[mythtv-users] MythTV has decided to record almost everything in SD

[Ronald Frazier]

On Fri, Sep 23, 2011 at 9:03 AM, Matt Emmott <memmott at gmail.com> wrote:
> I replaced my HD-PVR with an HDHomeRun Prime (3 tuner) about two weeks ago.
> After that, most of the recordings that were scheduled on HD non clear QAM
> channels have changed to their SD counterparts. I don't think the QAM has
> anything to do with it, as all my recordings are via CableCard, but I
> mention it because it appears that channels I used to get in clear QAM
> (local news stations) are still recording on their HD channels. In addition,
> HD channels that don't have SD counterparts (HD Theater, Palladia) are still
> recording in HD. Channels like Cartoon Network, Comedy Central, TBS and FX
> are all recording in SD.
>
> I just took a look at MythWeb and sorted by show, and I see that before the
> switch, Conan was on channel 745 (TBS HD) and after the switch it's now on
> 33 (TBS SD). I have checked the HDHomeRun webpage's Channel Lineup page, and
> channel 745 is still there. I just looked at the Channel editor in mythweb,
> and 745 is there as well. However, this is weird - I have 3 SourceID's: 1, 3
> and 4. 3 and 4 have 745 and my other HD channels, but 1 has a bunch of wacky
> super-high-numbered channels. So, it appears I have a couple questions here:
>
> 1) Any idea why MythTV decided to record everything in SD?
> 2) How can I tell which sourceid in MythWeb corresponds to which source in
> Mythtv-Setup? 2b) Does SourceID mean tuner? Or is it just a stale source for
> my defunct HD-PVR or really defunct HDHR non-Prime?
> 3) I was messing with the recording schedules for The Daily Show last night
> and couldn't figure out a way to change the channel it planned to use from
> 49 (SD) to 717 (HD). I ended up deleting the schedule and creating a new
> one, although now that schedule is nowhere to be found. Am I missing an
> easier way to do this?

First, to answer a few of your basic quesitons:

The sourceid in mythweb corresponds to the videosource in mythtv-setup
(ie: the source of your guide data...usually schedules direct). Each
video source has its own channel definitions. I think the only way to
see the sourceids is by looking in the database directly. You can
execute the following command to list it out:

mysql -u mythtv -pmythtv -D mythconverg -e 'SELECT * FROM videosource'


Recording rules are not set to record a specific channel number. They
are set to record based on callsign (unless you did a
record-on-any-channel rule). So when trying to schedule a rule, the
system looks at all channels with the same callsign, filters out those
that are not marked as visible, and then tries to figure out which one
to use (taking into account priorities, conflicts, etc).


What I suspect happened before was that you only had channels defined
for your HD channels, but now with the cablecard you have both an HD
and an SD channel defined. If they both have the same callsign and
there are no priorities to give one preference over the other, than
it's hard to know which one myth will pick (not sure if it favors a
lower channum, or a lower chanid, or whatever). In my opinion, the
best way to correct this is to set a priority. You could set a
priority for each channel, but that's tedious. In your guide data, if
you've got everything configured correctly, the programs broadcast in
HD should be marked with an HD flag. Somewhere in one of the setup
pages (I think it's in mythtv-setup in the general setup option, but
I'm not positive), there should be an option to tell myth to add a
priority to shows marked as HD. If you give this a +1, then the HD
version should get a slight edge over the non-HD version (assuming you
haven't messed with the priorities of individual channels or
recorders) and the scheduler will thus prefer to record the HD
version.

-- 
Ron Frazier