[Kwintv] Small kwintv3 patch

[Michael Kedl]

On Tue, 2002-10-15 at 17:57, George Staikos wrote:
> On October 15, 2002 16:22, Michael Kedl wrote:
> > It's been a while, but I used to write TV code....
> >
> > We have cable channels 1-125 here (what the US standard supports).
> > And now, digital channels are usually assigned numbers higher, this is
> > no longer actual frequency mapping like the first 125 obviously, just
> > simpler for people to understand.
> >
> > So I would suggest we allow channels higher than 99 in general. (maybe
> > someday we can incorporate the digital stuff into kwintv)
> >
> > I believe my tuning algorithms work(ed) something like:
> > a) get keypress 1
> > b) if 2s have passed, tune the channel and exit
> > c) if we get keypress 2,
> > 	1) shift over keypress 1
> > 	2) see if channel (say 10 or 20 as examples) times 10 is higher  than
> > highest channel (say 125)
> > 	3) if it is, (20), then tune it now and exit
> > 	4) if it isn't (10), then continue
> > 	5) if 2s have passed since key 2, tune the channel and exit
> > 	6) if we get keypress 3
> > 		aa) shift everything again, tune channel and exit
> 
>    That sounds fine I think.
> 
> > AA) obviously this would be extended if we ever had more than 1000
> > channels
> 
>    Yes but I doubt that will ever happen during the lifetime of this software
> 
> > BB) 2s timeout was good for most people
> 
>    Yes
> 
> > CC) leading zeros avoid the timeout (0, 0, 6 for instance)
> 
>    Sounds good too.
> 
> > DD) I use channel 000 for S-Video / Comp; if you actually have both then
> > you have to channel up/down thru them (I usually set 000 to svideo) [ I
> > HATE having to go thru menus to switch from tuner to svideo and back! ]
> 
>    Hmm.  That requires a source change.  I think it will be far easier to 
> leave as it is currently with it requiring a source change.  Otherwise, how 
> can we a) disable certain features if we want, and b) get this to work with 
> Xv which uses text strings here?
> 
> > EE) in the channel ring, it goes something like
> > 3,2,1,svideo,comp,125,124,... when you are channeling down (or up)
> 
>    I don't think this can be cleanly implemented.
> 

Well the reason(s) to think about this weren't all mentioned:
1) I hope to extend this to include:
	- svideo/aux directly (as mentioned)
	- tuner channels (as it does already)
	- IR blasting to an external satelite/cable box and "watching" on
channel 3/4 or aux/svideo
	- "tuning" udp mutlicast and unicast
2) of course I hate switching programs or having to go thru menus or
config dialogs just to get to svideo/aux as well

I have implemented before and would like to see something like this for
the channel definitions:
chanel	the channel "#" we access it by
name	the friendly name to show to the user
url	(yes Universal Resource Locater describes it pretty well) describes
how to access the media

URL:
transport
location/machine name
file
variables

Transport:
ntsc
pal
secam
http
file
udp

Location:
svideo
aux
tuner
foo.com
224.1.2.3
/

File:
bowling.mpg
test.mpg
12

Examples:
Channel Name    URL
299	mpeg-1	http://foo.com/bowling.mpg	(play mpeg off the web)
300	file-1	file:///test.mpg	(play mpeg file off filesystem)
00	SVIDEO	ntsc://svideo		(ntsc svideo input)
12	NBC	ntsc://tuner/12		(ntsc tuner, channel 124
200	multicast-1	udp://224.1.2.3	(join unicast/multicast stream)
400	HBO-E	ntsc://svideo?command=/usr/local/bin/irblast 1 320 3 
(show svideo, and send IR command to cablebox 1 to tune channel 320 and
send the command 3 times using the program irblast)

I never have decided if I like tuner/12 or tuner?channel=12 and
svideo/command=... or svideo?command=...

Maybe this is more than you guys want to worry about for now.
But I'm heading down the path of the "multimedia center".  I have one
for winblows, and I want one for Linux.  And I happen to like/use KDE.

You could of course assume a # only in the URL means tuner....
When the user selects PAL/SECAM/NTSC at startup it can build their
channel map for them.

Discussions welcome,
Mike

> > FF) in some cases I have used an "enter" key to kill the timeout (so 6
> > <enter> tunes channel six without waiting 2s)
> 
>   That sounds reasonable too.
> 
> > GG) I also HATE the 100's key on some systems; no system I have ever
> > written had it ;-)
> 
>    Yes I hate those too.
> 
> > I am actually thinking about adding this kind of functionality to
> > qtvision.
> >
> > What do you think?
> 
>   If you agree with my minor disagreement, then I agree. :-)
> 
> -- 
> 
> George Staikos
> 
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