[mythtv-users] Record only HD or prefer HD over SD

Christian Szpilfogel chrisznews4 at rogers.com
Thu Feb 4 03:09:21 UTC 2010


Yeechang Lee wrote:
> Right. I presume Christian Szpilfogel is located in Canada given his
>   
Correct. Six time zones aggravates the issue but it is not isolated to 
time shifting.
> Mike Dean says:
>   
>> The point is that when you set channel and input priorities, Myth
>> will /no longer/ always record the first showing--even if there are
>> available inputs (meaning it will leave inputs unused when shows you
>> want to record, but haven't yet recorded, air).  Therefore, you
>> /could/ have recorded the show when it first aired, but you didn't
>> because you set your channel priorities such that Myth said, "Simon
>> would rather record it on the other channel, so I won't record it
>> now."
>>     
>
> But neither I nor Christian want to always record the first showing of
> a program. Within the two-week period that a given SchedulesDirect
> feed covers, a movie might very well air on HBOHDP, HBOP, HBO, HB2P,
> HBO2, HBOSIG, and HBOSIGP, and the first airing is quite possibly not
> going to be on HBOHDP (guaranteed, actually, since HBO--the Eastern
> time-zone SD feed--will always air it three hours before
> HBOHDP/HBOP). Even making HBOP invisible (the right thing to do, given
> its exact redundancy with HBOHDP) doesn't change the situation.
>   
Correct. And if it was only limited to time shifted national channels it 
would be trivial for the reasons you state below.

We have other related issues. We have networks that sometimes 
rebroadcast US or other international shows and even sometimes two 
networks may take the international feed. So I may see the same show 
listed on say US ABC and CTV and sometimes another channel. In other 
cases we have regional or city only channels that are rebroadcast 
nationally (e.g. CityTV in Toronto which I can pick up in Ottawa; bad 
example as it is HD here). And in other cases you have national networks 
that have many regional variations with local programming content. CBC 
and CTV do this to a certain extent. Many of these channels do not have 
an HD variant so I can't delete them unless I really don't care about 
them. Add a little time shifting into the equation and it's bonkers.

An example this week was when I was trying to record a UK show that was 
shown on one of our national networks, one of the regional broadcasters 
also had the rights and showed it ahead of the one I wanted. I found it 
by trying the "any time any channel" option. I didn't get dinged because 
I suspected this might happen.
> Since I want the same thing Christian asked for--the scheduler
> choosing the HD version of a program if available--I thus give HBOHDP
> and other HD channels a higher priority than for others, and also bump
> up Recording Priorities|HDTV Recording Priority two notches. This has
> worked very nicely for my 4+ years using MythTV. If there is a better
> way of achieving my goal, I'd love to hear it.
>   
But this will only work if you can guarantee or manage it so that HD 
variant will show up first or simultaneously. I can manage this on 
strict national stations as you say by deleting the time shifted SD 
feeds but that's it.
> As noted above, I do mark redundant SD channels as not visible in the
> lineup; there is no point cluttering up the scheduler (or the EPG)
> with SD channels that are 100% duplicated by HD counterparts. "100%
> duplicated" means both content *and* time zones; I do not mark HBO
> invisible.
>   
The conclusion I come to is that it appears this can't be done without a 
custom rule. So now I wonder if it is worth submitting an NFR. I haven't 
seen much traffic on the issue so it is unclear to me if people are 
simply not using the "any time any channel" option or they have found 
reasonable work-arounds.




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