Recordings doesn't use same channel tuners

[Handy.Man]

I had 3 recording in progress
CH2 : Ti-Mé Show 20:00-21:00
CH6 : MarketPlace 20:00-20:30
CH 35: SQ 20:00-20:30 1 min post padding
CH 35: 911 20:30-21:30 1 min post padding

Go to TV Guide around 20:28, I changed 911 to 1 min pre padding
Recording didn't start and looking at the status windows on the client didn't seems show SQ as recording
Change prepading of 911 to 2 min didn't start the recording

I cancel Marketplace and 911 started recording on another tuner then SQ
... but now the status window is displaying SQ as recording !!!!
The SQ recording was completed with 1 min padding, maybe it was still present in status windows, or didn't refresh at some point.

Looking at the log it seems that Nrecord was in a loop trying to find a tuner for 911 ... as if it didn't see it was the same channel as SQ !

Logs and xml, db3 https://www.sendspace.com/file/gvlfv3

[johnsonx42]

It may not have done what you would have preferred, but it did what it's supposed to do.

Your 911 recording was scheduled for tuner 26, and with post-padding was planned to run from 20:30 until 21:01. At the time you requested pre-padding to be added, no single tuner was continuously available from 20:29 to 21:01. Tuner 26 wasn't going to be available until 20:30 (as originally scheduled), and tuner 24 was recording from the same channel at that time but was scheduled to switch to a different channel at 21:00 to record "the fifth estate". Tuner 20 was also busy.

The logic that attempts to move a recording to a different tuner in order to accommodate pre-padding has to ensure that it doesn't foul any later recording, and it does consider the requested post-padding of the recording being moved (it can't know if you'd have preferred it sacrifice the post-padding in order to get the pre-padding, though ironically that recording wasn't going to get post-padding anyway since tuner 26 was going to switch to recording "Serie noire" at 21:00). It also only considers moving the one single recording, it can't re-jigger the entire recording schedule on-the-fly.

I do note that the scheduling logic is a little inconsistent with how it treats padding: much of the time it tries really hard to get pre-padding done, and often considers post-padding to be a mere after-thought (literally!), but there are situations like this one where it considers the post-padding as nearly mandatory and won't sacrifice it to get the pre-padding in. This is most likely to do with the fact that the logic for these various scenarios was added at different times, and with different goals in mind. The new negative-padding ability also required looking at padding a little differently I believe.

(many might say "well why didn't it schedule 'SQ' and '911' on the same tuner to start with, since they both needed the same channel?" The answer is that the scheduler doesn't operate purely chronologically, so at scheduling time it doesn't know that those two recordings will be back-to-back on the same channel.)

[BrettB]

It may not have done what you would have preferred, but it did what it's supposed to do.

In another thread, Handy.Man said:

I hear you, I make new recordings every day, change some, etc. So there is always something ( me on the client) making modifications to the recordings. It's almost impossible to find which one at which time because of the Client flooding the log on the server.

And earlier in this thread, he said:

Go to TV Guide around 20:28, I changed 911 to 1 min pre padding
Recording didn't start and looking at the status windows on the client didn't seems show SQ as recording
Change prepading of 911 to 2 min didn't start the recording

As johnsonx42 said, the scheduler in NextPVR is quite complex. And (as I understand it) it is designed/optimized for recurring recordings to get scheduled during EPG updates and then not be modified during the "day of recording" (after EPG update before recording time). I'm not sure why you would be wanting to modify pre- or post-paddding times for recurring recordings in this manner. By definition, they are optional and won't prevent back-to-back shows on different channels from getting recorded if not enough tuners are available. So normally you just set them for recurring recordings and leave them alone. If you have some other special situation, maybe describing it would help us to better understand your needs.

[johnsonx42]

And (as I understand it) it is designed/optimized for recurring recordings to get scheduled during EPG updates and then not be modified during the "day of recording" (after EPG update before recording time).

