[mythtv-users] Mechanical cable splitter

Brian E.W. Wood beww at beww.org
Tue Nov 20 13:52:51 UTC 2007


On Tue, November 20, 2007 06:36, Josh White wrote:
> What I meant by "instant response" was when you press the button to change
> the channel, the channel would change as fast as one could imagine it
> changing, rather than 1-2 seconds behind as some tuner cards do (my
> PVR-250
> performed like this when I used it under MS Windows with the included
> Hauppauge PVR software, which was much slower than Myth).  I'm not sure
> what
> the cable box lag would actually be if you were to log it on an
> oscilloscope
> or something, but maybe 50-100ms.  This scenario really doesn't come up
> for
> me at all, but my wife likes to channel surf.  So when you change the
> channel up 20 times, and then realize you skipped over a channel you
> wanted
> to watch, pressing the channel down button should get you there in a half
> second or so.  But if there's too much lag, you'll press it twice or more,
> until you see the channel you want to watch, but you'll end up stopping on
> the channel below where you wanted to go, and then you over correct the
> other way, and it gets frustrating.  Of course, if you accept the
> limitations of the technology and change the channel slowly, you can work
> with it just fine.  As a machine designer, I know it's kind of a cop out
> when you complain that the user isn't using it right.  If the machine is
> designed well, it will work as the user wants it to work.  For the last 27
> years at least (I'm 27 years old), most any TV I have used was capable of
> changing channels about as fast as you can press/release the channel
> up/down
> button, or capable of stopping on the channel currently displayed when the
> channel up/down button is held (some older cable boxes excluded).  What
> I'm
> referring to would be on an SDTV or a computer monitor, either of which
> would introduce very little delay.  I would care very little if the entire
> viewing experience was delayed a second or two (or even a minute or two)
> as
> long as the experience *seemed* instantaneous.  I have no experience
> whatsoever (beyond walking through best buy) with HDTVs, so I cannot speak
> for what delay is introduced through such a system.
>

I would think that if your wife wants to channel surf then Browse Mode
would be right up her alley, and virtually delay-free.

The problem with surfing the way you describe is that very often you get a
commercial, promo or other non-program material, so you then have to wait
until the actual program comes back to see what you have surfed to. This
generally introduces far more delay than any Myth system I have seen.

beww



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