Tuner Priority question

[Wrx4me]

I have been using SageTV for a while but recently had this issue after I setup tuner priorities. I have 2 HD-PVR's and 1 Colossus in my server.

If the highest priority tuner which happens to be one of the HD-PVR's fails or otherwise is not working, Sage doesn’t move onto the next priority tuner if trying to watch live TV instead its stuck on trying to access the highest priority tuner. What this means is that I keep getting the error for a failed tuner until I reset that HD-PVR. Is this how it’s supposed to work or am I missing something? Thanks!

[GKusnick]

There is no failover logic to use an alternate tuner if the chosen one fails. Sage assumes all of your configured tuners are in reliable working order.

[Wrx4me]

Thanks, I was hoping it was more intelligent than that. Oh well, cant request that option in future updates now can we?

[Serra]

Originally Posted by Wrx4me

Thanks, I was hoping it was more intelligent than that. Oh well, cant request that option in future updates now can we?

I'm almost positive that both you CAN request it and that it will never be filled.

[GKusnick]

Well, you could conceivably write a plugin that would periodically run diagnostics on idle tuners and disable any that aren't functioning properly.

But it's worth noting that prior to the HD-PVR, intelligent failover wasn't really needed. Tuners pretty much just worked. And the hope was that if Hauppauge did their job properly, it wouldn't be needed for the HD-PVR either.

[Wrx4me]

You are right again GK in the past tuners just worked. But now with the ongoing issues affecting the Colossal... I mean colossus plus the HD-PVR, that feature would be very useful at least for me.

[wayner]

Actually tuners could have failed for a variety of reasons, even before the HD-PVR and Colossus.

I have some weak OTA channels that may fade in and out depending on weather conditions and I have had failed recordings due to that.

Firewire recordings could fail due to 5C copy restrictions - but this may not be suppored by Sage.

A failure could also be caused by having a powered off STB - assuming that you consider that a tuner failure.

[Audacity]

I've been using a HTPC since 2003, and here are my experiences on tuner reliability:

"Pure" NTSC/ATSC tuners (HDHomeRun, PVR-250, PVR-500, etc): Highly reliable. Hardly ever fail. I estimate I'd "lose" less than 1 in 1000 recordings due to tuner failure.

STB + PVR-250/PVR-500/etc: Less reliable. The STB and IR blaster are a the weak points here. I estimate that I lost approximately 1 in 50 recordings in this configuration. Sometimes a STB firmware update would leave it in a state where the channel-change IR codes stop working and I'd lose a string of recordings which would require a reboot of the STB or manually controlling the STB with a remote to fix. Sometimes the IR blaster itself stops working for whatever reason.

Hauppauge HD-PVR + STB: Not reliable at all. I'd estimate that I lost 1 in 5 recordings. In addition to the STB/IR Blaster issues, once the HD-PVR locks up you lose a series of recordings until you power cycle the HD-PVR. The Hauppauge HD-PVR was much less reliable than even the STBs.

Note that the 1-in-50 and 1-in-5 recording loss estimates of the latter two configurations are due to me not checking my PVR every day to ensure things weren't locked up. Sometimes things would be broken for a couple days until I notice that my recordings are failing and manually fix them. I'm not suggesting that the HD-PVR fails 1 out of 5 record attempts, it is much less than that. The problem is that once these "Frankenstein" configurations breaks, they generally don't fix themselves. When it did break, I'd lose 10 or 20 recordings, not just one.

I should also point out that the first of the three configuration types is the easiest to setup and configure. Just install the tuner drivers, scan channels, and you're done!

To contrast that, I remember when setting up my HTPC with Hauppauge 2250 cards and the HD-PVR. Much more complexity. For example, the driver installation order mattered, because if I installed the 2250 drivers last, it would break the IR blaster on the HD-PVR, and it required quite a bit of fiddling to fix!

[wayner]

I would say that YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary)!

I have had two HD-PVRs for about three years and have had not difference in reliability between the HD-PVR and a PVR-150 connected to an STB - until one of the HD-PVRs completely died about a month ago. In fact the reliability was higher with the HD-PVR but that is becauuse the STBs connected to the HD-PVR swill power on with a channel change whereas the STB connected to my PVR-150 will not. So a power off condition on the STB caused recordings to fail on the PVR-150 but not on the HD-PVR.

[KeithAbbott]

Originally Posted by wayner

I would say that YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary)!

For me, my (1) HD-PVR and (1) Colossus is like owning a Smart Fortwo with a broken transmission. Perhaps capable of high mileage, but reality says differently...

[Wrx4me]

Originally Posted by Audacity

I've been using a HTPC since 2003, and here are my experiences on tuner reliability:

"Pure" NTSC/ATSC tuners (HDHomeRun, PVR-250, PVR-500, etc): Highly reliable. Hardly ever fail. I estimate I'd "lose" less than 1 in 1000 recordings due to tuner failure.

