On Thu, Jan 13, 2005 at 07:02:10PM -0600, Kevin Kuphal wrote: > Daniel Thor Kristjansson wrote: > >Some users might even wish that when you reach the top or bottom of the > >current lineup you automagically switch to the next lineup, changing > >the tuner or input as needed. > > > > > It would seem to me most logical to scroll through channels numerically, > changing tuners and lineups as needed for the numerically ordered > channels. If tuners aren't available, skip, etc. The user shouldn't > need to know about either but UI should be offered to jump to either/or. >
There are complications here. The tuners may have the same numbering space but different channel sets. I have 3 sources possible. One is over-the-air hdtv, one is cable and the other is satellite. The OTA and cable use the same set, ie. there are two "channel 4"s, though strictly one is "4" and the other is "4-1" and "4-2" (which myth doesn't yet understand except in the tuning module and is a pain on remote controls anyway) and transmits on channel 57 to make things more complex (which also exists on cable.) The satellite has low channels too which overlap the cable in a few places, though all the ones I use are over 200. In the case of the OTA, 4-1 is a "duplicate" of 4 -- though one is digital and the other analog. 4-2 is an entirely different channel. However, 9-1 is not a duplicate of 9. In fact, none of the 9-1 through 9-5 channels (PBS) are a duplicate of their analog 9! And of course in many dual tuner situations both tuners are tuning the same cable, and you definitely don't want to see 2 of everything. But I agree, the switching cards and inputs is not a very happy solution. Access to any channel from the guide (which happily shows two channel 4s) is a no-brainer from a UI standpoint, but how to handle surfing is another matter. Options I see include: a) A fairly messy UI where people have to assign individual numbers to all their channels, those numbers not overlapping, but after which they can surf happily in a single numberspace b) A semi-automatic allocation into banks, ie 2nd tuner starts at 100+ channel number, another at 400+ and so on. But many satellites already use up to 4 digits of channel number in their own attack at this problem. Needs a detector when 2 channels are the same to not offer both but pick any free tuner, or pick a free tuner in prefernce order (ie. digital over analaog etc.) c) Addition of other preface keys to the channel number concept, so you can go to "Tuner Key"/"Channel" with one sequence, with current input the default. (Not that different from what you have now but with random access) None of these are that appealing, or sound particularly easy to code or administer.
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