[mythtv] [PATCH] Beginning radio pvr support

[Dan Sheridan]

"Malcolm Smith" <Malcolm.Smith at itemplus.com> writes:

> Wonderful start.

Thank you :-)

> Don't forget in input terms (assume you mean broadcast radio rather than
> webcast) you will need to support
>
> 1. analog - Some TV cards support radio as well
> 2.        DVB - both Terrestrial and Satelite support audio streams
> 3.        Specialised input cards
>
> Guessing from your code you've done 1.

Yes. I'm assuming that radio is just another input on an analogue
card. 3 would be easy -- it's just a v4l card with no video inputs. 2
is a closed book to me at the moment. If the DVB transmitter nearest
me gets a power boost then I'll give it a go :-)

> I like the overall approach (i.e. integrate as though it was a TV
> channel but with no picture). Xmltv supports channel lists so the
> scheduling is seemless as is resource management.

Exactly -- in fact, I can record radio programs without any trouble
now. Still can't play them back, though.

> Rather than rework large parts of mythtv how about using mythmusic for
> playback.

Because they are very different beasts, really. mythmusic plays music
files locally, but mythtv can access the remote ringbuffer, which is
required for radio pvr support.

> My current hack soln is for mode 2 (DVB).
> 1. Record the channel with audio radio and a dummy tv picture.

It sounds like you've done enough to support mode 2 in the same
framework as my mode 1. We just need to arrange for mythfrontend to
play video-less tv.

How do you generate the dummy tv picture? I decided against filling
the video buffers with all black as I felt it would push up the data
rate unnecessarily. 

> 2. Use a hacked version of Nuvexport to extract the mp3 file

I'd really like to see this... it'd be useful to know if my .nuv files
actually contain the radio programs they claim to!

         Dan.

-- 
Dan Sheridan -- Research Student -- LFCS, Division of Informatics
 University of Edinburgh, King's Buildings, Mayfield Road EH9 3JZ