[mythtv-users] External channel change not passing channel

Michael T. Dean mtdean at thirdcontact.com
Mon Apr 2 19:44:49 UTC 2007


On 04/02/2007 01:56 PM, f-myth-users at media.mit.edu wrote:
>     > Date: Mon, 02 Apr 2007 08:02:06 -0400
>     > From: "Michael T. Dean" <mtdean at thirdcontact.com>
>
>     > I think the page is organized appropriately.  The first page is the 
>     > information that can/should be set /by the user/ (i.e. fields for the 
>     > user's use).  The second page is "advanced" (don't touch this unless you 
>     > know what you're doing) stuff that's for MythTV's use.
>
> Hmm.  Really?  I'm quite surprised by this statement.  Just to be sure
> we're not confused here---we're talking about the two (and only two)
> pages of the Channel Editor in mythtv-setup, right?
>
> In -my- (admittedly old) version of that, the only controls on the
> second page are the FreqID, and finetune, contrast, brightness, color,
> and hue.  I can certainly see how finetine might be dangerous (change
> it and you might break your ability to tune that channel), but why in
> the world do you say that contrast, brightness, color, and hue are
> "advanced" and "know what you're doing" sorts of stuff?  They appear
> to be -exactly- like the knobs on the front of an old-style TV, and
> would be the obvious controls to twiddle if a user was unhappy with
> the appearance of a particular channel.
>   

That's the wrong knob to twiddle.  In LiveTV, hit 'g' to get the 
Recording playback controls and twiddle those knobs--where you can also 
see their effects (so you don't end up recording a whitewashed "Mr. Monk 
and the Leper" or episodes of "purple" "Raines" or "blue" "Red Green 
Show").  You can change them, but there's a /much/ better/safer way.

> The stuff on the -first- page, OTOH, is really where you can shoot
> yourself in the foot, e.g., by fiddling with the XMLID, the video
> source, the format, etc etc.  The second page's FreqID seems no more
> dangerous than the majority on the stuff on the first page.
>   

OK, Channel Name, Channel Number, Callsign, Visible, Commercial Free, 
Icon, Video Filters, Playback Filters, and Priority are all /definitely/ 
for the users.  XMLTVID must be edited by users of HDTV because they 
must scan for channels, so it needs to be there.  DataDirect Time Offset 
is specifically for users who can't figure out how to set their 
timezones correctly ;) or those few unfortunate people who live on the 
border of a timezone where their listings data is provided for the other 
timezone.

This leaves only Video Source and TV Format.  I guess I just hope 
they're scary enough to most users that they don't touch them.  ;)

Probably the "rest of the story" behind page 2 being a separate page is 
that the items on page 2 only apply to V4L capture cards.  With digital 
capture cards, there is no page 2.  Therefore, moving Video Source 
and/or TV Format to page 2 would create a page 2 for digital users where 
one didn't previously exist.  However, in my world, I like to think of 
page 2 as "not for general use" items.

> Can you explain why you say that the CBCH controls are so dangerous?
> And, if so, should the page have some sort of "don't fiddle with
> this!" warning on it somewhere?
>
> [Now, if there are lots of other internal controls in the SVN version
> of the second page of this, that's different, but it sounds like the
> OP was looking at approximately the same page I am right now.]
>
>     > There's /never/ a reason to change the value of "Channel or Frequency" 
>     > if you're using a "standard" frequency table.
>
> ...except that you, yourself, told me to do exactly that in order to work
> around a months-long Zap2It screwup in which they'd misassigned channels
> and which they -still- haven't fixed:
>
> http://mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-users/2006-July/141556.html.
>
> [That particular thread also includes my amazement that there -was- a
> second page, and my confusion about why that one field seemed misplaced
> compared to all the others---and for no good reason, since there was a
> lot of space at the bottom of the page above the "Next" button and if
> there -had- been something there, I would have been more likely to
> notice that my window was being truncated at the bottom...]
>   

OK.  I stand corrected.  The only reason (I know of right now) to change 
that value is if you're getting garbage data for your listings.  ;)

I wasn't trying to imply that what you had done was wrong (I didn't even 
remember what you had done or why), only trying to discourage users 
reading this thread from editing the freqid.  I apologize for the 
overly-definitive blanket statement.

> Of course, the -real- question is, "what does an inexperienced user
> think about the layout?" since any experienced user knows exactly
> where everything is and how to find it and whether there's anything
> missing.  This is why domain experts are not the best people to
> evaluate whether information is being presented clearly to non-experts.

In SVN trunk, there's a new "live" channel editor.  You press 'e' while 
watching a channel and can edit the channel info right there (making it 
much easier to identify which channel is which when putting in 
XMLTVID's).  In theory, this is the channel editor users will use in the 
future.  If so, maybe the whole mythtv-setup channel editor will go away.

For me, the /only/ thing I do/have ever done in the channel editor is 
set an XMLTVID for digital channels.  Setting other user options (as 
enumerated above) is perfectly fine for those who want to do so.

I'll agree there's room for improvement, but finding time for 
improvement (especially with a whole new UI for channel editing coming 
into play) can be challenging.  I think this is much of the reason that 
the "one-time-use" mythtv-setup "niceties" are not high priority.  (I 
know, "one-time-use" is an exaggeration, but it's still much less-often 
used than other parts of MythTV.)

Mike


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