Subject: From: Date:

RE: [ECS] TVL Usages Michael David Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:33:44 -0500

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Hi Carl!

Early on, I had ECS really close to doing some way cool stuff with the TVL
info.  I never found the time work out all the bugs, but it was 90%
functional.  Since then, Mark has improved and streamlined the TVL stuff
quite a bit - and still - I can't find the time to go rewrite my events to
take advantage of his improvements.  So, I can only tell what it was close
to doing, and what I hope to have it do again soon.  :)

1) Download DSS and 4DTV listings from the web each day.  Cable modem - what
the heck.

2) At 20, 28, 50, and 58 minutes past the hour, announce our favorite
upcoming shows (up to 20 total) that may be coming on, based on the info in
the tvlfavs.txt file.

3) Display the titles of those upcoming shows on ACE buttons, which allowed
us to pick (by button press) which of the upcoming shows we wanted to watch.

4) When the time came, ECS would switch the appropriate satellite receiver
to the proper satellite and transponder, and make the necessary routing to
switch the TV's in the house to source from that same receiver.

5) Then the titles of the upcoming shows would transfer to a different set
of ACE buttons that display the current shows.  Using these buttons, we
could select an alternate program, if the one we chose happened to be a
rerun, or was preempted.

6) If we didn't initially hit a button to pick an upcoming show, ECS just
tuned to the first one in the list,  If we weren't home, ECS would record
the first title.  I had planned to ask Mark if there was a way to designate
a priority level (separate for watching and recording) to each of the titles
the shows listed in the TVLFAVS file.  Using this priority level, ECS could
then make the best likely choice when automatically selecting a program to
watch or record.  Just never got around to asking him about that either.
Hey Mark, what do you think?

7) My hope was to eventually get this system working on a multi-user basis,
so each of us could have our own list of favorites, and each of our
televisions would be routed to the receiver displaying our personal choice.
Never had time to get there either.  :)

So, what's TVL good for?  For us, it did a great job of helping us to not
miss our favorite shows.  With two separate satellite systems, there's a lot
of program guide to go through just to spot something we want to watch.
That ritual used to take me at least five minutes each half hour, which
invariably meant I'd miss the first few minutes of something.  In recent
times, it just got to the point where it was too much effort to go through
the guides and make a choice, so the TV would just sit on one channel most
of the night (often the Sci-Fi channel).

So, my personal opinion is that TVL is darn handy, and an awesome addition
to ECS!

Cheers!

Michael David
michael@michaeldavid.com


-----Original Message-----
From: ckeyes [mailto:ckeyes@california.com]
Sent: Monday, November 29, 1999 9:18 PM
To: ECS-List
Subject: [ECS] TVL Usages


Hi,

Anyone care to share how they make
use of TVL downloads?

Thanks,

Carl

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