[mythtv-users] Advice on HD, Digital SD, Analog SD scheduling priorities

[Rod Smith]

On Tuesday 03 November 2009 02:51:21 pm Larry K wrote:
> I am running myth 0.21 right now, and I currently use 2 analog capture
> cards, and a (dual tuner) HDHR.  I have Comcast, so I still get most of the
> basic cable + OTA in both analog AND digital form, but this may not last.
>
> The challenge I have now is balancing recordings against the HDHR vs.
> analog tuners.
...
> I would like to find a global solution where, for a given recording
> schedule that is set to 'any channel', I prioritize the tuners in roughly
> this order:
>
> Choose an HD channel on the HDHR first.  If this is not available, then
> choose a digital SD channel on the HDHR.  If this is not available, then
> choose an analog SD channel.

There are several things you can do that will produce effects you might find 
acceptable. Each will produce subtly different results:

1) Tuner order -- MythTV favors low-numbered tuners over high-numbered tuners,
   with tuner number being defined by the order in which you set them up in
   mythtv-setup. Thus, if you clear all your tuner definitions and add them
   back, defining your HDHR tuners first, then MythTV will favor your SD
   digital channels over the equivalent SD analog channels. This preference
   will not be strong enough to bump an earlier recording on an analog
   channel to a later recording on its digital SD equivalent, though.

2) Tuner priorities -- You can assign your digital tuners a higher priority
   (or alternatively, give your analog tuners a negative priority) in
   mythtv-setup. This will cause MythTV to favor the digital channels over
   the analog channels, to the point of bumping recordings to a later
   showing, when possible. This approach is pretty blunt, though; it will
   affect ALL the stations on the tuner(s) you adjust in this way. This
   may be fine -- certainly I didn't notice anything in your description
   to make me think you'd object to this.

3) Channel priorities -- If you use multiple Schedules Direct lineups (one
   for analog cable and one for digital cable), you can assign different
   priorities to your analog and digital SD channels. This will work much
   like adjusting your tuner priority, but you can fine-tune it. For
   instance, you could adjust just those SD digital channels whose content
   you really want recorded digitally, or reduce the priority of just those
   analog channels you really DON'T want recorded from an analog source
   (say, if the problem is that the picture quality on some analog channels
   is sub-par). Since the default in MythTV is to boost the priority of
   HD content by 2, IIRC, adjusting SD digital channels by +1 should leave
   HD content with a priority benefit over SD digital content. (You could of
   course reverse this if you wanted to.)

Neither #1 nor #2 should depend on the order in which tuners is defined; even 
if your analog tuners are numbered 1 and 2, your digital tuners (or some of 
their channels) should be preferred over them.

There may be other ways to achieve similar results, but these are the ones 
that spring to my mind.

-- 
Rod Smith