Re: [minutes] TV Control WG call - 2016-10-18

I wanted to chime in on this item from the meeting notes

   Steve: I think the shape of the API as is currently crafted is
   mostly correct.
   ... I think what we're saying is that we want another method
   that says "can I tune in to this channel?", or "what
   capabilities are still available?".
   ... Perhaps "How many more HD channels can I present?", "How
   many more FM radio channels can I tune to?"
   ... I'm not sure about the shape of the API for that part.
   ... I haven't thought about that too much.

We had an device that included a "Resource Management" function, that had some methods like...

Integer getMaximumCapacity( [RESOURCE_TYPE_PLAYER, RESOURCE_TYPE_RECORDER, RESOURCE_TYPE_TUNER_DVBS, RESOURCE_TYPE_TUNER_DVBT, RESOURCE_TYPE_TUNER_DVBC] )

Integer getAvailableCapacity( [RESOURCE_TYPE_PLAYER, RESOURCE_TYPE_RECORDER, RESOURCE_TYPE_TUNER_DVBS, RESOURCE_TYPE_TUNER_DVBT, RESOURCE_TYPE_TUNER_DVBC] )

These allowed the application to, somewhat coarsely, determine if another HTMLMedia element could be created and attached to a resource (note "RESOURCE_TYPE_PLAYER" referred to "decoder" since we treated decode functions separately from resource functions), this if you wanted to present a DVB-T channel, you first needed to check
  if getAvailableCapacity( RESOURCE_TYPE_TUNER_DVBT ) >= 1
&& getAvailableCapacity( RESOURCE_TYPE_PLAYER ) >= 1

There was some more specific fine graining on top of this, but using this approach of having the application asking the implemention (browser) meant that we did not care which tuner or decode function is used in the playout (or record) pipeline.


Paul