I was going to say it wouldn't have mattered if the recording was originally scheduled with the pre-padding rather than changed moments before the recording was to start, but I'm not entirely sure that's true now; up until negative padding was introduced, the scheduler ignored padding and it was only addressed at recording time on an if-possible basis. However negative padding is supposed to allow the scheduler to schedule shows that would otherwise overlap and conflict, so it must now consider padding during scheduling; I don't know if it only looks at negative padding that way and ignores positive padding as before, or if it now considers both when building the schedule.

[Handy.Man]

When I use PIP, it seems to be able to select the right tuners even when the 3 tuners are in use, as long as I select one of the 3 channels being recorded. I wish the scheduler was able to use the same logic when changing a Recurring recording.

Sometimes it will start recording a new show on a tuner using a different channel while continuing the previous recording until it end. It is strange to see recordings of 2 different channels on the same tuner in the Device status windows. The previous recordings is cut but it is displayed until the scheduler end it or I cancel it.

Maybe if I cancel the recording first and then schedule a quick recording with prepadding it would start it on the tuner of the same channel. This is not really safe as the last time I did that, Nrecord crashed.

I cannot just program Recurring Recordings. On a channel, there are pub announcing the next show at the end for airing in the evening. I opt to encode the night re-airing without any pub. I also sometimes get transmission glitches on that channel. So I will make a complete encoding using multiple recordings. However using the recurring recordings this way doesn't work anymore as the scheduler will see there is another show scheduled at night and it will not schedule a recording for the first airing. So I do have to make a Quick recording for the first airing. To be on the safe side, sometimes I will cancel the Recurring recordings and just schedule Quick recordings for all airings.

If the selected tuners was displayed in the recording menu, I could probably re-order recordings to make sure they overlap on the same tuner as the scheduler doesn't have the right algorithm to do it.

I might be useful to know how the priority of recordings is set by the scheduler. Maybe being able to display the priority of recordings might help.

So it is difficult to program recordings and be sure to make NextPVR do what I want because the priority and tuners are not available as information or options to set.

[johnsonx42]

PIP is live tv, it can use whatever tuner is available at the moment without regard to any recordings that may start in the future - it will just stop LiveTV (or PIP) whenever the tuner is needed; for recordings it has to find one tuner available for the entire duration of the recording.

The Recurring Recordings are displayed in priority order. If you want to make sure two recurring recordings that will be back-to-back on the same channel use the same tuner, then make sure they are higher priority than any other recordings that might use the same timeslots. You can move recurring recordings up or down the priority list using the skip or ff/rw buttons (I forget which, I've never bothered to do it)

Yes, agreed, if Pending Recordings would display the tuner # they're scheduled for, that would be helpful in many scenarios. I will request that enhancement for the next release.

Overall it sounds like you are trying too hard to manipulate the scheduler to work around deficiencies in your broadcasts (whether they be accidental glitches or unwanted segments), and you're probably also trying to get by with 3 tuners when you need 4 for your recording load (complaining that if the scheduler were perfect then 3 tuners would be enough is pointless - the scheduler isn't perfect, and isn't going to be).

From what you describe it might be easier if you turned off the "avoid duplicates" feature and then set your recurring recordings for specific days and timeslots. Then you could have multiple recurring recordings for the same show, and/or add single recordings for certain airings.

If you'd rather retain the duplicate detection, but still want to be able to schedule extra airings without affecting the recordings created by the recurring scheduler, then you should use the "Forget" function which is on the hidden menu at the top of the Recordings screens. The basic idea is if you have a recurring recording for "ShowX", which schedules an episode for Tuesday but you then decide you want to go add a Quick Recording for the same episode of "ShowX" on Wednesday, you go to the Pending Recording you've created and "Forget" it. Behind the scenes this wipes out the Unique_ID field for that specific recording, so that it no longer matches against the Recurring Recording being scheduled during the EPG update each night.

