[mythtv-users] is mythtv smart enough to do this(overlap/back-to-back) with recordings?

[Peter Schachte]

On Sun, Jul 30, 2006 at 05:38:42PM -0700, chris at cpr.homelinux.net wrote:
> recording overlaps 
> as a matter of policy and scheduling to create overlaps where they 
> didn't otherwise occur naturally is going to be a lot of work for 
> minimal gain.

The value of the gain would depend on your hardware and how important
padding or start early/end late is where you are.  But I would venture
to say that most myth users that need some padding would benefit.
Certainly users whose tuners all have the same priority would benefit.
But even in the nasty cases with different tuner priorities, there's
still usually a benefit.  Consider this example:

    channel A    |--program 1--|--program2--|
    channel B    |---------program 3--------|

and assume each show wants a 5 minute start early and 5 minute end
late and you have two tuners.  Clearly myth can't record all three
programs without the feature we're discussing.  There are 6 possible
priority assignment for these 3 programs, but only two of them, the
two that give program 3 the lowest priority, would not let myth record
all of the programs.  So even with a complex set up with tuners of
different priorities, you'll still often benefit.

As to how much work it would be, I can't argue as I haven't looked at
the code.  But if the scheduler tries to schedule the programs in
order of decreasing priority, putting each program on the highest
priority tuner available at that time, then I don't see why it would
be add too much complication.  All you have to do is realize when you
try to schedule a program on a tuner that if the program to be
scheduled overlaps an already-scheduled program on the same channel
(or even the same transport) that it's OK to schedule that program on
that tuner.  It can't possibly impact a higher priority program,
because they're all already scheduled.  And this would continue to put
the highest priority programs on the highest priority tuners.

-- 
Peter Schachte              A nation that continues year after year to spend
schachte at cs.mu.OZ.AU        more money on military defense than on programs
www.cs.mu.oz.au/~schachte/  of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.
Phone: +61 3 8344 1338          -- Martin Luther King, Jr.