I don't doubt that this behaviour is already present in a lot of households> but as technology savvy users, we have to remember that we are by nature> early adopters of tech so what we find simple and intuitive to use (such as> Ubuntu) may be bewildering for others.
I understand what you mean about early adoption by tech savvy users,
but I should point out that I'm the only tech savvy user in the
household, and that I don't really watch very much TV at all. This is
universal behaviour at my house, and it wasn't influenced by me at
all.
Like I said, I expect we're a bit of a corner case, but if this sort
of behaviour was scarce, I doubt that DVRs themselves would be nearly
as widespread as they are now, as this is what they're best at.
In response to "As for interfacing with cable, it wouldn't be very
hard to create a simple DVR program and use that for recording from an
input feed.", I disagree with this statement. It needs to be done
right, and really I think we need to use a solution that already
exists. Basic DVR functionality isn't extremely difficult, but it is
more than just recording (don't forget about scheduling, show
tracking, conflict resolution, space management, etc).
Fair enough. I do agree that reusing an existing solution would be
better. I probably should have used "implement" instead of "create" as
it better conveys the general point.
I think, ideally, that Ubuntu TV would be more than a MythTV frontend.
I agree that MythTV would make an excellent media backend, but we want
to do more with Ubuntu TV than just media. There could be a portion of
it that would relay information from a MythTV backend, but we
shouldn't limit ourselves to what MythTV can do.
I also don't think that we should have a two machine dependency. By
default, Ubuntu TV should be ready on its own, single piece of
hardware, since that what is easiest to configure. There could be
advanced settings for connecting to an external MythTV box, but it
should not be a requirement.
On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 09:41, Thomas Mashos<thomas@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 7:27 AM, Bruno Girin<brunogirin@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 03/01/12 14:50, Ian Santopietro wrote:
I don't think channels will play a huge bearing on TV in the future.
Channels simply don't make any sense anymore to anyone except cable
companies. People will want to subscribe to a TV show and watch only the
shows they want, rwather than pay for an entire channel and only four or
five out of all of the shows each channel offers.
I agree with you that TV on demand of that sort is probably the future. But
it needs to be as easy to use as today's live TV, where the simplicity of
switching the box on and then pressing a number on the remote is all you
have to do. This comes back to the original comment made by Thomas Söderberg
about his folks finding MythTV difficult to use compared to a TV. The idea
is to minimise the time and the number of interactions between switching the
device on and being sat in the sofa watching the show you want.
This sort of behaviour is already present. No one in my house watches live
TV anymore. Instead we have the shows we want to watch set up to record, and
we watch them after they get recorded. This may be a bit extreme of a case,
but I'm pretty sure most people with DVR equipment do this at least a little
bit. It makes more sense for these people to simply purchase the show they
want, then watch them as new episodes become available, rather than paying
for an entire channel.
I don't doubt that this behaviour is already present in a lot of households
but as technology savvy users, we have to remember that we are by nature
early adopters of tech so what we find simple and intuitive to use (such as
Ubuntu) may be bewildering for others.
Anyway, if supporting live TV is a show stopper in terms of complexity, then
I agree we shouldn't pursue this. But that doesn't preclude thinking hard
about the user interface to make sure that its interaction model is as
simple as the live TV interaction model. For example, one aspect of Unity
that works extremely well and that would make complete sense for a TV is the
use of the numerical key shortcuts (Super+0-9) to launch an application. By
re-using that concept to enable users to quickly select a show when they
first start UbuntuTV can give you a similar interaction model as live TV.
As for interfacing with cable, it wouldn't be very hard to create a simple
DVR program and use that for recording from an input feed.
Possibly, I can't comment as I don't know what it would involve but my
experience is that each time I hear the phrase "it shouldn't be too hard
to..." in technology, it usually ends up being a major endeavour, which
obviously doesn't prevent me from saying this on a regular basis :-)
Cheers,
Bruno
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In response to "As for interfacing with cable, it wouldn't be very
hard to create a simple DVR program and use that for recording from an
input feed.", I disagree with this statement. It needs to be done
right, and really I think we need to use a solution that already
exists. Basic DVR functionality isn't extremely difficult, but it is
more than just recording (don't forget about scheduling, show
tracking, conflict resolution, space management, etc).
--
Thomas Mashos
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Ian Santopietro
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