[Handy.Man]

The Recurring Recordings are displayed in priority order. If you want to make sure two recurring recordings that will be back-to-back on the same channel use the same tuner, then make sure they are higher priority than any other recordings that might use the same timeslots. You can move recurring recordings up or down the priority list using the skip or ff/rw buttons (I forget which, I've never bothered to do it)

So this implied that Recurring Recordings will have priority over Quick Recordings? This might not be help if I have Quick Recordings only or a mix of both in the same time slot. I will see.

I didn't know that Recurring Recordings were displayed in priority order! It is really not easy to order them as you have to find recordings then move them in regards to the day of recording.

For the recordings lower in the list, using Ctrl-[Right/Left Arrow] move the recording up and down in the list.

For the recordings at the top of the list that doesn't seems to change the priority, it just skip to the next recording.
At some point, La Semaine verte ended up at the top of the list (it was way down) and it is impossible to change it now.
Select :

Ctrl-[Right/Left Arrow] :


So now it is stuck at the top of the list.

Yes, agreed, if Pending Recordings would display the tuner # they're scheduled for, that would be helpful in many scenarios. I will request that enhancement for the next release.

Will we be able to change the tuner assignment ?

From what you describe it might be easier if you turned off the "avoid duplicates" feature and then set your recurring recordings for specific days and timeslots. Then you could have multiple recurring recordings for the same show, and/or add single recordings for certain airings.

This would create too many duplicate recordings on the other channels.

If you'd rather retain the duplicate detection, but still want to be able to schedule extra airings without affecting the recordings created by the recurring scheduler, then you should use the "Forget" function which is on the hidden menu at the top of the Recordings screens. The basic idea is if you have a recurring recording for "ShowX", which schedules an episode for Tuesday but you then decide you want to go add a Quick Recording for the same episode of "ShowX" on Wednesday, you go to the Pending Recording you've created and "Forget" it. Behind the scenes this wipes out the Unique_ID field for that specific recording, so that it no longer matches against the Recurring Recording being scheduled during the EPG update each night.

I will try this option.

[sub]

Yes, agreed, if Pending Recordings would display the tuner # they're scheduled for, that would be helpful in many scenarios. I will request that enhancement for the next release.

Will we be able to change the tuner assignment ?

I'm not going to change it to display or select the tuner, because there is so many situations that can cause it to move the recording to another tuner at recording time, that it'll just lead to numerous support posts saying 'it didn't record on the tuner it said it would' or 'it didn't record on the tuner I asked it to'.

At the end of the day, the app tries it's best to make sure it can do all the recordings requested. The tuner it'll ends up using is not always known in advance.

[johnsonx42]

So this implied that Recurring Recordings will have priority over Quick Recordings? This might not be help if I have Quick Recordings only or a mix of both in the same time slot. I will see.

Quick or single recordings have no priority either way, they are simply scheduled if a tuner is available at the time of scheduling. Once scheduled, they remain as-is and will not be changed by the recurring recording scheduler. (but they might still get moved to a different tuner at recording time to allow for pre-padding or to avoid canceling live tv)

For the recordings at the top of the list that doesn't seems to change the priority, it just skip to the next recording.
At some point, La Semaine verte ended up at the top of the list (it was way down) and it is impossible to change it now.

I'll try to reproduce this; post your npvr.db3 again, I'd like to see what the db says about that recording.

Will we be able to change the tuner assignment ?

sub has responded to this. don't forget my comment at the end of the npvr tech support post - I am but a mid-level minion at best.

[Handy.Man]

I'll try to reproduce this; post your npvr.db3 again, I'd like to see what the db says about that recording.

That one popup at some point while changing priority lower in the list. All the ones at the top of the list behave the same.
Most the News shows seems to be at the top of the list ... while they are not really important to me. I guess this is because they were programmed well at first.

Is there a place where priority is explained ?

Sorry about the first db3 file it was the one on the client