[mythtv] Commercial replacement instead of skipping

[Peter Schachte]

Brad DerManouelian wrote:
> On Feb 27, 2007, at 1:00 PM, Hal Lightwood wrote:
>> Hi Brad,  thanks for the reply.  Watching LiveTV with a 15 minute  
>> delay isn't too bad, but do you think we could alter commflag so  
>> that it could replace the commercials instead of skip them?  If  
>> commflag takes alot of CPU we'll just make sure we have a very fast  
>> computer so it can do it quickly.  What do you think?
> 
> I don't see the use case here. If you watch the program delayed  
> enough for the commflagger to do its job, there is no time to watch  
> something else. It just skips right to the next scene of your program.

I think Hal's point is that by *replacing* commercials with some other
equal-length programming while watching, and assuming the commflagger could run
at real-time speed, you would be in a steady state.  So you wouldn't have to be
8 minutes ahead for every 30 minutes of program, you'd just have to be far
enough ahead for the commflagger's output to be available.  Essentially, as I
understand the OP, you'd just be watching slightly delayed from real time, and
when a commercial came on, rather than skipping over it, myth would show some
other programming until the commercial finished.

Sounds like a good idea to me.  It would make watching live TV much more
palatable if you could be watching some other recording during the commercials.
 But I don't think many myth users, and particularly myth developers, use live
TV much, so I don't think anyone will be rushing to implement it.

Hal, I would suggest adding this to the feature wishlist on the myth wiki.
Probably
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Feature_Wishlist_%28Frontend_Addons%29#LiveTV_.2F_View_Recording

would be the most appropriate place.

-- 
Peter Schachte              Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes,
schachte at cs.mu.OZ.AU        keep this is mind.
www.cs.mu.oz.au/~schachte/      -- Robert Heinlein
Phone: +61 3 8344 1338