[mythtv-users] MythTV channel buffer - Oh the frustration
Steve Daniels
steve.p.daniels at googlemail.com
Sat Apr 15 22:43:10 UTC 2006
________________________________________
From: mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org
[mailto:mythtv-users-bounces at mythtv.org] On Behalf Of Felix Rubinstein
Sent: 15 April 2006 12:45
To: Discussion about mythtv
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] MythTV channel buffer
I reply to this post as Stef understood me better than anybody.
I use hauppauge pvr 150 running on fedora core 5 and I use the latest and
greates 0.19 downloaded from svn and compiled.
I live outside US and don't have EPG functionality in MythTV yet as didn't
have time to get my hands dirty to parse XML from local content provider. I
have TV and satellite receiver and 2 remote controls for receiver and
MythTV. Receiver is connected to my PVR via S-Video and PVR to TV using
S-Video.
Since MythTV is not fed with EPG, I use my receiver to help me see shows
scheduling, using receiver's remote control and on any key press I get a
popup showing me the starting and ending time of the show and short
description.
Now, suppose I like tennis and I watch eurosport, and suppose MythTV is on,
and suppose it's 10 a.m. I want to know when there will be tennis if at all.
I press a button on receiver remote control to see what show is at 10 a.m.
I get delay of 4 secs until I see that from 10 to 11 a.m. there is a soccer,
then I press next and only after 4 secs of delay I see that there is some
other show, etc. Now interleave 4 sec delay for every key press on my
satellite remote control all of you would understand that it's unacceptable!
If you say that I should first to see the scheduling and only then to turn
on the MythTV, I'd answer I don't want to play with S-Video connectors,
acceptable wish, right?
I treat MythTV as a generic program, otherwise I would add lots of cron jobs
for:
cat /dev/video0 > somefileX
for every show I want to watch later on, BTW, it's an answer to those how
say I use it this way or other way, is it a generic or not?
All of you, would it be acceptable if you move a mouse and get 4 secs delay
of mouse coursor, or if you press a button on a keyboard and get it shown
after the same delay?
It's funny when I hear that there are people who have smaller delay, any
delay is unacceptable!
When I say unacceptable I don't demand anything, and I'm thankful to all of
you for attention and to any developer who created MythTV, I'm here to help,
but unfortunately my hands are too much dirty on hacking other things.
BTW, my 3 years old Philips has all this, as you call, fancy functionality:
pausing rewinding, etc. with 0 (zero) delay!
All I wanted is to setup the PVR to my friend who doesn't have lots of
experience in Linux.
What I mean is that instead of having many features like games and weather
report, I'd like as a professional, for MythTV to do one thing but to do it
well, instead of many half-well!
If you open documentation of MythTV
http://www.mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO-1.html
you'd see the first bullet says the following -
MythTV has a number of capabilities:
* You may pause, fast-forward and rewind live Television.
Did you point out live TV, not buffered for 4 secs, once again live TV!!!
Live TV is a zero-delay stream of bits.
Felix,
You still fail to realise that you are using the WRONG tool for the job.
MythTV ISN'T designed to run the way you have it set up.
Forget the nonsense that "live TV" buffered by a few seconds isn't live TV..
oh how to be a pedant!
The thing is *I believe* that MythTV is primarily designed to function best
when it uses some form of tuner directly, i.e. either a PCI card, or a USB
device. Controlling external boxes is a bonus. A bonus that is always going
to be plagued by the other receiver's EPG's and OSD's and added delays on
control and response.
If you want to be able to view what's coming in from your receiver "live"
simply split the signal, pipe one feed into your TV, and one into MythTV
then back into your TV on a separate AV input. When you watching TV and
decide you want to record, then all you have to do is simply press "record"
on your remote. If you to pause just press pause, then switch to the MythTV
input. You've already started time shifting now so you'd be stupid to try
and use the OSD / EPG of your receiver now anyway so it doesn't matter if
there is a delay. Once you've finished watching the program you paused go
set MythTV back to live, and then just switch inputs on your TV back to your
receivers input so you can get really "live" in your opinion.
Maybe shelling out a few (insert local currency here) for a tuner card that
can handle your satellite feed, this would then reduce the perceived
annoyance of the 3 second delay. (If said tuner card is available, I'm not
too hot on the whole sat tuner card thing..)
Steve Daniels
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