[mythtv] Suggestion for improving SLOW channel changing in LiveTV.....

[Peter Lee]

On 9/8/05, Dag Nygren <dag at newtech.fi> wrote:
> > Blammo wrote:
> > >Not being as facetious as it sounds... but do that many people
> > >actually watch LiveTV on their myth box? personally I could go a month
> > >and never watch LiveTV, myth box or not. That's the advantage of a
> > >PVR... <aside from the fact that LiveTV + HD works so poorly>
> > >
> > >
> >
> > Every single day Live TV is used by someone in my household.  None of
> > them however channel surf.  They all use the guide to select what they
> > want to watch.
> 
> Same here. The DVB tuner is a replacement for a commercial box.

I've posted this idea before, but I'll post it again: It seems to me a
reasonable idea to have a live TV mode (or an option for a live TV
mode) that doesn't provide any PVR functionality (and therefore
doesn't have a ring buffer, etc).  Sure you won't be able to pause or
rewind, but hey, if you insist on live TV surfing, that's what you
get.

I would personally never use such a mode, but I know that others in my
household would.

If such a feature existed, then it might be useful to have the record
button start recording on the current channel (thereby incurring a
slight delay) and then watching the new recording-in-progress.  This
would then give the PVR functionality, but of course would mean that
further channel-surfing would raise a warning about the tuner being
busy.

Why do I think this is a reasonable approach?  First, I don't think
live TV is all that useful, and thus it wouldn't be used by seasoned
PVR users.  Live TV is for channel-surfers, and channel-surfers
probably have less of an expectation of PVR functionality.  Second, I
can imagine that there could be an option to allow users to select
whether they want live TV to work this way or the current PVR-way.

I suspect there would be a complication in implementing this, having
to do with what happens when the backend wants to use the tuner for a
scheduled recording.  But other than that, I don't really see the
downside to this, and in fact I would view it as yet another feature
that MythTV has that Tivo doesn't.

Peter