[mythtv-users] Live TV playback frustration

[Michael T. Dean]

On 08/23/2012 04:16 AM, mikkel wrote:
>
> 4) The “thrill” of watching sports live is completely removed by 
> watching a recording even a 10 minute delay sucks in my book.
>

This is a common argument for Live TV with which I /most/ disagree. This 
implies that you /really/ care about the sporting event. Therefore, you 
should tell MythTV you care about the event (by scheduling a recording). 
Then MythTV will ensure that it records the whole event (plus any end 
late--which you can set to a huge value and then when the event ends, 
stop the recording). If you use Live TV, MythTV will record the parts of 
the event that occur when a) you're inside Live TV, b) someone hasn't 
channel-surfed away, c) someone hasn't accidentally hit channel up/down 
or exit or ... on the remote during Live TV, d) Live TV is working 
properly, e) your frontend hasn't crashed due to Live TV, ...

So, generally, what I'm trying to say is, "If it's important to you, 
tell MythTV." Then, just watch the recording in progress--and you can 
get /just/ as close to live that way as you can with MythTV Live TV. The 
only difference is that you go to Watch Recordings to start playback of 
the recording in progress.

This is exactly what I discussed in my "Live TV is 'waste-your-life-TV' 
manifesto" at 
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/387302#387302 .

I'm trying (and failing) to think of a good non-TV/non-MythTV example of 
the difference. Since I can't, I'll just quote a paragraph from that 
manifesto:
-----
To make it easier, think of LiveTV as, "Manual TV," whereas scheduled 
recordings are, "Automatic TV." I.e. Myth takes care of starting 
scheduled recordings /for/ you, but /you/ have to go to the trouble of 
starting LiveTV when you want and tuning to the channel you want.
-----
(and MythTV ensures you get a recording of the entire scheduled 
recording, regardless what happens with the 
frontend/remote/playback/crashes/...)

The whole idea of using the most-fragile part of MythTV for the 
most-important shows seems flawed to me... :)

Mike