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

[David Engel]

On Thu, Sep 09, 2010 at 05:27:42PM -0400, Brian J. Murrell wrote:
> OK.  So having increased the priority on all of the digital channels I
> really care about (i.e. the major networks which is where most of my
> recording happens) I'm still seeing a suboptimal scheduling:
> 
> The Middle - "Back to School"         9 WWTI    22 20:00-20:30  1 5 5  A 5 -3/-1
> Survivor: Nicaragua                   3 CIII    22 20:00-21:00  2 1 1  A 1 -1
> Undercovers - "Pilot"                40 CITY    22 20:00-21:00  1 0 0  A E -3
> Undercovers - "Pilot"                 5 WGRZ    22 20:00-21:00  1 6 6  A 6 -3/-1
> Survivor: Nicaragua                   7 WWNY    22 20:00-21:00  1 4 4  A 4 -2/-1
> Better With You - "Pilot"             9 WWTI    22 20:30-21:00  1 5 5  A 5 -3/-1

First off, please turn off the "Complex Prioritization" setting.
That's the obsolete feature I mentioned before that makes some
prioroties more important than others.

> (Full output can be seen at http://brian.interlinx.bc.ca/schedule.txt as
> usual.)
> 
> As you can see, there are 4 things recording at 20:00, one on the
> digital tuner and 3 on analog tuners.  However, all but the "3 CIII"
> "Survivor" recording are on the same multiplex on the digital tuner, so
> this could more optimally be recorded as 3 on the digital tuner and one
> ("Survivor" on "3 CIII") on one analog tuner.
> 
> I'm guessing that the scheduler does not take this sort of optimization
> into account?

No, it doesn't.  If you really know what you're doing, though, power
priorities cna help in these situations.

> FWIW: it is likely that at some point in the future, the "CIII" and
> "WWNY" showings of Survivor will be known to be the same and with any
> luck, it will be rescheduled as 3x digital recordings.  But that doesn't
> mean that this sort of lack of optimization won't actually happen at
> some point in the future.

Actually, it might not do as you expect depending on the value of
SchedMoveHigher.  The reason is the scheduler has an implicit
preference for CIII over WWNY because of its lower chanid, so it might
still choose to record Survivor on CIII.  If this happens, please let
me know, so I can have you test a change I might want ot make.

David
-- 
David Engel
david at istwok.net