[mythtv-users] Understanding the codes on the Scheduled Recording screen

James L. Paul james at mauibay.net
Sat Feb 14 18:00:39 EST 2004


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On Saturday 14 February 2004 12:40 am, Bruce Markey wrote:
> James L. Paul wrote:
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> > On the Scheduled Recording screen (Conflict Resolution) the rightmost
> > column shows the tuner currently scheduled to do the recording. I
> > recently upgraded to 0.14 and notice that now there is other information
> > also offered in that column. Instead of tuner numbers, for deactivated
> > shows I see letters such as A, R, and V.
> >
> > I took a quick walk through the code and didn't find the meaning of these
> > codes, nor did I find them explained in the docs. If I missed them,
> > please point me to where they are explained. ;)
>
> Press "Enter".

I did. That's how I got the text that I quoted in my post and made guesses as 
to what each code means. I still don't know any place to see a description of 
all the possible codes. All I get when I press enter is vague description of 
the type of conflict involved, no specific information.

> For about two or three months I've assumed that everyone
> would see that the full explanations are on the page for
> choosing overrides when you press space or enter. All of a
> sudden this week that turn out to not be the case. RSN the
> short one or two word status text will be shown on the page
> somewhere along with the other info for the highlighted show.

I see now. From my point of view, the "full explanation" is more of a hint in 
that no information about what is causing the specific conflict is given. 
When highlighting was used, I could easily see the cause of conflicts, now 
that there is no highlighting it can be difficult to see the cause of a 
conflict. My list shows deactivated programs that I'm having a hard time 
identifying the cause of the conflict.

> As you'll recall, this column used to have "-" for everything
> that was deactivated. When the scheduler owner added the
> status stuff, these characters were added so that you wouldn't
> need to press Enter every time you wanted to see the reason
> that something wasn't going to record.

Thanks for the confirmation. It was confusing me, since the legend for 
highlighting is still shown, but conflicted shows are never highlighted and 
are instead all deactivated and showing these codes.

> > "A" seems to be for programs that "will not be recorded because another
> > program was automatically chosen to be recorded instead." I assume this
> > is the basic conflict situation, when there are more programs with the
> > same priority than there are tuners. Is this correct?
>
> Yes, more later.
>
> > "R" seems to be for programs that "will not be recorded because another
> > program with a higher recording priority will be recorded." Is this the
> > same as "A", except for the conflicted shows having different priorities?
>
> "R" is when the decision was made by ranking. "A" is when
> the priorities are equal so it went to a set of rules to break
> the tie.

Ahh, thanks. I hadn't tied the R to Ranking, I was stuck thinking of the word 
"Priority" for Rankings.

> > "V" seems to be for programs that "will not be recorded because it is
> > covered by another scheduled recording for the same program." Does this
> > mean that the program is in fact scheduled to be recorded, but at another
> > time?
>
> No, it means that two different rules match for this showing
> and the more specific rule has control. The less specific one
> is marked V for rsOverlap. Say for example you first set a
> single record for Nova at 8:00 Tue Feb. 17th. as High Quality.
> Later you add a channel record for Nova anytime on your PBS
> station to record with the Default profile. There will be a
> Nova entry on Tue for card 1. Press "i" and you see it is
> single High Q. There will be another deactivated entry marked
> "V". Press "i" and you will see channel and Default.
>
> > there is no option to "record it anyway."
>
> Correct because there is another rule that will record it.
> If you remove the more specific rule then the less specific
> rule will again have control.

I see. I suspect my issue is being caused by having rules I'm not aware of in 
my database. There is no frontend tool I'm aware of that shows the current 
rules, correct? I have programs that appear multiple times in the scheduled 
recordings list, all with code "V". It's confusing to have _all_ the lines 
for a given show appear to be deactivated as V, yet know that it will be 
recorded anyway.

> > I do notice that now I never see any conflicts highlighted in yellow,
> > these codes seem to have replaced highlighting. Is this so?
>
> In a way. The yellow "I don't know what I'll record" was
> always a lie anyway. The scheduler knew for a FACT which
> would win the tie breaker and it was going to record when
> the time came if the organic peripheral didn't intervene.
>
> So now it just says which will win and the "A" tells you that
> you left these in a tie so you might want to consider what
> you should tell the scheduler to do. If you press "2" for the
> "Important" view it will not show all the Previously recorded
> and such. Only the "A"s and other things that you need to
> rectify will appear. Granted they are gray rather than yellow
> but the things in gray on the Important view are what you
> want to examine.

I now get much less information about the conflict for "A" situations. I used 
to know at a glance what shows were in conflict which each other. When I 
chose one program to break a 2-way or 3-way tie, I knew exactly what programs 
I was choosing between under the old method. Now I have only a "Record it 
Anyway" button and no information is given about which programs _won't_ be 
recorded if I break the tie with this one. In other words, I know there is a 
tie, but I don't know _which_ programs are in the tie. With multiple tuners 
and overlapping timeslots, I find it annoying to have to figure it out so I 
know what my choices are.

> > Are there other codes that I haven't seen yet?
>
> Yes.
>
> > If so what are they?
>
> If any unfamiliar code shows up, press "Enter" and read the
> explanation =). One thing that isn't explained is that if
> you see a lot of "R"s then it's time to buy one more tuner ;-).

Again, it would be helpful to have actual information about the conflict on 
this screen instead of general text. For example, if it's an "A" situation, 
I'd like to see the titles of the other programs that are tied with this one 
so that I can easily make a resolution choice.

Right now, I don't see any way to know which program will win an "A" situation 
tie. All shows in conflict are deactivated and show "A" but one of them will 
be recorded. How do I know in advance which one it will be?

I like the new results with the scheduling, things are working well. I do find 
conflict resolution a bit more confusing now due simply to having to do more 
thinking (ouch!) to figure out which programs are actually conflicting with 
each other. Thanks for the answers!

- -James
> --  bjm
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