Channel Merit Setting?

[spacecadet]

I understand that it is possible to set the encoder merit to give priority to one tuner over another.

However, I am wondering if it is possible to set the CHANNEL MERIT? I've done a lot of searching in the forums and I think I know the answer to this question, but am asking it again anyway (and may even open a support ticket).

My problem occurs most often when there is a program airing on both an HD and SD channel, but the HD flag is not set. In these cases, it seems like Sage gives preference to the channel with the LOWER channel number, in this case, the SD channel. However, I'd like to force this recording to occur on the HD channel.

My problem also occurs in cases that do not involve HD/SD. For whatever reason, Red Sox baseball games sometimes appear in the program guide on both ESPN and NESN. However, locally, the game is blacked out on ESPN (so I need to record on NESN). But, since ESPN has the lower channel number, the recording occurs on ESPN (and I record 3 hours of blackness). I'd like to force this recording to occur on NESN.

I've seen the two workarounds that have been offered in other threads:

1) Force my favorite to record on the HD channel only.
OR
2) Remap the HD channel to the SD station (such that they both appear on the same line in the guide)

Unfortunately, I don't particularly like either of these workarounds.

Workaround #1 (force the favorite to a specific channel) doesn't work for me b/c sometimes the Red Sox game legitimately appear only on ESPN. If I force the favorite to NESN, I will miss these airings.

Workaround #2 (remap the station) doesn't work for me aesthetically b/c I like to be able to see at a glance if something is going to record on the HD channel or not. I use different channel icons for the HD vs. SD stations, so it is easy for me to tell when something is going to record in HD and visa-versa.

Are there any other options available that I may have missed?

Ideally, I'd like to be able to set a channel merit. That is, I'd like to give NESN a higher merit than ESPN, such that the scheduling algorithm would do something like:

1. Choose earliest airing
2. If the earliest airing occurs on multiple channels, select the channel based on merit
3. If the selected channel is available on multiple tuners, select the tuner based on merit

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by spacecadet

Workaround #1 (force the favorite to a specific channel) doesn't work for me b/c sometimes the Red Sox game legitimately appear only on ESPN. If I force the favorite to NESN, I will miss these airings.

Have you tried creating two favorites, one for each channel, and setting the relative priority of the two favorites appropriately? If it's really the same show on both channels, it should record only once.

Or are you saying that EPG is wrong in some cases? I.e. it says the game is on when in fact it's blacked out. I don't quite see how a channel merit setting would help with that. Your best bet in that case would seem to be to record them both, just to make sure you get one that's watchable.

[spacecadet]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

Have you tried creating two favorites, one for each channel, and setting the relative priority of the two favorites appropriately? If it's really the same show on both channels, it should record only once.

Or are you saying that EPG is wrong in some cases? I.e. it says the game is on when in fact it's blacked out. I don't quite see how a channel merit setting would help with that. Your best bet in that case would seem to be to record them both, just to make sure you get one that's watchable.

I haven't tried this recently, but I took this approach back in Sage 4 (or 3?). Perhaps it behaves differently now?

Even though the NESN favorite had higher priority, Sage would still record the show on ESPN.

It's not that the EPG is wrong (ESPN is supposed to be airing the game), but rather that the game is blacked out on ESPN due to league rules. I know from experience that when the game shows up on both stations, I need to record the NESN version.

[CollinR]

Originally Posted by spacecadet

It's not that the EPG is wrong (ESPN is supposed to be airing the game), but rather that the game is blacked out on ESPN due to league rules. I know from experience that when the game shows up on both stations, I need to record the NESN version.

The EPG guide data is wrong then, you narrow it down to city. Submit it to SageTV support and with luck zap2it will quit saying it's showing when it's not.

Reverse you tuner merit and it may work anyway.

[GKusnick]

I agree with Collin. If the EPG for your zipcode says the game is on, but when you tune that channel it's not on, that's an EPG error as far as I'm concerned. For Sage to make correct scheduling decisions, it has to know the truth about what your local provider is sending out on that channel in that timeslot.

You're not the first to ask about game blackouts. Check the Downloads section; I have a vague recollection that somebody may have made an addon to work around this.

[spacecadet]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

I agree with Collin. If the EPG for your zipcode says the game is on, but when you tune that channel it's not on, that's an EPG error as far as I'm concerned. For Sage to make correct scheduling decisions, it has to know the truth about what your local provider is sending out on that channel in that timeslot.

You're not the first to ask about game blackouts. Check the Downloads section; I have a vague recollection that somebody may have made an addon to work around this.

Thanks for the suggestion. I will look into that. It still doesn't solve the HD/SD problem, though.

[CollinR]

Again an EPG data error, if the HD flag was set it would work right. Make sure and submit this as your area is obviously having troubles from zap2it.

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

I agree with Collin. If the EPG for your zipcode says the game is on, but when you tune that channel it's not on, that's an EPG error as far as I'm concerned. For Sage to make correct scheduling decisions, it has to know the truth about what your local provider is sending out on that channel in that timeslot.

You're not the first to ask about game blackouts. Check the Downloads section; I have a vague recollection that somebody may have made an addon to work around this.

