[mythtv-users] limit daily tv time?

[Marc Randolph]

On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 10:40 AM, Brian Wood <beww at beww.org> wrote:
> On Sunday, October 31, 2010 05:52:08 am George Nassas wrote:
>> On 2010-10-30, at 3:03 PM, David L wrote:
>> > Is there a mythtv setting to limit how much mythtv playback time for a
>> > certain profile is allowed each day?
>>
>> There's nothing built-in but with system events
>> (http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/MythTV_System_Events) you could have a script
>> monitor playback time and then take down the frontend and lirc when your
>> threshold is reached.
>
> How about instead of monitoring total time you figure out a way to monitor "quality". Each network would be assigned a
> "quality value", with perhaps PBS getting a "5", and MTV getting "-25".
>
> You would then calculate a quality value ("Q") by multiplying the time by the "Q" factor of the network being watched. As
> the number changes, the allowable channels would change, so that initially anything could be watched, and after say, an
> hour of MTV, only C-SPAN and PBS could be tuned until the "Q" factor was once again in positive territory.
>
> The problem with your system is it assumes an hour of watching MTV or the Cartoon Network is the same as an hour of PBS or
> the BBC, which it is not. There is some programming we don't mind having kids watch, and there are others we would rather
> they not even be aware of. My system would take into account the "quality" of the network. Obviously such Q factors could
> be adjusted to fit the individual prejudices of the parents involved.

This raises the interesting possibility of being able to completely
lock out a channel/network with, for example, a Q of  -999.  Could be
something interesting to take into account on multi-user myth, if that
ever happens.

   Marc