Newbie question on switching between video sources

[rogerwilker]

Is there any way to set one video source(tuner card) as the main viewing source? Sometimes after booting up, the card selected as primary video source will not be the one displaying the channels. I could find no way to switch to the other card as the source. I had to remove the tuner from the setup so it would not be the main source for the tv.

Is it possible to switch between video sources? Have two cards;each has cable in;one is direct from the comcast cable box(so have to set tv tuner to channel three and watch the channel that the cable box is set to in order to get hbo, etc to the pc). The other card has cable running to it that has been split off before the cable box so that can select any of the channels 2-81 on this tuner.

However, can't find a way to switch between video sources(tuners).

Did I miss something? What? Thanks.

[Opus4]

There is a mmc/encoders/<some number>/encoder_merit property to tell SageTV which tuner should have priority, when all else is equal. If you use this, you would probably want to set the analog input's merit to the higher value so that shared channels would usually record from that one. Then, unless 2 recordings are already under way, the STB would be available for channels only it can receive.

But, you can't tell SageTV: "use tuner X now for channel N". It automatically chooses which tuner to use for a selected channel & starts recording.

- Andy

[rogerwilker]

So how do people record and watch multiple channels without being able to select the video source?

[Opus4]

You don't need to tell sageTV what source to use for a recording -- you just set the show to be recorded & SageTV automatically handles scheduling so that the recording gets assigned to an available tuner. If there are no available tuners, you'll get some sort of conflict notification. Favorites are rescheduled for another airing of the same show, when possible.

- Andy

[rogerwilker]

So, how do you handle a situation where one of the cards is connected to a cable/satelite box that you want to do the channel selection. This would mean that the turner would have to be set on channel 3 and selection of the channel would be from the cable box.

How do you do that?

[ke6guj]

If you set up Sage properly, it will automatically change the channel on the cable box automatically. As long as you set upt the sources correctly in the beginning, Sage has the ability to controll all the tuners in the cards, and via an "IR-blaster" or serial cable, can also change the channel on a cable/satellite STB.

Once it is set up, you should never manually change channels on the STB, Sage will take care of it automatically.

[waylo]

I have two OTA ATSC HD receivers. One is a VBox DTA-150, the other the ATI HDTV Wonder. The VBox has consistently given me better reception (and much less headache!). Is there a way to select the VBox to use all the time, and the ATI only kicks in if there are 2 recordings going on at the same time?

They're not in the same computer currently. But at one time they were, and the ATI was the 'primary' card used. What a waste.

[Opus4]

Did you read about the encoder merit property in the 2nd post of this topic?

- Andy

[waylo]

I see, thanks. I'll try this when I switch the cards back into a single computer.

Is the merit change done directly in SageTV, or through utilities such as Radlight filter manager or Directshow Filter Manager?

EDIT

Oh, never mind, found it after doing a forum search. Thanks opus4.