[mythtvnz] Auto-shutdown with front-end running?

[Matt Poff]

Seems that auto-shutdown will not trigger if the  front-end is  running 
but I have my environment auto start MythTV on power-up as I want the 
box to be as simple to use as possible for other family. I guess I could 
map some remote key to fire up the front-end if the system has 
auto-started for a scheduled recording but ideally I'd not like to 
expose the Window Manager at all.

Wondering if anyone has anyone configured a system to detect a period of 
inactivity in the frontend and allow auto-shutdown with it running and 
if so how did you go about it? If not, are there any other good 
workarounds you're using?

I guess you could run a background process capturing the interval 
between user triggered events and shutting down  the front-end when this 
interval exceeds a preset. The backend would be configured to shutdown 5 
or so minutes later. Problem is this might interfere with imminent 
scheduled recordings.