question on encoder merit..

[mlar]

I currently have 4 encoders in my SageTV system.. I have two PVR-250 PCI cards in my main server, one PVR-350 network encoder in my client, and one PVR2-USB connected to the server. I want SageTV to use the PCI cards first, then the network encoder, and the USB encoder last. I noticed that SageTV schedules TV shows on encoders with the lowest merit first, so I set the merit to 5 on the PCI cards, 10 on the network encoder, and 20 on the PVR2-USB. It works fine for favorites and one-time recordings, SageTV seems to pick them in order. However, IR and Live TV seems to be scheduled the other way around, it tends to use the USB encoder first, then the network encoder, then the PCI cards. Is this the intended behavior? I really want it to use the PCI cards as much as it can, since the PVR2 tends to hang and the network encoder machine has a tendency of crashing every couple of days.

Also, what happens if a network encoder goes down? Lets say my two PCI cards are recording favorites, and my networked PVR-350 is recording a favorite, and then crashes and disappears. Will the PVR2 USB take over where the PVR-350 left off? What if the PVR2 USB is doing an IR recording? Will it stop recording that and switch to recording the more important favorite? What if a PCI card has become available since the start of the recording on the PVR-350, will it pick the PCI card over my USB encoder?

If the PVR2 goes down (locks up), will SageTV automatically reschedule everything to other encoders? From what I have seen so far I'd say no, since it doesn't look like SageTV can detect when the PVR2 stops producing data... The same question goes for the PCI cards I suppose, although they very seldom stop producing data (maybe once every 2 months or so), but at least I've seen SageTV pop up messages when it happens, so obviously this condition can be detected.

[Narflex]

Darn. That's a bug you found for merit. It's doing exactly what you say. One order for scheduling, the other order for live tv.

If a network encoder goes down, Sage will realize it within 5 minutes. It won't usually reassign the recording to another encoder...but I could be wrong, sometimes its smarter than I think.

If an encoder simply stops producing data, SageTV should also recognize that. It tries one time to reset that encoder to see if it'll start working again. If that doesn't do it, then it gives you an error message about it in an ungraceful way (popup window). I'll add it to the list to just drop that encoder instead.