[mythtv-users] how to resolve a suboptimal scheduling situation

David Engel david at istwok.net
Thu Sep 9 22:24:24 UTC 2010


On Thu, Sep 09, 2010 at 04:28:26PM -0400, Brian J. Murrell wrote:
> On Thu, 2010-09-09 at 14:58 -0500, David Engel wrote: 
> > You can use input priorities, channel priorities, the HDTV priority or
> > power priorities.
> 
> I recall there being a warning not so long ago about setting priorities
> (on tuners perhaps) that would lead to unexpected results and that that
> should be avoided.  Is there something specific about priorities and
> tuners that doesn't affect input, power or channel priorities?

That's Mike Dean being cautious as adding priorities without having a
basic understanding of them can lead to unexpected results.  Since
he's usually the first line of support on the mailing lists and irc, I
don't try to overtly contradict him.

There is nothing special about any of the various priorities.
Ultimately, they are all added together to come up with a single
number for a specific program, channel, input and time.  The reason
there are several priorities is to allow great flexibility to those
who need it.  Note that a one time, some priorities could optionally
be made more important than others, but that is no longer the case.

> I guess I will go through and do some channel priority bumping to prefer
> the digital broadcasts.  I knew this was a priority problem, I just
> wasn't sure where I should (and shouldn't) fiddle to make it work.  It
> seems the advise in the past was that one should simply add the inputs
> in the order that one wants to prioritize and not fiddle with anything
> else.  I guess that only goes so far.

The advice to order inputs is because that is the first thing used
when priorities are equal.  For many people, that works fine and they
don't ever have to mess with priorities.  As you've seen, things get
more complicated when you have a mixture of different types of inputs
and sources.

FWIW, here's a little more detail on what I do.  I have my digital
cable/clear QAM inputs listed first, followed by my digital cable
STB/HD-PVR inputs next and then my analog cable inputs last.  I then
set the channel priority for most HD channels to 1 and leave all
others at 0.  I specifically leave HD "news" channels like CNN, HLN,
FNC and TWC at 0.  The reason I do this because of the timeliness of
news shows and not wanting them to have a big affect on the digital
and HD-PVR inputs.  The result is my analog inputs usually only get
used for news, occasional SD-only programs or as a last resort.

David
-- 
David Engel
david at istwok.net


More information about the mythtv-users mailing list