[mythtv] [Preliminary patch[ Add profile groups

[Bruce Markey]

Geoffrey Hausheer wrote:
> In case anyone was wondering, here are the results of my efforts at
> building profile groups.  This patch is not quite ready yet, but I
> thought I'd get it out there, and see if anyone has any suggestions.

I applied the patch to a clean copy of cvs and installed on
a test machine with one WinTV 401, one PVR-250 and a test
scratch mysql database. It seems work and do the right things.
A couple little bumps along the way:

+ I needed to modify programs/mythtranscode/main.cpp to
modify loadByName on line 190 to get it to compile (didn't
'fix' it, just got it to compile ;-)

+ cvs.sql is missing the "=" after "name" on the last six INSERTs.

+ I created a new profile group which seems to have added
four Default and no LiveTV for profilegroup 4.

mysql> select * from recordingprofiles;
+----+---------+------------+------------+--------------+
| id | name    | videocodec | audiocodec | profilegroup |
+----+---------+------------+------------+--------------+
|  1 | Default | MPEG-4     | MP3        |            1 |
|  2 | Live TV | MPEG-4     | MP3        |            1 |
|  3 | Default | RTjpeg     | MP3        |            2 |
|  4 | Live TV | RTjpeg     | MP3        |            2 |
|  5 | Default | NULL       | NULL       |            3 |
|  6 | Live TV | NULL       | NULL       |            3 |
|  7 | Default | NULL       | NULL       |            4 |
|  8 | Default | NULL       | NULL       |            4 |
|  9 | Default | NULL       | NULL       |            4 |
| 10 | Default | NULL       | NULL       |            4 |
+----+---------+------------+------------+--------------+

...
> A card can only exist in one profile-group
> A card which is already in the current group is marked with a '*'
> profile groups that have cards associated with them are marked 'IN USE'
> (I should probably swap this, and make unused groups marked 'EMPTY')

I like what you've done but I'd like to make suggestion
that I think will address these issues and make it easier
for users to understand.

Setting the codecparams for each profile certainly belongs
in TV Settings->Recording. However, since the card type does
not change at runtime I think the profile groups and card
association should happen in the backend setup. Setup step 2
for "Capture Cards" could had a spinbox for "Profile Group"
right after "Card Type". This would assure that each card 
would be in exactly one group.

If the profile groups are set in setup, TV Settings->Recording
could be much simpler for the 95% of users that have one card
or multiple cards of the same type (and simpler for the other
5% of us too ;-). If group creation and card assignment don't
happen on the "Recording" page then only the IN USE names need
to be exposed. 95% of us would just see one group name and drill
down to set the profiles for that group. If we had setup a card
to be in a second group then the Recording page would show two
group names. 

> There are 4 profiles (Default, Live TV, Low-Quality, High-Quality).
> These can be easily changed by modifying availProfiles in
> recordingprofile.cpp (but if you change Default or Live TV, other things
> need to be changed too)

Now here's a nit. "Low-Quality" doesn't sound like a desirable
goal. "Low-Res" maybe but it would be better if it expressed
space efficient, compact, maximum record time, low bandwidth,
(where are those marketing people when you actually need them?).

Overall, I was very impressed by how effective this patch is at
solving this long standing issue. I'm now confident that a very
welcome solution will be in place very soon.

Good work, Geoff.

--  bjm