need clarification on how multi tuner works

[gveres]

Ok yesterday my USB-URIT arrived in the mail. Last night ran down stairs and removed my PVR-250 from my BTV machine and moved it over to my SageTV machine. Now I have two tuners working with Sage: an R5000 hooked up to a StarChoice HD box and the PVR-250 recording from a StarChoice SD box over s-video.

Both boxes are hooked up to the same starChoice service and so the channel lineup is almost identical - the difference is that the SD box can't get the HD channels that the HD box can.

I created the SD lineup by copying the HD lineup and removing the HD channels. I tried to just add a new lineup from scratch, but it only gave me the option of copying or using the exact same lineup.

Ok, enough of the background, now on to my question.

Does SageTV give me control over which tuner to use? There are some programs I want to only record from the SD box because the R5000 is not reliable in its recording. I don't see a way to select the tuner to use. And I can't seem to figure out the algorithm Sage uses to determine which tuner to use.

I have read through the manual but if it is in there, I missed it. I didn't see anything relevant in the FAQ and I did a search in the forums.

Do I have to remap all the channels from the SD lineup to different logical channels from the HD lineup? If so, is there a mass remap operation hidden somewhere?

Thanks
Greg

[tmiranda]

Greg,

If a show is available on two tuners Sage will first try to use the HD source and if that's not possible it will use the SD source. There is a property that changes this behavior. I *think* it's prefer_hd_over_sd, or something similar.

If you have multiple HD or SD tuners Sage will use the tuner's merit to decide which tuner to use. (search on keyword merit).

If you only want to use the SD tuner you will need to alter the favorite to only use the SD channel.

I hope that makes sense.

Tom

[UgaData]

You could also remove/disable the unreliable channel(s) from the HD box's channel lineup.

[gveres]

@UgaData: that is what I came up with and it seems to be working so far.

@tmiranda: the problem is that both tuners have the exact same channels on the same channels so there seems to be no way to get Sage to allow me to say "record this show on the SD tuner", other than remapping that channel to a different logical view and then restricting that recording to the logical channel.

Thanks
Greg

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by gveres

@tmiranda: the problem is that both tuners have the exact same channels on the same channels so there seems to be no way to get Sage to allow me to say "record this show on the SD tuner", other than remapping that channel to a different logical view and then restricting that recording to the logical channel

That's a problem. You need to map the SD and HD stations to different channel numbers.

[gveres]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

That's a problem. You need to map the SD and HD stations to different channel numbers.

there are over 300 channels. I can't see doing it individually. Does anybody know how to remap the channels by just adding an offset?

Greg

[Opus4]

Are these channels combined in the Program Guide? If so, channel numbers are not what is used to combine them that way. You have to map the SD and HD channels to different stations -- those having different station names and IDs.

And, you need to make sure both tuners are using different lineups in order to have them configured to enable separate sets of channels.

The SD channels should be something like WXYZ and the HD version would be something like WXYZHD. If they have different names/ids, it wouldn't matter if they had the same channel number; the guide would still list them separately. This is covered in the PDF manual on pages 47 and 151.

- Andy

[gveres]

Both tuners are tuning exactly the same signals. I only have one signal supplier, that is StarChoice. So it doesn't matter if I tune using the SD box or the HD box, channel 300 on box tuners is CBCHT (CBC Halifax) and that channel is an SD channel.

So I don't really understand your question Opus.

In the program guide, I had expected to see the different tuners split out so I would see a block of channels 250 - 750 for tuner 1 and 250 - 750 for tuner 2. Instead what I see is 250 - 750 with no indication of what tuner Sage would pick if I decided to watch that channel.

It is not really about SD or HD tuners. I would have the same issue if both my receivers were SD tuners. They are both tuning the same source.

Now for the line up I am using, I think they are using different lineups. I can enable and disable channels on each line up independently from each other.

What I tried to do when I setup the SD tuner was tell it that I had a satelite source and then pick the same source that I used originally for my HD lineup. When I selected it, I was presented with the choice to use the existing one or copy. I chose to copy.

