[mythtv-users] limit daily tv time?

Brian Wood beww at beww.org
Sun Oct 31 15:40:46 UTC 2010


On Sunday, October 31, 2010 05:52:08 am George Nassas wrote:
> On 2010-10-30, at 3:03 PM, David L wrote:
> > Is there a mythtv setting to limit how much mythtv playback time for a
> > certain profile is allowed each day?
> 
> There's nothing built-in but with system events
> (http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/MythTV_System_Events) you could have a script
> monitor playback time and then take down the frontend and lirc when your
> threshold is reached.

How about instead of monitoring total time you figure out a way to monitor "quality". Each network would be assigned a 
"quality value", with perhaps PBS getting a "5", and MTV getting "-25".

You would then calculate a quality value ("Q") by multiplying the time by the "Q" factor of the network being watched. As 
the number changes, the allowable channels would change, so that initially anything could be watched, and after say, an 
hour of MTV, only C-SPAN and PBS could be tuned until the "Q" factor was once again in positive territory.

The problem with your system is it assumes an hour of watching MTV or the Cartoon Network is the same as an hour of PBS or 
the BBC, which it is not. There is some programming we don't mind having kids watch, and there are others we would rather 
they not even be aware of. My system would take into account the "quality" of the network. Obviously such Q factors could 
be adjusted to fit the individual prejudices of the parents involved. 



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