On Tue, 2009-06-30 at 11:21 -0700, Michał Sawicz wrote: > Dnia 2009-06-30, wto o godzinie 10:57 -0700, Kevin Fox pisze: > > On Tue, 2009-06-30 at 10:15 -0700, Michał Sawicz wrote: > > > Dnia 2009-06-30, wto o godzinie 16:48 +0200, David McLeod pisze: > > <SNIP> > > > > > > Actually if LiveTV is more important than recorded shows is > debatable. > > > According to #mythtv-users most of the users set in their MythTV > setup > > > rarely use LiveTV. They have so much recordings set up they don't > have > > > the time to watch live. Of course the ability to watch a show > > > currently > > > being recorded is needed, too. The usual PVR does never show a > > > completely 'Live' TV. It's always a recording, just a recording of > > > what > > > is currently broadcasted. This, in turn, allows for all the use > cases > > > you've described. > > > > This is how I use it. > > Yeah me too, mostly. Only recently my hw got dodgy on me and does not > record most of my schedules correctly.
That sucks. :/ But, if we're implementing this a piece at a time, most useful stuff first, which is better? Implementing a feature most useful to those with broken hardware, or fixing your hardware? (not trying to be mean about it) Would you still have that usage behavior if your hardware was working correctly? I'd order features in priority: #1. simple list and play already recorded stuff in backend #2. Proper jumping back and forwards. #3. Cut list support. Either with skip button or automatic. #4. recorded stuff metadata. Long descriptions, etc. #5. Live TV playback / Channel changing #6. Live TV playback integration with schedular. Ask if ok to record, etc. #7. Basic EPG. Standard channel+time grid. #8. Setting up myth recording scheduals. While I think recording scheduals is important, its not done very often, and it can be handled with mythweb until its implemented. What do you think? <snip> > > Yeah search is important, but some kind of EPG could be useful, too. Agreed. > > > > Another thing is channel hierarchy. I don't think a flat list digs > it > > > now that we have hundreds if not thousands of channels available. > > > > Again, this is one of the reasons to not bother with live tv. What I > > want to do is watch the shows I want to watch, not "tune to channel > 107 > > at 5:30pm". You let the PVR do all of that. > > > > I think the EPG should be designed around letting you pick what you > want > > to watch. Sort by Genre of show, similar shows to what you like, etc > and > > then let you schedule recordings easily. > > Still, most users that start with PVRs don't get it from start so we > need to allow that, too. Ah, the backwards compatibility argument. Ok. I'll remind you of this below. :) So if it is not the main way its expected to be used, only a transitional step, why not have the traditional EPG, time/channel view. Its easy to implement and then when the user wants more, they can learn to use the PVR in the more natural way of having it manage the recording? > > > > I > > > think the ability to arbitrarily set up a tree of channels (where > the > > > same channel can show up in different branches) would allow for > easy > > > and > > > user-defined grouping by service provider, channel type (movies / > > > sports / news), favorites etc. > > > > I think thats probably too confining. I'd take your 90's comment and > > apply it to channels entirely. The SciFi channel for example plays > > science fiction and and sometimes fantasy. Say I was a Scifi nut but > > didn't like fantasy. If the tree was more like: > > > > Sports/All > > Sports/Football > > Sports/Basketball > > Science Fiction > > Fantasy > > Drama/All > > Drama/Some kind of hospital show series > > > > Etc. > > > > I could just select based on what I liked. > > That's why I wanted it to be completely user-defined. You want it this > way? Good, have it your way. So your arguing for the layout should be generated by a plugin? Then the user can switch as needed? > > > > I know that 'Watch TV' is the usual way to start watching - just > jump > > > to > > > the last watched channel. I find myself doing that even if I want > to > > > watch something else, I then have to wait for the channel to lock > and > > > start playing before I can switch to a different channel I > actually > > > want > > > to watch. > > > > I hardly ever do that. > > I still do, sometimes. Is this the default most users will use? It should be a menu item for sure, but should it be prominent, or further down in the list? > > > That would, probably, be easier as the backend side of things is > > > complete. On