Suggestion for faster channel switching with STB

[dflachbart]

Hi,

I am using USBIRT with Sage to control my cable box. As a new user I soon discovered the 'problem' of the delay when switching channels within Sage, and read up on this in various threads here in the forum. I understand that channel flipping will never be as fast as before using the PVR, but one thing came to my mind which sounds so simple and easy to implement, but which I could never find anywhere mentioned (if this has been discussed already, I apologize):

For any channel change USBIRT sends 3 single digits to the cable box. Although I was able to minimize this time by tweaking the delay values in Sage.properties, it still takes quite a while until the STB has processed all three digits. Now, I can see that this the only way to change from one channel to any arbitrary one. But what about changing from one channel to the next or previous channel ? On my cablebox (and I would assume on any other too) I can change to the neighbouring channel by pressing 'channel up/down' instead of keying in 2 or 3 digits, and this change happens almost instantaneously. So why doesn't Sage allow to configure two more commands (channel up/down) in addition to (0-9) for channel switching with a remote ? It would send those commands when it detects that the user only switches to the next/previous channel, instead of an arbitrary one.

I could imagine that this way the time for switching could be significantly reduced, and I also guess that changing to the next/previous channel is quite common. What do others think, or am I missing something here ?

Dirk

[Wheemer]

Because Sage's channel line ups can be customized to exclude channels, and with custom channel mapping, it would seem that it may be just too complicated to have Sage make use of the channel up/down.

However I also have a USB-Uirt with 3 SA cable boxes and I can say I am completely satified with the change speed. For me the numbers are blasted immediately after one another and I even follow it with a 4th select command, to remove the STB's on-screen display.

I've tweaked my setup so the first line of my definition files looks like this: SA3200 0 0 3 1 1 Select

Works perfect, and it always tunes to the right channel.

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by Wheemer

Because Sage's channel line ups can be customized to exclude channels, and with custom channel mapping, it would seem that it may be just too complicated to have Sage make use of the channel up/down.

Yeah, I didn't think about this ...

Still not sure if this would be too complicated - SageTV always knows the number of the current channel and the one to change to, and checking if the difference between them is more than 1 should be trivial ... I just had the impression from reading various threads here that slow channel flipping is an often heard complaint from people who are new to PVRs, and even if the response time could only be shortened by a second or less, it would be worth it if it is easy to implement ...

Originally Posted by Wheemer

However I also have a USB-Uirt with 3 SA cable boxes and I can say I am completely satified with the change speed. For me the numbers are blasted immediately after one another and I even follow it with a 4th select command, to remove the STB's on-screen display.

I've tweaked my setup so the first line of my definition files looks like this: SA3200 0 0 3 1 1 Select

Works perfect, and it always tunes to the right channel.

I have an SA 3100 box and tried your settings - nice, it even got a little faster. One question: when I change a channel, the current channel pauses for about a second, then it starts playing again for about the same time, and then Sage finally switches to the new channel ... Is this normal ?


Thanks,
Dirk

[Wheemer]

I do not think that is normal. My playback hickups for just a moment, while the USB-Uirt is blasting. I would guess this time length to be a fraction of a second. Then playback continues, I see the channel numbers appearing and the channel changes.

The whole process take less than 1 complete second.

You are right about people who are new to PVR application are thrown by the time it takes to change the channel. But after using your pvr for a while, and scheduling recordings of all your favorites, you'll notice your "Live TV" watching should diminish.

[Matt-CV]

I also use an SA STB but a 4200 and have been able to live with seeing the channel changes during the first few seconds of play. I will try the select the feature to remove the channel bar.
I rarely watch " live" anymore but almost every show recorded has the channel change bar for the first second or 2.
IF there was an option to just tell Sage to start recording "x milliseconds" after the IR blast, then this would solve me issue for recorded shows.
Sounds too simple, does such an option exist ?

Matt

[ben_95sl1]

Well, it has to start a second or so worth of buffer from livetv as well....adding time to the waiting. You're always watching recorded and that's that. And if you don't have the option of serial control, you just have to live with IR blasting. It just takes a little time to get used to, but most people won't have any need for livetv anymore.

Make favourites, get showanalyzer and dirmon to remove commercials automagically and after some time enable Intelligent recording and you won't look back. Good luck.