[mythtv] idea: channel groups

[Chris Petersen]

I just noticed that zap2it added another huge block of channels to my 
list, and I came up with the idea of channel groups (which is kind of 
similar to what Dish does with their onscreen stuff).  The idea would be 
that you could set up groups of channels (say "broadcast", "kid-safe" 
etc) and choose between them.  It would really help with large listings, 
or work better with special channels (like the 60 or so Sirius music 
channels that Dish has) I don't want to see in my normal listings, but 
might want to occasionally check out.

With stuff like kid-safe, you could also use the group stuff as a 
parental lock, to keep kids out of channels they're not allowed into.

It would also allow myth to notify users when new channels show up, and 
set them to be ignored (Dish gets a bunch every few weeks that I don't 
actually get with my subscription), or added to certain groups (would be 
even cooler if mythbackend could check those channels for content, but I 
wouldn't keep my hopes up for that).

I don't know if most people are like me or not, but I tend to watch a 
very small subset of the channels I get with my subscription, and it'd 
be nice to be able to hide those channels most of the time, but still 
search/browse them when I want to.  Would help keep mythweb page load 
times down a bit, too.

Just brainstorming..

-Chris