[mythtv-users] Multiple tuners, multiple sources...

[Joseph A. Caputo]

On Thursday 11 March 2004 15:41, Scott Nicholson wrote:
> Haven't actually started building my Mythbox yet... Just wanted to
> clarify an issue:
>
> I'll be getting digital cable in the near future, with one receiver.
> I've also got USDTV, which is an over-the-air HDTV receiver with a
> few non-broadcast channels (Food Network, HDTV, etc.).
>
> I'll be building my Mythbox with two tuners (probably two Avermedia
> M179).
>
> I want to connect the digital cable receiver to one of the tuners.
> I'd like to be able to connect both the USDTV (on S-video) AND my
> cable (on coax) to the second tuner -- so that analog cable channels
> are available.
>
> If I do that, that means that some channels (the broadcast networks,
> for example) will be available from three sources: Tuner1,
> Tuner2-svid, and Tuner2-coax.
>
> Other channels will be available from two sources (Tuner1 and one of
> the Tuner2 inputs)
>
> And then there will be several channels that will only be available
> from Tuner1.
>
> Does Myth handle this kind of thing okay? I can set priorities on
> which source to record from, right? Can I do this on a per-channel
> basis? (i.e. Food Network over the USDTV will be better quality than
> the Digital Cable Food Network, since it's HD, but Nickelodeon will
> be better on the Digital Cable than on the Analog Cable (and not
> available at all on the USDTV).
>
> TIA for clarification and information.
> Scott

Man, what a complex situation!  Just for clarification, you'd have 3 
sources:

Analog cable
Digital cable
USDTV

with the following connections:

Digital cable 	-> SVideo0 or Composite0

Analog cable	-> Tuner1
USDTV		-> SVideo1

(and just to make things more complex, you could split your cable and 
also hook up Analog Cable -> Tuner0, but we'll ignore that for now)

The good news is that, although having a channel duplicated in multiple 
sources used to be a nightmare, CVS has (IIRC) the ability to correlate 
channels in different sources, if they have the same callsign.  This 
means that, across all 3 sources, a channel with the callsign 'FOODTV' 
is considered the same channel.  However, 'FOODTV-HD' would be a 
different channel.  I'm not sure if that heuristic applies to the 
scheduler or just the EPG view... if it doesn't affect the scheduler, 
then you're out of luck.

Unfortunately, I don't think Myth currently has the capability to 
indicate card preferences.  So, if you want to record something on 
FOODTV, you have 3 choices:

(1) name the channels in all 3 sources "FOODTV".  Your recording might 
end up using any one of the three sources

(2) name the digital & analog cable channel "FOODTV", but name the USDTV 
channel "FOODTV-HD".  Schedule the recording for either channel.  If 
you use "FOODTV", it will record from either digital or analog cable.  
If you use "FOODTV-HD", it will record only on USDTV, or not at all.

(3) name the channels as in (2) above, but set up two identical 
recordings -- one for "FOODTV" and one for "FOODTV-HD".  Give the one 
on "FOODTV-HD" a higher priority.  Worst case, it records twice.  Best 
case (if you turn on duplicate detection & you have enough program 
information), the lower priority one will be suppressed because the 
scheduler knows it's being recorded elsewhere.  Hey, it ain't pretty, 
but it might work...

-JAC