Recording Two shows using same channel

[mvallevand]

As an exercise, or not, this next insert shows what is scheduled for Tuesday night. I'll post what NextPVR actually did.

You have an interesting couple of situations what are you expecting? At 10pm you have 5 potential recording with 3 tuner. From the pre-assigned tuners it looks like one-offs override the recurring recording priority. What is most interesting is it will allow us to see if post-padding or pre-padding takes priority. Personally I'd rather catch the end of show.

Martin

[HollyCairns]

[quote=jcole998]@HollyCairns...Would you care to share?

Like others I had problems when recording shows on the same channel which came after each other AND at the same time recording a show on the different channel. (I have a 2 tuner HD Homerun) Sometimes NPVR would record on the same tuner for the shows on the same channel but sometimes would record on another tuner leaving my other show out of the loop. I tried using different padding, trying priorities sorting etc what I resigned myself to is to used same padding for all shows and printout the database for schedule recordings and watch carefully when NPVR has assigned the same tuner for different shows. For instance a show this morning was recorded on tuner 0 from 9:20-10:10 (10 mins padding) and my 10 o clock show (9:50-10:40) was scheduled to use the same tuner so @ 9:50 I watched out to see what occurred if Tuner 0 was used I have 10 minutes to correct the prob. Fortunately the 10 o clock show was moved to tuner 1 so all is well. Unfortunately only works if I'm able to watch NPVR but I have no problem shows to record when I'm not available.

[BrettB]

From the pre-assigned tuners it looks like one-offs override the recurring recording priority.

I would expect that if the one-offs were scheduled at least one day ago (presuming the EPG updates nightly) since during each EPG update, all of the scheduled recurring recording instances are deleted and then recreated (and rescheduled) while the on-offs are never rescheduled (until actual recording time). Thus, effectively, highest priority is given to on-off recordings scheduled at least one day in advance.

[jcole998]

My last example was a poor choice to present since all the recordings are on different channels. My apologies. My concern is back-to-back padding which I'm starting to understand. And I certainly agree that it is preferable to see the end of the show.

PS-The show shown for tuner 23 was scheduled to the DCR-3250 when it should have been scheduled to the same show using the HD_PVR(resource 32). Mibad. Naturally, this will change recording dynamics but I will still post the log results.

[johnsonx42]

I would expect that if the one-offs were scheduled at least one day ago (presuming the EPG updates nightly) since during each EPG update, all of the scheduled recurring recording instances are deleted and then recreated (and rescheduled) while the on-offs are never rescheduled (until actual recording time). Thus, effectively, highest priority is given to on-off recordings scheduled at least one day in advance.

This is correct, though perhaps "priority" is not the right way to look at single recordings: once scheduled, they simply exist, with neither high nor low priority, they're just there. Single recordings are initially scheduled against the backdrop of all existing recordings, but then each night as the recurring recordings are all rescheduled all of the single recordings themselves become the backdrop against which all recurring recordings are scheduled. But they don't move to different tuners based on priority... if your 4th tuner is available when you schedule the single-recording, it remains *scheduled* on that tuner no matter what else changes (the recording engine may move it at recording time for pre-padding, live tv or some sort of failure, but to the scheduler it's set in stone). If you don't change your recurring recordings, and the EPG data doesn't change for the day, then the post-EPG update schedule will look exactly the same as the pre-EPG update schedule. But if anything changes, the results may be unexpected.

One thing that may help in some situations, but may hurt in others, is to schedule single recordings using one of the recurring options. This will let the Scheduler manage this recording like any other recurring show. Assuming it really is a show with a single "episode" (i.e. a movie or TV special), any repeat showings will not be recorded due to the Avoid Duplicates logic (at least until you delete the recording and pass the <DeletionHistoryDays> time; you'd probably want to delete the recurring recording at some point). However if you're trying to grab a single episode of a recurring show, then that won't work.

[johnsonx42]

My concern is back-to-back padding which I'm starting to understand.

Three basic things to understand about (positive) padding:
1. The SCHEDULER doesn't even look at your padding. It schedules everything based solely on scheduled start time and end time.
2. The RECORDING ENGINE will move a recording to another tuner trying to get pre-padding if it can.
3. The RECORDING ENGINE will let a recording keep going until the end of the post-padding time, BUT will take the tuner away for any reason (including what a human would call "no reason at all")

The 3rd is a little surprising to some, but it's how it works. If your show is scheduled until 9:00pm with 2-minutes post-padding, the recorder will not end that recording until 9:02. HOWEVER, the tuner itself is considered completely free at 9:00pm and will be used for whatever else it is scheduled to do, even if there are other tuners available. Yes, the recording engine will "steal" a tuner doing post-padding in order to do pre-padding on another show. Even if the tuner is taken away at 9:00pm, the first recording is still not officially stopped until 9:02... but it just doesn't recording anything after the tuner is taken.

Careful reading of the logs will tell you all of this; sub writes logs better than anyone.

[johnsonx42]

Oh, one final comment on post-padding: if you have a surplus of tuners (i.e. more tuners than recordings in most primetime slots), then the best way to get post-padding is to set pre-padding as well. As the recording engine moves recordings around to make pre-padding happen, it will tend to clear the way for post-padding to happen as well. Consider the simple scenario of 3 tuners, 2 shows back to back on different channels:

Schedule:

8pm-9pm Tuner 1 - Show 1, Channel A
9pm-10pm Tuner 1 - Show 2, Channel B

w/o pre-padding, Show 2 will start on Tuner 1 at 9pm sharp, ending the recording stream for Show 1 so no post-padding

w/ Pre-Padding, Show 2 will move to Tuner 2 before 9pm, clearing tuner 1 to continue recording post-padding

It will get more complicated with more shows, but I generally haven't found any downside to pre-padding other than having to skip a bit to get to the beginning of the show. I set it as the default on all new recordings, and I'm occasionally updating older ones too.

[HollyCairns]

Tried to record a half hour show from 6:30-7:00 with 10 mins post and pre padding so it should have recorded from 6:20-7:10. Date on Windows explorer for the file is 6:20 (makes sense) and Date Modified is 7:10 which also makes sense. Also in Windows Explorer the length is given as 00:39:05 which doesn't make sense should be closer to 50:00. The NPVR Device Status indicated it was being recorded from 6:20-7:10. Opening the file in VLC indicates the stream is 39 minutes long. It captured the entire show so no loss. Log seems to indicate that the show was being recorded upto 7:10.

Log:
2019-02-12 19:10:00.271 [DEBUG][9] Stopping recording (1800 on 20). Past end time of recording. 43

Anybody have a clue whats going on. Recently removed NPVR and reinstalled so that I wouldn't have problems with shows not being recorded or recorded short. Any thought would be appreciated.

[mvallevand]

No real clues without logs.

Martin

[HollyCairns]

Here are 3 logs. Seems NPVR indicated the show was being recorded up to 7:10 but wasn't