Recorder Order of Precedence

[wolfpackmars2]

I have a dual tuner on my Sage box, and recently I've configured one of the tuners to use my digital cable box, the other tuner tunes only the analog channels. It seems that Sage is using the tuner connected to the cable box as the primary... thus, it is always recording something when I want to watch a premium channel, or I could be in the middle of watching a premium channel, and get a message stating that the channel will change to record this or that show, while the analog recorder sits idle.

Is there a way to tell sage to use the analog recorder "whenever possible" and use the "digital recorder" only when the first recorder is busy, or when recording a premium channel? I thought Sage TV was already configured to do this... but maybe not ??

[Opus4]

Cutting & pasting from a couple recent posts:

You can set the tuner priority by looking for the mmc/encoders/<some number>/encoder_merit=0 properties & setting the one for your preferred tuner to a higher value. When all other scheduling decisions are equal for a show, it will use this setting to decide between 2 tuners.

and...

Originally Posted by TechBill

I need to do some more reading on SageTV because recently I did a test and select a show to record then select another show to watch which is available on both sources however I got a pop up box asking me if Don't Watch or cancel current recording.
I assume it would go to the other available source and tune into that network when other source is busy recording a show.

This used to be a side effect of using the merit setting because it would always try to use the higher merit tuner first, but I don't remember if that is still the case.

- Andy

[malore]

Short answer:
Schedule all your TV watching ahead of time with favorites or manual recordings and SageTV should avoid conflicts. If you do decide on the spur of the moment to watch a show, set it to record instead of just live TV.

Long answer:
I can't say for sure that it is still the case, but from my experience encoder merit doesn't work with different programming sources and the scheduling isn't optimal. I had 2 tuners (1 analog, cable and 1 OTA, digital). Prior to SageTV being updated to prefer HD recordings, it would seemingly randomly choose either tuner (for shows on both) even though I had the merit of the digital tuner set higher. Several times after manually setting a show to record on the digital tuner, a show, which had multiple airings, was rescheduled to record in the freed time slot. The scheduling seems to ensure that as many shows as possible are recorded, but not necessarily recorded as early as possible.

In my case the broadcast and cable channels were different so I could manually for SageTV to record on one tuner or another but setting it to record on a specific channel. Digital and analog cable would have the same channels so that wouldn't be an option.

[evilpenguin]

I generally enforce tuner preference by setting up my prime time favorites to only record on specific channel (HD/SD). It works pretty well as long as you put enough thought into your priorities.

Originally Posted by malore

The scheduling seems to ensure that as many shows as possible are recorded, but not necessarily recorded as early as possible.

I'd like an option to force certain shows to record ASAP at the expense of lower priority shows.

[CollinR]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Cutting & pasting from a couple recent posts:

You can set the tuner priority by looking for the mmc/encoders/<some number>/encoder_merit=0 properties & setting the one for your preferred tuner to a higher value. When all other scheduling decisions are equal for a show, it will use this setting to decide between 2 tuners.

and...
This used to be a side effect of using the merit setting because it would always try to use the higher merit tuner first, but I don't remember if that is still the case.

- Andy

It works well for me, I have the same senario 2 digital boxes and an analog box, basically the only way for me to see a digital feed is if the 2 analogs are already busy or you request a channel not in the analog lineup.

It's worked great.

[omega]

Originally Posted by malore

Short answer:
Schedule all your TV watching ahead of time with favorites or manual recordings and SageTV should avoid conflicts. If you do decide on the spur of the moment to watch a show, set it to record instead of just live TV.

In my experience, encoder merit works pretty well with scheduled recordings, but as malore alluded to, it's when you decide to watch unscheduled "Live TV" that it can fall flat on its face. When you start watching an unscheduled show, SageTV chooses the highest merit tuner that has the requested channel and is not in use at the time you "tune in", without considering whether that tuner is scheduled to be in use soon. So say you tune into a sporting event or movie, for example, and half-way through it SageTV had scheduled a favorite or manual recording on that tuner. A person would reasonably expect SageTV to then consider the tuner you're using to be unavailable at least for the duration of the currently airing show, and re-evaluate the recording schedule to move the favorite or manual over to a different tuner that has the same channel, assuming there is one available. This is not actually the case, however. It will keep the schedule intact and 5 minutes before, it asks if it can change the channel for the scheduled recording. If you answer no, it still refuses to move the recording to another tuner. It just doesn't record it at all! As malore said, though, if you make everything a manual or favorite recording, then SageTV will manage the schedule and tuners properly, but I still consider this to be a bug and hope it gets fixed in some future version.

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

I'd like an option to force certain shows to record ASAP at the expense of lower priority shows.

I'll second that request!

I hate when my favorite-based recordings of live Twins games get rescheduled because the game is being replayed on cable the next morning. This problem forces me to monitor my recording schedule nearly every day during the baseball season just in case I have to make that night's game a manual recording. It doesn't seem to matter if I set the Twins favorite to a higher priority than the shows that cause it to be bumped to another time slot. It still bumps the recording unless I schedule it as a manual recording.

[MavRic]

Seems like these merit values are getting reset by themselves..

I am changing them in:

C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\Sage.properties

[Opus4]

Here's the very latest FAQ from a couple days ago:

How do I edit the properties file? The settings don't change when I change them.

- Andy

[MavRic]

Works' like a charm...thanks