[mythtv-users] Re: Two tuners but got dropped from live TV when a single recording started

[Bruce Markey]

David Engel wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 02, 2005 at 05:19:21PM -0700, Bruce Markey wrote:
> 
>>TV Settings->General, first page, check "Avoid conflicts between
>>live TV and scheduled shows".
> 
> 
> That's only a partial solution.  I've said this before, but I'll say

While we're repeating ourselves ;-), I never want farting around
with channel surfing to interfere with a well planned schedule.
The reason I implemented this was as a stop gap to stem the tide
of counter-productive suggestions that would put scheduled programs
at the mercy of happenstance.

> On Fri, Sep 02, 2005 at 05:33:31PM -0700, Mark Knecht wrote:
> 
>>   I don't see why that isn't checked by default!
> 
> 
> If you have different quality tuner cards, this option will make live
> TV use the lowest quality tuner.

Correct. The default behavior for selecting a card for live TV is
to first check if there is an available card on the same hostname
as the requesting mythfrontend so that the data will be streamed
locally. If there is not a local tuner, choose the lowest numbered
(highest quality) card.

The scheduler chooses the lowest numbered card for the highest
priority shows and uses the second input for a source when another
lower priority show overlaps and so on. Different backend machines
may have different resources available. Different models of cards
may be in the mix and different signal quality may be coming from
different coax cables. Therefore, it is in the user's best interest
to configure their best quality recorded as card 1 and the most
questionable as card N.

What this option does is to ignore the hostname and choose the
highest numbered card available for live TV. If there are three
inputs for a single source, this would always choose card 3 unless
it was busy. Card 3 would never be asked to record a scheduled show
until there were three overlapping recordings, in which case, you
couldn't use a live buffer anyway. Otherwise, one or two recordings
can start while the ringbuffer continues.

If the cards and signals were truly identical on a single host
then, yes, this should be turned on by default. However, if you have
different resources on different hosts, this would always go to the
poorest card and possibly across the network unnecessarily.


In the bigger picture, the vast majority of DVR users eventually
find that they can effortlessly choose to record all the shows they
like to see. When they turn on the tube, they can choose to watch
the shows they look forward to seeing (from the beginning passing
over sections they are not interested in watching). This is in place
of old habits of flipping through channels hoping to find something
'good' on and watching from somewhere in the middle.

Eventually, the behavior of A/V test mode =) becomes insignificant.
While the live TV mode should behave reasonably, it should not be
allowed to interfere with the most important service of a DVR. That
is, to record the shows which the user has planned to record.

--  bjm