[mythtv-users] Record HD *and* SD showings?
Bruce Markey
bjm at lvcm.com
Tue Dec 26 04:12:17 UTC 2006
Doug Larrick wrote:
> I am adding a PVR-150 to my HD-only MythTV system, to record shows off
> of analog cable. Once this is done, the only use of my old Series1 Tivo
> will be as a backup for those times weather interferes with over-the-air
> recordings of HD programs.
>
> Is there a way to convince MythTV to record the same show twice at the
> same time, from two different channels? Then the PVR-150 recording
> would serve as the weather backup.
>
> If I make an any-channel schedule, MythTV chooses the showing on the HD
> channel (as expected, since it has higher channel priority). If I make
> two channel-only schedules, the HD-channel showing is active and the
> SD-channel showing is marked as a duplicate (unless I use duplicate
> check method "none", in which case it wants to record old reruns too).
Hey, Doug. You're probably seeing that one of the important
goals of the scheduler is to prevent recording the same episode
on two different inputs at the same time. Other than the case
of making a backup version, this is almost always the wrong
thing to do. Back during The Split (~0.7 - 0.8) we had to
work hard fix problems that would result in two cards recording
the same episode.
There are four ways to double record an episode that come to
mind right away and seven as I think about it a little more
though most of these are not practical for what you want to do.
0 - because this is really an exception. For the Survivor finale
there were two episodes so I just set it to end an hour late and
set the Reunion episode to start two hours early.
1 - because I do this often. I set a manual rule for the backup
version on a different host to be sure I don't miss a one time
season finale of a favorite show or whatever.
If I wanted a backup of the Super Bowl, I'd set a manual rule named
"Super Bowl" starting 5 minutes early then set the rule to start
4 minutes late. This is important because a fake manual entry
at the same starttime and chanid can screw up the real program
entry and the same starttime and chanid can confuse things like
recorded markup so I just avoid these issues. For the manual rule,
I usually use the per rule preferred input to record it on a slave
in case the master backend screws up. The slave will continue to
record even when the MBE is down and will report in the the
scheduler that it is in progress when the MBE restarts.
If your target show is at the same time each week, you can set
a weekly manual rule and be done with it.
2 - because this is the right way to double a single event from
two different callsigns. Set Single rules for each of the two
channels. Singles and 'Do Record' overrides are an execption in
that they cannot decide that the episode can record at a different
time or channel. A Single or override can lose by priority and be
marked as a Conflict but they cannot be marked Earlier, Later,
Previously recorded or Recorded. This showing must try to record
anyway because the user explicitly said so.
Two singles will work for a one time even but doesn't help for a
recurring series. Say you have a show with a timeslot rule for
10pm Wed. If that time isn't convenient one week, you could add
a Single to record the same episode at 1am Thur. This showing
must record because you said so. Now, the 10pm showing gets
marked as L. This is because there is another showing of the
episode that must record. Even though the episode that will
record is not a match for the timeslot rule, it is a match for
the episode and it doesn't have to record at 10pm Wed as long
as that episode has been or will be recorded. Now, if I clicked
"Record anyway" for 10pm, this now override would have to record
too and I get two recordings of this same episode. Which leads to...
3 - you can override both showings from both callsigns. Create
an All rule for your show then click "Record anyway" on showings
from both callsigns for each episode. This isn't fully automated
because you have to add these overrides each week.
4 - what I think I'll recommend. As you noted, you can turn off
duplicate matching but that would also match the repeats. However,
you can try to create a custom rule to match just one showing of
each new episode.
In 0.20 there are now flags that mythfilldatabase sets to mark
the earilest time slot for each unique episode in the current
listings and another to mark the last. These are called "first"
and "last". If these are both set to true for the same showing,
that means that it is the only showing in the current listings.
The "first" flag is really useful for live sports when edited
versions are rebroadcast later but you only want to record the
live game.
Rule Name: NBA Basketball
program.title = 'NBA Basketball'
AND program.subtitle REGEXP '(Cavaliers|Bobcats|Miami)'
AND program.first > 0
This will only match the live broadcasts for these three teams
and no midnight showings on ESPN or rebroadcasts on FOX Sports.
Rule Name: CSI [HD]
program.title = 'CSI: Crime Scene Investigation'
AND program.previouslyshown = 0
AND program.first > 0
AND channel.callsign = 'WBZDT'
This will only match the first upcoming showing of an episode
that is within 14 days of it's original air date and is listed
on chanid 1041 or 3784.
Rule Name: CSI [SD]
program.title = 'CSI: Crime Scene Investigation'
AND program.previouslyshown = 0
AND program.first > 0
AND channel.callsign = 'WBZ'
The same except these are limited to chanid 3004 only.
Set both rules to not match duplicates. for the WBZ version.
choose your profile, priority for the SD version and I'd like
to say preferred input on another host but it sounds like you
just have one input for this video source.
Title - Subtitle Chan ChID Day Start End C I T N Pri
...
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation - "L 8 1008 04 21:00-22:00 3 4 A 3 1/0
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation - "L 128 2128 04 21:00-22:00 1 7 A 1 1/0
Although I'd prefer to stay here, "Leaving Las Vegas" is
scheduled on card 3 for "8 KLAS" and card 1 for "128 KLASDT".
5 - is dumb but... Go to a remote frontend just before your show
starts. Enter live TV and use Y and C to get to the standard
def input and channel of your show. Leave the live session
running while your HD show records. After it ends, stop the
live session, go to the Watch Recordings page, choose the LiveTV
group and change the recgroup for your show from LiveTV to Default.
This will work regardless of if the callsign or even chanid are
the same. If the callsigns are different or you enter live
after the start so the starttimes are different, then you can
simply press "R" and exit live (I'm currently recording three
instances of "Entertainment Tonight" from KLAS* on three cards).
6 - is related to 0 but even dumber. If your show is always
followed by the same title, create a rule for the show that
follows and set ti to start 61 min early and end 59 min early
and set preferred input, etc.
> Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately they already do have different
> callsigns -- in the example I chose the HD station is "WBZDT" and the SD
> station is "WBZ". I think the issue is that the seriesid and programid
> are identical, so when the second channel-only record tries to run, it
> sees it's already scheduled.
Correct and very much by design. You have to have it consider
them to be unrelated as in 0, 1 and 6, make them have to
record even though they are the same episode as in 2, 3 and 5,
or don't care that they are duplicate episodes as in 4.
> But I know next to nothing about how the
> scheduler functions so I could be wrong.
Nor did the person you were responding to. Quotes around text
that doesn't exist anywhere, a backward hypothesis about the
behavior of singles and recurring rules and, of course, absolutely
no attempt to test the advice given are all bad signs.
I've actually done 0, 1, 5 and 6 in the past and today tested
2, 3 and 4 plus extra experimenting with 5. These will all work
though most are impractical. I'd say your best bet is 4 where
you set two custom rules to record the one first showing of each
new episode and turn off duplicate matching.
-- bjm
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