Capture device prioritization or disabling

[nspindel]

I have two tuner cards, both using cable boxes as their input source. One of the cable boxes is a standard box, the other is hi-def.

Naturally, since Sage does not do hi-def, if I want to watch a hi-def show, I need to switch to a different input on my video receiver, which handles the hi-def output.

The problem is, what happens if Sage happens to be using that cable box? If I switch the channel directly, it will impact the decoder utilizing that box.

What I would like is a way of assigning a priority to my input devices. This way, if only one device is needed at a point in time, Sage would always default to using my standard box, not the hi-def one.

I would also like the ability of disabling the hi-def input source, so that if I am watching the hi-def outside of Sage, nothing within Sage could cause that cable box to change channels. One way, of course, is just to delete the input and re-add it later on, but this seems to be a lot of work.

Also, one other question - is there a quick way of seeing what capture devices are currently being used? Like a status report of all the capture devices in one easy to access screen?

And, if I see that the hi-def tuner is being utilized, can I boot the user off? What would be great would be if capture card #2 is being used, but card #1 is not, if I kick the recording off card #2, by disabling it somehow, Sage could continue tuning that program through card #1.

Are there any ways to handle what I'm trying to do? Or should I post this stuff in the feature request thread?

Thanks

[Opus4]

Originally posted by nspindel
What I would like is a way of assigning a priority to my input devices. This way, if only one device is needed at a point in time, Sage would always default to using my standard box, not the hi-def one.

On the SageTV Configuration support page is a SageTV Configuration Properties document. You can set the encoder_merit property (while SageTV is completely closed, not just sleeping) to tell it which tuners to use first.

I don't know of a way to disable/re-enable a tuner quickly.

Also, one other question - is there a quick way of seeing what capture devices are currently being used? Like a status report of all the capture devices in one easy to access screen?

From the Main Menu, go to Setup -> System Information to see what is currently recording on each tuner... of course, if they all have the smae name, that might not help much & I don't think there is a way to rename them.

- Andy

[nspindel]

This should get me most of the way there. At least if I can set it so that my hd box is the lower priority, there will only be problems when I'm using multiple tuners at the same time.

If there are still problems down the road, I suppose I could always add a third tuner card and get a third cable box, but that means giving the cable company even more money....

Thanks!

[stanger89]

You could always use the RF input on your tuner connected to your HD box. You'd just connect it directly to your cable, and then set it up as a 3rd source so that the only time the HD box would be used is if there are two Digital channels being recorded, which should be fairly rare.