[mythtv-users] Live TV channel restrictions

[Andrew Herron]

On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 3:23 PM, Michael T. Dean <mtdean at thirdcontact.com>wrote:

> On 02/25/2010 08:08 AM, Ian Oliver wrote:
>
>> Andrew Herron wrote:
>>
>>
>>> even if you enable "Browse all
>>> channels". Yes "Browse all channels" allows you to browse but it will not
>>> allow you to select and tune to any channels that are not on your
>>> currently
>>> tuned MUX.
>>>
>>>
>> Yes, that's exactly what I saw.
>>
>>
>
> IIRC, there were some bugs with it--potentially fixed after 0.22.  I'm
> pretty sure that's the setting you needed to enable, but I don't ever use
> LiveTV, so I may be misremembering.  (From another perspective, if MythTV
> does not allow you to actually change to those channels, what's the use in
> showing them?  You'd be better served just always using the EPG rather than
> scrolling through the browse channel list to find the show you want,
> noticing it's not available, then having to exit browse mode, then start the
> EPG, then find the channel, then change to that channel.)  There's no
> specific re-configuration of tuners required to use it.  See
> http://svn.mythtv.org/trac/ticket/4501 for the initial code.
>

Re the above.
We have done pretty exhaustive tests of 0.21 & 0.22 and as far as we can see
this simply does not work as described. We looked at ticket 4501 and the
patches/suggestions mentioned in it - but again these do not seem to work in
practice as far as we can tell which is why we started to work on our own
patches to fix the way LiveTV tuner management works.


>
> IMHO, Andrew, you should talk to Shane to find out more about how things
> currently work.  He knows the Live TV code and how the related settings are
> supposed to work better than anyone else.  He would also be able to give you
> the best information on requirements for any new code related to multirec,
> Live TV, and tuner selection.  You may just find that current MythTV (trunk,
> at least) already does what you need.
>

Re Above
We'd love to have a talk with Shane - he sounds like exactly the right
person. Does he monitor this list at all?


>
> Really, I think the only new feature your code adds (though I haven't had a
> chance to go through the code, yet--this just based on description I've
> heard here) is the ability to go from a "later" tuner (i.e. virtual tuner 2
> on physical tuner 2) in use for Live TV back to an "earlier" tuner (i.e.
> virtual tuner 2 on physical tuner 1) when changing to a channel on an
> already-tuned-for-a-recording mux in LiveTV.  And this would further
> complicate things, as the show you want to watch in LiveTV may be a 1hr show
> ending in 45 minutes and the show that the scheduler has tuned for a
> recording may be a half-hour show ending in 15 minutes--meaning that the
> scheduler may have already planned to change the channel/mux tuned by that
> physical tuner in 15 minutes.  That would mean that the user watching LiveTV
> would be interrupted in about 13 minutes with a dialog saying that the tuner
> is needed for a recording and asking whether to cancel the recording, watch
> the same show as it records, or exit Live TV.
>
> Then again, I don't use Live TV, so I will defer to others on the decision
> making.  But the point I'm trying to make is that Live TV, and its
> implementation in MythTV, is a complicated subject and a lot of the current
> implementation decisions have been hashed out in detail by those involved in
> the multirec implementation as well as others who have done work on Live TV.
>  They could provide more information on why things work the way they do,
> which may have an impact on the code you're working on.
>
> Anyway, regardless, we do appreciate the work you're doing.  And, depending
> on the implementation you're using to "simplify tuner management," that part
> of the code may be useful for http://svn.mythtv.org/trac/ticket/5998 .
>

Yes Ticket 5998 was what made us think long and hard about how multirec
tuners are managed currently and how this might be improved in the future.

We appreciate all the hard work the MythTV Devs have done and are doing and
we'd like to contribute/help where we can as a way to say a tiny 'thank you'
 to you all.

Andrew
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