On Wed, 2009-07-01 at 16:29 -0700, [email protected] wrote: <SNIP> > Well yes and no. Ok, first, I am taking my Fluendo hat off when I say > the word 'our'. When I say 'our; in what follows I am talkign about a > potential plugin with you guys here on the mailing list create. > > If our plugin is good enough, and should the time come when it is > needed for something that is needed internally at Fluendo then great. > If the plugin doesn't do what Fluendo requires, for whatever reason, > they will build their own and pull code where possible and rework it. > This leaves our work here with two choices, carry on as seperate > community developed plugin...or make our plugin tie directly into the > new Fluendo creation. > > I trust that Fluendo wouldn't create something similar to what the > community has done without talking to us a little though or trying to > not waste our work, which would be like forking a plugin project I > guess. > > Ok...Fluendo hat back on :p > <SNIP>
> > > > What kind of UI are we talking about. Are we talking about the one > and > > only one instance of PVR UI for Moovida, > > > > or are we talking about a UI that all PVR plugins are expected to > > implement? A base class UI of sorts. > > See my last comment above :) I guess I didn't ask my question clearly, so I'll try again. Are we designing the Widgets that any PVR plugin will use, IE, Moovida's PVR Widget set, For example, "The EPG widget" in the same sense as the Moovida Player widget, or are we designing a UI just for our PVR plugin? > <SNIP> > >> 1. At a basic level, LiveTV should allow for instant recording and > >> pausing of a TV show with the ability to skip through other > channels > >> included. > > > > Will it be able to pop up the EPG? > > Yes, it should have a link to 'Info/Synopsis' details and a link to > the 'EPG'. Sorry. didn't give enough context. From within the player, would you be able to pop up the EPG, leaving the player in LiveTV mode? > > Yeah... Im a minimal guy, you dont see much in Moovida that is > 'packed' so this is why I was taken a bit with the Now & Next idea. > That isnt to say I dont recognise the issues with it, all of which you > point out well. > > In terms of work load though... this style of EPG is a lot faster to > implement and to produce. (nothing new to develop that we dont already > have I think?). I imagine a Full Programme guide would require some > new widgets and UI constructs. Off the top of my head we would need to > make each bar in the UI a certain length based on how long the show is > (so a 30 minute show would appear shorter than a 1 hour show) I don't > know if we can do that in the UI at present? (Then again, Florian did > some stuff for 1.0 I thought we couldn't do so... never know) > K. Since we are talking about coming up with what a user would expect out of the box, most people watching live tv now a days will expect a full program guide because that is what their tv's give them now. If we're going to make the live tv experience as good as possible for someone that has never used a pvr before, its a requirement IMHO > > > > > The benefit to the lining up is that you can see whats coming on > next if > > its several hours out. The draw back is, its not very apparent that > a > > show wont be on for a while at a glance like the regular full > program > > guide. > > Yes very true. Pros and cons to each guide though. This is one of this > version failings I agree. > > > > > What might be best is a toggle on the full program guide that > switches > > back and forth between shows taking up space proportional to how > long > > they run, to showing X number of shows in a grid like the now and > next. > > X number of shows can be a setting so if you want the really > uncluttered > > view of just 2, you can have that. > > Ok, I have some concern over the remote control usage of something > like this. > We only have 6 buttons and a full program guide uses left and right > (to go back and forth over between now and next columns) and up and > down (to select a TV channel row). The play button and the back/menu > button are used as well to select or go back. > > So the question is, and below where you talk about it... how would I > be able to select a button to toggle? Then deactivate such a toggle? Ah. If you go to Music -> Library, in the right top corner there is two buttons, List and Grid. I see the two EPG's as this same thing. Two different views of the same backing store. The same button on