[mythtv] RFC: Expanded playgroup settings

[Shane]

On Dec 3, 2007 2:41 PM, Kevin Kuphal <kuphal at dls.net> wrote:
> This is a short patch that I'm working on currently that adds the
> ability to set the Video Scan method in a Playgroup in order to, for
> example, force interlacing for stations that broadcast a mix of
> progressive and interlaced frames which throws off the Auto-detector.
> I'm not thouroughly familiar with the interlacing setup so I'm
> throwing this out there for comment.  It works for me, but I'm not
> sure if it is the proper way of handling.  What I basically did is add
> a method to set a default video scan type, remove the hard-coded
> setting of detecting if the default type is set, and then call the
> function to set the scan type once the player is set up.
>
> Like I said, it seems to work but I'd like another set of eyes on it
> before I commit anything.  This patch doesn't include it but you also
> just need to add an INT field of "interlacing" to the playgroup table.

Hi Kevin, Good idea! It was next on my list. :)

My only suggestion: Would a tinyint be big enough for the 'interlacing' field?

Thoughts on expanded playgroup settings:

I have a patch that does the same thing for the commSkip, commNotify
etc. However, I encountered a problem when implementing my patch,
and was thinking that the same problem might effect your patch.

The problem is that zero (0) is treated as a special value in the playgroups
table. Zero means 'use the value from the default playgroup', it's a nice
feature that allows the user to selectively override some settings while
using defaults for the others.

The problem is that zero is a legitimate comm skip value (CommSkipOff = 0),
and I see that zero equates to kScan_Detect as well.

I reworked things so that negative values mean 'use the default'. This
works fine for now but will undoubtedly be a problem later on.

So, I was hoping there might be a more robust scheme to achieve this
functionality.  Not sure if using NULL as the special value is an option?

Shane