[mythtv] Re: Looking for suggestions: Smarter Screen Grabbing

[Tako Schotanus]

bobnvic at everestkc.net wrote:

>Ramon Redondo wrote:
><some text snipped>
>  
>
>>Ideally, I'd like to patch this to take into account the start offset 
>>(RecordPreRoll?) of the program, but the database doesn't currently 
>>store that information on a program by program basis. 
>>
>>Since that isn't currently available, I've thought of several ideas:
>>1)  Use the _current_ RecordPreRoll and add 64 seconds to it to 
>>determine where to take a screen grab.
>>2)  Take the start and end time of the recording, find the 'middle', and 
>>add some offset (64?) to that.
>>
>>I personally think that I prefer #2, although it would have to handle 
>>the case where a grab is requested before the program completes.
>>
>>I'm more than happy to implement something, but I wanted to get some 
>>other opinions on this.
>>Any thoughts?
>>    
>>
>
>Although 1 seems like a good solution to me, I'd also like to mention
>some other thoughts which may be overkill, but something to consider.
>
>Since programs vary in the times that they schedule their commercials,
>it might be nice to have a customizable offset per program.  This would
>probably best be on the advanced screen for program scheduling.
>
I think might be too much work, why would a user go through all that 
trouble? I think it would be best to make the automatic screenshot as 
good as possible (I myself had been thinking of taking a screenshot 
somewhere around the first 5% or 10% of the program) and support it with 
a manual system where you can select your own moment. It's just a 
one-time thing so no configuration should be necessary IMO.

>I've often wished I had the ability to set the screen grab to the image of
>my choice while in the editing mode and cutting commercials.  Perhaps
>another key that meant 'replace the current screen grab with this frame'.
>This would be great for shows that I want to keep around for a while and
>currently have an image of some commercial everytime I look in mythweb
>(like all of my M*A*S*H episodes), even though the commercials are long
>gone.
>
Exactly what I had been thinking too, I think this would be a _great_ 
feature!
(and then do the same for the videos ;-)

Cheers,
 -Tako