the other hand Myth is recently getting a rehaul and > we > > > can't be sure what will the future bring. > > > > One of my biggest complaints with them though has been how far apart > > their stable / devel branches get. Its years before then release. > > > > But, this means if you always target the stable release for your > client, > > your pretty safe. It is definitely not a moving target. :) > > I may be biased, but that's just because I'm left with using Myth even > when I don't like it. I'm kind of in the same boat. It has its issues. I've been looking for a good replacement for a couple of years. I'm still using it because I haven't found anything better. And, because its a hard problem to solve, I don't see anything else thats close yet. If we want something better then what we have now, and soon, we should enhance Moovida to support myth backend, eliminating the need for the front end. That gets us a step in the right direction. > Most of the ideas they have are great, but IMO > Myth is so big a lump it needs a rewrite. Its getting a lot of that currently. At their release rate though, it could be another year out. Moovida can be the client rewrite. Something else can be the backend rewrite. Using the myth backend, we can get all the client UI done and working while someone else writes a different backend. > And that's what Moovida's here > for ;P Moovida is currently kind of different beast then Myth. Either it can complement or compete. Myth already has a big head start there. <SNIP> > > Yeah I sometimes have problems with that, it sometimes does not ask > and > hangs the frontend. And where's the 'Record and watch as it records' > option > gone? Not sure. Mine has it (last time I checked. A long time ago). I haven't updated the client in a while. Never the less, its a useful feature and Moovida should have it. > Grouping by series / season name is something we already have and as > discussed earlier, we could easily integrate it with current TV Show > menus. Hmm. Just played around with the TV stuff in Movida a bit. Its come a long way since I tried it last. Yeah, I don't think it would be too bad. If we wanted to use it in a plugin, can we subclass it? The layout is a little different then I'd like to see but thats more of a theming thing. <snip> > > Yeah but it's a niche, I don't believe there's a proper container > ready > for this kind of use. NUV seems to work ok for myth. It meets most of the criteria. If there is a way of cramming metadata into it, it would be sufficient for whats needed I think. There may be better out there though. > > > > > The other method is to use Gnome DVBD, this means providing > our > > > own > > > > > code for TV streaming, interfacing with GDVBD's EPG or using > an > > > > > outside source (preferable). Also this means writing our own > code > > > > > for things like recording, schedules, expiration, ad skipping, > and > > > > possibly alot more. > > > > I think this is pretty hard to do well. It took Myth a long time to > get > > all of that usable. > > We can learn from them, simplify and improve even further. One of the > most important features of Moovida is simplicity. I guess the heart of the matter is, what is Moovida trying to accomplish? Is it going to be a consumer of media which it is now, which may include a PVR client (or clients) in the future, or is it going to be its own, all in one, PVR solution that doesn't work with other PVR's? I'd like to see Moovida be PVR agnostic. Just provide enough hooks to integrate with the various PVR's. I said before, I'd remind you. ;) A lot of stuff is currently in Myth. If we are going to be backwards compatible with what people are using, Myth should be supported. Also from a time standpoint, if Moovida is going to have PVR capabilities any time soon, it would be good to start with a working PVR solution and if needed then work to replace it, in the mean time reaping the benefits of having a PVR solution. Right now, I can't use Moovida much because it doesn't provide PVR. Kevin > > > >From discussions we already had on IRC the easiest way to > integrate > > > with > > > GDVBD would be to use UPnP. We would need to extend the protocol > but > > > that, according to Frank Scholz (d...@#elisa,#coherence), the core > > > developer behind Coherence, should not be too difficult. > > > > This sounds like a good idea to me. It would be nice for my PS3 as > > well. :) > > Yeah that's an additional gain. > > > > One BIG drawback of GDVBD is that AFAIK it's currently DVB-only, > > -- > Michał Sawicz <[email protected]> > >
