[mythtv-users] Mythtv .19 live watching

[Michael T. Dean]

On 07/12/06 12:40, glen martin wrote:

>Michael T. Dean wrote:
>  
>
>>The right solution, though, is to stop LiveTV when you're not watching 
>>it...  Another solution is to get more hard drives.  ;)
>>
>>... Also, if the problem is that you're falling asleep during the 
>>commercials in LiveTV ;), check out the "Sleep" menu--hit MENU ('M') in 
>>LiveTV and scroll to "Sleep".  There you can specify that Myth should 
>>turn off playback in 30, 60, 90, or 120 minutes.  (You can also toggle 
>>the sleep timer with the TOGGLESLEEP key (by default 'F8'), which cycles 
>>through 30, 60, 90, 120 minutes then off.)
>>    
>>
>I'll gently suggest that such a solution is low in WAF (Wife Acceptance
>Factor) and KCF (Kid Competency Factor). I remember to stop LiveTV.
>Others don't, and won't.
>

That may rule out the "right solution," but still leaves the "another 
solution."  It also leaves the "EXECTV executing xawtv" solution that I 
mentioned in the linked post ( 
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/188296#188296 )--i.e. 
if you don't want to record it, don't record it.

Let's say you've set LiveTV to the ridiculously-high average bitrate of 
6000kbps (the default is 4500 average, 6000 max).  Let's say some 
channel shows 24-hour programs and some--heh hum--person leaves MythTV 
playing LiveTV for the entire 24-hour program.  That program will be 
about 60GiB.  (Even at 9000kbps, the show will be about 90GiB after 24 
hours.)

Now, in the real world, how often will your MythTV box sit there playing 
LiveTV for 24 hours straight?  Won't someone try to use the Myth box 
within that time frame?  If so, once they exit LiveTV, the large LiveTV 
program is eligible to be autoexpired immediately.

True, for HDTV, a 24-hour program would be much larger, but has /anyone/ 
ever seen a 24-hour program listed in a HDTV channel (which doesn't 
include digital radio channels because they won't use much bitrate for 
the video since there's not much video to them).  I could see, maybe, 8 
hours for a sporting event (and, assuming an average of 7GiB/hr, that's 
about 56 GiB).

So, making sure the family doesn't do something stu^H^H^Hlike tell Myth 
to record an entire 24-hour program when short on space (if you don't 
want to lose shows marked as eligible to autoexpire) doesn't seem too 
much to ask.  Or, keeping a reserve of space for when someone does tell 
Myth to record an entire 24-hour program doesn't seem too much to ask.

I am still very much against the artificial breaks in LiveTV for exactly 
the reasons I specified ( 
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/188296#188296 ).  
And, while it seems most of the list was very much for them--just in 
case--it seems that once the thread died down, no one really cared 
anymore (no one wrote patches, no one complained for 4 months) until it 
appeared on the lists again...  But, my opinion doesn't matter that much.

If there are artificial breaks, I would say the /only/ reasonable 
approach is to make them /only/ when continuing to record the current 
LiveTV program would cause expiration of non-LiveTV programs and when 
the current LiveTV program is larger than the 
highest-priority-to-autoexpire non-LiveTV program (i.e. Myth has to 
decide between autoexpiring a 2GiB non-LiveTV program or a 10GiB (or a 
2.3GiB) LiveTV program).  At that point, Myth could break the current 
program and let autoexpire delete that portion.  But, that's a lot of 
logic to write for a "just-in-case"...  And, if the person watching the 
show later decides it's worth keeping, they lose the entire beginning, 
so it's not an ideal solution...

Mike