SageTV only using 1 of 3 instances of SageRecorder

[mikbro]

I have been testing the following setup:

PC 1:
3 PVR-250's Running 3 instances of SageRecorder.

PC 2: Running SageTV with 1 PVR-250.


Following the network encoding directions I installed Sage Recorder on PC 1. I then copied the SageRecorder directory two other times so I have unique copies of SageRecorder to load during startup. Opened the SageRecorder.properties and copied the relevant properties to the Sage.properties file on PC2. I had to rename one of the encoders because it was identical to the one that existed in PC 2.

Reboot everything and launch 3 instances of Sage Recorder on PC 1.

Load SageTV on PC2 and got through setup to add the additional tuners. This goes fine.

Go to the Guide on PC 2 and I can see the 1 internal tuner and the 3 additional tuners listed.

I can have two shows taping at once (one using the internal tuner in PC2 and one in PC1). I verify this by looking at PC1 and seeing that one of the 3 sagerecorder instances is recording a show requested by SageTV. My problem is when I try to record other channels on PC 2 (and make it use the additional 2 tuners) I have problems.

When I do this SageTV on PC2 becomes sluggish, and seems to stop the recording of one show on PC1 and replace it with the last requested record, rather than telling one of the available tuners to record the show. Again I verify this by going to PC1 and seeing that 2 of the SageRecorder instances are not being used, and the one it is using is taping the last reqested show.

At no time during this process does SageTV give me any errors, when I try to view a program it thinks it has been recording I simply get a black screen that I can ff/rw through until I get to audio and video from a portion of time it was actually recording the program. As I mention though SageTV does get sluggish during this time, but snaps back eventually.

Both PC's have abundant hard drive space and SageTV is using UNC for specifying the drives to use for video storage. Those network shares are accessible to both PC 1 and PC 2.

Any suggestions?

[Narflex]

You need to use a different port for each network encoder. The default port is 6969. Change that value in the SageRecorder.properties file to something unique for each of them, and also change their corresponding value in the Sage.properties file.

Let us know how it goes.

[tahoebob]

Jeffrey,

I've swapped out my system that was running a network encoder card successfully for a couple of years (SR v1.4.10). Decided to add a 2nd encoder (both PVR 250s) to the system. Got both instances of SR running but when I add the port info the SR Properties as per the above post, the info disappears as soon as I restart SageRecoder.

[Opus4]

Before someone with actual SageTVRecorder knowledge jumps in... are you changing it when SageTVRecorder is closed? If not, close it first; if so, make sure you are using a plain text editor, such as Notepad. If it is like SageTV & the property files is seen as corrupted after editing, it will revert to the autobackup copy.

- Andy

[tahoebob]

Andy,

Thanks for the reply. I was using Notepad and thought I'd closed SR but this thing has been running without problem and attention for so long I'd forgotten that when you "clicked the X" SR didn't really close but went into the System Tray. Actually closing it did solve the problem.

[Wheemer]

Wouldn't it be better to use two sagetv full installs for this? You can setup as many tuners as you want on the network encoder machine and have only 1 instance of SageTV running.

[tahoebob]

Wheemer,

It's been awhile since I looked at this, but I think I remember reading a post that indicated that if you had SageTV running on two separate machines, they didn't coordinate very well. Of course, I'm currently using an older version (v1.3.8) of SageTV - I was looking at upgrading in a couple of months - maybe the newer versions handle that better. That would certainly help.

[Wheemer]

With the newer version you can have two full versions of SageTV running on your network perfectly. One is the main server and the other acts as a network encoder, serving your local tuners, and a client logging into the main server. Setup is much the same as Sage Recorder.

[tahoebob]

Great Wheemer, thanks for the input. Maybe I won't wait so long to upgrade.

[Wheemer]

Keep in mind you must have two seperate install keys for it to work.

[Opus4]

The instructions for that from tech support were posted here. Keep in mind that this is probably still in development, because I've heard that it isn't 'officially supported' yet. If you've already got the SageTVRecorder license & are using encoders that it supports, you are all set for now, however, w/o having to get another SageTV license.

- Andy

[tahoebob]

Wheemer and Opus4. Understand both. Thanks.

[davey_fl]

I couldn't find the port property in the recorder.properties file to change the port - do we have to add it in???

David

[tahoebob]

I found it near the top of the SageRecorder.properties file:

#Sage Preferences
#Wed Apr 13 03:08:37 PDT 2005
actisys_irtune_global_preroll=2000
always_autotune=true
async_tuning=true
auto_resize_video=false
client=false
dispose_windows=false
enable_encoding_server=true
encoding_server_port=6969
global_event_id=0

In another copy of SR, I have successfully changed the "6969" to another number that corresponded to the number I used in the Sage.Properties file.