[mythtv-users] Mechanical cable splitter

Josh White jaw1959 at gmail.com
Tue Nov 20 14:33:38 UTC 2007


I agree completely.  I'm not saying it's the best way to do it, or even a
good way, but that's how hundreds of millions of people watch TV, and if
Mythtv aims to serve these people, that's a lot of people that need to be
trained to use it correctly, rather than "simply" making the system suit
their needs.

Not to nitpick, but he OSD usually shows you what show is on the channel,
rather than telling you there's a
HeadOn(R)<http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.headon.com%2F&ei=Z-lCR6uiKYauiAGaq7mVCA&usg=AFQjCNFAfDEQqh1fWrEt0QsIeOZl-GhQxA&sig2=_2QMHZ4P4ehH0SY9DXmQTQ>commercial
on that channel at that instant, so I don't think coming across a
channel with a commercial is a problem in the channel surfing scheme, at
least since the advent of the OSD.

On a side note, I realize that not every person in the world uses MythTV.
Does anyone have a count of the mythtv  user base?

On Nov 20, 2007 8:52 AM, Brian E.W. Wood <beww at beww.org> wrote:

> On Tue, November 20, 2007 06:36, Josh White wrote:
> > What I meant by "instant response" was when you press the button to
> change
> > the channel, the channel would change as fast as one could imagine it
> > changing, rather than 1-2 seconds behind as some tuner cards do (my
> > PVR-250
> > performed like this when I used it under MS Windows with the included
> > Hauppauge PVR software, which was much slower than Myth).  I'm not sure
> > what
> > the cable box lag would actually be if you were to log it on an
> > oscilloscope
> > or something, but maybe 50-100ms.  This scenario really doesn't come up
> > for
> > me at all, but my wife likes to channel surf.  So when you change the
> > channel up 20 times, and then realize you skipped over a channel you
> > wanted
> > to watch, pressing the channel down button should get you there in a
> half
> > second or so.  But if there's too much lag, you'll press it twice or
> more,
> > until you see the channel you want to watch, but you'll end up stopping
> on
> > the channel below where you wanted to go, and then you over correct the
> > other way, and it gets frustrating.  Of course, if you accept the
> > limitations of the technology and change the channel slowly, you can
> work
> > with it just fine.  As a machine designer, I know it's kind of a cop out
> > when you complain that the user isn't using it right.  If the machine is
> > designed well, it will work as the user wants it to work.  For the last
> 27
> > years at least (I'm 27 years old), most any TV I have used was capable
> of
> > changing channels about as fast as you can press/release the channel
> > up/down
> > button, or capable of stopping on the channel currently displayed when
> the
> > channel up/down button is held (some older cable boxes excluded).  What
> > I'm
> > referring to would be on an SDTV or a computer monitor, either of which
> > would introduce very little delay.  I would care very little if the
> entire
> > viewing experience was delayed a second or two (or even a minute or two)
> > as
> > long as the experience *seemed* instantaneous.  I have no experience
> > whatsoever (beyond walking through best buy) with HDTVs, so I cannot
> speak
> > for what delay is introduced through such a system.
> >
>
> I would think that if your wife wants to channel surf then Browse Mode
> would be right up her alley, and virtually delay-free.
>
> The problem with surfing the way you describe is that very often you get a
> commercial, promo or other non-program material, so you then have to wait
> until the actual program comes back to see what you have surfed to. This
> generally introduces far more delay than any Myth system I have seen.
>
> beww
>
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