[mythtv-users] On PVR250 works, now an input question

[Jay R. Ashworth]

On Fri, Aug 13, 2004 at 08:13:56PM -0700, Bruce Markey wrote:
> > I have a vaguely related question:
> 
> As Isaac mentioned, this does come up periodically and often
> the right answer is to use something else to create general
> purpose digital files. However, I've used a DVD player on a
> video input to record test patterns from Video Essentials to
> test recording parameters and I'm sure there are other good
> reasons to want to do this. 

On reflection, it may be that he's right, for my specific goal,
although part of that is what I gather some people have dubbed Isaac's
intransigience on the topic of Myth supporting any other format
natively than NUV.

Note that I'm not necessarily *agreeing* with that characterization...

> >  it would appear that there is no way
> > to just record random video off those video inputs, that is, to ingest
> > old programs from tape. It *seems* as if, to be permitted to change
> > Input Connections on the tuner card you're watching, you have to have
> > defined a Video Source for the input in question... but there doesn't
> 
> A video source AND a channel. The recorder needs to look up
> info in the 'channel' table so the source is kind of means
> to that end.

Ok, yeah.  I'd assume that a dummy Video Source for Live Video would
include a single dummy Channel entry.

> > seem to be any way to do that without associating the Input with a
> > Video Source... and there's no generic "Live Video" source.
> 
> In earlier versions, "C" would cycle through all the inputs
> whether there was a signal or not. This was annoying and bad
> because the recorder could hang, freeze, crash or just screw up
> if there was no signal. Now an input is only active if it has
> a source associated. You still need a pseudo-channel to select
> and for manual record to put entries that it needs into the
> 'program' table...

Ok, I'm following you so far.

> > Can I hack one into the Video Sources table without breaking anything,
> > now that I've figured out how to *get* into those tables?  :-)
> 
> Naw, you don't need to hack at it, it's easy enough through
> the interface. Run the setup program and answer "no" to the
> two questions.
> 
> "3. Video Sources"->New video source. Enter "Live Video" for
> the name, don't touch any of the grabber info just press
> "Finish" (easy, hey). Without grabber info, mythfilldatabase
> will inertly fail to grab listings for this source. Not a
> problem.

I assume, to clarify, that you mean "permit it to stay on DataDirect,
but fail to supply a username and password"?

> "4. Input Connections". Associate "Live Video" with the
> appropriate input.
> 
> "5. Channel Editor"->New Channel, fill in a name, number, you
> probably need a fake callsign to keep the scheduler happy (don't
> use a callsign that matches a real station) and set "Live Video"
> as the source. Everything else is optional, unnecessary or uses
> a reasonable default.

Got it.  I'm all over it; the one point I needed clarified was the only
thing I couldn't intuit.

> You now have a channel for a source on that input. You can use
> "C" to change the input in live TV. TV->Schedule Recordings->
> Manual Schedule will have your new channel in the "Channel"
> combobox so you can create a manual record.

Can you not just switch to it, and then say 'R'?

> The way the scheduler works is that there are record rules and
> SQL queries look for matching items in the listing. The current
> manual record uses the same mechanism so it adds a fake entry
> into the listings at the same time as it adds the record rule.

"I will read everything before writing anything."
"I will read everything before writing anything."
"I will read everything before writing anything."
"I will read everything before writing anything."

> Both gigem and I know that this should be changed to add manual
> items to the schedule without checking the listings but nobody
> has gotten around to it yet.
> 
> There was an earlier, simpler manual record that was more suited
> to dubbing tapes but not so good at manually scheduling shows.
> This had a preview window, duration setting, and start and stop
> buttons. This never worked right, the author quickly disappeared,
> and no one took on maintaining it.

Indeed.  I don't mind babysitting manual ingest, and I shall mind it
still less if I get splitting figured out, so...

> > It seems this shouldn't be a *really* uncommon need; perhaps Live Video
> > would be a good thing to add as a default Video Source.
> 
> There are no default Video Sources and the trick is to just not
> setup a grabber. Perhaps it needs a NULL grabber choice like "Live
> Video",  "Video only", "No listings", "No grabber" or something
> like that to make it more obvious that you can do this.

I was thinking add one more item to the list of grabbers that says
"Manual recording", and just adds the one channel to the channel table
automatically, as a special case, optimally.

Thanks, Bruce.

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
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	"You know: I'm a fan of photosynthesis as much as the next guy,
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