[mythtv-users] [RFC] Proposed settings rework

[Johnny]

> The problem is this is one of those slippery settings slopes
> (SSS for short) :)
>
> Some people want auto-skip on per channel,
> some people want auto-skip on per scheduled recording,
> some people want auto-skip on per playback group,
> some people want auto-skip on per program title,
> etc..
>
> Sometimes we have a hard time getting across to someone the fact
> that auto-transcode has to be on for a scheduled recording and
> for a recording profile, imagine how hard it would be to explain
> auto-skip based in the above scenario. :)

Yes, it reminds me of Arrow's Impossiblity Theorem
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem). He
basically proved that it is impossible for a group to come to
consensus on their preferences. So I am sympathetic to the challenge
of even discussing this with the users as a whole. I only brought up
the playback groups because they do have some promise. They already
have the functionality to be applied to recording rules. So you can
handle per playback group. The per recording, and per title would be
handled by using playback groups in your recording rules. The per
channel would be nice but you can still handle it by adding a playback
group to your recording rules on that channel.

Regardless of the commercial-skip issue, the playback groups are
confusing the way they are. Other mythtv groups (e.g. storage groups,
recording groups) have a default group that is used. It would be
consistent to just have the default playback group that had all of the
playback settings (rather than a random few). Then additional groups
could be added for those more advanced users who want to do the custom
stuff. I think this would simplify things for the new/simple user, by
having all of the logically related playback settings in one place,
rather than split up in playback groups, general settings, and
playback settings the way it is now. Again the playback groups are
already in place, this is just a matter of moving the settings into
the playback group. To me, it seems like one of those rare cases that
simplifies things while still adding greater functionality.