Re: Manager wanted

mike_gain · ‎08-01-2011

PrinterElf wrote:
Reading that lot makes my returning to safety critical software design after writing this a doddle!

To summarise for anyone that's just hammered the Page Down key:

Both of them seem to want Opt-In Global Padding (of a user configurable duration. 0 is a valid duration!)

Feel sorry for the poor sod like me who has to write and read safety critical designs!!!!

As for wanting global opt-in I thought I didn't think this was what I was after at all. I'd just rather leave everything as is.

@scott: how are you recording and not getting the option to add padding? I am only assuming that you do not want to run into the scenario already described. If you want that that then you are correct that choice isn't obvious.

Phil_C · ‎02-09-2011

mike_gain wrote:
PrinterElf wrote:
Reading that lot makes my returning to safety critical software design after writing this a doddle!

To summarise for anyone that's just hammered the Page Down key:

Both of them seem to want Opt-In Global Padding (of a user configurable duration. 0 is a valid duration!)

As for wanting global opt-in I thought I didn't think this was what I was after at all. I'd just rather leave everything as is.

And therein lies the foundation of your lengthy arguments. Of the people who have expressed an opinion in the forum (not this thread) about global padding, there are two groups. One group wants to leave everything as it is now (pre-update); i.e. it doesn't exist. You are in that group. The other group wants global padding. There is absolutely nothing wrong with both desires. What I've been saying all along is that confiurable global padding would cater for everyone (both groups). For the first group, it would allowing it to be turned off, or the values to be set to zero, and it will also cater for the second group by allowing the amount of padding to be set. That's all I've been saying about global padding.

If we are having global padding, which we are, then you *do* want it to be configurable, so that you can either turn it off or set the values to zero. Unfortunately, that's not what we are being given.

mike_gain · ‎08-01-2011

>> There is absolutely nothing wrong with both desires

Except that the request for global padding is made in the belief that it will solve the problem....I have shown that it will not and it will create more probleems when it is turned on no matter what values are used....unless you turn it off and we are back to where we are at the moment so WHY BOTHER DEVELOPING IT IN THE FIRST PLACE?

It is not like debateing over the background colour where there is no correct answer.....I have shown 3 reasons why global padding is a bad idea.

Phil_C · ‎02-09-2011

Global padding is a great idea. What's bad about the update's version of it is that it isn't configurable. Non-configurable global padding is very bad, and will never suit all users. I really don't know where whoever came up with it got his/her brains from.

All you have shown is that non-configurable global padding won't suit everyone, but we knew that long before this thread was started.

mike_gain · ‎08-01-2011

>> All you have shown is that non-configurable global padding won't suit everyone, but we knew that long before this thread was started

In my example my user first configures his padding to 2 minutes before and 2 minutes after (not what is going to be deliverd in 15.2). They then configure it to 0 before and 0 after. You can replace 2 minutes at either end with whatever value you want it does not change the outcome.

Phil_C · ‎02-09-2011

Which post was that in?

Phil_C · ‎02-09-2011

I found the post and i replied to it at the time.

Imo, the example isn't valid for this discussion, because there's no way round it. It's a scenario contrived for this discussion. It could happen once in a while but c'est la vie. It was the same with the V+ and I haven't seen anyone saying there was anything wrong with its configurable global padding. In fact, peaople have been asking for global padding like the V+ has.

mike_gain · ‎08-01-2011

>> Imo, the example isn't valid for this discussion, because there's no way round it

Funny that I can get round it on a Tuesday night, Wednesday night and a Saturday night. On Tuesday night I have 3 tuners busy between 7 and 10. There is no way round it if you try to pad all the recordings (as a global padding would do). Hardly contrived when all I have provided is an example to try and record 2 programmes at a time while watching live TV. I could change it to recording 1 between 8-9 and 2 between 9-10, you'd still get a message popping up during your live broadcast simply because you are needing 4 tuners for a minute or so du to excessive padding,

Phil_C · ‎02-09-2011

mike_gain wrote:

Funny that I can get round it on a Tuesday night, Wednesday night and a Saturday night.

Well there you go then. There is a way round it, as you explained. So why are you continuing to argue about it? The answer is simple. For those occasions, you simply remove the individual padding for the programmes that would overlap with padding on - just like you now add padding for individual BBC programmes. No problem?

mike_gain wrote:

There is no way round it if you try to pad all the recordings (as a global padding would do).

There you go again. I never said, "global padding". I always said, "configurable global padding", which means it can be set to zero or turned off. However, the fact that the global padding would be configurable is irrelevant for your example. The fact that you can set the padding for individual programmes is highly relevant, though, so you'd just set a programme's padding to zero when required - just like you currently set BBC programmmes to have padding when required. Simples.

mike_gain · ‎08-01-2011

>>The fact that you can set the padding for individual programmes is highly relevant, though, so you'd just set a programme's padding to zero when required - just like you currently set BBC programmmes to have padding when required. Simples

So why bother with anything global then? You wouldn't be able to use TiVO with global padding ON and OFF at the same time. The are mutually exclusive. To avoid the problem I have described it would have to be OFF (and correct me if I am mistaken but you seem to agree). More than that it would really need to be OFF from the start, otherwise you'd need to turn it OFF when you encountered said problem (as this would appear to be the only solution to the problem) then go through your recordings/series links and remove (and in a small amount of cases add ) padding. What a great user experience.

I get that you are saying that becasue it can be turned off then there is no problem but you seem to be saying that there is no problem having it on. I repeat again why bother developing it as a solution if the only way it should be used is in the OFF configuration with fine grained padding added for those recordings that happen to be broadcast by one of the offending channel? It's no use saying configure the global padding values to 0 either as you do need padding in a few cases

In reality very few recordings (channels if I'm honest) need padding, padding is the exception not the norm. If padding every recording was not an issue then the solution provided in the 15.2 release would be fine as it makes no difference if the values are 1 at the start and 4 at the end or 1 at both ends, you're still padding every recording which is excessive.