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current state of mythtv and Multiple Frontends?
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Author:  knathraak [ Wed Jul 18, 2007 1:05 pm ]
Post subject:  current state of mythtv and Multiple Frontends?
Hi,

I haven't been tracking MythTV for a while (my current install is R5C7--yikes!).

I recently gave BeyondTV a try and one thing that it seems to handle better than my (admittedly old) MythTV is sharing of a tuner by multiple clients.

On Myth, if memory serves, if one frontend was watching Live TV, a second frontend wouldn't be able to watch TV off that same tuner. Similarly (i think), if a show was recording, no frontends could watch that tuner (but they could watch the show from the recordings list).

In contrast BeyondTV has no such limitations. You can jump right into live TV even if someone else is already watching it. You just get to watch what they're watching. If you can't agree on what to watch, then take it outside and work it out.

Is this still the situation with the latest MythTV?

Thanks
Zach C.
Author:  tjc [ Wed Jul 18, 2007 5:04 pm ]
Post subject: 
All recordings now end up in the same place. You will fail to get the tuner if you try to watch live and someone else is using all of them, but you can just go and watch it from the list of recordings.
Author:  cecil [ Thu Jul 19, 2007 4:54 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: current state of mythtv and Multiple Frontends?
knathraak wrote:
If you can't agree on what to watch, then take it outside and work it out.
LOL! tjc's is accurate. Frankly, I like the way MythTV handle's this... If one tuner is being used, another user should have access to it. No need to take it outside. But, to each his own.
Author:  knathraak [ Thu Jul 19, 2007 6:55 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: current state of mythtv and Multiple Frontends?
cecil wrote:
Frankly, I like the way MythTV handle's this... If one tuner is being used, another user should have access to it.


This has always felt like somewhat of an artificial limitation to me, and it's one of the reasons I've explored other options.

In our house we're likely to have more frontends than users. I may want to have a frontend going in one room, and a second in another room so I can watch the same channel seamlessly if i'm back and forth between rooms. I shouldn't have to think "oh, yeah I'm already watching live tv in the other room. I need to go to to my recorded shows so I can watch live tv in here as well."

However I can see the advantage of preventing a resource conflict between two different users. It seems like this could be preserved by (a) providing a setting that prevents tuner-sharing, or (b) allow subsequent tuners to join live tv in "spectator mode" that would prevent them from changing channels,etc until the first gives up control.

However, even worse is how Live TV is handled if the tuner is recording. I assume it is (still) similar to when the tuner is in use by another frontend, in that it isn't directly available. I can't imagine having go to the recorded items menu on my Tivo in order to watch Live TV if recording was in progress.

I suspect the reason it works this way has more to do with the challenge of keeping two or more frontends synchronized on the same Live TV tuner. I suspect it would be fairly complicated.
Author:  spalVl [ Thu Jul 19, 2007 8:30 pm ]
Post subject: 
I don't personally run into that situation often, but I see where you are coming from. It would be kinda cool if all tuners were being used, and the user chooses Live TV it at least gives an menu with options to

A. Open LiveTV recording in progress
B. Goto recordings
C. Cancel

Looking over the MythTV frontend wishlist I don't see any feature like this.

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Fe ... _Recording

Why don't you add it to the Wishlist? If one of the devs has the time it could just get implemented.
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