Prioritize Tuners?

[cenwesi]

I have 3 tuners. Is there a way to tell SageTV that when it is about to record to go through the list and use tuner #1 first if it is not being used etc. Basically use #1 if not busy then #2 if not busy etc...

[blade]

You need to set the encoder merit. If you're using v6 check page 227 of the manual or just search the pdf for encoder merit. It's pretty straight forward.

[cenwesi]

Ok so if i say...
card #3 - mmc/encoders/1044773580/encoder_merit=0
card #2 - mmc/encoders/1642691032/encoder_merit=1
card #1 - mmc/encoders/551195575/encoder_merit=2

that mean...card#1 will always be the first card that SageTV will use thus making card#3 the last option if all two(2) cards are being used?

[Alfiegerner]

Originally Posted by cenwesi

Ok so if i say...
card #3 - mmc/encoders/1044773580/encoder_merit=0
card #2 - mmc/encoders/1642691032/encoder_merit=1
card #1 - mmc/encoders/551195575/encoder_merit=2

that mean...card#1 will always be the first card that SageTV will use thus making card#3 the last option if all two(2) cards are being used?

Correct .

[mrrrl]

But how do you tell which encoder_merit line is for which encoder? I have 3 PVR-150s but I had a PVR-500 installed at one time so in my sage.properties file it shows 5 encoders.

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by mrrrl

But how do you tell which encoder_merit line is for which encoder? I have 3 PVR-150s but I had a PVR-500 installed at one time so in my sage.properties file it shows 5 encoders.

It's not easy with PVR-150 and 500's. They all show up with the same name in the system. What I did was trial and error, I set up 5 manual recordings at the same time so that all tuners were in use. Then I could unhook the coax from the tuners one at a time to see which tuners were recording what channels. I was also able to go into sage.properties and see the last_channel line for each recorder, mmc/encoders/12346/1/0/last_channel=217, to match up each tuner to a specific encoder.

[cenwesi]

Thanks guys, that worked

[jbarr]

And once you identify them, label the physical slots. This can save lots of headaches later.

As an aside, why can't SageTV let us re-label them? I read the several threads on this subject, and they always point back to registry editing and driver re-installation. SageTV "knows" which tuner is which, so why not simply let us define "aliases"?

[FidgetyRat]

Originally Posted by jbarr

SageTV "knows" which tuner is which, so why not simply let us define "aliases"?

Quite the good question. While you are at it, why can't they allow people in the US to use 24h time instead of the am/pm crap without having to adjust windows into a European format?

Lots of wishful thinking

For my system, it may be an individual case, but my tuners are in-order PCI-wise (by this i mean tuner 1 is closest to my cpu and #3 is furthest) It makes it handy trying to figure out which on will use what line.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by jbarr

And once you identify them, label the physical slots. This can save lots of headaches later.

As an aside, why can't SageTV let us re-label them? I read the several threads on this subject, and they always point back to registry editing and driver re-installation. SageTV "knows" which tuner is which, so why not simply let us define "aliases"?

I have it available as a plugin for the Parallel schedule screen. But not on any other screen yet - sorry.

[Paul H]

I've been trying various tuner cards and now have only two installed, ATI HDTV Wonder & WINTV_HVR 1600. When I look at the SageTV.properties file it shows seven (!), some of the listings appear to be duplicates. Would deleting the ones not installed help things or should I leave things as is?

(I wanted to change the priority to compare tuner quality.)

Paul H