Re: [vdr] How about a small UK/Ireland S28.2E VDR community forum?

2011-05-08 Thread Henning Pingel
Am Donnerstag, den 05.05.2011, 17:38 +0200 schrieb Henning Pingel:
 I was wondering if it would make sense to offer a place for VDR users
 using the sky_uk/freesat/S28.2E/freeview platforms to communicate with
 each other. The intention is that people can discuss their special
 needs like freesat EPG, red button stuff, channel lists, channel logos
 and all other things and test new inventions (like the red button
 extension) together.

Hi,

I have just created a forum area for UK/Ireland VDR users (or users of
S28.2E) at forum.yavdr.com. [1]

This is just one small sub-forum that may not seem to fit into its
parent category ATM and maybe it doesn't even look inviting. An empty
forum always feels awkward. Please ignore that for now and just start
using it as is. Let's see how it develops. It might as well not be used
at all after a few weeks time, but who knows? If it is being used, we
can discuss structural improvements later.

I would be happy if it is of help for the UK/Ireland VDR community.

I might step in as a moderator
a) if inappropriate topics are being discussed (see welcome posting in
forum).
b) if the language used in the sub-forum is not English (there are
enough other places to get help in German language).
c) if topics are not covering any of these categories: TV, PVR, Linux,
VDR.

Regards,
Henning

[1] http://forum.yavdr.com/viewforum.php?f=38


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Re: [vdr] How about a small UK/Ireland S28.2E VDR community forum?

2011-05-08 Thread Henning Pingel
Am Freitag, den 06.05.2011, 14:04 +0100 schrieb Tony Houghton:
 And I hadn't heard of TVHeadEnd, so thank you :-). I don't think I'll
 abandon development of boxstar though, because there's no mention of
 support for Freesat's EPG or LCNs on FS or Freeview, and that's
 important to me.
 
 My current development direction is based on python and gstreamer. I had
 long intended to use gstreamer for playback anyway, which makes deciding
 to use its RTSP plugins for streaming a no-brainer and I was starting to
 find doing all the rest from scratch in C too laborious. Now gstreamer
 has some usable DVB source elements although they'll need rewriting to
 support Freesat. Freeview LCNs are already supported, bonus :-).

Tony, I'd like to encourage you to discuss boxstar on the new forum I
have created in a way that clarifies what the current limitations of VDR
are for you or others. If boxstar solves problems that VDR users have in
the UK, we can't afford to ignore boxstar. But I don't see the new forum
as a place where boxstar users may ask for support for their boxstar
installation.

Of course, limitations or advantages of MythTV for UK users would also
be a possible topic within the new forum, but they should always be put
into a relation with VDR. The goal is to look for ways to improve VDR.

Just my 2 cents... ;-)

Cheers,
Henning


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Re: [vdr] How about a small UK/Ireland S28.2E VDR community forum?

2011-05-06 Thread Henning Pingel


Am Donnerstag, den 05.05.2011, 11:01 +0200 schrieb Rob Davis 
r...@davis-family.info:

On 05/05/11 10:38, Henning Pingel wrote:

Hello,

[This email has been sitting in my drafts folder for a few weeks. 
Today

I had the courage to send it.]

I was wondering if it would make sense to offer a place for VDR 
users
using the sky_uk/freesat/S28.2E/freeview platforms to communicate 
with
each other. The intention is that people can discuss their special 
needs
like freesat EPG, red button stuff, channel lists, channel logos and 
all

other things and test new inventions (like the red button extension)
together.

Being a frequent user of freesat channels myself and being a member 
of
the developers behind the yaVDR distribution (www.yavdr.org), I 
would
like to offer to you to open up an English language community forum 
on

our yaVDR board located at forum.yavdr.com http://forum.yavdr.com.
This board is currently mostly used by our development team for 
internal
discussions, so there is not much to see there for external visitors 
yet.


