[mythtv-users] LiveTV Channel Browsing Speed (New angle !)

[Josh Mastronarde]

I've read many times the arguments for and against "flipping", and
understand the reasons why Myth is "slow" and why the devs (as
die-hard PVR converts, presumably) don't see an issue.

But I've wondered if this architectural solution would work:

1)  In LiveTV mode, start playing directly from the selected
/dev/video or whatever using the internal player (this could work with
mplayer or something else, too, but nicer if native).  No buffering on
this stream; basically play the *input* of the recorder.

2)  In parallel, record the current channel to disk as usual

3)  If the user presses any "PVR" button (pause, back, etc), freeze
the image, *then* there would be a 3-5 second pause while the recorded
stream "catches up" to the direct stream, then the player seamlessly
switches to the buffered stream.  From here on, it's just like
watching any other recording.

4)  If the user presses Channel Up/Down/Number, go to step 1

It would seem that this would satisfy many of the complaints; allowing
fast flipping while also seamlessly switching to PVRish viewing
(albeit with a pause), and wouldn't be terribly incompatible with the
existing architecture.

Yes, I've done some programming, No I haven't done any Myth coding,
and Yes I'm willing to try my hand at it "someday" :-).  Looking for
feedback on why this would or wouldn't work well...

Thanks,

Josh