Now it all depends on the route that Canonical wants to go down. This
seems to be leaning towards a HTPC. Are the tv's going to have built
in hard drives? If so,How much space are we looking at to work with
for recording shows?
IMO what about Canonical sets up Tv station/show shopping area. Here
users can purchase shows or a station for a modest price and would be
able to access the stations/shows via Ubuntu and have the channel
streamed to the TV. Now I know here in Canada there are still tons of
places that still use dial up (I know it's still is around.) and
people still need that live cable feed, maybe Ubuntu needs to write
something that recognizes cable input to either the Tv or to the "box"
that seems to be suggested. Personally I agree to getting away from
cable companies. But I would like to see and Online store throught
Ubuntu that allows users to purchase shows or give stream feed to
local stations.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* Bruno Girin <brunogirin@xxxxxxxxx>
*To:* "ubuntu-tv@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" <ubuntu-tv@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Sent:* Monday, January 2, 2012 5:31:32 AM
*Subject:* Re: [Ubuntu-tv] My ideas
On 02/01/12 00:00, Thomas Mashos wrote:
<snip>
> I try not to weigh in on the UbuntuTV discussion until we get at
least a little bit of direction from Canonical, or at least an idea of
what they are thinking in terms of UbuntuTV. However, I disagree with
the idea of Live TV in general, and I disagree with the idea that
UbuntuTV (or MythTV) should have any direct involvement in Live TV. (I
do agree we should use MythTV for DVR purposes though)
Live TV is still alive and well, at least outside of the US. But if as
you say below, it's easier to just let the TV itself handle that, I
agree with you that we should not go there.
> 1) You don't want to run the MythTV backend on low powered systems
(ARM, ATOM, etc). Things like the scheduler and the commercial flagger
(and even the mysql server) require more CPU than those can
comfortably handle. Don't forget you also need decent hard disk space
for recordings. A faster second box is better for this. Some people
aren't going to want Live TV/recording functionality at all and will
use this to watch internet content exclusively. This is why the second
box is a better idea.
Absolutely agree, which is why I asked the question. If UbuntuTV is
built as a MythTV front-end, then you inherit the MythTV design where
you can have some very lightweight front-end boxes and a single
back-end box. This provides maximum flexibility and can also make it
an interesting proposition for hotel entertainment systems.
> 2) While wanting to have the backend be quicker at changing channels
is a noble idea, it requires an upstream code change that the MythTV
developers are unwilling to write. Partially because there are not
that many MythTV developers, but also because Live TV is an antiquated
way to watch TV. IMO a better solution would be to completely forget
the concept of Live TV and force 'Live TV like' functionality though
using the TV guide first and selecting a channel/show to watch from
that. In my testing, that worked great and allowed my wife to
transition from Live TV to only recorded rather easily. I can't
remember the last time we watched something at home that was truly
live. As an added benefit, she now laughs at all the people that are
forced to watch commercials and can't fast forward/rewind. The faster
we get rid of the concept of Live TV, the faster the consumer wins
against the cable companies/networks. If true Live TV is a deal
breaker, then have the TV do the regular channel tuning (Having
UbuntuTV as an overlay) so that it could be fast. Then hitting the
record button at that point would cause MythTV backend to start
recording that channel and having UbuntuTV switch to the recording
from LiveTV.
I agree that upstream code changes are not a good idea. So as you say,
if you can have the TV handle Live TV with UbuntuTV as an overlay,
that would be the best solution.
Bear in mind that live TV is still the main way a lot of people watch
TV outside of the US (well, certainly in France and the UK at least).
A typical usage scenario here: the whole nation sits in front of the
TV at the same time for shows like X-Factor, Strictly Come Dancing,
East Enders, etc and will make live comments on Facebook and debate
Jedward's hairstyle or Ann Widecombe's dancefloor moves while the show
is going on. Then everybody puts the kettle on to brew tea during the
commercials (seriously, it actually creates surges on the power grid).
With the most popular shows, live TV becomes a nation-wide social
event, hence why I think it's important to at least consider it.
My £0.02
Bruno
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