Multiple Channels Available For a Favorite - Can I Control Pref. Channel Rec. Order?

[Savage1701]

I happen to be fortunate enough to straddle 2 OTA ATSC markets. As such, I can record "V", for example, from a Rockford, IL affiliate or a Madison, WI affiliate. The Madison market has a slight edge in signal quality, probably only marginal and only when it's raining, but it's an edge nonetheless.

Is there any way to prefer one market over another? Raising the physical tuner priorities does not seem to change anything, and since half my tuners are off the Rockford affiliates and half catch the Madison affiliates, I'm not sure that within a favorite that would change anything.

Point being - I don't want to control whether Rockford tuner 1 or Rockford tuner 2 grabs "V" as both are of the same generation and probably even the same chipset, so there's no hardware advantage to my tuners - What I want to know is if I can prefer a Madison, WI market tuner group/channel in general over a Rockford, IL market tuner group/channel.

And I can't prefer by recording quality, since both are sending 720p OTA ATSC. Since they are at the same time, and both markets are on CST, I can't constrain by time either.

Can I alter a property file for each specific favority to prefer a particular favorite's station if more than one is offered?\

I know I'm getting really granular here, but to me that's one of the great things about Sage, and besides, the complexity keeps everyone else in the family from messing with it. I tell them they can't get closer than 2 feet to the the HD200 without removing their shoes, averting their eyes, and genuflecting to the extender. So far, they are buying it... :-)

[Fuzzy]

couple options... you could specify just the madison channel for the V favorite. this way, it will only ever record it from that channel (which would mean one of your two tuners pointed that way). Alternatively, if the madison channels are all higher strength than the rockford versions, you can use the encoder_merit properties in the sage.properties files to give the madison tuners a higher merit. It will then prefer to use them over rockford, and the rockford would only ever be used if either the show was not available on the madison, or both madison tuners were already in use for higher merit'd favorites.

A question though, just because you CAN receive the rockford channels, is there anything broadcast there that you can't get in rockford? Is there a reason to even bother with the splits, instead of just pointing all four tuners at the better strength madison stations?

[Skirge01]

It's my understanding that the merit of the tuners can be manipulated in the properties file. (I've done this myself, but never "verified" it works.) First off, what I'm about to propose assumes you have separate channel lineups for your tuners. If not, you'll need to set that up, as well.

That said, what you could do is put the Madison channel on tuner 1 (removing the Rockford channel from this tuner's lineup) and put the Rockford channel on tuner 2 (removing the Madison channel form this tuner's lineup). Then, change the merit of tuner 1 to be higher than tuner 2. This way, both tuners are able to record "V", but if tuner 1 is free, SageTV should use that one first.

There may or may not be other ways, but this is what popped into my mind.

[Savage1701]

Fuzzy and Skirge:

First, thanks for responding.

Second, I've never been able to correlate increased tuner merit with the actual use of that tuner. I don't think I'm alone there. I did a poor job of explaining that in my post. Sorry.

Third, the reason for the dual markets is dual sports. One is in Wisconsin, one in Illinois, so different blackout rules. That's why I don't just point at Madison alone. Otherwise, I'd just have all five pointed at Madison for sure. Also, Madison and Rockford just aren't quite enough on reciprocal headings that I could incorporate Rockford stations in the Madison lineup. Close, but not close enough.

Finally, I may not have been clear. I presently have three tuners pointed at Madison and two at Rockford. That can change a little if I add or delete a tuner or such, but that's how it is now, so it's not a simple binary thing either of just going all Madison or all Rockford.

Complicated, I know.

[Fuzzy]

Encoder merit has ALWAYS worked as expected in my experience. What is making you think it ISN'T working? The easiest way to see it's effects is with the Parallel Recording Schedule view. It will be obvious which tuners it is preferring, as they will pretty much always be the ones in use.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by Savage1701

Point being - I don't want to control whether Rockford tuner 1 or Rockford tuner 2 grabs "V" as both are of the same generation and probably even the same chipset, so there's no hardware advantage to my tuners - What I want to know is if I can prefer a Madison, WI market tuner group/channel in general over a Rockford, IL market tuner group/channel.

Yes, you can use encoder merits this way. Set all of the Madison group to the same value, and all of the Rockford group to some other, lower value.

[blade]

The encoder merit works fine for what you're trying to do. I think most of the "problems" people think they have with it is because they don't understand the scenarios where it comes into play.

For purposes of encoder merit my situation is the same as yours. I have channel 13 (NBC-SD) from a PVR500. I also have 432 (NBC-HD) from a HDHomeRun (HD). In my experience if the show is not marked as HD in the guide Sage will select the lowest number channel. In this case 13. If I set the encoder merit to prefer the HDHomeRun Sage always chooses channel 431 over 13.

Of course it's possible to have a certain combination of recordings scheduled that forces Sage to use the other tuner to record everything scheduled, but I have enough tuners that it's very rare.

[Savage1701]

I'll give the merit thing another try. Maybe I had tuners confused in my head while editing properties, or some other thing.

Thanks.