[mythtv-users] Live TV playback frustration

[Joseph Fry]

> On 08/23/2012 03:15 PM, Ian Wilkinson wrote:
>
>> You could setup a recording and watch it live from the recordings list
>> (as is the recommended method in Myth).  However, if you were channel
>> surfing and stumbled across it (perhaps you'd forgotten it was on but
>> fancied watching it there and then), you could wind back to the start of
>> the show without going to the recordings list.  It just used the recording
>> file when you reached this channel when surfing.
>>
>> Does myth do this? No, it insists on creating two recordings of the same
>> thing, because myth is not looking at providing the user with the content,
>> myth is just looking at it as two different consumers that both happen to
>> be receiving the same data.
>>
>
> In MythTV, Live TV has an implied contract that the Live TV viewer is the
> "owner" of the tuner.  If you were channel surfing and stumbled across a
> channel on which a scheduled recording is occurring and MythTV noticed and
> instead started playing back the scheduled recording, it would presumably
> "release" the tuner you were using for Live TV.  And, unlucky you, your
> wife just happened to start Live TV--and claim that just-released
> tuner--right before you hit channel up, again.  Now you've lost your tuner,
> so what to do?
>

Bad example... if the wife started live tv and a tuner wasn't available...
then there's a problem. ;-)

In all seriousness though, could this "implied contract" be given an
expiration time... thus if I tune to something that's currently being
recorded I start watching the recording rather than starting a new one, in
the meantime 'my' tuner is held for X minutes before being released for use
by the system... or held until I exit live tv if the objective is simply to
eliminate the duplicate recordings.

This would offer the best of both worlds.  I really like the idea that if
my wife or kids open live tv and tune to a show that is being recorded,
they won't occupy the tuner indefinitely AND they get the ability to rewind
to the beginning of the show.  Additionally, it would make sense if they
are watching a channel and a scheduled recording starts on that channel.

Obviously there would need to be logic there to start live tv again when
the recording ends (assuming a tuner is still available).  And the system
would need to know to continue playback when it reaches the end of the
recording.


> What you describe is easy to implement in a single-system setup.  MythTV
> is a multi-system DVR that may have more than just one concurrent user on
> any of potentially many frontend systems.  We need a way to ensure that
> Live TV continues to work like Live TV even if you surf through channels
> with scheduled recordings.


Agreed, but you must admit that it doesn't make much sense to actually
record the same channel simultaneously.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-users/attachments/20120824/cd8a1fae/attachment.html>