One More Tuner Merit Question

[Savage1701]

I am still not seeing what I think is the correct result for a merit settting.

I have three tuners for the Rockford, IL ATSC OTA market. I have one set to merit=0, one set to merit=1 and one set to merit=2. Obviously these tuners are all set to only record ATSC OTA and all use the exact same channel lineup. No remapping has been done. All are off the same antenna, amplified, and with a 3-way splitter. All produce a useable recording when the weather is good. The merit=0 tuner is the worst in bad weather. I have tried switching out coax cables with other known good ones, and feeding different tuners different cables off the same splitter, so I don't think it's a bad cable. I can't see that the splitter is attenuating any output either.

I can preview the channels under the source setup as well for all 3 tuners, so I know they work.

If I go to watch a show, the tuner with merit=1 will start first. The tuner with merit=2 will then record a second show in the Rockford, IL market. The merit=0 tuner is a tuner of last resort as it is older and definitley less sensitive. But I don't want to do a custom lineup just for it for the couple of channels that are the strongest. I apply a single lineup to all 3 tuners.

Shouldn't merit=2 tuner fire up first since it has the highest merit number? Or is it the opposite? But then the merit=0 tuner ought to go first. All these tuners are different models so I can easily know which tuner is merit 1, 2 and 3.

Also, if I record a show first and watch another show in the Rockford market, the same thing occurs. merit=1 tuner goes first to record, merit=2 tuner is for watching a second channel.

Am I doing something wrong?

Any help is appreciated.

[carlgar]

I don't think the encoder merit setting will work for you. The merit setting is really misleading. It is only useful for setting the merit between different lineups not tuners. Since you are using the same lineup for all 3 tuners I don't think the merit is used at all. I don't know how Sage picks the tuner order to be used but you might try deleteing them and then adding them in a different order.

[JREkiwi]

Originally Posted by carlgar

I don't think the encoder merit setting will work for you. The merit setting is really misleading. It is only useful for setting the merit between different lineups not tuners. Since you are using the same lineup for all 3 tuners I don't think the merit is used at all.

Encoder merits work perfectly for me with 5 tuners all with the same lineup.

The merits seem to be more of a 2 tiered system now though. All things being equal, SageTV will use digital tuners (highest merit first) ahead of analog tuners even if the analog tuners have a higher merit.

John

[carlgar]

My comments were based upon a post by Narflex several years ago which may be out of date. While trying to find the post, I found this one http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthr...7&postcount=16 which sounds like it should work as JREKiwi stated.

[rmac321]

Is it possible that Favorite priority is part of the equation also? FI, if a favorite with a higher priority is scheduled to start slightly later than a favorite with a lower priority, would the higher priority favorite reserve the higher merit tuner? This might explain your situation where the middle merit tuner starts recording before the higher merit tuner.

[Savage1701]

Thanks to all. I will consider these variables. Yes, some of the tuners are analog/digital combo ones.

Thanks again.

[GKusnick]

I doubt it has anything to do with Favorite priority. My interpretation would be that when N tuners are required to satisfy the recording schedule, then (all else being equal) they will be the N tuners with the highest merit, in no obvious order. In other words, it doesn't assign the chronologically first program to the highest-merit tuner and work its way down the ladder from there. Rather, it searches the solution space for an assignment of tuners to programs that minimizes the number of conflicts while maximizing the total merit of the tuners used. Or something along those lines.

[Savage1701]

Greg:

If you are correct, then why when I was just watching one show did it take the tuner with the middle merit?

There was nothing scheduled to record that night on that Rockford, IL group of tuners. That's what I am not getting.

[Savage1701]

I have three OTA ATSC tuners set to use an identical lineup of OTA ATSC channels. I specifically want one tuner to be a "tuner of last resort" so I set its merit to 0. I set the other ones to 1 and 2.

However, when I go to watch or record a channel, Sage takes the middle merit tuner (1) first. I am assuming from what I have read in here that the higher the merit number on a tuner means it is chosen first, and a merit of 0 means that tuner would be last in line.

I made all properties changes with Sage shutdown. I do not run it as a service. I re-checked the properties and the merits changes had held.

Why would that be happening? There were no other recordings going on or scheduled to happen off that group of tuners. It matters as one of the 3 tuners is noticeably more prone to tiling and sensitive to bad weather, but there are a couple stations in that market it can grab under almost any condition, so I don't want to toss it or drop $60 on a new tuner.

I have posted this into the hardware forum, but I think this is more of a software issue, since I can't figure why Sage would care what make or model of tuner it is dealing with within the realm of those tuners being OTA ATSC capable and set to the exact same lineup.

Any thoughts on the software side?

* merged with existing topic *

[LehighBri]

I have 3 tuners and don't use a merit of 0... I use merits 3 (highest), 2, and 1. Instead of using 0, try that and see what happens.

[Savage1701]

Good idea - I'll try that and see what happens.

[Opus4]

Tuner merit is not the end-all tuner usage determinant. As the PDF manual states (with emphasis added): "used to determine which capture device is 'preferred' when all other things are equal". When all other things are not equal, tuner merit is irrelevant. There could be other factors coming into the equation.

-Andy

[Savage1701]

Yes, that makes sense. I was trying to understand what those variables were.

Do you know what tips Sage one way or the other besides merit?