Mailing List Archive

Visible channels
On 11/9/18 1:39 PM, Gary Buhrmaster wrote:
> Re: Channel up/down with Live TV.
>
>
> (composing this offline, will send when next in
> data range, so share as you wish, or not all).
>
> Peter,
>
> FD: I almost never use Live TV (pretty much
> only for testing something), so my experience
> is limited.
>
> Regardless of how it works, I am of the *opinion*
> based on good user experience reasons that
> (in Live TV?) channel up/down should only rotate
> through the (natural)(*) sorted list of channels that
> are marked as visible. If the next channel in the
> (natural) sorted list is available and visible on the
> same tuner, it (tries) to stick with it, otherwise it
> changes to an available and visible tuner for that
> channel. Explicitly stated, channel up/down should
> only select visible channels.
>
> There are a couple of less common cases that
> need to be considered.
>
> First, if one enters a channel number explicitly
> (or explicitly from some guide reference), if
> that channel is available on some source, it
> should (in order) choose a tuner & source that
> is marked visible, and otherwise choose a tuner
> from which the source has the channel marked
> as invisible.
>
> Secondly, if one is on a channel, and one
> explicitly does a "next tuner" (or whatever it
> is documented as, I remember the capability
> exists, but don't remember the name exactly),
> one should be able to switch to another tuner
> even if the channel is marked as invisible for
> that tuner.
>
> FWIW, last month I was visiting someone with
> a TiVo, and I am sure it only used "visible"
> channels for up/down, although you could
> enter other channel numbers explicitly.
>
> So, in my *opinion*, lets take a bad(?) example
> where (I) means invisible from the source.
>
> Source/Tuner 1: 1, 3, 5(I), 10, 11(I), 12
> Source/Tuner 2: 3.2, 3.3(I), 11.4
> Source/Tuner 3: 4(I), 11(I), 12
>
> Channel list for up down-> 1 (Tuner1), 3 (Tuner1), 3.2 (Tuner 2), 10
> (Tuner 1), 11,4 (Tuner 2), 12 (Tuner 1 or 3 eligible)
>
> Explicit enter of 3.3 means force Tuner2
> (only tuner for 3.3, even if invisible). Explicit
> enter of 11 would have to pick either Tuner 1 or 3
> (both invisible, but in tuner list). If on channel
> 10 (Tuner 1), there is no other tuner for a
> "next tuner", but if on channel 12 on (Tuner 1),
> a "next tuner" would force to Tuner 3 (even
> though invisible).
>
> Obviously in real cases there may be more
> than one tuner which shares the source, but
> that just impacts the potential tuner chosen
> for the channel, not the channels themselves.
>
> Perhaps there are other edge cases I am not
> aware of. Or perhaps I am being completely
> unreasonable. In any case, that is the way I
> think it should work for Live TV. And if I actually
> used Live TV, and it did not work that way, I
> might even be motivated to take this to the dev
> group and (hopefully) gain approval for the
> approach, and then do some coding to make it
> so.
>
> Thanks for listening.
>
>
>
> (*) I use the term natural sorted as opposed to
> sorted because it is more than just a numeric
> sort, as you have to be a little careful because
> something like (in ATSC) a list of channels
> such as 2.1, 2.2, 2.10 might sort numerically
> as 2.1, 2.10, 2,2, where you want the 2.10 to
> be higher than the 2.2 (due to the program
> major/minor usage for ATSC). btw, with Qt
> 5.2 I believe natural sorting is now available
> using a QCollator in numeric mode (there
> was a long standing feature request for such
> a sort). As the project requires 5.2 you don't
> even have to write your own natural sort.


Hi Gary

It looks like I was incorrect on the channel up/down issue. Possibly it
was a bug that is now fixed.

Pressing up/down in Live TV or typing in a channel number does not go to
an invisible channel. Up/down go to the next visible channel.

Typing an invisible channel number exits live TV with an "irrecoverable
recorder error". Typing a nonexistent channel number simply carries on
in the current channel. This looks like a small bug, the error should
not be reported that way.

If we adopt the recommendation of doing a complete mythfilldatabase and
marking the channels you are not subscribed to as not visible, then I
believe that typing a channel number should not attempt tuning it.
Perhaps if it is invisible a message should display to let the user know
the channel is not visible and cannot be tuned.

As far as multiple tuners is concerned, the only "over the air" station
I could get has now gone offline, so I can only test with Comcast.

Peter
_______________________________________________
mythtv-dev mailing list
mythtv-dev@mythtv.org
http://lists.mythtv.org/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-dev
http://wiki.mythtv.org/Mailing_List_etiquette
MythTV Forums: https://forum.mythtv.org