So frustrated with tuner priority setup

[CptKirk]

I've been a BeyondTV user for years and have finally decided to change.

I can't believe it is so hard, and seems impossible, to have the same level of functionality in SageTV that BTV has in this area.

In the BTV web admin I could go to Settings-Basic Settings-Audio and Video Inputs and see all the tuners I have configured on the system. It is also available on the PC if their configuration setup was run.

It didn't matter what "line-up" each tuner was using.

I have (running right now):

- OTA
- HDHR Clear QAM 1
- HDHR Clear QAM 2
- External STB
- Standard Cable

If something could be recorded it would start at the top tuner and work it's way down.

There is nothing like this in SageTV (that I can find so far). I have read just about every thread I can find here after doing searches on merit and tuner priority.

Merit is basically worthless unless you've got every tuner on the same "line-up".

So far on a brand new system I've got the following setup:

- External STB (merit 5) (Comcast Digital - Extended Service) (channels 2-900)
- External STB (merit 4) (Comcast Digital - Extended Service) (channels 2-900)
- Standard Cable (merit 3) (Comcast - Basic Service) (channels 2-100)

I always want the STB's to be used before standard cable is used. But if I try to tune to channel 9. It will always use the standard cable.

If I try to do this:

- External STB (merit 5) (Comcast Digital - Extended Service) (channels 2-900)
- External STB (merit 4) (Comcast Digital - Extended Service) (channels 2-900)
- Standard Cable (merit 3) (Comcast Digital - Extended Service) (channels 2-900)

and just disable the channels that the standard cable cannot tune to, then the channels also get disabled on the STB's since I told the standard cable to use the same "line-up" as the STB's.

I've got the hardware purchased and plan to setup the following on SageTV:

- HDHR OTA 1 (merit 9)
- HDHR OTA 1 (merit 8)
- HDHR Clear QAM 1 (merit 7)
- HDHR Clear QAM 2 (merit 6)
- External STB (merit 5)
- External STB (merit 4)
- Standard Cable (merit 3)
- Standard Cable (merit 2)

I want them to be used in that order.

Since they all will not be on the same "line-up" I do not see how I'll be able to have these tuners used in the priority that I want them to be used.

Is it just me and I'm so new to this that I am missing something?

If it is not just me and this is how this is actually programmed, how can something so fundamental be this far off?

Sorry for the vent and rant but I had high hopes for this software. If I'm just messed up I have no problem saying that I did so.

Any help or suggestions would be really appreciated.

[GKusnick]

Just to cover the basics:

You cannot edit the proerties file while SageTV is running. You must stop Sage (including the SageTVService, if you use it) before setting merits, and restart it after, otherwise your changes won't stick.

If you share a channel lineup among two or more tuners, then disabling a channel on that lineup affects all tuners using that lineup. If you want to be able to enable or disable channels separately for each tuner, choose the option to copy an existing lineup rather than sharing it.

Merit is not specific to a lineup but applies across all tuners that can tune a given channel. (Obviously Sage will not choose the highest-merit tuner if it can't receive the channel you want.)

Merit is the last factor considered in selecting a tuner. Giving a standard-def tuner a high merit will not guarantee it will be used if there's a lower-merit high-def tuner that can tune the same program. Sage will always prefer HD airings to SD airings, and will assign tuners appropriately, regardless of merit.

I'm not clear on whether your STBs are HD or SD and how you're connecting them to Sage. But assuming they're SD (and so is your Standard Cable), then I'm not seeing any obvious reason why your first example shouldn't work, unless it's a properties file editing snafu of some sort.

[Spectrum]

Just to be sure you are closing sage and stopping the service (if you are running as a service) before you edit the tuner merit property in the sage.properties right? If you aren't your changes are not taking effect.

The way I would set this up is I would setup the OTA tuners for one lineup both with merit 10 and remap their channel numbers to the STB numbers. Set the QAM tuners with a seperate lineup and with merit 7 and again remap the channel numbers to the STB numbers. Set up the STB tuners with their own lineup and merit 5. Set the Standard cable with their own lineup and leave the merit set at 0 and remap the channels to the STB numbers if applicable.

The problem is if you don't remap the channel numbers and you manually tune into a broadcast that is on channel 415 Sage will tune to that broadcast on the tuner that gets channel 415 even though the same thing may be available on channel 10-2 on an OTA tuner or 32-1 on a QAM tuner. The favorite scheduler would probably pick the OTA tuner if it has the highest merit, even though it's a diff channel number, but I can't confirm that.

You can use the same lineup for 2 tuners (ie external stb or std cable) and use a copy of the lineup and then if you disable channels on the std cable tuners they won't affect the STB channels.

Setting lineups and channel mappings can be a bit time consuming, but once it's set up things work well.

[CptKirk]

Thanks both of you for your constructive feedback.

SageTV and service are always shutdown before any modifications to the .properties file is done.

The STB's are SD with S-Video from the STB to the 1950 tuner.

