More intuitive way to view live TV?
#1
Is there a way to make live TV viewing in Kodi a little more intuitive? For instance, maybe the 'G' button to bring up the guide instead of "E"? Also, when selecting programs from the guide the choices are a little confusing. I am used to it but I am setting up boxes for a few friends and I know they are going to not understand it right away. In most guides, you should be able to select the program you want to watch and select enter. However, the option to do that is "switch". The other option is "set timer". Are those configurable so that I could set them to be something like "tune" or "watch" and "record" instead of "set timer"?
Server: Synology Diskstation 1511+ with 8x WD Red NAS 3TB drives, DSM 5.2
Main HTPC: Home Built i3, 8GB RAM, Corsair 128GB SSD, nVidia 630GTX, Harmony Home Control, Pioneer VSX-53, Panasonic VT30 65" 3D TV, Windows 10, Isengard
Bedroom HTPC: Zotac-ID 41 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD, Rii micro keyboard remote, Samsung HW-E550, Sony 32" Google TV, OpenElec 6.0 beta 4
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#2
(2015-07-15, 22:54)patseguin Wrote: Is there a way to make live TV viewing in Kodi a little more intuitive? For instance, maybe the 'G' button to bring up the guide instead of "E"?

If you remind yourself that the E is the E in EPG that may help...... otherwise you can edit keyboard.xml to remap the G button to open the guide. http://kodi.wiki/view/Keymap. However, you may then need to remap the current action G performs (if you use it)

(2015-07-15, 22:54)patseguin Wrote: Also, when selecting programs from the guide the choices are a little confusing. I am used to it but I am setting up boxes for a few friends and I know they are going to not understand it right away. In most guides, you should be able to select the program you want to watch and select enter.

Settings --> Live TV --> EPG --> Default Select Action --> Options are: show info, switch to channel, record or context menu

(2015-07-15, 22:54)patseguin Wrote: Are those configurable so that I could set them to be something like "tune" or "watch" and "record" instead of "set timer"?

As above
Kodi 16.1 on main HTPC Win 7 64-bit, 8 GB RAM, Quad Core 2.4 Ghz
3 x Pi2 running Kodi 16.1 (OSMC)
TVHeadend PVR server providing Freeview HD and Freesat HD
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#3
(2015-07-16, 11:48)rlg6767 Wrote:
(2015-07-15, 22:54)patseguin Wrote: Are those configurable so that I could set them to be something like "tune" or "watch" and "record" instead of "set timer"?

As above

I think he means changing the menu options literals

certainly "set timer" is not very fortunate as a command name

however, this is truly a timer setting, not a record action as I understand a record action should be, so.. does not really matter. usability will be poor anyway. I still dont know how to record the current show and did not find any way to map the red-circle button in my remote to do something as simple as just "record"
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#4
@VictorG to record whatever you're watching now you press Record while in full screen. The default keymap should have that mapped.
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#5
(2015-07-16, 21:06)negge Wrote: @VictorG to record whatever you're watching now you press Record while in full screen. The default keymap should have that mapped.

Nope, not in my case. Yes i checked the remote keys mapping and yes it was mapped to "record" action, but it does nothing. In any case, if i ever record something i dont notice also cos there is no any skin that displays properly the recording status. They should show a RED circle icon like cameras do. But it looks like is too much asking.

Kodi UX for tv is really crappy.
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#6
There should be a "Recording started" notification shown if you press Record while in fullscreen, and if you open the info OSD there will be a red recording icon, plus the Record button will be red. Same thing in the channel list and EPG view (red icon).

Quote:But it looks like is too much asking.

Kodi is made by volunteers so pretty much everything is too much to ask, especially since you didn't pay for it.
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#7
(2015-07-17, 05:58)negge Wrote: There should be a "Recording started" notification shown if you press Record while in fullscreen, and if you open the info OSD there will be a red recording icon, plus the Record button will be red. Same thing in the channel list and EPG view (red icon).

Quote:But it looks like is too much asking.

Kodi is made by volunteers so pretty much everything is too much to ask, especially since you didn't pay for it.

I know that and I appreciate, but I think the team should listen the critics if they really want to create a good product.

Here everybody has a grand-grand mother that uses the kodi remote as seamlessly as her sonotone. Similar to those brothers-in-law that claim that they normally do that driving trip in 1h relaxed when you need 2h at illegal speeds.

No, I don't receive notifications of recording, sometimes I receive it minutes later or just nothing. There is no red icons generally except in Confluence skin, which is kind of old fashioned skin, I don't like it. I don´t display OSD in live TV cos I had more need for the Context Menu, so I mapped my "i" button to context instead of OSD. Or maybe is the opposite, I don't know cos we have 3 f subscreens on TV and I don't know who is who: the playback controls, the info screen, the context menu... whereas in WMC this was simpler, here we dont have enough buttons in the remote to control that mess.

Again, the default mapping of "Record" button in remote does nothing in my case, I tried to map to other keyboard strokes but I don't see much info around. I can not say if it works or not because sometimes looks like it launches a recording, or it launches late, or I dont know.

Besides that I think in a better recording status showing the red circle icon permanently on live TV screen, like a video camera does, as the only effective way to know if we are recording live or not, but I'm not sure where to address the proposal, because of the grand-grand mothers of the talented developers, these things look like not important...

so... I think that's overall the situation

Regards
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#8
(2015-07-17, 05:58)negge Wrote: There should be a "Recording started" notification shown if you press Record while in fullscreen, and if you open the info OSD there will be a red recording icon, plus the Record button will be red. Same thing in the channel list and EPG view (red icon).
I can confirm what @VictorG sees: it takes some minutes to get the notification and the red dot although the recording starts instantly.
So for the user it looks like the record button does not work while it actually records.

Other people also have reported that problem:
157534 (thread)
210175 (thread)
230003 (thread)
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#9
The fact that it takes time before a started recording is reflected in the GUI is an addon issue and you'll have to report it to whoever maintains your addon. It sounds like the addon doesn't force Kodi to refresh its list of recordings and timers when one is added.
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#10
(2015-07-20, 12:14)negge Wrote: The fact that it takes time before a started recording is reflected in the GUI is an addon issue and you'll have to report it to whoever maintains your addon. It sounds like the addon doesn't force Kodi to refresh its list of recordings and timers when one is added.
Wow! NextPVR, MediaPortal, DVBLink and propably ServerWMC for @VictorG are all that bad?!
Thank God i don't use this functionality Big Grin
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