a remote that switches between those views for music (if the remote has one) can switch between the views in the EPG. > > > > That kind of solves the drawback to the regular full program guide. > If > > you are looking at now, and the channel you are on's movie doesn't > end > > for a while, and you want to see whats on after it, you press a key > to > > toggle the other mode, and you can see whats on right after it. you > can > > press the key again and it goes back to what you were looking at. > That > > beets scrolling to the right until you find the next show, then > > scrolling back to the left until you get back to "now" or whenever > your > > trying to look at. > > > > Ok, I'll be annoying an say 'Im lost' so what I'd ask you to do here > is to get a bit of paper and a pen... sketch this process out as > clearly as you can to explain it visually and upload it for us all to > see. Its not really important I think. It is a capability that is gained by having both EPG types available and easily switchable between. If I can find a bit of time I'll try to sketch it out. > > > As for cleaning up the Program Guide a bit, I do like Michał's > > suggestion of channel catagories. > > > > Under that, when you select the Program Guide, you get: > > > > All > > "Category 1" > > "Category 2" > > > > Where Category's are user defined strings which have a list of > channels > > associated with it. If you haven't assigned any, you just > automatically > > get All > > > > When an item is selected, the Program guide comes up with only those > > lists of channels. All shows all channels. > > > How about in a later version we do this... > > We create a 'Favorite Channels' subsection then... > > Where we can elsewhere in the UI, we allow the user to add a channel > to a 'Favorites Group' or 'Create New Favorites Group & Add Channel'. > This is effectively acting like a playlist and even playlist creation. > So the user can dump a channel into an existing group they previously > created... or create a new group, give it a name via our keyboard > (e.g. Wife's Favorites)and then add the channel to it? (you just saw a > brief glimpse into some of the playlist creation thinking I have been > doing here :p). I kind of think that is the "Channel Catagories" UI under settings for the plugin. > > Of course, maybe rather than a seperate subsection of 'Favorites' we > do what you say and add it is a menu structure for the EPG... first > item being All as you describe. Hmmmm, I'll think about that one in my > brian a bit. > K > <SNIP> > > What is the behavior of this? Does it copy the recording there? Does > it > > just make a link? Does it move? What happens when a user deletes it > from > > one place? Does it delete it in the other? What happens if the > > recordings are on different machines? > > It is a link... not a copy, just a two paths to the one file. e.g. > delete from one section... it is also removed everywhere. Nice UI, but then there is another concern. Which copy are you deleting and where does it reside? (BTW, I really like this idea if the UI implications can be worked out) Say you have a copy of a TV show on your laptop PVR and on your TV PVR machine. Both items are named the same since it is the same show. Is it in the list twice? If not, which one is deleted? If so, how does the user know which one is going to be deleted? So, here's my problem with the whole thing and maybe we can hash this out... Currently there is this separation I think between Moovida the local instance and other machines on the "network". Say I have a UPNP server MediaTomb on my network. Currently its Movies, TV Shows, Music, and Pictures do not show up in Moovida's Movies, TV Shows, Music, or Pictures menu's. They only show up when you select "Other computers" -> That UPNP servers name, then you see the movies, tv shows, music, and pictures. I kind of think of the pvr stuff working the same way. In "Other computers", you will see, "MythBackend - FOO". It speaks the Myth protocol instead of the UPNP protocol for example. If there is more then one myth server on the network, you support them all using that UI, right? Now, the feature your wanting for PVR menu merging to TV Shows/Movies also applies to UPNP too, right? I may want to store TV Shows not only on my local Moovida client, but also on my big storage server using MediaTomb. Or Movies stored on my Laptop shared out using UPNP from Moovida. Or I may have a local UPNP server that I want everything