[mythtv] Same old mind reading crud.

[Marco Nelissen]

>On 04/14/2007 10:21 AM, Marco Nelissen wrote:
>>> 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".
>
>So, are you going to create the "How to schedule your recordings for 
>Myth" matrix and post it where people can print it off for use when 
>scheduling?

I don't think you'd need a matrix to document the simple system 
described above. 

(snip)

Congratulations, you've found some scheduling-problem that can only be
solved with some manual intervention. So what? That doesn't make the
previously described system useless. Adding a simple priority-based
scheduling algorithm with 'soft' padding would be an incremental
improvement over what's currently there, and would not in any way
prevent you from solving complex scheduling issues manually.
Furthermore, I believe it would make covering the relatively easy
cases much simpler, thus leading to improved usability. Mythtv could
sure use some of that.
And since you're probably going to ask: no, I won't be submitting
a patch. It was easier and quicker for me to solve my scheduling
issues by buying another tuner card.