[mythtv] Discussion: make playback available in all UI screens

[Joseph A. Caputo]

On Thursday 25 March 2004 12:02, Eric A. Litman wrote:
> Has this generated any discussion off-list? I'm a bit surprised not
> to have seen more chatter on this topic.

Nope.  This seems to me to be the kind of thing that might get discussed 
on the IRC channel, but I rarely get to hang out there.

-JAC

>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Joseph A. Caputo" <jcaputo1 at comcast.net>
> To: "Development of mythtv" <mythtv-dev at mythtv.org>
> Sent: Monday, March 22, 2004 3:11 PM
> Subject: [mythtv] Discussion: make playback available in all UI
> screens
>
> > I thought I'd start a thread to discuss ways in which the following
> > might be implemented: when any media playback is initiated (using a
> > Myth internally-supported playback mechanism; i.e., not mplayer),
> > the playback process will be a daemon, and the output should be
> > available no matter where in the UI you are.
> >
> > Now, before everybody jumps on me, I do know about the new mfd
> > stuff Thor's been working on, and that's a step in the right
> > direction. However, I'm thinking more along the lines of LiveTV or
> > WatchingRecording... what if the video playback in Myth was also
> > part of mfd (or some other daemon process)?  Then the playback
> > could continue even if you switch to a different menu.  Kind of
> > like the EPG is now in LiveTV.  Any theme that wanted to could
> > contain a "black hole" UI element that would contain any
> > currently-playing video.  If there was no video currently playing,
> > then the "black hole" would not be displayed.  A jump point or
> > global keybinding could take us back to full-screen mode.  For any
> > screen that did not have a black hole, the playback would continue,
> > but the video would be redirected to a null device, or behind the
> > window, or whatever.  You'd still get audio.
> >
> > Basically, the idea is that once a media playback event is
> > initiated in Myth, it should only be stopped by:
> >
> > - user explicit action to stop it
> > - reached end of playback
> > - Myth requires the resource (i.e., LiveTV & Myth needs tuner for
> > scheduled recording)
> >
> > This seems relatively easy for audio media w/ the new mfd client
> > module; it can obviously keep the audio output device open
> > regardless of what you're doing in the UI; it's just the
> > video/black hole stuff that requires thought.
> >
> > So, anybody else have thoughts on this?
> >
> > -JAC