Encoder Merit and Favorites

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I have four tuners, via 2 HDHRs. Two of the tuners (one HDHR) are for Cincinnati OTA (about 14 miles, nearly-flawless reception) and two (the other HDHR) for Dayton OTA (about 40 miles, slightly less stable but typically acceptable). Each set of tuners is assigned to that city's EPG listing. Only the stations from that city are activated in the Sage channel setup.

I have my encoder merit set such that the two Cincinnati tuners are "4" and "3" and the two Dayton tuners are "2" and "1". I do not have any Favorites set to only record on a specific channel. So presumably, any Favorite available on both tuners - specifically, any network show on NBC, CBS, ABC, or Fox that both cities' stations show simultaneously - should prioritize to the Cincinnati tuners first, right?

Yet this is not happening. In most cases, Dayton is recording first. But I think - and it will take a little more watching to verify - that Dayton is getting priority for Favorites BY TITLE and Cincinnati is getting priority for Favorites BY KEYWORD.

Most of our Favorites are by show title... CBS shows, Fox shows, NBC shows, ABC shows... if nothing else is going on, they record from Dayton. Tonight, we recorded the CBS Monday night comedies, and they all recorded from Dayton, and that single tuner was the only one recording anything. However, a keyword "actor" is hitting later this week (a guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live) and that is going to record from a Cincinnati tuner.

I have seen previous posts using the phrasing that merit only matters "when all else is equal". Well, what could be more equal than "nothing else recording and no channel assignments to my Favorites"? And - assuming I can confirm that this is indeed the difference - why would the "method" of choosing a Favorite (title vs. keyword) make a difference?

This isn't a huge deal (I've let it slide for a while) because typically the Dayton stations record fine. But sometimes when the weather is bad, I get some glitches from Dayton (uh, tonight... hence this post ), much more so than Cincinnati (about 30 miles difference). I was just wondering if anyone has seen this behavior and has any idea how to fix it (besides manually changing every Favorite to "by keyword").