automatically merged in. So, is the Movies/TV Shows/Music/Pictures in the Moovida menu Purely for displaying what is locally managed by Moovida only, or... Is Movies/TV Shows/Music/Pictures a meta menu of sorts that aggregates all available media discovered? All PVR's TV shows on the network. All UPNP stored files. DAAP music shares on the network? Making it easy to just play media instead of hunting for it. Instead of all, maybe its just a merging of selected hosts? > > > > Absolutely positively 100% not. :) > > Wooooah, see my comments to Michaels feedback on this in another mail. Yeah. I saw them. I know we're just brainstorming here. > > Basically what I am saying is, what annoys me about other PVR software > is the fact that they do that juggling, and then constantly make the > user think about how to juggle it. Then, as they are juggling, LiveTV > loses features it had before like pausing. I think thats left up to the user as per Myth. The first time the scheduler wants to grab the live tv's stream, it asks. If the user doesn't reply, it takes since the user is probably not there to care. If the user is there to care, he can answer either, no I want to watch tv you cant have it or, take it, I'd rather watch whats being recorded. > One of the best things the Sky+ box did (it is a PVR box for Sky > satellite TV in the United Kingdom) was make a hard hard choice and > say. "Nope... this tuner (of the two) is only for liveTV". That > removed all complexity on the user end but... you lose a tuner card as > a result as it is fenced off for this only. Thats different though then saying the tuner is always reserved for live tv like you said before. (or what I thought you said) Thats the live tv tuner is dedicated to the live tv show only when in live tv mode. if not in the live tv mode, the tuner is free to be used by the schedular. I object to the always dedicated mode. Really, if you want the tuner never to be taken away, that is just a special instance of the dialog box I described above always getting answered "no". That should be easy enough to be made a configurable for those who want that behavior. > > So it is a big tough hard decision. Again, willing to explore how this > can be made simple. if not, also willing to explore the idea that we > have a setting to 'use all tuners for scheduled recordings' (Off/On). I'm more in favor of asking the user what to do then decide that for them. If all tuners are busy when you start live tv, it should tell you that, tell you which tuners are busy recording what, and ask you which recording you want to cancel if you want to continue going to live tv. <SNIP> > > Long as I don't start losing features when I am watchng Live TV (e.g. > pause a show) and we dont make the user juggle tuner cards. > Then Im in for whatever you want to do. Again refer to previous > comment above. Unfortunately, there will always be some trade off between schedualed recordings and live tv. For example, PiP. Unless you dedicate two tuners for watching live tv, PiP wont always work. Do you sacrifice the live tv pip feature in exchange for more recordings? I'd say yes, but I believe way more in scheduled recordings then live tv... Hmm.... Maybe what we want then is a configuration option for live tv vs scheduled recording balance. Favor: Live TV - dedicates one or two tuners to live tv playback. The schedular gets the rest. Intermediate - dedicates just one to the live tv playback and never interrupts a live tv recording with a prompt to the user. the tuner is dedicated to live tv. Scheduled recordings - Behaves much as myth does now. The scheduler gets to decide. It still prompts the user, but if he doesn't answer, the scheduler gets it and the live tv gets canceled. > > > > >> Additional tuner cards, are used to help record multiple items > that > >> the user schedules at the same time. So, user has three tuner > cards? > >> great two shows next wednesday both on at 4pm can be recorded at > the > >> same time using 2 of their 3 tuner cards. The other tuner card is > >> taken and exclusively used for LiveTV as mentioned previously. > > > > Deal breaker. Very bad usage of an expensive piece of hardware. Plus > it > > reduces viewing selection. > > > > As a final comment... I 100% totally understand your reaction to this. > Im asking the tough questions to keep the UI consistent. Consistent or easy? It makes it easy to never have to prompt the user, but it is not necessarily better. Prompting the user is much