Multi-Tuner bug in 1.4.7 Beta

[fidget]

I was watching a show that was being recorded when, ten minutest before it was done, I decided to do some channel surfing. I entered a channel number and my second tuner dutifully tuned to the new station. The problem that I had was when I pressed the "return to previous" button, a definite "cut" happened in the recorded MPEG stream as if the second tuner re-tuned to the channel that it was already recording. To verify this problem, I tuned to another channel then jumped back to the one being recorded. The "cut" was present again. The next time, before jumping back to the recorded show, I verified that the first show was indeed begin recorded. I then changed channels twice and went to check the channel guide. For some reason, my show was no longer being recorded, even though there was five minutes left in the broadcast.

My guess as to what is happening:

On a multi-tuner system, SageTV will try to use one of the idle tuners to tune to the new station before leaving the current one (I've seen this when surfing and looking through the guide). The show that was being recorded to be marked as "Watched" because I was watching the show as it was being recorded. Because I was "close enough" to the end of the show when I started surfing, the tuner that was being used for recording was marked as available for channel surfing. When I changed channels, it used the second tuner, but when I changed back it used the first tuner and retuned to the channel that was already being recorded (thus the "cut"). When I changed the channel twice, the second tuner was used and then the first was tuned to the new channel. Since it was no longer tuned to the show being recorded, it was cleared. My guess is that if I would have access the show being recorded via some method other than selecting the "Sage X" entry in the guide then I would not have experienced the problem.

I don't know if this problem existed in 1.4.5 Beta. I remember watching a show and not being able to delete it until I selected it from the recording list and and skipping through the recording (it already had the Watched attribute set). That may have been due to the way I selected the show (maybe via "Live TV" rather than using the guide). I don't remember trying to surf while I was recording one show and the other tuner was idle.

I hope this information is useful.

- Jonathan

[Narflex]

Thanks for the feedback.

This is not a bug; it is how the software is designed.

The only way a tuner will lock itself into recording a show is if it is a Manual Record (yellow), Favorite (white) or someone is currently watching it. Everything else is considered 'intelligent recording'.

[fidget]

This was a "Favorite" recording.

[fidget]

I have been able to force the problem to occur. Once there is less than five minutes left inrecording a "Favorites" broadcast, I have been able to set the "Watched" flag before the show has been completely recorded. I don't know if everything is necessary, but I was able to get the Guide to show the program as "Watched" if I moved the view point to the end of what had been recorded. At five minutes left, the "Watched" flag was not set, but withing 15 seconds it was set. In that 15 seconds, I moved the replay point toward the start of the show and then back to the end of what had been recorded.

I don't know if the 15 seconds was the magic point or if it was my moving the replay point toward the start of the show. I don't think it was my changing to the guide because the first time it happened I noticed it before going to the guide and seeing the show being marked as "Watched."

- Jonathan

[fidget]

It appears that, if you are recording (and watching) a Favorite show and are keeping up with the recording, the first time the scheduler runs with less than 5 mintues remaining to be recorded will set the show to Watched.