TV Server ConflictsManager plugin (1 Viewer)

[mm1352000]

Hello everybody

I'm looking for information about the ConflictsManager plugin. After examining the code, I'm 90% sure it was never completed... but I don't know whether anybody is actually using it.

If you're using the ConflictsManager plugin, please let me know and help me understand how/why you use it.

Thanks in advance!
mm

 

[Vasilich]

according to that thread https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/threads/how-do-recordings-get-allocated-to-cards.80514/ it was never finished

 

[mm1352000]

Thanks Vasilich
Yeah, I suspected as much. However I still wonder if people are using it even though it is incomplete.

 

[RonD]

I have never seen any sign of a conflict manager. this is 1 thing I miss from BeyondTV. In BeyondTV you could see conflicts and had a way to increase/decrease recoding priority to control which show was skipped. I can see how this is a bit easier if you assume all tuners can tune all channels/show, and each tuner is only used to record 1 show at a time. Life could get very complicated if some channels can only use some tuners, or if some combinations of tuners/shows can record 2 or more shows at the same time.

If you export schedules, there is always a priority=0 field, but no way to set/control the value. I don't think I've ever tried changing priority=1 to see what happens.

This also has a "directory" field, another thing I miss from BeyondTV s a way to have a default recording folder and way to specify different folders for some recordings

<schedule ChannelName="KPIX-TV" ProgramName="The Big Bang Theory" StartTime="2012-5-24 20:0:0" EndTime="2012-5-24 20:31:0" KeepDate="2000-1-1 0:0:0" PreRecordInterval="1" PostRecordInterval="1" Priority="0" Quality="73" Directory="" KeepMethod="0" MaxAirings="2147483647" ScheduleType="3" Series="False" />

 

[mm1352000]

I have never seen any sign of a conflict manager.

That's probably because (a) there isn't a real conflict manager, and (b) there is a horrendous bug in the conflict detection code which means that it won't work for ATSC over-the-air.

What exists in TV Server core is conflict detection on creation of a new schedule. If any of the programs for the new schedule create a conflict with any of the programs for the existing schedules in the next 10 days then those are [meant to be] raised in a dialog. The dialog then gives you the choice to:

• cancel creating the new schedule
• create the new schedule and cancel the conflicting programs from the existing schedules
• create the new schedule, ignore the conflicts and hope for the best (ie. you'd have to monitor for conflicts yourself, and manually cancel episodes)
  
• create the new schedule and cancel the conflicting programs from the new schedule

Obviously this is quite a limited solution:

• no possibility to remove pre and/or post record to avoid conflicts
• no possibility to prioritise schedules
• no real possibility to minimise conflicts (ie. you can't cancel only some of the existing schedule programs)
  
• no conflict handling beyond the 10 days that are checked
• no possibility to ignore conflicts then come back to try and resolve them later

I'm sure you can think of other missing things too.

Regarding this ConflictManager plugin that I'm trying to get information about...
The priority and recommended card fields on the schedule table may have been introduced with this plugin.

It looks like the designer of the plugin intended to check for conflicts in the background on schedule creation and deletion. Any conflicts that were found would be minimised/optimised by some resolution logic using the priority field to rank schedules and the recommend card field to resolve. Any conflicts that couldn't be resolved automatically would be manageable by a user interface in MP.

Very little of these plans seem to have been completed. About all that I can see is conflict detection equivalent to what TV Server has built in. I expect that there are very few people that use the plugin since it appears so incomplete and there are probably many bugs. I want to remove the plugin to avoid confusion. That's why I started this thread: to confirm my guess that it is no problem to remove it.

 

[RonD]

I see ConflictsManager.dll in the plugins folder, but I've never see a way to use/configure it.

 

[mm1352000]

I see ConflictsManager.dll in the plugins folder, but I've never see a way to use/configure it.

Well that is the plugin that I'm trying to ask about here. To use it you'd simply enable the plugin in TV Server configuration (then restart the TV service). Don't bother with the plugin configuration. It has two options which have zero effect.