STB + PVR-250/PVR-500/etc: Less reliable. The STB and IR blaster are a the weak points here. I estimate that I lost approximately 1 in 50 recordings in this configuration. Sometimes a STB firmware update would leave it in a state where the channel-change IR codes stop working and I'd lose a string of recordings which would require a reboot of the STB or manually controlling the STB with a remote to fix. Sometimes the IR blaster itself stops working for whatever reason.

Hauppauge HD-PVR + STB: Not reliable at all. I'd estimate that I lost 1 in 5 recordings. In addition to the STB/IR Blaster issues, once the HD-PVR locks up you lose a series of recordings until you power cycle the HD-PVR. The Hauppauge HD-PVR was much less reliable than even the STBs.

Note that the 1-in-50 and 1-in-5 recording loss estimates of the latter two configurations are due to me not checking my PVR every day to ensure things weren't locked up. Sometimes things would be broken for a couple days until I notice that my recordings are failing and manually fix them. I'm not suggesting that the HD-PVR fails 1 out of 5 record attempts, it is much less than that. The problem is that once these "Frankenstein" configurations breaks, they generally don't fix themselves. When it did break, I'd lose 10 or 20 recordings, not just one.

I should also point out that the first of the three configuration types is the easiest to setup and configure. Just install the tuner drivers, scan channels, and you're done!

To contrast that, I remember when setting up my HTPC with Hauppauge 2250 cards and the HD-PVR. Much more complexity. For example, the driver installation order mattered, because if I installed the 2250 drivers last, it would break the IR blaster on the HD-PVR, and it required quite a bit of fiddling to fix!

You bring up a good point, since I have 2 HDPVR's 1 Colossus and a dual HDhomerun setup. One of my HDPVRs may have locked up and I would not know because I had been watching HDhomerun channels for a couple of days before realizing that a recycle of the device was needed hence numerous missed recordings.

[Audacity]

Wrx4me,

Another point that I imagine you need to deal with: when one of your HD-PVRs stops working and starts missing recordings; even if you know its a HD-PVR lock-up issue, you need to determine which one is causing the problem (or just do a reboot of all the devices involved - maybe attach them all to a power bar or something). But then you risk the problem of interrupting a in-progress recording from one of the still functioning HD-PVR boxes.

Honestly, I had very high hopes for the Hauppuage HD-PVR when it was announced. When it was eventually released, it first seemd rather inelegant with all the wires. It turned out not to be simply inelegant; it was unreliable.

This is why I make an effort to warn prospective HTPC users, and instead recommend that they go with a ATSC or CableCard based solution.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by Audacity

Honestly, I had very high hopes for the Hauppuage HD-PVR when it was announced. When it was eventually released, it first seemd rather inelegant with all the wires. It turned out not to be simply inelegant; it was unreliable.

It would be really interesting to know the percentages of people who have had problems. I have had two HD-PVRs running for three years with pretty much no problems until one of my HD-PVRs completely died about a month ago. You can argue that can happen with any device - but I didn't have the intermittent problems that many others have struggled with - but it is hard to know if that is the noisy minority or if 50%+ of HD-PVR users had problems.

CableCard is not an option for those of us in Canada as our cable cos will not give us these cards. Therefore if you want to record non-OTA channels then you have very few options other than the HD-PVR.

[Audacity]

Originally Posted by wayner

You can argue that can happen with any device - but I didn't have the intermittent problems that many others have struggled with - but it is hard to know if that is the noisy minority or if 50%+ of HD-PVR users had problems.

I know BeyondTV users had plenty of HD-PVR issues, but that could be attributed to lack of "official" support. That said, the people at Snapstream (during the beta) said that they too were having reliability issues with the HD-PVR.

Then, when I got my HD-PVR and decided to use it with 7MC (in conjunction with DVBLink) there were plenty of users who had the same issues, and the developer of the tool was easily able to reproduce the issues the users were saying. I remember (in the forum there) he was lamenting the fact that Hauppauge had released such a unreliable product.

Here is a FAQ that they released that outlined some of their findings and gave recommendations.

You don't find stuff like this "out there" for HDHomeRun devices. That said, I appreciate that the evidence that the HD-PVR is unreliable is anecdotal since I don't have actual stats.

I appreciate your position that Canada doesn't have CableCard (boo!), which is part of the reason why I'm cheering for streaming video as it gets better and better.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by Audacity

I appreciate your position that Canada doesn't have CableCard (boo!), which is part of the reason why I'm cheering for streaming video as it gets better and better.

And most streaming sites don't work in Canada (Hulu, Amazon, ABC, CNS, NBC), or don't offer as much content (Netflix Canada), unless you spoof a US IP address using a VPN or something like unblockus.com.

I know that a lot of HD-PVR users have had oodles of troubles but for some reason I have been lucky and I have used three different pieces of hardware as my Sage server over that time period with two different HD-PVRs - one of them that was bought within a couple of months of the release of this device.