[mythtv-users] To "Live TV" or not to "Live TV" within myth...

[Phil Bridges]

On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 6:54 PM, Matt S. <skd5aner at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 3:14 PM, jedi <jedi at mishnet.org> wrote:
>> On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 09:30:13AM -0800, Steve Peters - Priority Electronics wrote:
>>> Hello. I just can't seem to get myth to work properly. There's always
>>> something that it's messing up on.
>>>
>>> Live TV absolutely never has the voice sync working. All recorded shows and
>>> all movies work just fine. So I'm stumped on this one.
>>
>>    Mebbe you should consider not trying to use the DVR as a TV. Even when
>> we still had our Tivos we really didn't do that. We kept around a separate
>> tuner for that. If you can't wait until the show ends before you start
>> watching it, you're not going to really benefit that much from a DVR. You
>> won't be able to skip the commercials much.
>>
>
>
> Sorry Jedi - I don't mean to pick on you, just thought this was a good
> time to comment on a recurring theme here...
>
> I know you mean well, and contribute a lot to the community, but
> responses like that are way too common on this list and I think
> they're not necessary.  How does that help the guy and his problem?
> MythTV provides a Live TV feature, and basically has forever (it was
> even completely refactored almost 3 years ago) - at least in the last
> 5 years I've been using it.  Anyway, some folks (including myself)
> sometimes want to watch live TV.  In fact, I sometimes *miss* channel
> surfing as a lot of times I discovered new shows, or learned things
> that I wouldn't have EVER setup as a recording rule (or even have
> known that I would want to watch them) - a lot of history channel,
> discover, TLC, A&E, etc.  Now I rarely see those things because it's
> not worth it for me to constantly find the one-off programs that those
> networks show and try to record them.  Also, unless it's a widely
> publicized or highly acclaimed series, or a very special one-time
> event, how am I supposed to know to record something new?   DVRs are
> great for series and recurring recordings, but beyond that it's only
> as much as you can discover, and how do you do that unless you care to
> keep up with entertainment news or read network websites (which I have
> much better things to do with my time).
>
> In addition, sometimes I just want something on in the background that
> I don't have to pay attention to.  According to myth, I have 155
> recording rules with 733 matching showings over the next 14 days.  I'm
> sure there's folks with more and folks with less, but pretty much
> anything I record, I want to pay attention to.  Even with all those
> shows, I record, I get tired of the same 50 shows poping up, believe
> it or not.  Just like people get bored with 200+ channels, I get bored
> with the same stuff my mythbox records.  I can't just record
> everything in the world and hope that some of it peaks my intrest.
>
> Another use case is when I have visitors, especially those who might
> stay overnight or a few days.  My recording rules aren't necessarily
> what they want to watch, nor would I want them deleting my recordings
> after they got done watching what I had been saving to watch.  It's
> also harder to explain than just "turn on the TV and browse for what
> you want to watch".  My parents had a DirecTV Tivo for 2 years, it
> broke and they replaced it with a DirecTV DVR 2 years ago.  They still
> watched live TV 98% of the time, because they like to watch the news,
> keep the TV on in the background, etc.  I think it took them 2 years
> to even learn (or care) that they could pause Live TV.
>
> What about super bowl parties?  Do you want to explain to your friends
> they should wait two hours so it can automatically skip some
> commercials by the time you get to the end?  Lots of folks actually
> want to watch those commercials too.
>
> Bottom line, it's a feature *lots* of people want/use... and it's
> frustrating when a feature people want/use doesn't quite work for
> them.  Telling people they should have a paradigm shift isn't
> necessarily the right advice.  I think sometimes, some folks lose site
> that TV in general is a distraction and we don't have to completely
> give up the concept of Live TV and go 100% recordings 100% of the
> time.  Obviously Live TV doesn't get maybe the respect it deserves
> because of the use cases of the primary developers, but Issac did
> spend a lot of time reworking LiveTV a few years back, so it probably
> isn't going away anytime soon - and I'm glad for that.  Truth be told,
> I probably only use live tv within myth 5% of the time, *maybe*.  If I
> need to watch LiveTV, it's easier a lot of times to just use my cable
> STB - especially if I'm handing the remote over to a guest.  Don't
> take this as a complaint against myth, I don't really have many
> complaints about the live tv implementation like some do in regards to
> a "delay".  It has it's faults, but I actually like how live tv is
> treated almost like a near-real-time recording.  Anyway...
>
> Both have their pros and cons.  A DVR should not be about just coming
> back to recorded programs, but it should be about timeshifting TV (0+
> minutes) after it's aired. (my opinion)
>
> Anyway, that's my yearly rant, not necessarily directed at anyone in
> particular :)
>


Thanks, Matt.