[mythtv-users] Video Sources, scheduling and recordings history

[Andre]

On 29 Mar 2010, at 19:59, Michael T. Dean wrote:

> On 03/29/2010 11:20 AM, Andre wrote:
>> I'm considering deleting all my video sources and re-creating from scratch, thanks (I suspect) to a bunch of channel moves (and my attempts to manage them without too much hassle) I'm seeing some odd scheduler choices.
>> 
>> So a few questions that I can't find answered anywhere: (running 0.22-fixes on Ubuntu 9.10 in the UK, DVBT,S&S2)
>> 
>> Is there a priority with video sources, like there is with capture cards? If so this _might_ explain my odd (to me) scheduling choices. Every two or three days a programme is scheduled on a DVBS or S2 card when there is a DVBT card clearly available, in some cases this causes a reschedule (or conflict) of a programme that can only be received by the DVBS or S2 card!
>>   
> 
> No.  Priorities can only be applied to recording rules (recording rule priorities are good--these are the ones you should use),

Yep, use lots of them and they work well.

> to channels (channel priorities should almost never be used),

Didn't know they were possible so don't use them.

> and card inputs (card input priorities are evil).

I don't use them, I understood from earlier threads that the order the capture cards were created in gave a priority order of a lesser sort which the howto seems to confirm.

> http://www.mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO-12.html
> http://www.mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO-12.html#ss12.6

Yep, read all that some time ago, I originally had my capture cards as best first as "Order of Inputs" recommends but I found that when a channel is available across several capture sources it always seemed to clog up the "best" card with shows that could have been recorded on other cards preventing other recordings. There was a huge thread on combined Freesat & Freeview UK systems which I participated in, I have my cards set up to that recommendation and until the last lot of channel shuffles it's been doing "the right thing".


> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/375872#375872
> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/391412#391412
> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/419189#419189

I followed these at the time and I don't have the exact issues being discussed, useful to go through them again.

> 
> That said, since video sources map to card inputs, you may well have broken card input priorities which cause the scheduling weirdness you've seen.

That sounds possible, I've been through the delete all capture cards and re-add in the desired order routine a couple of times with some hardware changes and to try some different scenarios and until now the scheduler has done explicable things, not always what I wanted but explicable after the fact in the context of HOWTO-12! 

I haven't (yet) done the equivalent tear down and re-create with sources, I suspect that I'm seeing some artefact of the order my sources were created in which for historic reasons looks a bit wacky now. I have DVBS using EIT as source 1, DVBT using EIT as source 2 and a subset of DVBS2 channels using xmltv as source 10. My suspicion is that perhaps if DVBT was 1 and DVBS was 2 that could conceivably correct the "oddities" I'm seeing.

For now I've disabled (from the source connected to DVBS) the channels that keep choosing DVBS when there's a free DVBT tuner and that's working ok. It seems "right" that MythTV should have access to these channels to resolve more complex conflicts so I'm trying to make a better configuration.

>From the HOWTO:
>----- 
>Order of Inputs 
>
>By default the scheduler chooses the first (lowest numbered) input which 
>has a showing of the scheduled program as it fills the schedule.
>


Is there an equivalent process as the scheduler goes through the listings as provided by the Video Sources or is the Video Source directly tied to the Input and never parsed except in the context of an Input?

The more I think about this, the more I think they must be tied, I only question it as I've seen examples where that doesn't appear to be the case but only recently! 

> 
>> If I delete all my video sources and re-create them (probably in a different order) will I lose correlation of channel information in my recordings and recording rules? I lost this once around the .20 .21 transition and I don't want to do it again, I'm hoping that like with capture cards I can remove and re-create sources without major problems.
>>   
> 
> If your channel ID's change, any "this channel" recording rules you have will be broken.  You'll need to change them to "any channel" rules (which are what 99% of all rules should be, anyway),

>99% of mine are, there a few others but I don't care much about breaking them. 

I am very very concerned about having 6TB of recordings that all claim to have been recorded on channel "." is this also derived from the channel ID or hopefully from channum or callsign?


> then (if you still feel you need "this channel rules) find a matching showing on the proper channel and change it to a "this channel" rule.

Easier said than done, one of the truly great things about MythTV is having it find and record shows that you didn't even know were on. I often find two or three weeks worth of shows of some new series that I totally missed or some marathon that I would have missed completely if it wasn't for some dusty old recording :-)

Last time I just changed them all to "any channel", easier to delete some extra recordings than wonder why you don't have any recordings of some new favourite series three weeks in.


> 
>> I'm trying to decide the best prioritisation of channels that appears in DVBT using EIT, DVBS using EIT and DVBS2 using xmltv. My DVBS2 only channels only have xmltv listings but other channels have better EIT than XMLTV or no XMLTV at all. Capture wise I prioritise DVBT first, then DVBS, then DVBS2 to ensure best usage of capture cards.

It seems to get the best quality recording (HD over SD) I need my cards in one order but to get best utilisation of cards with differing capability I need exactly the opposite order! Looks like I need to start _carefully_ investigating channel priorities.

>>   Most important question is can I kill and recreate my sources without messing up correlation of channels in recording rules, in existing recordings and in recording history?
>>   
> 
> "Any channel" rules will be unaffected.  Only "this channel" rules (which are generally a bad idea) will be affected.

And the recordings?

Thanks

Andre