[mythtv-users] Live TV channel restrictions

[Michael T. Dean]

On 02/23/2010 09:03 AM, Ian Oliver wrote:
> In article, Michael T. Dean wrote:
>    
>> Also, if you're using multirec, see
>> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/dev/369358#369358 (read the
>> whole thing, and note that the last solution specified--the one that was
>> untried at the time--is the best, but if you don't read the whole
>> message, you won't have all the info you need to make it work).
>>      
> I did read this after posting, but found it discouragingly complex and it also
> only looked like a partial solution. However, I guess I need to give it a try.
> The bit about "basically tells Myth LiveTV is more important to you than
> recordings" concerns me: Live TV isn't more important to us than recordings.
> But with four tuners, each with four virtual tuners, the Live TV should nearly
> always be able to fine a tuner on the right mux (or free to be tuned to it)
> and a spare virtual tuner. If it can't then I'm happy to not get Live TV on
> that channel, but in practice, it should never happen.
>    

The problem the post above "fixes" is that many users complain that once 
they start LiveTV, they're locked to the mux from which the capture card 
is recording--which is exactly what you were asking about in your 
original post.  If you always want LiveTV to get a separate physical 
tuner, you /are/ saying LiveTV is more important to you than recordings.

MythTV will still tell you that it needs the tuner for a recording if 
something starts while you're watching LiveTV, but you've told it to 
give a preference to LiveTV by telling it to use a different physical tuner.

>> Also, note that what MythTV is doing is by design.  There are valid
>> reasons for it to behave the way it does rather than using a separate tuner.
>>      
> Even though it means that we can't easily watch what we want on Live TV even
> when there are spare tuners and virtual tuners?
>
> Anyway, thanks all for the replies, I'll try the various work-arounds and
> explore their limitations.

The post above has a full solution for your situation that does 
everything you want.  It's not a workaround.  It's simply reconfiguring 
a DV/Recorder/ so that you can waste your time with LiveTV /and/ so that 
doing so is most likely to give you a free physical tuner so you can 
change the channel during LiveTV using browse mode (and without having 
to go through the pain and suffering involved with hitting a key 
(NEXTCARD) or using the EPG to change channels).  :)

Note also that NEXTCARD and the EPG are always valid options, too.  
They're the solution specified in the first link in the linked post 
(i.e. http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/342420#342420 , 
as linked from 
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/dev/369358#369358 , under 
the title, "Best approach: ").

There's also a new setting:

Browse all channels
If enabled, browse mode will shows channels on all available recording 
devices, instead of showing channels on just the current recorder.

which, IIRC (I don't use LiveTV), is designed to allow LiveTV users who 
are too lazy to go into the EPG the ability to see all channels 
available on all tuners and to automatically switch to a different 
physical tuner when required.  The downside is that--only in LiveTV--it 
can make channel changes significantly slower (which is why it's 
disabled by default).  So, you can decide whether you'd rather every 
single channel change is slower in LiveTV, or whether starting LiveTV 
gets its own physical tuner to start with (possibly a tuner that will be 
required for a recording while LiveTV is running), or whether to just 
use NEXTCARD or the EPG (which is pretty much how it's designed to be used).

Mike