Feedback wanted on default behaviour for remote buttons

Why would anyone want to do "big skips" on time shifted tv?? Unless you've paused the tv for 2 hours and want to skip to the start lol... In which case any normal person would have pushed record.

Large skip for tv is useless and not needed.

I think thats the point; the whole large skip/small skip niff naff isn't needed any more if we had Mediaportal style skipping, where each press increments the skip value is sensible steps - so you just have two buttons for all skipping needs..

(2012-11-14 21:46)loggio Wrote:  Large skip for tv is useless and not needed.

I'd tend to agree with this, yet I find myself using it almost daily. I think some of it has to do with semi-frequent crashes and having to find my spot again in a show, but I also find myself skipping over halftime in a recorded football game or things like that. I'm not familiar with Mediaportal type skipping but it sounds like it may help in those situations just as well.

It may just be me but I never want to change a channel up or down. With the time it takes to actually change a channel combined with the vast number of channels it's all but useless. If I didn't already have buttons labeled channel up/down on my remote I'd be completely happy without having a button to do it and always going through the EPG. I can see the argument for getting rid of up/down as skip skips but I think channel up/down isn't the right thing to replace it with as it's so rarely used.

apnar... you're talking about watching a recorded TV show... In which case large skips and small skips act just like watching any other media on XBMC and will never change... this is the functionality you WANT in this instance.

On the other hand we're talking about watching the live tv stream, and scanning through the buffer in order to rewind/fast-forward LIVE TV. this functionality is called Timeshift.

They're utilized quite differently by the user, and simply put you will never want to make a LARGE skip backward while watching live tv. Most people "pause" live tv to go to the toilet during an ad break. then when they get back, they can fast faward past the ads. At least, that's all i've ever used it for.

Cheers,
Loggio.

I was actually talking about both. I've had use cases where I'll be watching a football game live, pause it to go grab some food, come back and continue. When I reach half time I'll do a couple large skips and get closer to live. Or if I forget to pause a show and get called away I'll do a large skip back to find where I left off.

I'm not saying it's common, but it's much more common then I ever use channel up/down.

It seems like the default small skip/large skip direction pad behavior is vestigial from XBMC's XBOX roots, where this was a logical use of the analog pad. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't think of any consumer electronic device where the arrow pad is used this way. Up/Down working as they do only makes sense because there is nothing else for them to do in most current full screen video views.

Like others, I'm a long term XBMC user, and I've gotten used to this behavior on my Harmony and come to expect it. However, I've never seen anyone else intuitively use my remote this way, and (even after years with XBMC) my wife still uses the Fast Forward/Rew keys to move forward and backwards in the stream. I doubt many users find this functionality right away.

Most PVRs I've used use Up/Down to bring up a navigation mode, where the user can browse what is on other channels without bringing up a full screen guide. If you want the PVR functionality to be intuitive to users familiar with other PVRs, this is probably the best way to implement it. If, instead, you want it to be intuitive to the smaller number of users with a long history with XBMC, I would move keep the skip functionality and map channel browsing to Channel Up/Channel Down.

Quote:Most PVRs I've used use Up/Down to bring up a navigation mode, where the user can browse what is on other channels without bringing up a full screen guide.

I have been selling PVRs since the move to digital when they first came out. The point about existing PVRs allowing users to 'surf' a mini EPG (banner at the bottom of the screen) is a very good one. As it has been suggested, it would seem more beneficial for users who are already accustomed to PVRs to use this existing PVR architecture.

On most PVRs, the user can, of course, just bring up the full EPG to 'surf' and select from there as well.

I´ve configured skip next and previous tracks as "small skip" -buttons for my Humax PVR on Harmony remote. It´s very handy when jumping over commercials etc. I don´t know why this wouldn´t work also in XBMC? You don´t have any use for skip -buttons when watching TV anyway?

I used to have my skips setup to 30 seconds foward and 8 seconds back. Perfect for correcting that "oops, I skipped too far but I don't need to go a full 30 seconds in reverse". I need to dig out my config files and find that again.

You know, maybe I should start a thread where we can post our PVR related keybord/remote.xml files. I heard someone got the record button working while watching LiveTV.

I would prefer this:

UP = Bring up channellist and select previous channel in the list, other presses will go up in the list, eg from channel 9 to 8
DOWN = Bring up channellist and select next channel in the list, other presses will go down in the list, eg from channel 9 to 10
LEFT = Change channel group while in channellist
RIGHT = Change channel group while in channellist



(NOT 100% sure on this one)
LEFT = Display OSD from previous channel and when pressing OK go to that channel, you can browse the channels without channellist open, multiple presses goes back in the channels
RIGHT = Display OSD from next channel and when pressing OK go to that channel, you can browse the channels without channellist open, multiple presses goes forward in the channels



CHAN + = Go directly to next channel
CHAN - = Go directly to previous channel

GUIDE = Show some sort of guide, full or mini, i prefer mini

1,4,7 = Skip back according to their values, eg 5sec, 60sec, 5min, but user definable
3,6,9 = Skip forward according to their values, eg 5sec, 60sec, 5min, but user definable

>> = Fast forward
<< = Rewind

>>| = Skip to next marker
|<< = Skip to previous marker