I'll give the remapping route a try with the three tuners I have connected so far. If that goes well I'll start adding the others.

[blade]

IMO when setting up your lineups you need to setup the STB first because it will get more channels than your other tuners, you don't have to remap anything and any new channels added to the lineup are only added to the original lineup not the copies and your most likely to get new channels added to the STB. You'll have to redo the copied lineups when new channels are added so the fewer channels the copied lineups have the less work it will be.

For standard cable you can either use another lineup if one is listed for your provider or you can copy the lineup used for the STB. There shouldn't be any remapping needed.

For the HDHomeRun's tuning QAM all of the mapping should be done in the HDHomeRun software. Simply run a channel scan in the HDHomeRun's software then enter the correct Guide Number and Guide Name for each channel. For example the HDHomeRun software shows Tune as 67-3, which is channel 432 on my STB and has the call letters WVTMDT so I enter this information. I do this for all channels that I wish to enable. Now in Sage all I do is copy the lineup that I used for the STB and run a channel scan and I'm done.

I've never used OTA so I don't know what the best way to set it up is, but I would think you could simply run a scan for OTA and then enter the guide number and name to match what your STB is showing (assuming the channels are the same as those you get through your cable company). Then copy the STB lineup again like you did for the other HDHomeRun's and then run a channel scan. As I mentioned before I've never used OTA so there may be a better way.

[KryptoNyte]

This last week I found the newer, dual-tuner version of the HDHR (the HDHR3) was on sale for 60 bucks, so I grabbed one. It arrived today, so I set it up in tandem with my original HDHR dual-tuner that's a few years old now. I also have an HD-PVR USB version hooked up to my STB, so 5 tuners in all, however, the HD-PVR only records a very small number of channels in a seperate lineup. Both of the HDHR units, all 4 tuners, share the same channel lineup in Sage.

It surprised me just how much better the signal is to the new HDHR3, so I decided to setup sage to use the NEW HDHR3 tuners first. I entered the Sage.Properties file (with SageTV Service OFF), and modified the property "encoder_merit" as follows:

Old HDHR tuner 0 merit = 0
Old HDHR tuner 1 merit = 0
HD-PVR with STB tuner merit = 0
New HDHR tuner 0 merit = 10
New HDHR tuner 1 merit = 10

The results
program 1 - records on New HDHR tuner 0
program 2 - records on Old HDHR tuner 0
program 3 - records on Old HDHR tuner 1
program 4 - records on New HDHR tuner 1

I can't make any sense out of that. Even after making sure that SageTV service was off, and the settings were staying, even after a reboot, that's fine. I even played with tuner priority for a while with no success.

Any ideas?

[carlgar]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

The results
program 1 - records on New HDHR tuner 0
program 2 - records on Old HDHR tuner 0
program 3 - records on Old HDHR tuner 1
program 4 - records on New HDHR tuner 1

I can't make any sense out of that. Even after making sure that SageTV service was off, and the settings were staying, even after a reboot, that's fine. I even played with tuner priority for a while with no success.

Any ideas?

How are you testing the encoder merit? I find it best to find a empty time in the recording schedule. Then set a manual recording for that time. It should then be scheduled on one of your 2 highest priority tuners. You can then set another manual recording for the same time period and it will be scheduled for the next highest priority tuners. The manual states that the encoder_merit is
used to determine which capture device is 'preferred' when all other things are equal. I would have to presume that things were not equal between the recordings that you were doing. Do the new HDHRs record more stations than your old HDHRs?

[KryptoNyte]

Both HDHR's have the same exact channel lineup.

After the usual 2 hour wait after making a change, it appears that it is working properly now. I initially tested by just hitting the guide and clicking on shows to record that were already in progress. As time passed, I see that it is scheduling the newer HDHR tuners prior to older tuners in the upcoming scheduled programming.

[wbarber69]

even if tuner merit is set, if you record something from the same channel twice it would use the same tuner to keep from having to change the channel. If you are watching a mythbusters marathon and you do not have any padding set and you have change channel on record set to false then it would just keep using the same tuner over and over and over again, and if you don't have anything scheduled for a couple days and Mythbusters comes on again then it would use the same tuner for that recording also. Sage makes a note of what the last channel used was on each tuner.

[KryptoNyte]

I actually have a padding on pretty much all my settings, and I do recall a Sage GUI setting (something about not eliminating the padding on back to back recordings of the same channel) that ensures a different tuner is used for the consecutive recording.

Just as an update, it is working properly now, very well actually. As it is with most Sage settings it seems, it takes a few hours or a day or two before the change fully takes.

[wbarber69]

makes sense as it looks ahead 14 days to schedule recordings and when it does that it selects which tuners its going to use unless your watching live tv when the recording starts

[Fuzzy]

Simply restarting sage is not enough for it to reprocess it's recording schedule (which is where it would pick up the new merit lineup). Instead, I think the quickest/simplest way to get it to reschedule outside of it's normal timeframe, is to add/remove a channel from a lineup. This will force a rerun of the scheduling algorithms.