[mythtv-users] Some notes on Google TV

[Brad Templeton]

On 11/14/2010 12:31 PM, Brian Wood wrote:
> On Sunday, November 14, 2010 01:16:42 pm Brad Templeton wrote:
>
>    
>> They have also integrated the "to watch queue" which puts together the
>> DVR recorded shows with RSS video (and audio) feeds you have subscribed
>> to.     And while I dislike live TV (as do many of us Myth users) they
>> have done some things with live TV, such as menus of 'what's on now"
>> grouped by topic.
>>      
> At least in my home, "What's on now?" has absolutely no meaning at all. The idea of waiting until somebody else decides to
> play a program in order for me to watch it just seems ridiculous.
>
> If I have asked Myth to record it, I don't particularly care when it decides to do so, Myth needs to know "what's on?",
> but I don't. If I already have it stored, I obviously don't care, and if it's available from one of the many online
> sources, it's essentially the same as having it stored locally (with minor exceptions like FF limitations).
>
> Just as clocks and watches made it unnecessary to await the church bell in order to determine the time, technology has
> made it unnecessary to wait for someone else (like a network executive) to decide to play a program in order for me to
> watch it.
>
> I'm sure our grandchildren will respond with a blank stare if you were to ask them "what's on?".
>
> The one exception I can think of might be live sporting events, but, not being a sports fan, the question "what's on?"
> remains irrelevant to my life. I literally can't remember the last time I actually watched something at the same time as
> it was "on" (whatever that might mean).
>
> It's sad in a way. In the 1950s and 1960s there was a shared social experience in everyone watching something together,
> and talking about it the next day, but those days are long gone.
>
>
>
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>    
I'm not quite sure why you would write such a long explanation to 
somebody who wrote "I dislike live TV as do many of us Myth users" 
because you hardly need to convince us of the point.

However, in spite of the obviousness to you, or me, or others here of 
forgetting about live tv, a surprising number of people, even those who 
have had DVRs for years now, seem to watch a lot of live TV and seek 
features for it.  Their tastes may be a result of how they grew up with 
TV, or they may just be different tastes, but they nonetheless exist.

They aren't entirely false, either.   People do have a desire sometimes 
to "just watch something unplanned."  Some Myth users meet this need 
using a program I wrote, called TVWish, which among other things allows 
you to have Myth record suggestions that match patterns and past 
usage.    However, even so, I still see the desire rise.  It may or may 
not be met by one of Google TV's other directions, which is access to 
large video on demand libraries (free and pay) over the internet which 
should always satisfy the desire to watch something different or unplanned.

However, all of this runs smack into the famous paradox of choice.  
Sometimes having too many choices confounds people and produces a worse 
result than having too few.    TVWish and Tivo suggestions try to help 
with that.

Even so, I can see how some will find attractive Google TV's "Show me 
what science fiction is on right now" even though, in an academic sense, 
there is no reason they should need it.


And yes, even I watch sports at slightly behind real time, because I 
like to skip the boring parts of sporting matches as well as the 
commercials, but I still need to know when it's on.

It is not, I agree, an accident that MythTV is light on features for 
helping people deal with live TV.  I don't even disagree with the design 
goal.  I just point out that for the audience that has decided it likes 
live TV features, GTV offers more of them -- in part because it is not a 
DVR, but a super-controller for DVR, live and online content functions.

In fact it might be possible to make GTV into a short of front end for 
MythTV, if it can be made to understand that to play programs from a 
Myth server, it should stream them (something it already knows how to 
do, though not with the Myth protocol) rather than expect them to come 
along the pass-through HDMI stream.   It strikes me as a modest change 
that the GTV team might be willing to do.    They already support the 
idea of having a remote server full of videos which can be browsed and 
played via a DLNA protocol.   And it supports the idea of a DVR that it 
commands to make recordings, offer listings data etc. over IP.     For 
those who will have both Myth and GTV -- which will become many as quite 
a lot of STBs and TVs are going to be sold with GTV built into them -- 
this is handy in that it presents a single interface.   While I prefer 
the MythTV interface, right now to switch between them I have to do a 
lot, namely switch my TV video input, my stereo's audio input (it's old 
and I don't have an HDMI video card in the myth box), and then put down 
one keyboard and pick up another.

Having a dedicated keyboard with special keys also works well for GTV.  
For example, their search function involves simply pressing the Android 
search button on the keyboard, and typing in your query.   As you type, 
on the on-screen-display, overlaid on the program you are watching (you 
can alternately put the program into a PIP box) is the "google 
suggestions" which change with each keystroke, similar to what you see 
in a browser search.  Or you can hit enter to get the full search 
results.   It's a much easier interface than search in mythtv or mythweb.