[mythtv] Same old mind reading crud.

[Marco Nelissen]

>For example, if I were recording The Office from 8:30 to 9:00 and CSI 
>and Supernatural from 9:00 to 10:00 and I had a conflict because of a 
>2-minute start early/end late on each, the /right/ way to fix the 
>conflict is to allow end late on The Office (2 minute end late) and 
>start CSI 2 minutes late (-2 minute start early).  The wrong ways 
>(notice the plural) are to a) drop end late from The Office and drop 
>start early from CSI (I miss part of The Office, but don't mind missing 
>part of CSI), b) drop end late from The Office and drop start early from 
>Supernatural (I miss part of The Office /and/ Supernatural--the two I 
>care about), and c) keep end late from The Office and start late on 
>Supernatural (I miss a whole bunch of Supernatural).
>
>Now please show me the code for an algorithm that knows this /and/ knows 
>my personal preferences for handling all other possible scheduling overlaps.
>
>Could we make these changes automatic based on priority?  Sure, if we 
>want to encode some meaning into priority that's /far/ more complex for 
>the user to understand than simply, "Tell Myth to start the one you care 
>least about late..."  As a matter of fact, I spend a lot of time in 
>Myth's code (and figuring out how Myth works), and I /know/ I would be 
>confused by a priority-based approach (which, incidentally, would be 
>completely broken--after I spent so much time getting my priorities 
>straight--when some network decides to change the timeslot for a show).

I don't see how how a priority-based approach (i.e. "I care more about
THIS show than about THAT show") is confusing.

In the example you gave, your priorities would be (1) The Office,
(2) Supernatural, (3) CSI (you said you cared about about The Office 
and Supernatural). So what would would/should happen is that it would
start recording The Office early and finish late. It would also start
recording Supernatural 2 minutes early and end 2 minutes late on your
second tuner. CSI, being the least important show, would start 2 minutes
late and end 2 minutes late. If I'm not mistaken, this is exactly what
you described as being "the /right/ way".