I think we need to accept that the EPG can never be 100% accurate and therefore we need to account for these types of situations. Local blackouts are a perfect example. You can submit a report to Sage and then they'll forward it on to Z2I, but it's unlikely that it'll be corrected. Why? This would require ESPN, for example, to send Z2I data for each and every zip code in America. That's just not going to happen. The alternative is that Z2I figures out which areas are blacked out when, and that's not going to happen either. In the end, ESPN is going to send a national schedule to Z2I and everyone who has ESPN in their lineup is going to get the same data. The simple alternative is that Sage provides a way to tell favourite rules things like "record from any channel except ESPN." I think this example is a little more difficult because he says that some games are blacked out on ESPN while others aren't, but for me this is exactly what I need for the upcoming hockey season. All of the Edmonton Oilers games are shown on the regional sports network and on NHL Centre Ice. Since I'm not in the Edmonton area the games are always blacked out on the regional network and shown on the NHLCI package. But some games are shown on the CBC or TSN, etc. as well. What I need is the ability to say, "record from any channel except Sportsnet West."

And while I'm at it, I'd also like to set favourites based on title and subtitle. Ultimately, my preferred favourite rule would read something like:

• Record all programs titled 'NHL Hockey' where
  • Subtitle contains Edmonton
  • and channel is not "Sportsnet West"

[bialio]

Originally Posted by spacecadet

1) Force my favorite to record on the HD channel only.
OR
2) Remap the HD channel to the SD station (such that they both appear on the same line in the guide)

3rd option, which is almost identical to #2, is to remap the SD station to the HD channel.

This is what I do - so both channels show up on the same line in the guide, but the guide data is from the HD feed. So I still get to see the HD icons etc when the guide has them. Might be a little more pleasing aesthetically....

I've never really understood why anyone would want to watch an analog signal when the same is available digital. It's just made sense to me to put the SD and HD channels that are simulcast in the same bucket. The only time I end up watching the SD feed is on those occasions when all the HD tuners are busy.....

btl.

[spacecadet]

Originally Posted by CollinR

Again an EPG data error, if the HD flag was set it would work right. Make sure and submit this as your area is obviously having troubles from zap2it.

Not an EPG error. The program is not in HD. But I want it recorded off of the HD station because I get a better picture.

[spacecadet]

Originally Posted by bialio

3rd option, which is almost identical to #2, is to remap the SD station to the HD channel.

This is what I do - so both channels show up on the same line in the guide, but the guide data is from the HD feed. So I still get to see the HD icons etc when the guide has them. Might be a little more pleasing aesthetically....

I've never really understood why anyone would want to watch an analog signal when the same is available digital. It's just made sense to me to put the SD and HD channels that are simulcast in the same bucket. The only time I end up watching the SD feed is on those occasions when all the HD tuners are busy.....

btl.

I sometimes have trouble watching the HD channels on my MVP (during live TV). In these cases, I want to be able to tune the analog channel.

[CollinR]

Originally Posted by spacecadet

Not an EPG error. The program is not in HD. But I want it recorded off of the HD station because I get a better picture.

Ahh gotcha.

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by Slugger

And while I'm at it, I'd also like to set favourites based on title and subtitle. Ultimately, my preferred favourite rule would read something like:

• Record all programs titled 'NHL Hockey' where
  • Subtitle contains Edmonton
  • and channel is not "Sportsnet West"

Don't know if you are familier with flachbar's anti-favorites plugin that will let you fine-tune your favorites, http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19053 by marking specific shows that meet your anti-favorites rules as either watched or don't like. It will add more data points to your wiz.bin, so if you use Intelligent recording, it may affect the IR accuracy.

[kricker]

Honestly, I think channel merit would be a wonderful thing. I concur with spacecadet's problems and issues with current workarounds. I have spent the last week trying to get my buddy's Sage system up and running with HD, and have run into similar issues. Channel merit would seem to solve them all.

[Slugger]

Originally Posted by ke6guj

Don't know if you are familier with flachbar's anti-favorites plugin that will let you fine-tune your favorites, http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19053 by marking specific shows that meet your anti-favorites rules as either watched or don't like. It will add more data points to your wiz.bin, so if you use Intelligent recording, it may affect the IR accuracy.

I've looked at that plugin before, but my understanding is that it wouldn't help in this case. The best I could do is have the plugin mark airings of Oilers hockey that are blacked out as 'watched', but doing so would then prevent the airing on the NHLCI channel from recording since it, too, would be marked as watched. The same program ID is used for airings on the regional channel and the NHLCI channel, which makes sense since it is the same program on both channels.

[bialio]

Originally Posted by kricker

Honestly, I think channel merit would be a wonderful thing. I concur with spacecadet's problems and issues with current workarounds. I have spent the last week trying to get my buddy's Sage system up and running with HD, and have run into similar issues. Channel merit would seem to solve them all.

I think an even better answer would be a "client specific merit" - so that for each client you can specify which encoders to use by default.

Another thing that I think would be cool along the same lines would be the ability to specify that a particular encoder is NEVER to be used for a scheduled recording. Once you have a bunch of tuners in your system, and lets all admit that the longer you are with sage, the more tuners you accumulate!, it'd be nice to 'reserve' a tuner or two that would always be available for 'live' viewing.