[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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