PVR-1600 qam plus S-video

[impro]

Hallo,
I am trying to setup my PVR-1600 with S-video and qam.
I was able to make qam work by itself but couldn't have it together with s-video. The best I had is both tuners installed but only seeing s-video programs.
Isn't sage supposed to preffer qam over analog for the same program?
When I setup qam and remap to the channels it works perfectly.
I guess the problem is that I am located in Las Vegas and there is no nearby town with cox.
Any help will be good.

[omega]

SageTV doesn't treat sources with any preference whatsoever unless you tell it to with the encoder_merit properties.

Setting encoder merit will tell it to always choose a certain encoder first when all other factors are the same, but it also introduces problems if you ever watch unscheduled live TV.

The only way it will "prefer" a QAM source over analog is if the EPG airing for the QAM source is marked as being HDTV, and you have the prefer_hdtv_recordings_over_sdtv property set to true (I believe this is the default).

[impro]

Do you mean sage will choose hdtv for the whole channel or only a program?
DO I have to keep the same zipcode for both analog and qAM?

[impro]

So every qam I want to watch has to be marked as HDTV?
There should be a better way....

[ke6guj]

No, the prefer_hdtv setting is global, not per tuner. Sage looks at the EPG listings for all shows and if a show is on two channels, for instance KABC and KABC-DT, it will look to see if the showing on KABC-DT is marked HD. If so, it will prefer to record it via KABC-DT.

[impro]

So if it is not HD it will show S-video. The quality of qam is a lot better...
And I remap my channels to the HD version if the channels... 702 - 735
should I just remap them to the regular local channels?

[omega]

You can force SageTV to always choose the QAM source over the analog one when a show is available on both by changing the encoder_merit settings.

1) Shut down SageTV completely.

2) Find both of your tuners in the Sage.properties file, and locate the two lines that look something like:

mmc/encoders/xxxxxxxx/encoder_merit=0
mmc/encoders/yyyyyyyy/encoder_merit=0

3) By looking at the other encoder lines around this one, figure out which one is your QAM source, and set its encoder_merit property to 1 or any other number greater than 0. The number doesn't mean anything by itself. SageTV will choose the encoder with the highest merit when choosing between two airings that are otherwise equal.

4) Save Sage.properties and restart SageTV.

The only caveat to this approach is that whenever you want to watch unscheduled live TV, you'll need to mark the show as a manual recording first and then watch it, otherwise you run into scheduling problems. See this thread for a discussion of this bug.

[impro]

I think the biggest problem that I have is EPG.
I live in las vegas and there is no near by town that I can use...
if I choose deferent zip code and even deferent lineup it still gives me the same epg.
When I disable a channel on one tunner it disables it on another.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by impro

I think the biggest problem that I have is EPG.
I live in las vegas and there is no near by town that I can use...
if I choose deferent zip code and even deferent lineup it still gives me the same epg.
When I disable a channel on one tunner it disables it on another.

What zip code are you using? A quick search on the Internet shows Cox Communications, Charter and Comcast are all cable companies that serve Las Vegas and portions thereof.


Gerry

[impro]

I use 89147 or 89148.
I tried 89005 which is boulder City.
Still the same.
Is it easer to just choose no lineup for my qam channels?

[ke6guj]

since you probably won't have many QAM channels that need to be remapped, try using the Dish-Las Vegas or DirecTV-Las Vegas lineups.

[impro]

SO should I remaped them to the Dish/directv or the cox channels?

[impro]

SO should I remaped them to the Dish/directv or the cox channels?

[ke6guj]

I would take the QAM channels that you can get and map them to the Dish/Directv channels if you are using the DIsh/Directv EPG for the QAM tuner. If the channel names are the same in the Dish/DIrecttv EPG and the Cox EPG then Sage will auto-combine them for you into one EPG.

[impro]

SO should I remaped them to the Dish/directv or the cox channels?

[ke6guj]

Like I said, if you are using a Dish or DIrectv EPG for your QAM tuner, then map the working channels you have to the matching Dish/Directv channels.

[impro]

Got It.
It is strange I remaped one channel wrong and when I reset to default the channel disappeared. It was 3.1 and now its missing.