[mythtv-users] mythfrontend "follow me" feature

[Joseph A. Caputo]

On Monday 06 March 2006 17:15, Steve Daniels wrote:
> I'm thinking of getting my hands dirty..
>
> I want to implement a "follow me" function into myth. Manual to begin
> with then eventually optionally automatic along the lines of what
> they do with Pluto by the looks of things.
>
> I've done some searching on gossamer and can't see much in there. I
> was wondering what's the best way to get a mythfrontend's status,
> programmatically, or using the new network interface by chris with a
> bit of parsing?
>
> The way I want it to work is, I'm watching something in the lounge,
> but I'm going through to the kitchen to make a cuppa, I don't want to
> pause, so I go to the on screen menu, select "follow me" select a
> Frontend (perhaps see current status here in case another family
> member is currently watching something/doing something else on that
> Frontend). This could maybe happen immediately or perhaps with say a
> user configurable delay, so I can actually get to the other room and
> not really miss a beat.
>
> I think a follow me feature would need to have A LOT of user
> configurable options to make it appeal to everyone.
>
> I.e. when I tell it to follow me, does it pause at the current
> location, or stop? And after say 15 seconds are up, does it continue
> on the new Frontend and the old Frontend to keep them synced? If I'm
> keeping them in sync, should I do a delay at all at the start? If
> they are staying sync, when one Frontend is paused, should the other
> one as well?
>
> And these are just the scenarios I can be bothered thinking of and
> typing. So I think if I undertake this, it should have a setup page
> at least dedicated to its config. The on screen menu ui would have to
> be carefully thought of too so not to be too over crowded, and not
> present too many options.
>
> But that is all pipe talk until I start to actually write some code..
>
> Has anyone got any ideas hey would like to share, or any thoughts at
> all on features or implementation?
>
> Thanks for your time,
>
> Steve

Ever think of looking at Pluto's code?  I thought they were open source.

Anyway, here's a thought for something similar, but (I think) simpler to 
implement:  add an option to play from an in-progress location of 
another frontend.  Right now, if a file has a bookmark, you can choose 
to play from the beginning of the file or from the bookmark.  It 
wouldn't be too difficult to add an option to play from the same offset 
as that of another frontend that is currently watching the same file.  
The backend knows what frontends are playing, so we could just query 
the backend  -- might need an addition to the Myth protocol, but 
nothing major.

One benefit of this approach (aside from being straightforward to 
implement) is that you don't need to know *before* you leave the room 
that you want playback to 'follow' you.  

Cheers,
JAC