[mythtv-users] Myth Scheduler doesn't work as expected for two tuners & multirecord=2

[Mark Greenwood]

On Sunday 15 June 2008 00:35:38 Robert Johnston wrote:
> Mark Greenwood wrote:
> > On Sunday 15 June 2008 00:02:47 Michael Rice wrote:
> >   
> >> I think it's probably a bad assumption that the devs want a whole lot
> >> more converts.  It's not like they get paid more if there are a
> >> million users.
> >>
> >> The transition from watching TV live to watching all recorded can be
> >> an adjustment.  I suggest taking it slow.  Most TVs have more than one
> >> input... so use one for Myth, one for "LiveTV".  Start recording shows
> >> you and the wife both watch on the Mythbox.  She'll really like
> >> watching that 1 hour show in 44 minutes.  Then introduce time stretch
> >> and watch the show in half an hour.  Pretty soon she'll want all the
> >> shows on Myth and you'll need to buy more tuners and computers to keep
> >> her happy!
> >>
> >> My wife and kids watch absolutely no Live TV now and we really can't
> >> stand the thoughts of it.  You'll find pretty quickly that it isn't
> >> important at all.
> >>     
> >
> > Not wanting to start an argument, but I couldn't disagree more. Although having Myth's ability to record shows is something I've been looking for for ages, the ability to watch live TV is just as important. If I was to tell my other half "No, you can't watch Lost now, you've got to wait for it to finish and then give it 20 minutes to flag commercials" she'd give me the ear-bashing of a lifetime. (Although speaking personally I'd love to be able to stop at "No, you can't watch Lost", but then she'd probably leave me...) 
> >
> > Now, clearly, this is the dev's project and they can do what they want with it. I don't have a problem with that. I'll work out my own way to achieve what I want. But for me Live TV is as important as recorded TV. Especially, for instance, when it comes to sports. As it stands, I do what you suggest and have a separate input for Live TV and use that most of the time. But it would be Cool (with a capital 'C') if I could have a Linux box as the hub of my home entertainment system and never have to switch away from it. I could junk so many black boxes, and that would make the other half happy..:)
> >   
> You *Can* watch it "Live" as it is recorded, if that's what you want. 
> But then there is no benefit to having the Myth box whatsoever. 

Yes, there is. Because without it I can't record shows. With it I can. But I still want to watch TV 'Live'. You're working on the assumption that everyone plans their TV viewing and knows what they are going to watch. This isn't true. When there are so many channels, most people just sit down and watch whatever they can find when they have nothing better to do. I've discovered loads of shows and movies this way - things I'd never have watched had I sat down and planned what to record. I'm not going to stop doing that, I *like* watching random rubbish from time to time, but I'm never going to record everything just on the offchance.

And then there's the fact I like watching cricket, and that's on for 8 hours, 5 days in a row..... but that's my problem :)

Like I say, I'll always have it connected up so I can watch Live TV, how I achieve that will depend on myth's capabilities. I'm not trying to stir things up, just to put forward a point of view. MythTV is, after all, a 'Personal Video Recorder'.. so the clue's in the name :)

> With  
> "Realtime Commercial Flagging" enabled, however, you could wait half an 
> hour (to give it a headstart), then watch the show from the beginning, 

Unfortunately for me my backend isn't up to that, but I take your point.

> catching up to "Live" with each commercial skip. This means you aren't 
> beholdant to the networks, you're not forced to sit and watch 
> commercials, and you still get to see the whole show by the same time as 
> everyone else (If such a thing is really important).

Well it is important - if it's a sporting event, or a show that ends quite late that I want to watch that evening so I can join in the usual 'watercooler chats' the next day.

Anyway, I'll stop rambling on. I could go on for hours about 'when we only had 4 channels and half the population would watch the same thing at the same time and wasn't it great and VCRs killed it all'...... Maybe I'll take up that invitation to become a dev, and start putting my code where my mouth is ;)

Mark