[mythtv-users] is mythtv smart enough to do this (overlap/back-to-back) with recordings?

[Michael T. Dean]

On 07/28/06 04:04, Steve Hodge wrote:

>On 7/28/06, Kevin Kuphal <kuphal at dls.net> wrote:
>  
>
>>And without changing anything, Myth *will* record all your shows back to
>>back with one card.  The problem is that people make changes and tell
>>Myth to record a little extra and then are surprised when it bumps
>>things to do exactly what you asked it to do.
>>    
>>
>The problem is that the EPG data is not accurate enough. If programs
>really ran to the times that the EPG said then everything would be
>wonderful. But they don't. So people have to pad their recording
>schedules or they will not get all of the shows they are asking for.
>Are you suggesting people are wrong to do that? Are you saying you
>never do?
>  
>

They're wrong to expect Myth to read their minds /and/ to read them 
correctly in spite of different wants for different shows.

>So they pad, and then a schedule change puts the program from
>recording schedule A next to the program from recording schedule B and
>one of them doesn't get recorded. To expect users to foresee that
>happening is asking too much, IMHO.
>

If only there were a screen called "Manage Conflicts" where users could 
be told what conflicts exist.  If only there were a MythWeb page called, 
"Upcoming Recordings" where conflicts were marked for the user.  If only 
there were a way to place a recording override, allowing the user to say 
what she wants Myth to do.

> And it means constant vigilence of
>upcomming recordings, occassionally having to manually tweek the
>schedules,
>

And, most importantly, if only users were smart enough to recognize that 
certain pairs of shows would constantly cause conflicts with the 
schedules they've set (due to constantly having to fix them on the 
Manage Conflicts screen) and went back and fixed the schedule to 
automatically do the right thing every time.  Then, they wouldn't have 
to maintain "constant vigilence" of upcoming recordings...

> and sometimes having to remember that recording A has part
>of recording B on it. Surely you can't be arguing that is perfectly
>fine behaviour for Myth to exhibit when there's no technical reason
>for it?
>  
>

I think doing exactly what the user asks is a perfectly fine technical 
reason for this behavior.  If the user does an "rm -rf /", is that what 
they want to do?  Unlikely.  Does rm allow them to do this?  Yes.  (OK, 
some distros have either modified versions of rm or, more likely, 
aliases set to prevent this type of thing.  Some of us, however, don't 
want the "Are you sure?" prompt every time we delete something.)

Mike