Remove padding on favorites issue

[farscapesg1]

OK, as the wife and I find more things to watch, we have already ran into a conflict or two with 4 tuners in the system

So, I thought I would try out the option for removing padding when recording back-to-back favorites on the same channel. My understanding is that the software is suppose to try to record the back-to-back favorites on the same tuner (so for example, NCIS and The Unit will record on the same channel).

My problem is that SageTV is acting a little retarded For example, it is recording House and The Unit on one tuner, while recording NCIS and Standoff on another. Shouldn't it record House and Standoff on the same tuner (since it is on the same channel) and NCIS and The Unit on the other?

Of course, I guess I will see how it works tonight, but I'll probably be unhappy because I have a feeling I will run into the "couple seconds lost due to closing one file and opening another file issue"

[blade]

I had NCIS, The Unit, and Smith all scheduled to record and all are on CBS). Each one recorded on a different tuner. Law & Order SVU and Criminal Intent were also scheduled on different tuners. House and Standoff were correctly sheduled back to back as well as Eureka and Dead Like Me.

I have 2 minutes of beginning and ending padding on all of my shows. The ones that scheduled different channels back to back instead of the same channel didn't remove the padding, but instead just started the next recording 2 minutes late causing me to miss the beginning of several shows.

I also had 2 favorites on ABC that scheduled on different tuners instead of back to back and the padding wasn't removed for either, this caused one show to be unecessarily pushed off the scheduled and it isn't airing again according to the guide.

I believe this is the first time Sage has actually missed a recording, but I've noticed a problem with scheduling to the proper tuner a lot lately. Tonight was just the first time I had enough shows scheduled for it to be a real problem.

I'm about to build a new server so I thougth I would wait and see if the problem continues after a fresh install. I just hope I don't lose too many shows before I can get it built.

[Opus4]

What STV are you both using?

Edit: check your sage.properties AND sageclient.properties to see if they both have:

remove_padding_on_back_to_back_favorites=true

- Andy

[blade]

I'm using the stock stv with some imports on the client. The server uses the stock stv with no imports. The server only runs the service, its gui hasn't been launched in over a year.

I also noticed when I tried to use the conflict manager it didn't work properly. I could tell it to record a particular show instead of another one and it would remove the wrong show from the recording schedule.

[Opus4]

Check the edit I added to the above post, probably while you were replying. I don't know when you set that option, but a much older STV wouldn't have set that property in both places & that might causes problems. I'm not sure if it could cause scheduling issues or just issues in the UI, though.

If you can reproduce scheduling errors, it would be a good idea to submit such things to SageTV.

- Andy

[Jackal24]

My computer is also doing the same thing with regards to switching tuners even when recording on the same channel. I have the 'remove padding' setting set to true in sage.properties, but I can't find a sageclient.properties file (probably because I am doing everything from one computer).

[farscapesg1]

checked both files and the values are set to true.

Also using the stock STV with version 5.0.1.89 of SageTV.

[mdnttoker]

I'm using SageMC 6.12 (set to use the "Original STV Conflict Resolution"), have the same problem.

Sage won't remove the padding between back to back shows on the same or different channel.

Has anyone gotten the Remove Padding feature to work?

[nielm]

Originally Posted by mdnttoker

Sage won't remove the padding between back to back shows on the same or different channel.

It will only remove padding for Favorite recordings (IIRC series recordings in SageMC).

It will never remove padding for a manual/fave conflict, or a manual/manual conflict, and never between faves on different channels.

[Opus4]

I forgot to ask whether any of this included manual recordings, like nielm mentioned.

Originally Posted by mdnttoker

Has anyone gotten the Remove Padding feature to work?

Yes, It has been working on my work system w/a single tuner for a long time. It also worked on my main system w/2 tuners long ago, but now that I have 3 tuners, I haven't been using it since I don't have any conflicts.

There aren't any known problems with it. If there are no conflicts generated, then SageTV believes that it has caught all the airings, even if it has to reschedule one for a later airing. Like I said above: if you can find a reproducible situation where you are missing Favs because of this, submit it to SageTV. But, remember what nielm posted about it being only for favorites airing back to back on the same channel; it is not for manual recordings, timed recordings, favs on different channels, etc.

- Andy

[nielm]

forgot to mention that it also works for me too...

[farscapesg1]

I just want to state, that it is removing the padding between recorded favorites.

My whole issue is that I thought the system was suppose to try to use the same tuner for all favorites on a single channel. If this isn't what is intended, then it probably is working as designed

If this is what it is supposed to do (i.e., record NCIS and The Unit on the same tuner since they are both on CBS, while using the second tuner to record House and Standoff since they are both on FOX), then it isn't working quite right.

Basically, I was just testing things out trying to sqeeze as much out of my 4 tuners as possible. Personally, I think the wife and I record WAY too much TV, but oh well.

[Opus4]

I don't think it guarantees that they will be recorded on the same tuner. If it is removing the padding for those shows so that they fit w/o creating conflicts because of overlapping padding, then I would consider it to be working.

- Andy

[blade]

Originally Posted by Opus4

I don't think it guarantees that they will be recorded on the same tuner. If it is removing the padding for those shows so that they fit w/o creating conflicts because of overlapping padding, then I would consider it to be working.

Mine has always scheduled them on the same tuner when removing the padding in the past. Like I said before this time it didn't remove the padding and scheduled them on different tuners leaving me with missed portions of the shows. All of mine were favorites.

When you say check for the line in the sage client properties file are you talking about the one on the server, client or both? I checked and I have the line in the sage properties, but not the sage client properties on the server and I haven't checked my clients yet.

I'm going to add it as soon as I can shut sage down long enough to edit the file, hopefully it will take care of the problem.

[Opus4]

I believe the property I mentioned is also needed in sageclient.properties just so the UI displays some of the scheduling info correctly, like the actual expected recording times. I don't think it would affect the schedule itself. When you set the option in the default STV, it automatically does this in both properties files - local client + server, which could be the same file if the UI _is_ the server.

- Andy

[mdnttoker]

Thanks for the replies Opus and Nielm.

I'll see if I can reproduce it, it involved two back-to-back shows on the same channel, but they may have been set to record manually.

It would be nice to have an option to remove padding on back-to-back favorites even on different channels, and an option to remove padding on back-to-back manual recordings.

But this is the wrong forum for wishlists

Thanks,
Dan

[nielm]

Originally Posted by mdnttoker

It would be nice to have an option to remove padding on back-to-back favorites even on different channels

This comes under conflict resolution. Rumour has it that the conflict resolution screen will be improved in some future version

and an option to remove padding on back-to-back manual recordings

Actually, you cannot set up overlapping manuals: as soon as you set a manual that overlaps another, you are prompted which one you want to delete...

[mdnttoker]

Originally Posted by nielm

Actually, you cannot set up overlapping manuals: as soon as you set a manual that overlaps another, you are prompted which one you want to delete...

Well, I'm assuming the same code that checks for the conflict could also check if removing the "padding" would eliminate the conflict. Then allow the user to choose to either remove the padding, or delete one of the scheduled shows to eliminate the detected conflict.