What UI would you like to see and how would it behave?

[soccerdad]

Unfortunately, the dvbs here is history for the most part, but one thing I wished it had was "mappingless" section that you can just scan and watch channels without mapping. Just like when you get a new TV. You scan and are ready to go. DVBDream and mytheatre do this. What ever is scanned is just put into the list and you can watch them. Unfortunately the guide has to be mapped so you can record, but just for watching, it was great and easy. Maybe just another button from the main screen. Basically it would just give you raw channels that you can look at from config available in the user interface. Then perhaps let you pick favorites or delete ones you don't want directly from the interface.

Another idea would be a way to use VLC for playback. I know it is not directshow, but if I ever have a playback issue with a file, i just launch it in VLC and it usually works. No codec hell.

[sub]

Unfortunately, the dvbs here is history for the most part, but one thing I wished it had was "mappingless" section that you can just scan and watch channels without mapping.

I'm thinking about reversing the mapping, much like you suggest, so the user sets up their capture source, then scans for channels - and the found channels are then ready to watch. They'd of course have no EPG though, until the user selected a EPG channel for that digital channel. Currently we do the reverse behaviour, based on the EPG channels, but the user cant watch the channel until the mapping is performed.

[re-Barr]

I'm thinking about reversing the mapping, much like you suggest, so the user sets up their capture source, then scans for channels - and the found channels are then ready to watch. They'd of course have no EPG though, until the user selected a EPG channel for that digital channel. Currently we do the reverse behaviour, based on the EPG channels, but the user cant watch the channel until the mapping is performed.

This was the most difficult part of setting up my box originally... I just wanted to get to a point where I could watch tv and I had to configure all of the epg et al just to use the program. I think that this would make it easier for new users.

[Snooze]

How about the TV Guide showing the Virtual channel number (as silicondust calls it) instead of the guide number? Maybe it could be done in config on the channels tab so we can number them 6.2, 13.3, 10.2, etc. and it would sort them in order like my HDTV 6, 6.1, 6.2, 7 etc.

[soccerdad]

I second the caller id.

[JonnyCam]

Yeah, more graceful handling of a client starting up and the server is not up - maybe a popup like the no tuner available one where you could say Start Local, or quit if the server was not found.

Quick record set for a set tuner. I'm thinking hit a button on the remote when not watching anything and it will start recording - not sure who else would use this, but I'm thinking of my sky analog input - press the button and it records whatever is coming through the svideo input.

[highestbid]

this isnt really UI -- but how tough would it be to not go the the BIG RED X when you hit live TV on a client and the server is slow/doesnt respond? I am having a hard time selling client server to the rest of the family already because of the longer startup/slower channel change and big red X to non-computer family is pretty much same as the Blue Scrren of Death :-)

[mvallevand]

I think livetv without mapping might be overrated. I can do this now easily with the Web Radio plugin (as I do it for digital radio) using either sub's DirectShow or VLC but with QAM a big list of files like 34.76, 67.1245 etc is still very painful, kind of like WinTV

Martin

[sub]

I think livetv without mapping might be overrated.

Its just one of the many things I'm intending to do for the next release. In itself its not a huge deal, but will be useful to a segment of users, and will make the general process a bit easier to understand for new users.

[whurlston]

The ability to record analog to TS instead of PS files for devices that support that option. (You may have already planned on implementing this but reminding you just in case.)