[mythtv-users] Starting new setup, about the recording scheduler.

[Bill Kirkpatrick]

Thanks for answering.  I know I need various numbers of capture cards. 
The short form of the question is, i guess...

If I have 2 off air capture cards that share a rotor, would MythTV know
it COULD NOT use capture card 1 to get acceptable signal  on channels 2,
4, and 6 (even if card 1 may in fact report a "lock") while capture card
2 is already recording channel 57, because the rotor would be in the
wrong position?  Would it also know, as it is recording ch57, that it
COULD, concurrently, use capture card 1 to record channel 29 (but not 2,
4, or 6), because both channel 57 and 29 happen to be available from the
same rotor direction?

My sense from various reading is the system would schedule the first
recording at, say, noon on capture card 2.  By various magic it would
swing to rotor to, say, 270deg (ch 57 and 29) and dutifully start
recording ch57.  Fine.  Meanwhile, half an hour later and overlapping
the show on ch57 by 30 minutes, a second scheduled event comes due on
ch2.  Would it now allocate the second, inactive, card and, by various
magic, swing the rotor to 150deg(ch 2 only)?  Such a mid-recording rotor
swing would promptly destroy the active recording being made on ch57.

Now, assuming Myth is bright enough to know to lock out both cards 1 and
2 due to the rotor scheduling conflict.  Is it also bright enough to
figure out, and switch to recording, the desired content that was on ch2
also available on card 3 hooked into a Dish Network local programming
package? (Assuming, of course, the EPG is properly coded).

Steven Adeff wrote:
> On 9/21/06, Bill Kirkpatrick <william.kirkpatrick at verizon.net> wrote:
>   
>> I'm starting to build a AV system for the house.  I have TV's in various
>> bedrooms and the common room.  Now, each of these have resources that
>> differ.  In my case we have 2 Dish Network boxes, a UHF/VHF antenna
>> system on a rotor and various DVD/VCR players.
>>
>> I read the scheduling info and I'm thinking it may need work to do what
>> I want/need it to.  Call it a "Advanced resource scheduler", I guess. I
>> can, perhaps, find time to code this stuff but I need to know if 1) it's
>> already done; or 2) if it's already in the works.
>>
>> To schedule a recording requires access/lock on one or more resources
>> beyond the capture card itself.  I know MythTV will seek out a "free"
>> capture card.   But, that card may not have access to everything it
>> needs.  For example, only 2 of the, say, 4 cards in the system have
>> access to a Dish box.  All 4 have access to off air, but the selected
>> card also needs to secure and set the antenna rotor.  We may also end up
>> with a couple of HD cards, which would also have to share the off-air
>> antenna and rotor system. Of course, the rotor set to any given position
>> would be able to receive any select sub-set of the entire viewablelist
>> and could be shared to record any program available at that position.
>>
>> The IR blaster on each unit would also have to be programmed differently
>> for access to each card on the network.  One room has a VCR and the Dish
>> box connects through that (and the roommate likes it that way), another
>> has a dual input TV and these feeds are distinct.  To set the VCR
>> enabled unit the IR blaster in that room would have to code the VCR to
>> channel "0", then set the dish box to its channel.  If the VCR enabled
>> room was needed to record off-air, it would  have to set the VCR to the
>> desired channel in that room, then use the IR blaster on the system in
>> the common to set the off-air antenna rotor.
>>
>> A friend of mine out west adds a multiple positioning "free" satellite
>> system to the whole mess.
>>
>> So... Everybody wants to record "stuff".  Some stuff, particularly on
>> Dishes, have multiple viewing times.  Can MythTV
>> schedule/acquire/set/lock all these various resource sets needed, or be
>> made to, to view/record possibly conflicted show times, in some sort of
>> "best fit" way?
>>     
>
> short answer, "Yes".
>
> Long answer. Since you have multiple sources, your two Dish boxes and
> antenna, you may want to get, say, 2 PVR-500's. This will let you
> connect both Dish boxes and the antenna to two tuners, allowing you to
> record 4 things in all, all at the same time.
>
>