[mythtv] Schema updates

[f-myth-users at media.mit.edu]

Btw, it belatedly occurs to me that, since testing a patch for this
wouldn't involve any recording at all, I could set up a virgin test
machine in an "unsupported" configuration, e.g., no capture cards,
and then play games with individual apps by tricking them into
believing that they need a different DB schema; this means it's
a lot easier for me to (a) ensure my virgin machine doesn't even
-know- where the production backend is, despite any screwups on my
part, and (b) it doesn't eat a capture card I'm using at the moment.
[I could even do it on a laptop, unlike the method I was originally
assuming, e.g., must be desktop, must have a capture card.]

So if the pseudocode I just sent doesn't look fatally flawed (or if we
can come up with some other design that isn't), I may have a patch
against SVN for it that can be reviewed.  Probably won't happen for a
couple weeks or so 'cause I've got some other deadlines---and of
course anyone who'd like to beat me to it is welcome (ha ha ha...).

P.S.  At the risk of starting yet another horrible flamewar I didn't
mean to start---why -is- it that an MBE w/no capture cards is unsupported?
E.g., is this a design requirement, or is it just a bug that's become
enshrined as a user requirement because nobody's bothered to fix it?
Seems to me it would make lots of sense to allow MBEs w/o capture;
then people with giant NFS servers could, for example, put the DB and
the MBE and all the video on that server (maybe different spindles :)
and then only wake up slaves when there's recording to do; that means
one fewer CPU that must be always turned on, which should make the
Californians very happy given their energy prices these days.