[mythtv-users] Scheduling priorities based on subtitles/widescreen/stereo/etc?

Kim Wall kim at ductilebiscuit.net
Sun Dec 11 19:38:16 EST 2005


Bruce Markey wrote:

> Um, I'll say 'sort of' to put a positive spin on it.

:)


>>tv_grab_uk_rt doesn't appear to be populating them, I assume this 
>>works with other countries' providers.

> This could be a problem. To make best use of this information,
> the grabber should break this out into a separate field and
> mythfilldatabase should set the flags in the appropriate fields

Yes, you're going to be at the mercy of the grabber.  I've had a look, 
and it appears that tv_grab_uk_rt is providing the data, but presumably 
not in a way that mythfilldatabase understands:

<programme start="20051213224500 UTC" stop="20051213233000 UTC" 
channel="north.bbc1.bbc.co.uk">
     <title>ONE Life</title>
     <sub-title>7/7 - Being Brian Harvey</sub-title>
     <desc lang="en">[snip]</desc>
     <category lang="en">Documentary</category>
     <video>
       <aspect>16:9</aspect>
     </video>
     <subtitles type="teletext" />
   </programme>

For added confusion, it claims "teletext" subtitles even on channels 
where this is not the case (see below).


> mythconverg.program (one "m" and no "e" ;-) field.

Ah, the joys of modern britishness.  As a member of the generation who 
measure in miles and metres (unless it's the height of a person), those 
slipups are remarkably rare.  A programme is something you watch on 
telly, and a program is what the computer runs to record it for you. 
'Color' is a special word you get in HTML.  Disks are magnetic and discs 
are round things (unless you grew up with RiscOS).

More relevantly, "closed captions" is something Americans have, though 
is sometimes available on pre-recorded VHS tapes (although hardly anyone 
has the extra hardware required to decode them).  Over here we have 
'subtitles', which traditionally have been provided using teletext on 
analogue television, but the word also applies to those things you can 
enable on DVDs or DVB broadcasts, so doesn't imply a specific technology.

British TV listings describe programmes as having "subtitles".  This 
means they have teletext subtitles on the analogue channels, and DVB 
subtitles on digital terrestrial and satellite (The 5 main channels are 
broadcast on all three).  Sometimes the listings lie, but there's 
nothing anyone can do about that apart from complain to the broadcaster 
a lot.

I believe that, for the UK, the Right Thing To Do, is for 
mythfilldatabase to update the 'closecaptioned' flag for programmes 
marked as subtitled in the listings.  I'm assuming the 'subtitled' flag 
is for marking programmes with in-vision subtitles such as foreign 
language films (our listings usually use the phrase "in $language with 
English subtitles" in the description).


> One thing you could do now is to create Custom Record rules for
> favorites.
 > [snip]
 > Obviously this would be painstaking
> for every show but may be worthwhile for a few favorites where
> you know there is a mix of some with and without captions.

*nods*  I think I'll do that for HIGNFY-type programmes where they're 
initially shown live or almost-live without subs.  Giving ITV1 priority 
over the minor ITV channels seems to have done the job for Numb3rs and 
similar, at least with my set of recording schedules.


> Back to your suggestion of using these flags in the priority
> calculations, I can see adding a page to TV-Settings->Recording
> Priorities->Set Recording Priorities. Like the settings per
> record type, have settings for modifying the priority per flag
> in the listings.

Yes, that's the sort of thing I was thinking of.  I can see this being 
useful to many people (especially those with accurate listings!) for all 
manner of things, especially if a few more flags were added.  I can see 
it being popular with UK users who would like to avoid in-vision signing 
(broadcasters are legally required to transmit a percentage of their 
output with sign language interpretation. In practice this tends to mean 
late-night repeats of popular programmes, which Myth likes to use to 
avoid clashes).

I'll grab a copy of SVN (I'm currently running 0.18.1) and have a look 
at the source for mythfilldatabase and see what it's doing with the 
tv_grab_uk_rt output.


Kim.


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