[mythtv-users] question involving multiple frontends

[Michael T. Dean]

On 02/09/2009 03:22 PM, Adam Stylinski wrote:
> Ok so this may be a silly question and yes there is an obvious solution
> to it.  I'm wanting to know if there's a way multiple frontends can
> watch the same livetv program without utilizing two tuners/encoders. 
> That is to say, the livetv recording itself is accessible from the
> backend to multiple frontends.  Obviously there are two fairly simple
> solutions to this, A.) have both viewers view from the same frontend, or
> B.) set it to record
>
> However, I'm curious about the casual television viewer, who doesn't set
> things to record, but simply channel flips back and forth.

Start LiveTV on one system.  On the other system, go to Watch Recordings 
and change the filter to include LiveTV.  Select the in-progress LiveTV 
recording and watch.  When the show ends (or the recording ends--if the 
LiveTV watcher/controller changed the channel during the show), select 
the next recording and watch.  When the show...

>   I'm
> wondering if the database will flip out or if it will create duplicate
> recordings of the same program if both users are tuned into the same
> channel on the same backend but with different frontends.

Myth doesn't care if you have every single capture card (and/or every 
single virtual tuner) recording the exact same show (whether in LiveTV 
or a scheduled recording).  Only your backends/HDD's see a difference.

>   I'm sorry for
> my ignorance if this was addressed by the design in that it queries the
> backend's database for a live stream and then feeds the same mpeg files
> over the network, but as far as I know there's no evidence that it does
> this with livetv. 

Nope.  We don't allow different frontends to share LiveTV sessions for 
exactly the "When the show..." reason above.  If you're watching LiveTV, 
you probably don't want someone else in some other room changing the 
channel on you just as they say, "So, it's obvious the killer is really..."

And, there's always the other solution you mentioned--don't use LiveTV 
and just have your myth system record any and all shows you might 
possibly want to watch...

Mike