Please don't get me wrong: I don't want to drag away developer
discussions from this mailing list, it's more a forum where 
developers

and users who share the same topics (freesat/freeview/SKY_UK) can
communicate and solve problems related to VDR together. And 
knowledge

could be made more accessible for new VDR users.

Maybe this could also be a good starting point for building up an
English language VDR user community forum - starting off with 
UK/Ireland
users. I always thought an English language community was missing 
next

to the German language VDR portal (www.vdr-portal.de
http://www.vdr-portal.de).

If some of you guys here are interested in such a place, please give 
me
a short reply. It only takes me a couple of minutes to set up a new 
area

on the forum. Or is there already a forum in place?



If that is the case, can you add a US / ATSC / PVRInput section too.
I get the feeling there are only three people using VDR in the US..
:-) Although it could be good to share..


Rob, thanks for your suggestion.

I share your view that it would be perfect to have a big English 
language forum for international VDR users with regional sections for 
user groups with the same problems. Until today I'm still very unsure if 
I want to volunteer in offering such a big forum because it consumes 
quite a lot of time in maintaing it (moderation, deleting spam messages, 
updating board software, making backups, throw out malicious hackers, 
hosting + making sure it's available and fast). But you can be sure that 
we have discussed the idea of an international forum several times 
within the yaVDR team and always came to the conclusion not to open up a 
big forum.


I was looking for a way to offer an English language forum and at the 
same time keep the maintenance workload for me relatively low so that 
I'm able to still help out with developing new yaVDR features.


I'm still of the opinion that a real full-blown English language forum 
for VDR is too much responsibility and too time-consuming for me next to 
maintaining the yaVDR website and yaVDR documentation. But because of my 
personal interest for the UK channels and the amount of new ideas and 
patches around a UK flavoured VDR here on this mailing list, I made 
this offer.


Alternatively, I would ale be very happy if somebody else would 
volunteer and open up a full-blown international English language VDR 
forum. Then the yaVDR team could also slip into that forum with a yaVDR 
section.


That's my current point of view and that makes me hesitate to open up a 
VDR forum that is not limited in any way (by topics or region). I hope 
you understand my point. Basically, as soon as I'm convinced that there 
are other people seriously interested in supporting an international 
English language forum I might reconsider my point of view.


There are other thoughts regarding the goal of a forum that I will put 
into the answers to the other people who replied.


Regards,
Henning


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Re: [vdr] How about a small UK/Ireland S28.2E VDR community forum?

2011-05-06 Thread Henning Pingel


Am Donnerstag, den 05.05.2011, 18:16 +0200 schrieb Tony Houghton 
h...@realh.co.uk:

On Thu, 05 May 2011 17:38:42 +0200
Henning Pingel henn...@henningpingel.de wrote:
I would like to offer to you to open up an English language 
community
forum on our yaVDR board located at forum.yavdr.com [1]. This board 
is
currently mostly used by our development team for internal 
discussions,

so there is not much to see there for external visitors yet.


I'd be interested. But I wonder whether it would be appropriate to 
allow
discussion of UK specifics in other software too eg mythtv. 
Ultimately

VDR doesn't quite suit my needs due to its poor support for viewing
across a network, while mythtv's setup tool always makes me give up 
in
disgust. That's why I started boxstar, but it might be a very long 
time

before it becomes usable in its own right.


Hi Tony,

I actually didn't know about boxstar until now. Thanks for pointing 
that out to me!


In an ideal world there would be a linuxtv.org forum with section for 
VDR and MythTV, boxstar, TVHeadend and applications like Kaffeine, etc. 
This is IMHO really needed as an orientation for people who want to use 
Linux as a PVR.


IMHO the focus of a sub-forum hosted on forum.yavdr.com would be on VDR 
(and not necessarily yaVDR). And this is also for the reason that the 
people offering the forum should have some clue about the topics within 
the forum and we (the yaVDR team) don't have expert knowledge about 
non-VDR PVR projects like MythTV. On the other hand, I would love to see 
somebody experienced creating detailed comparison tables for VDR, 
MythTV, boxstar, TVHeadend and so on. Because every new user wants 
orientation on his way to the right linux-based TV application.


