[mythtv-users] Live TV channel restrictions

[Ian Oliver]

In article <4B840B51.4000309 at thirdcontact.com>, Michael T. Dean wrote:
> If you always want LiveTV to get a separate physical 
> tuner

That isn't what I want. If there is a tuner on the right mux and with a free 
virtual tuner, then use it. Failing that, find a free tuner and tune it to the 
right mux. Failing that, tell me I can't watch that channel. All PVRs I've met do 
pretty much exactly this.

> you /are/ saying LiveTV is more important to you than recordings.

It isn't. Our dual tuner PVR is shoddy in many ways but it hides tuners very 
well. It can do 1 or 2 recordings on one mux + live tv on any channel OR 2x 
recordings on different muxes and live TV on only available channels.

> MythTV will still tell you that it needs the tuner for a recording if 
> something starts while you're watching LiveTV

Telling me is OK, but if I don't respond, I hope it grabs the tuner, but only 
when there is no other option.

> but you've told it to 
> give a preference to LiveTV by telling it to use a different physical tuner.

How do I do that? Might I be better to buy some HDHRs an reserve these for Live 
TV?

> The post above has a full solution for your situation that does 
> everything you want.  It's not a workaround.

OK, guess I need to try and it see if there are any limitations that are imposed 
by the software rather than the hardware.

> so that you can waste your time with LiveTV

Pardon? Just because person A might not like watching news or sport live doesn't 
mean that person B is wasting their time by doing so.

> the pain and suffering involved with hitting a key 
> (NEXTCARD)

I'm starting to sense a certain attitude. :-(

Wife+daughter want to select a channel. If showing this channel involves the 
software having to handle those mux things they don't understand, then said 
software should do it to the best of its abilities. If the software cannot do it 
because the underlying hardware has no resources to do it, then so be it; they 
accept limitations. But having four tuners, each with four virtual tuners, and 
having more limitations and hassle than the dual-tuner PVR we are replacing, 
caused consternation. Surely as software engineers we can understand that said 
consternation is justified?

> Browse all channels
> If enabled, browse mode will shows channels on all available recording 
> devices, instead of showing channels on just the current recorder.

I'll try that, but am not sure it will help. We tried typing in channel numbers, 
and despite the three free tuners, Live TV would not use anything other than the 
first tuner, which was recording on the "wrong" mux.

> is designed to allow LiveTV users who 
> are too lazy to go into the EPG

Again, "lazy" is a loaded word. They aren't lazy - they just want the GUI to let 
them watch the channel they want to watch. If the underlying hardware can handle 
this, why make them jump through hoops?

> So, you can decide whether you'd rather every 
> single channel change is slower in LiveTV

That sounds undesirable.

> or whether starting LiveTV 
> gets its own physical tuner to start with (possibly a tuner that will be 
> required for a recording while LiveTV is running)

That sounds even worse, unless I add a slew of tuners just for Live TV.

> or whether to just 
> use NEXTCARD

That sounds hard to explain to people who just want to choose a channel.

> or the EPG (which is pretty much how it's designed to be used).

What do you mean by using the EPG?  We use the guide to record programs, but I'm 
talking about watching Live TV without recording it.

Currently, we're using our sucky old dual-tuner PVR for watching Live TV as it 
does a better job of it than our 4xtuner+4xvirtual mythtv setup. We can continue 
to do this, but it does seem a shame that mythtv isn't rather more flexible in 
this regard.

I'm happy to add more hardware if it helps, but it sounds like mythtv doesn't 
current make best use of available hardware, so I doubt it will help,

Ian