[mythtv-users] cards vs sources vs inputs confusion, problems and possible bugs

Michael T. Dean mtdean at thirdcontact.com
Fri Dec 4 17:17:54 UTC 2009


On 12/04/2009 11:14 AM, Eric Sharkey wrote:
> 2009/12/3 Petr Stehlik:
>   
>> My amateur suggestion that would hopefully work: when user selects a
>> channum (either by browse mode or directly) don't ask myth to tune to
>> that channum _on_the_current_tuner_ but instead:
>>
>> 1) find out the current program on that channum using EPG data
>> 2) ask the scheduler to suggest the best tuner for recording that
>> program
>> 3) tune live TV to that tuner
>>     
> What's wrong with?:
>
> 1) Find a free tuner that has channum
> 2) tune live TV to that tuner

That's how it's supposed to work.  Channel numbers are really only for 
use as a mechanism to allow a user to specify which channel to watch 
during LiveTV.  Their only other purpose is display related (i.e. 
display info to the user about recordings and specify whether to display 
individual channels in the EPG--when 2 channels share the same callsign 
and channel number (and content), they're collapsed into a single entry 
in the EPG).

Therefore, the channel number is a human-readable/human-rememberable 
identifier for a channel.  No 2 channels with differing content should 
ever be given the same channel number, as doing so would prevent the 
user from being able to specify which channel to tune by entering a 
channel number in LiveTV.  (Similarly, no 2 channels without 
"substantially identical" (read "identical") content should ever be 
given the same callsign--as the callsign is used to mark 2 channels as 
the same/identical channel for scheduling purposes.)

Myth will also attempt to change inputs when required.  However, as many 
have seen, there may still be some issues related to this (as testing 
all the cases with all the different options is extremely difficult).

Mike


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