harder because it involves a lot more coding/UI work. > > Sure. What does the UI look like if you have two such plugins > loaded? Is > > that possible? What about instances per backend? To me, a myth > client > > plugin should look like the UPNP server stuff. You see a MythBackend > > show up in the list of servers, and when you select it, then you get > the > > UI you described. > > We already do what I am describing... go to Plugins > Library... there > is YouTube. Ah, but here's my issue with it. YouTube is both a class, and an instance. There is ever only one YouTube in existence. You might have multiple PVRs in your network of the same type. So your plugin is a Class, but where do the Instances reside in the UI? There is a slight UI quirk here that I'm trying to figure out. And thats, there is no UPNP plugin listed in the library, but there is a menu item "Devices & Shares" -> Other Computers that is all the UPNP hosts on the network. PVRs are just another type of "Other Computer" so maybe they should show up there. Kevin > Go To Internet Media > Video... YouTueb as well!. > > So, I am describing loosely a similar process here. So, imagine it as > a kind of 'link' to the same place. > > > > > > >> 2. The plugin by default adds the hierarchy described earlier to > the > >> current TV Shows section in Moovida currently. The user of course > can > >> turn this default off in the plugins individual settings to stop > this > >> behaviour. Doing so means the only way to access and use our PVR > >> plugin is via, Plugins > Library when that default setting is > turned > >> off. > > > > Sure. > > > > Kevin > > > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> On 1 Jul 2009, at 10:31, Michał Sawicz wrote: > >> > >> > I almost replied yesterday but decided to leave it for today :) > >> > > >> > Dnia 2009-06-30, wto o godzinie 16:39 -0700, Kevin Fox pisze: > >> > > I guess I'm just annoyed by having to press down when it first > >> > > starts > >> > > up > >> > > to go from "live tv" to "recordings" all the time since I > hardly > >> > > ever > >> > > use it. ;) > >> > > >> > Edit the menu XML files :) > >> > > >> > > > Yeah I'm keen to agree on that. We should, though, try to > >> > > > abstract > >> > > the > >> > > > MythTV connection wherever possible to be replaced simply by > >> > > > another > >> > > > backend when one's available. > >> > > > >> > > Totally agreed. I've been disappointed with their lack of > >> > > abstraction > >> > > myself. Do you know if the DLNA spec has support for PVR's yet? > If > >> > > it > >> > > does, it might be interesting to wrap up MythBackend to support > >> > > it. > >> > > Then > >> > > Moovida stays neutral, and it already has good upnp support. We > >> > > just > >> > > extend it to support upnp + pvr > >> > > >> > AFAIK UPnP/DLNA will have to be extended for most of PVR uses. > >> > Wrapping > >> > Myth in UPnP - I wonder if fixing and extending their > implementation > >> > would be difficult. > >> > > >> > > > That's one more flaws of Myth - the > >> > > > disconnection of back-/front-end is so tightly connected it > >> > > > hurts. I > >> > > > know, it was the easiest and most efficient way to go. > >> > > > >> > > more then that, when myth was started, I think the performance > >> > > aspect > >> > > was rather critical. It had to be coded that way. Now a days, > not > >> > > so > >> > > much. > >> > > >> > Proberbly. > >> > > >> > > > Subclass? I don't think that's needed, we could just feed it > up > >> > > > with > >> > > > additional content where it's applicable. No need for a 'TV > >> > > > Shows > >> > > from > >> > > > TV' and another 'TV Shows from hard disk' sections. > >> > > > >> > > This is again the, is Moovida a Media Renderer or is it a PVR? > If > >> > > its > >> > > a > >> > > PVR, it should be integrated nicely like you say. This would be > >> > > like > >> > > Myth in that its hard to use one client to talk to multiple > >> > > backends. > >> > > >> > I think one doesn't exclude the other. We can support multiple > PVR > >> > backends and simply 'mark' some of them for integration in the > main > >> > UI. > >> > Others could be accessible through the normal 'Other computers' > >> > entry. > >> > > >> > > Say I have Moovida with its own backend on a laptop and I bring > it > >> > > to > >> > > your house.. It would be great if the Moovida on your tv could > >> > > detect > >> > > via UPNP the laptops existence, and play anything on it, seeing > >> > > all > >> > > metadata. You could then select a file and even have it copy to > >> > > your > >> > > local box with metadata in tact. If the PVR functionality was > too > >> > > tightly coupled, that might be difficult. > >> > > >> > That I think is a different matter, Elisa once was a UPnP > >> > MediaServer > >> > but that wasn't ported to 0.5 series and still didn't come back. > But > >> > I > >> > think the UPnP MediaServer in Moovida, once it comes in, should > be > >> > able > >> > to distribute all content it provides through the normal UI. > Coupled > >> > with transcoding on the fly you could have your PS3 or any UPnP > >> > enabled > >> > stuff playing anything Elisa could. > >> > Also, there were talks about socializing through Elisa, some > work's > >> > even > >> > been done through Telepathy. My dream would be to have a 'My > >> > Moovida', > >> > 'Your Moovida' contacts and be able to paste a link for playback > in > >> > a > >> > chat with any of them. What's more, Philippe and Frank work on > >> > making > >> > UPnP available via Telepathy for remote locations [1]. THAT will > be > >> > neat :) Just select your friend's Moovida contact and you're on, > >> > browsing his library through the intartubes. Of course some level > of > >> > access control would be needed - we could easily leverage buddy > >> > authorization here. > >> > > >> > > I kind of think the PVR functionality should work like the UPNP > >> > > code. > >> > > You select a backend (or it picks the only one for you by > >> > > default), > >> > > then > >> > > you can do stuff with it. > >> > > >> > Again, one does not exclude the other, it would be doable to have > >> > multiple backends attached, maybe marking some of them as 'local' > >> > and > >> > that one would integrate with the rest of Moovida's UI. > >> > > >> > > > I hope this will happen, yes. That's why we're talking MythTV > >> > > > and/or > >> > > > GDVBD, not writing our own backend. > >> > > > >> > > So what we need then is a PVR plugin abstraction that is good > >> > > enough > >> > > that it can support both, and even better, both at the same > time. > >> > > I > >> > > may > >> > > have stuff in my old myth server for a while while setting up > my > >> > > new > >> > > gdvbd server and want to run both concurrently for a while. > >> > > Another > >> > > reason I don't quite like merging menus with TV Shows/Movie > >> > > >> > Yeah whatever you like - you want it merged, have it merged. No? > No > >> > problem. > >> > > >> > > > That's about it, I'm running out of 5-centses ;). > >> > > > >> > > Hehe. Thats a lot of 5-centses. But your helping me prove my > >> > > point. > >> > > Doing a backend of a PVR well is hard. Its way way more then > just > >> > > copying a stream of data from a card and putting it in a file. > >> > > Does > >> > > gdvbd do any of that well now? If not, its a ways out. In the > mean > >> > > time, > >> > > I'll stick to myth backend. It mostly works pretty well. :) > >> > > >> > Yeah it does quite a lot, LiveTV, Scheduled recordings (not so > >> > advanced > >> > as myth but still), EPG data. The basic functionality is there. > >> > > >> > > > I'm not completely against MythTV, I just want us not to fall > in > >> > > > the > >> > > > same deep, dark and smelly hole they've fell into. We need a > >> > > > fast-release button somewhere so they won't drag us in. > >> > > > >> > > I'm worried from the opposite direction. If we try to rewrite > >> > > mythbackend, we're going to get stuck in a worse smelly hole > >> > > because > >> > > we > >> > > will have a lot less experience in how a pvr scheduler should > >> > > really > >> > > work. Other projects have tried and failed to create a PVR that > >> > > worked > >> > > better then Myth. > >> > > > >> > > Making it pluggable in Moovida using its great plugin mechanism > >> > > and > >> > > keeping it abstract as possible gives you the easy button to > hit, > >> > > provided there is anything else to jump to. > >> > > >> > Yup. > >> > > >> > [1] http://base-art.net/Articles/108/ > >> > > >> > -- > >> > Michał Sawicz <[email protected]> > >> > > >> > >> David McLeod > >> Senior Designer & UI Lead > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> Fluendo S.A. > >> World Trade Center Edificio Norte Pl.2 > >> 08039 BARCELONA SPAIN > >> Tel: +34 936 002 323 > >> > >> > >> Skype: Daiode > >> Jabber/GMail: [email protected] > >> Email: [email protected] > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >
