi0). This last one bring me to another bug...
> does it still seg fault now that you have the vbi device and write 
> permissions worked out?

Nope - it works fine now that I've got it configured right. It just has 
poor error detection/reporting code.

>> 4) Even after running mythfilldatabase to refresh the listings, it 
>> didn't delete the no-longer-available channels. I had to do that 
>> manually by connecting to mysql.
> I think if you re-run setup there is an option to clear the listings.

I thought I did that, but it's possible that I messed up, because I ran 
setup so many times trying to get the darn thing to work right I don't 
remember which is which now. :)

> I completely disagree. A keyboard has lots and lots of keys, therefore 
> it is fine to have lots of buttons that do different things. Remotes 
> have limited number of keys, and everyone's remote is different, so I 
> would want as much key re-use as possible. Right now there are 
> bindings to a lot of specific keys, for instance 'e' goes to edit mode 
> and 'm' goes to epg while watching tv. Also as is I control myth 
> without looking at the remote b/c I can do most things with 6 buttons. 
> If we seperated out functions, for instance channel up down from menu 
> up down for some reason I would have to start looking at my remote a 
> lot more to find keys. Folks are talking about a popup menu system so 
> you can just hit a single "menu" button, and a list of possible 
> actions from any particular context would pop up. That would make it 
> possible to do _everything_ with up, down, left, right, enter/space, 
> esc and the number buttons. That sounds sweet to me. We could keep 
> individual buttons for maniacs like you ;-) who need a different 
> remote button for everything.

I can see where you're coming from, especially if using a miniscule ;) 
20-or-so button remote like the one that comes with the WinTV cards. 
But, if you have a remote with a button labeled Channel up/down, and a 
separate L/R/U/D/select arrow set as many remotes do, it would be nice 
to actually have the channel up/down JUST handle changing the channel. 
And do so even when you're in the EPG. On the other hand, I know of no 
remote that has separate increase/decrease contrast/brightness/color 
buttons, so that seems like something that should just be done via the 
menu you're talking about.

James