I've recently started using Freevo to watch record TV, and there's a
few niggling issues, or missing features with Freevo that bug me.
First up is the record padding. It would be REALLY nice if there was a
separate pre- and post- record padding. Shows here have a tendency to
start anywhere from on-time to minutes late, and can quite frequently
run even later. Ergo, I need a minimal pre-padding (a minute or two),
but a large post-padding (up to 15 mins).
I've hacked my own Freevo to support Pre/Post padding, and it works quite well.
Ideally, it'd be nice to set this per-channel, since some channels are
pretty decent, while others vary wildly.
Second up, a related issue, is record scheduling. I'd really like to
have the option of editing the details of a record item. I've had
times where the Guide has been a little inaccurate (and now once where
the finish time for a show was out by an hour). Sure, I could manually
add an item to record and stick in ALL the data, but it would be much
easier to just go Schedule to Record, then Edit, and tweak those
values which need it. Such a facility should be easy to implement in
the Webserver (and I may have a go at it myself if no-one else wants
to), but it'd be nice to have it in the normal interface as well.
Next, which is sort of a mix of the two above - an easy way to tweak
the padding of a recording/recorded show. So if you KNOW a particular
show is famous for running overtime (chat-shows have a tendency to do
it here), you can easily add/remove extra record time, say, in 2
minute chunks?
(Gee - can you tell I've missed the last 5 minutes of way too many shows? ^_^)
The next idea is also Recording, but a different slant - transcoding.
I have a DVB card, which means I natively get good quality mpeg2
streams saved when I record. This takes up quite a bit of disk tho, so
stuff I want to keep, I'd like to transcode into DivX. I have a little
script I whipped up to do this for me, but it's a manual process.
What would be great would be an option within Freevo to tag a recorded
show for transcoding. Even better would be a few transcoding options,
for different bit-rates (cooking shows (don't ask ^_^) don't need as
much bitrate as movies), and different cropping options (some shows
are 16:9, some are 4:3 - the signal/stream is always 16:9).
This could probably be done as a Plugin. I might give it a go myself
if I get time (Ha! Ahem...) I'd envisage a separate Transcode Daemon
to take care of the transcoding, perhaps auto pause/resuming
transcoding based on system load and/or other Freevo activity (ie; if
Freevo not playing anything, and not recording, then Transcode!).
There could also be options to auto-transcode if a show is old, and
disk is low...
Something that's been mentioned briefly in the past - the auto-icon
support. Sometimes this works, and sometimes it really doesn't. I've
had shows where the icon was of the show before (which still had
recorded bits of) - and sometimes it shows an Ad. The former can be
avoided by picking a frame nearer the middle of the show, rather than
the start. The latter is a bit harder to fix.
One solution would be to have an option to regenerate the icon which
shows a selection of images (9? 12?), and you select which to keep as
the icon.
Oh, and while I'm at it - support for widescreen layout of Freevo
menus would be appreciated. ^_^ Also, maybe some variants of the
standard skins using smaller fonts? (And more TV Guide columns? Is
that definable?)
Lastly - a bug of sorts. I keep having issues watching DVB streams
(ts/mpg) with Freevo. Sometimes it sucks all my CPU (not a very fast
one), the Sync goes straight out the window, and sometimes I get black
dots scattered around in the borders of hard-white output. I *think*
it's rogue unneeded filters for mplayer kicking in, but I've yet to
reliably disable them. Any ideas?
--
Trevor Phillips - http://jurai.murdoch.edu.au/
Web Technical Administrator - IT Services, Murdoch University
On nights such as this, evil deeds are done. And good deeds, of
course. But mostly evil, on the whole.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters)
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