SageTV Channel Remapping with Multiple Recorders

[will]

Hi,

I am still in the process of setting up my SageTV system.

Currently I have SageTV running on a headless server in my basement with a HVR-2250 and I have one HD200 in my office. My entire house is wired with CAT6 so I plan to slowly role out SageTV throughout the house with HD200s.

I plan to add two HD-PVRs to my setup. My cable company broadcasts the 4 basic channels over Clear QAM so I figured the HVR-2250 with two dual digital tuners is great to have.

When I add the HD-PVRs to my system the cable box channels will be different from the four basic HD channels. For example, over Clear QAM NBC is 10.1 but over cable NBC HD is 1010. If I remap 10.1 to 1010 how will this affect my HD-PVR setup? I am hoping it won't cause any problems and SageTV would just use any available source when I tell it to record shows on NBC in high-def.

Also, assuming the remapping works out properly what happens if SageTV is using an HD-PVR to record something on NBC and I want to watch a digital cable station? Will SageTV switch the recording source over to the available tuner on the HVR-2250? Is there anyway to set SageTV to always use the HVR-2250 dual tuners first for recording Fox, NBC, CBS, and ABC? I would like to keep my HD-PVRs free for recording cable and watching live TV.

I am really only interested in remapping channels to help increase the WAF. I want the transition to be seamless from cable company DVRs to SageTV/HD200s and having two high-def NBCs could be confusing.

Thanks for the help.

[Opus4]

Use separate lineups when you want different tuners to use use different sets of channels. When setting up the QAM tuner, you could choose to copy the existing cable lineup used on the HD-PVR instead of using that same lineup.

Use the mmc/encoders/<some number>/encoder_merit property to give higher priority to specific tuners; higher number = higher priority.

See p. 47 & p. 151 of the SagTV PDF manual for info about how channels are merged so that stations are listed only once in the Program Guide.

- Andy

[will]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Use separate lineups when you want different tuners to use use different sets of channels. When setting up the QAM tuner, you could choose to copy the existing cable lineup used on the HD-PVR instead of using that same lineup.

Use the mmc/encoders/<some number>/encoder_merit property to give higher priority to specific tuners; higher number = higher priority.

See p. 47 & p. 151 of the SagTV PDF manual for info about how channels are merged so that stations are listed only once in the Program Guide.

- Andy

Andy,

Thanks for the reply. It will come in handy knowing how to set the priority level of recorders.

I read page 47 & 151 and it states:

"Alternatively, if the same network is available on both sources, but on different channel numbers, that network may be listed only once using only one of those channel numbers. For example: CNN may be on both sources: as channel 6 on one and channel 25 on the other. The Program Guide will display CNN as channel 6 or 25, but not both; however, CNN will actually still be available from both sources on the proper channels. SageTV will internally track which channel belongs to each source. If all sources use the same channel lineup, all channels are listed only once."

How would SageTV know I want CNN to be channel 25, not 6? As far as I can tell the manual doesn't state how to set this information (however I haven't read through the entire manual yet).

Thanks,
Will

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by will

How would SageTV know I want CNN to be channel 25, not 6? As far as I can tell the manual doesn't state how to set this information (however I haven't read through the entire manual yet).

It doesn't know -- but you can set the logical channel number for the station on whatever lineup the 'unwanted' channel number is coming from in order to change the channel number shown in the guide. The logical number change won't affect SageTV's ability to tune the channel; the physical number is used for actual tuning.

- Andy

[will]

Ok, wonderful, thanks for the help.

[PolloLoco]

This was extremely helpful for me. I have two Hauppuage HVR-1250 and one Hauppauge HD-PVR. I want the HVR-1250 to record HD (clear QAM) shows before the HD-PVR will, but this only works for the local channels (Fox, CBS, NBC, etc.). This will then leave the HD-PVR free to tune to other channels. This is exactly what will happen now so when I record The Simpsons it will use the HVR-1250 and not the HD-PVR. I use a Digital Transport Adapter for the other HVR-1250 so I set it at a higher priority than the HD-PVR so I will be using the HVR-1250 for SD broadcasts and the HD-PVR will only be used if either of the two HVR-1250 cannot tune into the desired channel.