[mythtv-users] Sports events, LiveTV or Watch Recording?

[Bruce Markey]

Greg Woods wrote:
> On Fri, 2006-01-27 at 14:54 -0500, Michael T. Dean wrote:
>> if you have one capture card and want to record a show on 
>> channel 3 from 7:00 to 9:00 with a recording-rule specified extra 15 
>> minutes on the end and a show on the same channel from 9:00 to 10:00, 
>> one will conflict with the other--you've said the 7:00 to 9:00 show is 
>> actually airing between 7:00 and 9:15.  Therefore, you would need a 
>> second capture card to get the 9:00 to 9:15 show.
> 
> OK, that explains it. I've got a PVR-500, with two tuners, and this type
> of conflict occurs when I am also recording another game on a different
> channel. Now for the overlap period I am trying to record three things
> with two tuners: the first game's extension, the second game on the same
> channel, and a third game on a different channel. It would be nice if it
> figured out that the first extension isn't needed because the second
> recording will be recording that channel anyway, but it isn't quite that
> smart yet, so I end up having to manually remove the extension for the
> first game to resolve the conflict.

Understood. No question about what you are asking. However, this
falls into what I call 'mind reading'. The scheduler faithfully
acts on the information that you have given. It can't second guess
that information because there's at least half a chance that second
guessing will do the wrong thing.

For a poor but real example, back before version, say 0.8, we had
duplicate matching but Single was not treated as an exception. If
you chose something to Single record, it might see 'oh, he's recorded
it before. I know he doesn't really need to record this again. I'll
help him out with his amnesia 8-)" This has been changed to "Single
record 'cause I said so, damn it!".

In http://www.mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO-12.html I try to convey
that the scheduler is a tool kit where you are empowered to tell it
exactly what you want. The problem comes up when someone tells the
scheduler some things to do, sees that the result isn't exactly
want they want, then wishes the scheduler would have read their
mind rather than using the tools to give it more information to
express exactly what they want.

For any sort of algorithm proposed to second guess a specific
situation, there is an opposite example where that exceptional
decision would do exactly the wrong thing.

If you had three cards, it could record all of them but with two,
you have to decide what to do at the start of the second game. You
might decide that one of the later games is boring and you don't
want to sit through it anyway. You might want to start the second
game on the same channel late so that the conclusion of the first
game is in the same file. All it has to go on is that football
games need to record extra time and there is no one right answer
if they conflict. However, you know what the right answer for you
is on this day in this situation. You just need to tell it what
you prefer by adding an override.

The other thing that always comes up is that idea that the extra
time should be optional so the scheduler doesn't have to warn you
about a conflict to let you know that you need to look and decide.
In a case like this, that is a bad idea. You want to require the
extra time because if the show that followed on another channel is
recorded and no conflict is reported, The game could be truncated
during the final dramatic drive with no forewarning. If it tells
you there is a conflict then you can decide how you feel about the
game and the show on another channel that follows. The silicon
gates can't know how you feel, they can only know the numbers that
were entered into the equation.

--  bjm