[mythtv-users] is mythtv smart enough to do this with recordings?

[chris at cpr.homelinux.net]

On Wed, Jul 26, 2006 at 03:03:52PM -0400, Michael T. Dean wrote:
> On 07/26/06 14:55, Isaac Richards wrote:
> >On Wednesday 26 July 2006 2:43 pm, chris at cpr.homelinux.net wrote:
> >>If I was designing a PVR from scratch I'd seriously look at
> >>recording in one-minute segments.

> >And so force _everyone_ who wanted to watch a program recorded like that 
> >somewhere else to post-process their recordings so it's one file?  Yeah, 
> >that'd go over well.

We already post-process to flag commercials.  We also have to 
nuvexport if we want to put a 2+ hour show onto DVD or put 
*anything* onto CD-Rom or iPod, etc.  What percentage of the Myth 
users dump their data directly onto another (non-Myth) machine for 
remote playback?  Does the fact that *some* people choose to bypass 
the front-end and play the media using other tools justify 
restrictions within Myth?  If you're going to have this as a design 
goal, shouldn't you be converting the data from other kinds of 
capture cards to mpeg as well so that everyone can bypass the Myth 
front-end?

> I can just imagine myself copying 2400 files to my laptop hard drive and 
> setting up playlists for xine before going on a business trip.  I can't 
> imagine how annoying the hiccups (caused by xine's switching files in a 
> playlist--I'm sure Chris's PVR switches transparently) that occur every 
> 60 seconds would be.

I don't use Xine to play back raw Myth content, so I don't know 
what the hiccups would be like.  Of course, my position is that 
Myth should be doing what works best for Myth, not what works best 
for Xine.  There are already ways to take Myth content and reformat 
it for use in external players.

If you used nuvexport to prepare your shows for transfer (like 
those of us who use iPod, CD-Rom or DVD to take shows on the road) 
then you wouldn't have to copy and playlist 2400 files to see your 
4 hour show.

FWIW, the recording and playback system I use at work captures 
using file-length limits so each file could contain anywhere 
between 3 and 6 minutes of video depending on compression.  We 
don't have a problem with hiccups on playback because we don't try 
to play them back on non-native software, and the front-end that 
does the playback knows how to deal with playbacks that span 
multiple files.  Since we work in small fragments, archiving 
important data is as simple as copying the fragments that make up 
the desired time period to removable media.