[mythtv-users] scheduling not using all three tuners?

Steven Adeff adeffs.mythtv at gmail.com
Wed Apr 12 15:13:55 UTC 2006


On 4/12/06, Peter Schachte <schachte at csse.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 12, 2006 at 09:53:42AM +1000, Max Barry wrote:
> > A global soft buffer that does everything you want, but also
> > unnecessarily pads shows from the two reliable TV networks (ABC & SBS),
> > is still pretty great!
>
> Agreed, as long as it's controlable.
>
> OK, right now Myth has two padding features:  global pre- and
> post-roll that is sometimes ignored, and per-recording (and
> overridable) start early and end late settings that are always
> respected.  It sounds like your fix is to give users some global
> control over when the pre- and post-roll are ignored.  But there's a
> lot to be said for the direct control of start early and end late
> settings.  For one thing, they can be explicitly overriden.  That's
> how I resolve conflicts now, and I like being able to decide for one
> program to risk not recording late, but for another to decide to
> simply not record a conflicting program rather than risk a WAF crisis
> if the end of a favourite program is missed.
>
> So perhaps the nicest/simplest solution would be to:
>
>     1)  Allow configuration of global default start early and end
>         late values.  Newly scheduled recordings would get these values
>         by default, but of course they would be changable.
>
>     2)  In the "upcoming recordins" list, highlight programs that are
>         conflicting only because of start early and end late settings
>         in some way that distinguishes then from conflicts of the
>         programs themselves.  Provide a key binding and menu item that
>         will immediately override the schedule removing enough of the
>         start early and end late values so the recordings do not
>         conflict.  Also have a different highlight for programs that
>         are scheduled to record, but have had their start early/end
>         late settings overridden, and have a key/menu item to remove
>         those overrides.  This would make it easy to see the state and
>         to toggle the override on and off.
>
>     3)  Provide a global configuration setting that would allow
>         automatic (no user intervention) overriding of start early and
>         end late values with the same options you provided in your
>         earlier patch, but implemented by automatically generating
>         program overrides as needed.

I'd also like a per-tuner pre/post roll option that is taken into
consideration by the scheduler but is not required. IE, I'd like all
my DVB(hdtv) recordings to start 30seconds early, They don't need to,
but if I have enough available tuners then do so. If two or more shows
are going to record but only one can get this 30second advance start,
then use the recording priority to decide which show will get to start
early.


> Each of these changes is independent of the others, and all of them
> leave users in full control over each program's start early and end
> late settings.  They all just make it a bit more convenient to do what
> they can already do.
>
> > > And when consecutive programs are to be recorded on
> > > the same channel and the same tuner, the pre- and post-roll can be
> > > ignored, and the start early and end late values shouldn't prevent
> > > consecutive programs from being recorded on the same tuner (though
> > > ideally the overlapping end late/start early time would be included in
> > > both recordings).
> >
> > But if you're saying that MythTV should prefer to drop the soft buffers
> > in order to record consecutive shows on the same channel *even if
> > another tuner card is idle*, I would disagree.
>
> No, what I mean is that there's no reason that the signal coming in
> from a tuner can't be recorded into *two* files at once.  This should
> allow you to happily record two programs in a row on the same tuner
> and still respect the end late setting for the first program and the
> start early setting for the second, as long as both programs are on
> the same channel.  So this is another improvement, also independent of
> the others:
>
>     4)  Allow myth to record program data into two (or more) files at
>         once.  When the start early time of one program arrives while
>         another is already recording on the same channel and tuner,
>         open the recording file for the second and start writing every
>         byte from the tuner into both files.  When the end late time
>         of the first program arrives, close the first file and
>         continue writing only to the second file.  Then modify the
>         scheduler to know that multiple programs at the same time on
>         the same channel and tuner are not in conflict.
>
> I believe there's already a TRAC number for exactly this idea.

This would be a nice addition to the per-tuner pre/post roll. If two
consecutive shows are being recorded on the same channel, don't have
the tuner retune, just keep recording the first channel until its
post-roll value has been reached, and start recording to the second
file as well at the time desired by the pre-roll.


> With all of these changes together, I think Myth would handle
> unreliable TV station schedules about as well as it possibly could.
>
> > You a coder, Peter? :)
>
> Yeah, though my C++ is pretty rusty, and was never great.  I started
> looking into implementing item #4 recently, but haven't gotten very
> far.  I'm happy to work on any of these ideas, with a little coaching
> on where to look.

--
Steve


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