But if you open up a forum focussed on Linux-based PVRs in the UK we 
would join your forum and open up a yaVDR section in there. ;-)


The underlying reason for offering a forum for me is my hope that the 
quality and amount of developer related and end-user related 
documentation available regarding VDR might improve (especially the 
English language documentation which is IMHO behind the German language 
documentation). This might be a very idealistic hope based on my view 
that structured documentation written by the users of an open source 
product might come into existence easier if a forum is in place. So my 
main goal would be to offer a place that motivates people to collect 
documentation in a structured way. A Wiki could replace a forum but I 
don't know if a Wiki works without a community behind it.


In the German language vdr-portal.de it is the case sometimes that the 
same questions get asked and answered over and over again because they 
are not documented (or they are documented but hidden in a heap of 
unstructured documentation).


Regards,
Henning

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Re: [vdr] How about a small UK/Ireland S28.2E VDR community forum?

2011-05-06 Thread Morfsta
On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 9:04 AM, Henning Pingel henn...@henningpingel.de wrote:

 I was wondering if it would make sense to offer a place for VDR users
 using the sky_uk/freesat/S28.2E/freeview platforms to communicate with
 each other. The intention is that people can discuss their special needs
 like freesat EPG, red button stuff, channel lists, channel logos and all
 other things and test new inventions (like the red button extension)
 together.

I think its a great idea. There must be a fair number of English VDR
users out there (I'm one of them!) and I've always found the lack of
UK based support and discussion frustrating and whilst the German
users are pretty helpful on vdrportal, I get the feeling they get
frustrated with us asking questions that have been answered in German
previously that we can't search for!

I think if you widen it up too much it'll never happen or become
watered down and MythTV already has a lot of English-based support.
I'd suggest keeping it narrow to English speaking VDR users (or yaVDR
at a push, which I do now use and its as stable now for me after a lot
of config as using a FF card or my previous Reel eHD) and of course we
can then cover UK channel logos and red button support etc in there as
a subset. VDR Portal IMHO would be the ideal location if we can
consider asking them to open an area for us.

I'd be happy to help and contribute.

Thanks,

Morfsta

PS - for those waiting for rotor-ng, its still on my to do list to
finish off. A combination of holiday and high work load has meant that
I've not had a lot of time to look at it recently. I may release an
alpha release of it as it is for those that are waiting if there is
any demand for it? It has been stable in my box for a few months now.

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[vdr] How about a small UK/Ireland S28.2E VDR community forum?

2011-05-05 Thread Henning Pingel


Hello, 

[This email has been sitting in my drafts folder for a few
weeks. Today I had the courage to send it.]  

I was wondering if it
would make sense to offer a place for VDR users using the
sky_uk/freesat/S28.2E/freeview platforms to communicate with each other.
The intention is that people can discuss their special needs like
freesat EPG, red button stuff, channel lists, channel logos and all
other things and test new inventions (like the red button extension)
together.

 Being a frequent user of freesat channels myself and being a
member of the developers behind the yaVDR distribution (www.yavdr.org),
I would like to offer to you to open up an English language community
forum on our yaVDR board located at forum.yavdr.com [1]. This board is
currently mostly used by our development team for internal discussions,
so there is not much to see there for external visitors yet.

 Please
don't get me wrong: I don't want to drag away developer discussions from
this mailing list, it's more a forum where developers and users who
share the same topics (freesat/freeview/SKY_UK) can communicate and
solve problems related to VDR together. And knowledge could be made more
accessible for new VDR users.

 Maybe this could also be a good starting
point for building up an English language VDR user community forum -
starting off with UK/Ireland users. I always thought an English language
community was missing next to the German language VDR portal
(www.vdr-portal.de [2]).

 If some of you guys here are interested in
such a place, please give me a short reply. It only takes me a couple of
minutes to set up a new area on the forum. Or is there already a forum
in place?