Now my lines are:

HD: Shaw Direct Digital - Canada (East) Classic
SD: Hauppauge WinTV PVR PCI II Capture S-Video

In reference to the manual, I think you are refering to this:

If all sources use the same channel lineup, all channels are listed
only once.

And I think that is my problem, how do I choose which tuner to use? Since all channels are the same on both lines, ie, both are the same network and same channel, the guide only displays them once. So I can't control which tuner to use.


Greg

[Opus4]

Well, that's completely different from what I thought you meant... I thought you had a case where different stations were incorrectly mapped to the same station.

SageTV doesn't record via tuner selection; it records via show selection -- you tell SageTV what show to record and it tries to fit it into the schedule on whatever available tuner can receive the channel the show is on. If you don't want a particular tuner to ever record a particular channel, then disable the channel for that tuner.

- Andy

[mistergq]

Originally Posted by gveres

Both tuners are tuning exactly the same signals. I only have one signal supplier, that is StarChoice. So it doesn't matter if I tune using the SD box or the HD box, channel 300 on box tuners is CBCHT (CBC Halifax) and that channel is an SD channel.

So I don't really understand your question Opus.

In the program guide, I had expected to see the different tuners split out so I would see a block of channels 250 - 750 for tuner 1 and 250 - 750 for tuner 2. Instead what I see is 250 - 750 with no indication of what tuner Sage would pick if I decided to watch that channel.

It is not really about SD or HD tuners. I would have the same issue if both my receivers were SD tuners. They are both tuning the same source.

Now for the line up I am using, I think they are using different lineups. I can enable and disable channels on each line up independently from each other.

What I tried to do when I setup the SD tuner was tell it that I had a satelite source and then pick the same source that I used originally for my HD lineup. When I selected it, I was presented with the choice to use the existing one or copy. I chose to copy.

Now my lines are:

HD: Shaw Direct Digital - Canada (East) Classic
SD: Hauppauge WinTV PVR PCI II Capture S-Video

In reference to the manual, I think you are refering to this:



And I think that is my problem, how do I choose which tuner to use? Since all channels are the same on both lines, ie, both are the same network and same channel, the guide only displays them once. So I can't control which tuner to use.


Greg

Greg:

I don't think this is going to be an issue for you. The channel guide is not going to tell you that channel 3 is sd tuner and channel 552 is the HD tuner. Also, if both boxes have channel 199 which is SyFy, there is only going 1 channel 199 which is SyFy. Sage will select the tuner that is available when it records a show or you select to watch it live.

what you need to do is on your SD source, turn off the HD channels, which I think you already did. If you want, on your HD source is turn off SD channels that also have HD version (i.e., network stations).

I guess the question I have is do you want the R5000 to be the first priority for recording. if that is the case, you need to change the tuner merit in the sage.properties file. That way, Sage will try and record on that turner first, and if it is unavailable, than it will chose the SD tuner.

The last thing you need to do is just have faith that it is set up correctly. I know that is hard to do, but trust me, it just works, but until you know what you are looking at, it hard to trust.

[Fuzzy]

yeah, best setup is to just tell sage everything your system is capable of, and let it do it's thing. Enable the SD channels on both tuners, the HD channels on the HD tuner, and let it do it's thing. There should be no reason to micromanage which tuner to use and such. That's is the key feature that make sage the BEST dvr on the market.

[gveres]

As I have written these posts and read the responses I think my true problem isn't really how sage handles the tuners. It seems to be pretty smart about it now that i know the algorithm.

My real problem is that the R5000 is so damn unreliable as a recording source. When it works, it is fantastic. But when it fails randomly, it is very frustrating.

I have taken to disabling the channels that seem to fail consistently on the R5000 so that sage will record the shows using the SD tuner. This seems to be working now.

Thanks everybody. And thanks for the tip about the merit property.

Greg

[Fuzzy]

if you are having R5000 issues just on specific channels, it may actually be a reception issue (might just be weaker on the transponder or polarization of those channels). The R5000 doesn't really do any error checking when writing the stream, so inconsistencies in the transmission can cause residual problems it seems.