[mythtv-users] question involving multiple frontends

[Adam Stylinski]

Michael T. Dean wrote:
> On 02/09/2009 03:22 PM, Adam Stylinski wrote:
>> Ok so this may be a silly question and yes there is an obvious solution
>> to it.  I'm wanting to know if there's a way multiple frontends can
>> watch the same livetv program without utilizing two tuners/encoders.
>> That is to say, the livetv recording itself is accessible from the
>> backend to multiple frontends.  Obviously there are two fairly simple
>> solutions to this, A.) have both viewers view from the same frontend, or
>> B.) set it to record
>>
>> However, I'm curious about the casual television viewer, who doesn't set
>> things to record, but simply channel flips back and forth.
>
> Start LiveTV on one system.  On the other system, go to Watch
> Recordings and change the filter to include LiveTV.  Select the
> in-progress LiveTV recording and watch.  When the show ends (or the
> recording ends--if the LiveTV watcher/controller changed the channel
> during the show), select the next recording and watch.  When the show...
>
>>   I'm
>> wondering if the database will flip out or if it will create duplicate
>> recordings of the same program if both users are tuned into the same
>> channel on the same backend but with different frontends.
>
> Myth doesn't care if you have every single capture card (and/or every
> single virtual tuner) recording the exact same show (whether in LiveTV
> or a scheduled recording).  Only your backends/HDD's see a difference.
>
>>   I'm sorry for
>> my ignorance if this was addressed by the design in that it queries the
>> backend's database for a live stream and then feeds the same mpeg files
>> over the network, but as far as I know there's no evidence that it does
>> this with livetv. 
>
> Nope.  We don't allow different frontends to share LiveTV sessions for
> exactly the "When the show..." reason above.  If you're watching
> LiveTV, you probably don't want someone else in some other room
> changing the channel on you just as they say, "So, it's obvious the
> killer is really..."
>
> And, there's always the other solution you mentioned--don't use LiveTV
> and just have your myth system record any and all shows you might
> possibly want to watch...
>
> Mike
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While I'm glad that there is a way to do this manually and was looking
for a method similar to this, my main concern is having duplicate
recordings.  In a house with multiple backends, it is hard to know when
the user is watching what, and there will be overlap if it attention
isn't paid (again, causing duplicate recordings and wasting a tuner). 
What might be great, although likely impossible, is for the frontend to
look for livetv sessions already in progress and stream from them.  Then
if the user switches channels on one frontend, their frontend simply
goes to another tuner if there is another user watching the channel that
is being changed (sorry if my English wasn't clear there).  So
essentially a situation would occur like so, viewer A is watching WCPO,
viewer B is watching WCPO also.  User A wants to switch to WKRC.  User
A's frontend accesses another tuner on the backend as to not interrupt
the livetv session of the other user, and user B watches seamlessly,
never stopping the recording livetv program in progress.  I can see this
being useful for other reasons, i.e. not wasting a tuner for potential
scheduling.