HD Flag Priority?

[Fuzzy]

I have both HD and SD cards in my server. I would like to be able to have the HD flag affect encoder priority, to save space. i.e. I would like my HD cards to be lowest priority, unless the particular program is in HD (as shown by the HD flag in the Guide). In this case, I would like it to be highest priority. This would allow HD programs to be recorded on the HD encoder, but if an SD program is playing on that channel, it will use the SD equivalent channel instead. Recording SD programs from the HD broadcast wastes a LOT of space, and also takes a LONG time to run ShowAnalyzer on. Anyone discover a way to do this? Is there a way for this to be implemented in a future release? Maybe something in sage.properties like:

mmc/encoders/...HD_Card.../encoder_SDmerit=0
mmc/encoders/...HD_Card.../encoder_HDmerit=1

mmc/encoders/...SD_Card.../encoder_SDmerit=1
mmc/encoders/...SD_Card.../encoder_HDmerit=0

[Fuzzy]

I guess I'm the only once who's noticed this problem... I really see it in my South Park recording, because a local channel broadcasts 2 episodes a night, over their HD feed, so it ends up taking up huge space... (my south park recordings are 84GB so far...)

[Fuzzy]

Been a while since I posted this lonely message, but is there any chance of this getting put on the feature list at some point? While most new shows are broadcast in HD, I really wish i had a method of preventing SD shows from recording from the HD broadcast.

[Razillian]

I believe I read in one of the updates for V6 that HD content will now take precedence over SD content, regardless of the encoder merit. So in theory if you set you SD only cards to a merit of 5 and your HD cards to 0, the SD cards would be the ones used to record SD content, but when Sage detected HD content it would use one of your HD cards, even with the lower merit. If that makes sense(?)

[Fuzzy]

I'll have to check this out. I was under the impression that this just put HD channels above SD channels, and that it didn't look at whether the individual PROGRAM was in HD or not... I'll experiment and find out...

[GoldenTiger]

What if I am using version 5.0.4 still? Is there a way to make it record in SD, but if an HD version is available, to take precedence over the SD tuners to get the HD version of the show (without recording both versions, and just grabbing the HD one)?

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by GoldenTiger

What if I am using version 5.0.4 still? Is there a way to make it record in SD, but if an HD version is available, to take precedence over the SD tuners to get the HD version of the show (without recording both versions, and just grabbing the HD one)?

The only way I was able to do it pre-6.0 was by setting the favorites to be by channel only. For instance, I had a favorite for South Park for comedy central, and a seperate South Park favorite for Channel 9 (local, airs South Park reruns). This prevented it from recording on 9-1 HD broadcast. A lot more cumbersome though... The new asystem i 6.0 seems to work great so far.

[GoldenTiger]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

The only way I was able to do it pre-6.0 was by setting the favorites to be by channel only. For instance, I had a favorite for South Park for comedy central, and a seperate South Park favorite for Channel 9 (local, airs South Park reruns). This prevented it from recording on 9-1 HD broadcast. A lot more cumbersome though... The new asystem i 6.0 seems to work great so far.

What I mean is, say there's an airing of the exact same show, both HD on the HD subchannel and normal on the regular channel. I have a favorite for, let's say, The Simpsons. Simpsons airs on both the normal analog channel into my SDTV tuners, and in HD to my HD Home Run. How do I tell it to use the HD tuner and not record with the SD tuner in that case, but if the HD tuner is taken, to go ahead and record in SD in that case? It's good that, per your post, you can stop it from recording on different channels, but I just want to have the HD tuner take priority over the SD tuner, basically, if it's available on both at the same time.

Just to clarify, SageTV v5.0.4 *can* record HD programming through an HDhomerun, right?

[GoldenTiger]

[Fuzzy]

If you just want it to always prefer the HD card over the SD card, you have to assign the HD card a higher merit. This should work fine in version 5. My original point of the thread was to prefer the HD card for HD content only, and prefer the SD card for non HD content. I was tired of Family Guy taking up massive space on the harddrive. Upgrading to the most recent version has done this for me. I have the HD card a the lowest merit, but it still records HD shows on it before the SD cards. Now, if only my program guide had the same descriptions for both channels, so that it doesn't record BOTH, thinking that they are different episodes.

[tmiranda]

You can do what that in two different ways depending on how you have mapped your HD channels. Let's suppose you have Fox SD and Fox HD (on the HDHR).

1. If you have mapped Fox HD to the same channel as Fox SD set the "merit" of the HDHR to be higher than the SD tuner. (Where I live Fox SD is channel 12. So in this case both the SD tuner and HDHR "see" fox on channel 12).

2. If you have mapped Fox HD to a different channel than Fox SD limit your favorite to the HD channel. (Many cable companies will have the HD equivalent of the SD channels above channel 100.)

Tom

[flavius]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

If you just want it to always prefer the HD card over the SD card, you have to assign the HD card a higher merit...

Just wondering: Are you doing any transcoding of HD shows to your MVP in high quality?

[Fuzzy]

Yes, I am watching HD recordings on my MVP. Just recently though, after an upgrade of the Server. (my sig has my old server hardware, haven't gotten around to upgrading it). The new hardware is an Athlon64 X2 4400+. Plenty fast enough to do the transcoding. Wasn't even close to possibl with the Athlon XP 3000+ that was in there before.

[flavius]

That's high quality, correct? Since *Standard* I can do with my Sempron 3000* today.-

[Fuzzy]

Yeah, high quality. Works pretty good, for the little I've tested it.

[flavius]

Great. Now - are you overclocking?

[Fuzzy]

Overclocking? no... The processor is plenty fast enough to to the transcoding, handle recording from multiple channels, handle a software RAID 5 array, and run 3 instances of ShowAnalyser that keeps up wiht the recordings. The processor was overkill when I bought it, but I needed a new MB, and it was a package deal.

[flavius]

Well, I have to replace my server and have been looking for a CPU that would be able to handle the transcoding.