Soft padding for EPG recordings (2 Viewers)

[CyberSimian]

could you pls. send me the xmls for those recording priorities? Never saw them

They are already present in the DWHD distribution.

If you look in "MyTvSchedulerServer.xml", you will see that in the definition of the left side menu there are two additional entries following "Cleanup", namely "Priorities" and "Conflicts". What is puzzling me at the moment is why they don't appear.

The "Priorities" panel is defined in "MyTvPriorities.xml" (panel id 607). Note: many of the tags near the start of this file are commented out. Although this panel can be displayed, I have never tried to use it to change priorities, so it is possible that it does not actually work (i.e. "TV Server" ignores whatever values are set by the panel).

There isn't a "MyTvConflicts.xml" file for resolving conflicts (panel id 608). But I did try creating one some time ago to see if I could get something to display. As far as I remember, that does not work (possibly no corresponding support code in the skin engine).

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[catavolt]

Aah, thx
Will do some experiments

 

[Owlsroost]

Although this panel can be displayed, I have never tried to use it to change priorities, so it is possible that it does not actually work (i.e. "TV Server" ignores whatever values are set by the panel).

I think that's very likely - this post in the old thread I linked to earlier is a pretty good summary of the situation I suspect - TV Server ConflictsManager plugin

Note that the (tuner) card allocation logic does use the concept of 'user' priorities - the 'scheduler thread' (which handles starting and stopping recordings) creates a separate temporary 'user' for each recording, but they are all at the same (very high) priority. Timeshift users are normally at a much lower priority (and will always be kicked off if a tuner is required for a recording). In theory it should be possible to handle the 'recording priority' situation by having the scheduler thread create temporary users with different priorities - then the existing card allocation logic should handle the real-time card availability situation/allocation.

 

[CyberSimian]

Timeshift users are normally at a much lower priority (and will always be kicked off if a tuner is required for a recording).

Yes, that happened this morning. I was watching live TV on my test system when one of the test recordings started. The video froze and the audio stopped. I waited a while, but nothing seemed to be happening, so I pressed the BACK button on the remote to return to the EPG, at which point a pop-up appeared stating that live TV had been stopped in order to start a recording. It seemed like rather a long wait for the pop-up to appear.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[divxmaster]

@Owlsroost No there was no post recording padding on the 0900-1000 recording. thanks I will look into the conflicts manager plugin.
@CyberSimian Is your classicwide skin released? I had a quick look and couldnt find anything.

So I restored my PC back to an image before MP was installed. Installed MP 1.21. Set default skin as Titan.
Both tests came out exactly the same, post #11, post #17.
I tried #post 11 around the same way as CyberSimian and got all kinds of weirdness.

Firstly I set up the series to record first, didnt put any post record. Then I set the single program to record after it on the different mux with a prerecord of 3 mins.
It accepted it, didnt complain, so presumably soft padding was activated.

But then I did post/pre the other way round, series records first, put in post record of 3 mins. Then set single program to record at the end time of the first. Nope it wouldnt do it, conflict. Seems soft padding only works on pre not post. Also when I got the conflict and chose skip conflicting recording (series), still only got delete entire series, not just that one instance.

Anyway, will have to very carefully schedule for now, and will try to have a look at the scheduler code at some stage, but it is summer in NZ here at the moment so generally doing other things.

Cheers,
Divxmaster

edit: CyberSimian, I regularly watch timeshift tv, until a recording starts. For me the message pops up instantly that it has stopped timeshift and switched to recording.

 

[Owlsroost]

thanks I will look into the conflicts manager plugin.

You should read the second half of this post first - TV Server ConflictsManager plugin (basically it's incomplete and probably doesn't do much more than the built-in conflict checking does).

 

[CyberSimian]

@CyberSimian Is your classicwide skin released? I had a quick look and couldnt find anything.

My "ClassicWide" skin is an on-going occasional project that will probably never be finished. It is a restyled version of the classic "DefaultWide" skin; hence the name: "ClassicWide". It is not based on the current "DefaultWideHD", although I do sometimes steal recycle images from DWHD.

I started "ClassicWide" because I wanted a larger live thumbnail for TV and video than is provided by any of the other skins, but since then I have added "clarity" as an objective. So far I have restyled only those panels related to TV and video, as these are the ones that I use. I might get around to restyling music and pictures someday... but then again I might not.

I regularly watch timeshift tv, until a recording starts. For me the message pops up instantly that it has stopped timeshift and switched to recording.

Possibly this was caused by my hardware. I had both MP and TV Server set to debug logging, but my OS disk is a relatively slow Western Digital Green HDD (not an SSD). Your result indicates that there is no inherent problem with MP.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[divxmaster]

@Owlsroost, oh I meant actually look in to the plugin, as in the source code!

@CyberSimian Ok cool, I have just set up a dedicated MP only server, as now MP is my only source of TV (dumped SKY NZ when they dropped the F1).
Its and old but capable Q9400., but I did make sure it had a ssd! Just swapped the recording drive to a 1TB SSHD yesterday, for quicker record response.

I just realised that when I set this up for dvbip I straight away set the global pre/post record to 0, then promptly forgot that the global option existed. I theory I could set global prerecord to 5 min and it would all still work, as long as I keep post at 0.

Cheers,
Divxmaster

 

[Owlsroost]

Firstly I set up the series to record first, didnt put any post record. Then I set the single program to record after it on the different mux with a prerecord of 3 mins.
It accepted it, didnt complain, so presumably soft padding was activated.

But then I did post/pre the other way round, series records first, put in post record of 3 mins. Then set single program to record at the end time of the first. Nope it wouldnt do it, conflict. Seems soft padding only works on pre not post. Also when I got the conflict and chose skip conflicting recording (series), still only got delete entire series, not just that one instance.

Another 'feature' at work here is that the recording scheduler thread will keep trying to start a recording when no tuner card is available (or has failed to tune). So if you have a recording running with zero post padding, and have a following recording (that is on a different mux and can't be put on another tuner) with some pre-padding, the second recording won't actually start until the first one has finished. This might give the illusion that 'active' soft-padding is happening in this situation, but actually it's just an artifact of how the dynamic tuner card allocation/scheduler thread logic works.

Note there is no pre-allocation of tuners to recordings when schedules are set up - allocation only happens at the instant the scheduler thread decides to start a recording and requests a 'card reservation'.

 

[divxmaster]

Hi,
yes I have certainly come across the record retries, if for some reason I forget to start obs studio recording, then dvbip tune fails, and it retries, except of course
my program is checking the log and 'tuning' the streaming webpage to that channel. so it just goes over and over opening the same webpage. I already have a comment in there to add failed tune recognition at some stage.

I can see how the scenario you have mentioned would come up if you already had the series recordings loaded, and new guide data days were imported and it had to decide by itself on what to do.
However what I am getting is when I manually try to record two contiguous programs on different muxes with the pre record, it doesn't say a thing, it doesn't come up with a conflict message at all. It just seems all happy about it.

Cheers,
Divxmaster