4 ms·

I always thought about putting multiple tuners in the box, and just decoding multiple channels simultaneously. Then to switch a channel you would just "put anot

I always thought about putting multiple tuners in the box, and just decoding multiple channels simultaneously. Then to switch a channel you would just "put another window in the front". You could have a predictive system that would decode the three most likely next channels and start decoding them. In the best case, this would move the latency of the first switch close to zero, and of subsequent switches to 1/2 or 1/3. To save energy, you could get one of these fancy remotes that they have for telefone conferences, that can detect when you pick it up. Once you lift the remote, start the extra tuners.

gowld 8y ago
Doesn't this already exist, and that's how picture-in-picture works?
sjm-lbm 8y ago
I have a (pretty old) TiVo that lets you do something similar to this - there's some button on the remote (I honestly can't remember what it is called) that lets you cycle between the tuners. It works pretty much like you describe - if a bit more manually - and has the added benefit of not requiring you to type a multi digit channel number every time you want to hop between your favorite channels.
- wkearney99 8y ago
  Current models have six live tuners. All running a buffer for whatever channel is tuned on each. Works fantastically well. There's a "Live TV" button on the remote than cycles through them, or you can manually poke through a quick submenu to jump right to one in particular.
FooHentai 8y ago
The 'EE TV' boxes in the UK work in this way. You pick your top channels (up to 4, I think) and it PVRs the lot continuously.
rasz 8y ago
Afaik the delay is not in tuning per se, but in waiting for first decoded valid mpeg segment with I frame, and those are usually 1 per second? What could be done, on the cheap, Cable provider wide is authoritative server ready to give you arbitrarily generated I frames with 1/60 time resolution on demand, as most cable boxes nowadays are two way anyway (they need upstream link to transmit all the spyin^^^ channel usage statistics back).

gowld 8y ago

Doesn't this already exist, and that's how picture-in-picture works?

sjm-lbm 8y ago

I have a (pretty old) TiVo that lets you do something similar to this - there's some button on the remote (I honestly can't remember what it is called) that lets you cycle between the tuners. It works pretty much like you describe - if a bit more manually - and has the added benefit of not requiring you to type a multi digit channel number every time you want to hop between your favorite channels.

wkearney99 8y ago
Current models have six live tuners. All running a buffer for whatever channel is tuned on each. Works fantastically well. There's a "Live TV" button on the remote than cycles through them, or you can manually poke through a quick submenu to jump right to one in particular.

FooHentai 8y ago

The 'EE TV' boxes in the UK work in this way. You pick your top channels (up to 4, I think) and it PVRs the lot continuously.

rasz 8y ago

Afaik the delay is not in tuning per se, but in waiting for first decoded valid mpeg segment with I frame, and those are usually 1 per second? What could be done, on the cheap, Cable provider wide is authoritative server ready to give you arbitrarily generated I frames with 1/60 time resolution on demand, as most cable boxes nowadays are two way anyway (they need upstream link to transmit all the spyin^^^ channel usage statistics back).