[mythtv-users] Tablets and hearing aids with bluetooth

[Nick Rout]

On Sat, Jun 2, 2012 at 2:25 PM, Chuck Peters <cp at ccil.org> wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 12:18 PM, Mitchell Gore <mitchell.gore at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 6:32 PM, Chuck Peters <cp at ccil.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> My father has hearing aids which are bluetooth capable and I would
>>> like to get him a tablet that can output the sound through bluetooth
>>> and the internal speakers or other external speakers.   Can myth
>>> frontend do this?
>>>
>>> Do you have any recommendations for tablets that include bluetooth?
>>>
>>
>> That's a confusing question.  First Mythfrontend doesnt run on tablets.
>
> Now I am confused.  I thought the .25 frontend ran on tablets without
> major issues and that he could use the tablet as a TV in the kitchen.
> He watches what I call talking heads shows, CNN, MSNBC and CNN...
> We don't have a TV in the area now, and it is a lot better for others in
> the family since he used to turn the volume up to a point it was very
> annoying for others.  Can I use an android tablet for a frontend or not?
> If a frondend on the tablet isn't a good option, perhaps we can add a
> bluetooth device to his Ubuntu 12.04 computer and output the sound
> that way.  I'm not sure that sounds user friendly enough since he
> wouldn't see the display to skip commercials...
>
> We live in a rural area and it is an hour drive to a more populated area.
> When I was taking a friend to a doctors appt I stopped by a Best Buy
> and checked out some of the tablets.  I asked if it would be easy to
> install mythfrontend and in less than a minute the guy at the store
> installed it.  The icon said .23, .24 and .25 were available.  Of course
> it didn't find the backend since there was none.  It was an ASUS
> running Android 4.0 and the price was $399.
>
> Our cable company Metrocast has notified us that analog is going
> away by Nov.  We just got a couple HDHomerun Prime boxes and I
> picked up a couple cable cards today.  I hope to have them running
> tonight or this weekend.  I thought I read that the tablets would do
> better with h264 encoded media rather than what our PVR-500
> tuners provide.  Perhaps I am confused about this as well...

There are tablets and there are tablets. The hardware varies. As you
are referring to android I assume you are also talking ARM. There is
no official frontend for android. There is one in the android market
but it doesn't work well in my android phone (but that is running
android 2.2 and isn't particularly grunty.)

A version of the ipad torc app for android would be great, but afaik
does not yet exist. There may be other ways of utilising the HLS
streaming on android. Playing would be fun, but HLS is not supported
on my version of android and I don't have 0.25 yet so I will have to
wait.

Of course an x86 based tablet (which probably came with windows)
should run linux but query whether there will be support for running
the touch screen or the graphics acceleration.