 Regards,
 Henning

Links:
--
[1]
http://forum.yavdr.com
[2] http://www.vdr-portal.de
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Re: [vdr] How about a small UK/Ireland S28.2E VDR community forum?

2011-05-05 Thread Rob Davis

On 05/05/11 10:38, Henning Pingel wrote:

Hello,

[This email has been sitting in my drafts folder for a few weeks. Today
I had the courage to send it.]

I was wondering if it would make sense to offer a place for VDR users
using the sky_uk/freesat/S28.2E/freeview platforms to communicate with
each other. The intention is that people can discuss their special needs
like freesat EPG, red button stuff, channel lists, channel logos and all
other things and test new inventions (like the red button extension)
together.

Being a frequent user of freesat channels myself and being a member of
the developers behind the yaVDR distribution (www.yavdr.org), I would
like to offer to you to open up an English language community forum on
our yaVDR board located at forum.yavdr.com http://forum.yavdr.com.
This board is currently mostly used by our development team for internal
discussions, so there is not much to see there for external visitors yet.

Please don't get me wrong: I don't want to drag away developer
discussions from this mailing list, it's more a forum where developers
and users who share the same topics (freesat/freeview/SKY_UK) can
communicate and solve problems related to VDR together. And knowledge
could be made more accessible for new VDR users.

Maybe this could also be a good starting point for building up an
English language VDR user community forum - starting off with UK/Ireland
users. I always thought an English language community was missing next
to the German language VDR portal (www.vdr-portal.de
http://www.vdr-portal.de).

If some of you guys here are interested in such a place, please give me
a short reply. It only takes me a couple of minutes to set up a new area
on the forum. Or is there already a forum in place?



If that is the case, can you add a US / ATSC / PVRInput section too.  I 
get the feeling there are only three people using VDR in the US.. :-) 
Although it could be good to share..


--

Rob Davis

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Re: [vdr] How about a small UK/Ireland S28.2E VDR community forum?

2011-05-05 Thread Tony Houghton
On Thu, 05 May 2011 17:38:42 +0200
Henning Pingel henn...@henningpingel.de wrote:

 I was wondering if it
 would make sense to offer a place for VDR users using the
 sky_uk/freesat/S28.2E/freeview platforms to communicate with each other.
 The intention is that people can discuss their special needs like
 freesat EPG, red button stuff, channel lists, channel logos and all
 other things and test new inventions (like the red button extension)
 together.
 
  Being a frequent user of freesat channels myself and being a
 member of the developers behind the yaVDR distribution (www.yavdr.org),
 I would like to offer to you to open up an English language community
 forum on our yaVDR board located at forum.yavdr.com [1]. This board is
 currently mostly used by our development team for internal discussions,
 so there is not much to see there for external visitors yet.

I'd be interested. But I wonder whether it would be appropriate to allow
discussion of UK specifics in other software too eg mythtv. Ultimately
VDR doesn't quite suit my needs due to its poor support for viewing
across a network, while mythtv's setup tool always makes me give up in
disgust. That's why I started boxstar, but it might be a very long time
before it becomes usable in its own right.

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Re: [vdr] How about a small UK/Ireland S28.2E VDR community forum?

2011-05-05 Thread VDR User
On Thu, May 5, 2011 at 8:38 AM, Henning Pingel henn...@henningpingel.de wrote:
 Maybe this could also be a good starting point for building up an English
 language VDR user community forum - starting off with UK/Ireland users. I
 always thought an English language community was missing next to the German
 language VDR portal (www.vdr-portal.de).

There is already a large english-speaking forum located at DVBN.
http://dvbn.happysat.org

There are a lot of VDR and mythtv users there, some of which actually
use yavdr but most who compile VDR themselves.

@Rob Davis:
Don't worry, you're not alone.  There is a huge NA VDR community,
although most of it exists outside of this mailing list and most VDR
forums.  The best place to associate with your kind is likely the
Linux forum at DVBN. :)

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