Soft padding for EPG recordings (1 Viewer)

[divxmaster]

Hi Owlsroost, thanks for your reply,

Yes the conflict checked comes up, however it acts a bit strangely. I tried this on both DVBIP and DVBT (one tuner enabled) -
if have a program (repeating) say scheduled to record at 1100am, and put in a pre record of 3 min, it is ready to go at 10:57am
Then I schedule another program (one off - different dvbt mux) to end recording at 1100am, the conflict checker comes up and if I choose
skip conflicting recording, the only option it comes up with is 'delete entire series'!!! surely this cant be right? I just want to
get rid of the program starting at 1057 on this one occasion. This scenario is exactly what I tried to do yesterday on my real recordings.

Can you check if your conflict checker does this? (related, but slightly OT I know)

Yes soft padding is really great, on the Tivo you can set a global setting (I had 3 min pre, 10 min post) that applies to every recording.
So basically if it can accommodate the pre or post it adds them or if it cant due to conflicts, it ignores them. I think it also did part
usage.. i.e, if a program ends at 10:00 and another starts at 10:05, it does 5 mins post record.

Is the server component in C? I havent done much C (currently using python), but was programming assembly since the 80's so C isnt
particularly difficult.

Cheers,
Divxmaster

 

[Owlsroost]

Is the server component in C?

It's mostly written in C#/.NET (except for the DirectShow filter code which is in C++, but that's low-level stuff). Sources for the C# stuff are here - MediaPortal/MediaPortal-1

Can you check if your conflict checker does this? (related, but slightly OT I know)

It's MediaPortal TV Server's conflict checker, not 'mine' - but I've never looked at that part of the code so I have no idea how it works internally. I suspect the relevant code is in here - MediaPortal/MediaPortal-1

 

[divxmaster]

Hi,
lol, when I said your conflict checker, I meant your mediaportal installation, not you 'own' the conflict checker!
I can sort of do C#, I've done a bit on Windows 10 IOT on Raspberry Pi. I'll have a look at some stage, but still
currently working on the streaming/MP python app and Assetto Corsa app.

Cheers,
Divxmaster

 

[Owlsroost]

lol, when I said your conflict checker, I meant your mediaportal installation, not you 'own' the conflict checker!

I've got 3 x DVB-T/T2 tuners on my HTPC, so I almost never get schedule conflicts - I'll have to set up the scenario on my dev test system to see what happens.

I can sort of do C#

When I first started dabbling in MP coding, I'd never done any C# or C++ programming (just a bit of low-level C) - that was 9 years ago...

 

[CyberSimian]

if have a program (repeating) say scheduled to record at 1100am, and put in a pre record of 3 min, it is ready to go at 10:57am. Then I schedule another program (one off - different dvbt mux) to end recording at 1100am, the conflict checker comes up and if I choose skip conflicting recording, the only option it comes up with is 'delete entire series'!!!

I have just tried this on my test system. There does seem to be at least one problem, and possibly more than one. My result differs slightly from @divxmaster. Some points:

(1) I disabled all but one tuner and rebooted.

(2) I scheduled a series to record 13.45-14.15.

(3) I attempted to schedule a single programme 14.15-16.00. The scheduled start and end times mean that there is no overlap, but once pre-padding (1 min) and post-padding (5 mins) is included, the recordings do overlap. This was diagnosed and the following pop-up appeared:



(4) Selecting "Skip new recording" worked correctly -- the new recording was not scheduled.

(5) Selecting "Keep conflict" also worked correctly -- the new recording was scheduled to record.

(6) Selecting "Skip conflicting recording(s)" partly worked. It displayed another popup with two choices: "Cancel this recording" and "Delete entire schedule". The latter worked correctly, but the former did not -- it seemed to act the same as "Skip new recording". Note that my test case schedules the single programme to follow the series, whereas @divxmaster's single programme preceded the series (I don't know whether that is significant).

(7) With the two recordings scheduled, I then tried to schedule another single programme starting at 14.15. The conflict was diagnosed, but MP displayed only one conflicting recording, whereas I would have expected two conflicting recordings. Possibly "TV Server" remembers for each recording whether "Keep conflict" was specified for that recording, and does not consider it in subsequent conflict detection.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[Owlsroost]

(7) With the two recordings scheduled, I then tried to schedule another single programme starting at 14.15. The conflict was diagnosed, but MP displayed only one conflicting recording, whereas I would have expected two conflicting recordings. Possibly "TV Server" remembers for each recording whether "Keep conflict" was specified for that recording, and does not consider it in subsequent conflict detection.

It might be that its conflict search stops at the first conflict it finds, so multiple conflicts are not found/handled.

 

[divxmaster]

I just tried another test,
Set one program to record from 0900-1000 (it was during that time period so it began recording immediately)
Then set another to record from 1000-1100 on a different mux, with pre record 3 min. No conflict came up at all.
Let the time tick over to past 1000, and it DID use soft padding, it recorded right up to 1000, and then the new program
started recording at 1000, not 0957. Very strange.
Went into tv-server configuration and confirmed that the second program definitely had a pre-record set at 3 min.

Just to confirm, while the second program was recording, I tried to record on the channel that the 0900-1000 program
was on, - no it conflicted, so definitely on a different mux.
(the fact that the 2nd program started at 1000, not 0957 proves this anyway)

All very inconsistent, I'd have a guess that there is soft pre/post padding in there, but it is not working correctly under
all circumstances.
Note my install of MP is fresh, only a month or so old. I will image my pc back to before I installed MP and install MP 1.21 again
and do some testing.
Also, like Owlsroost, I also have 3 tuners, so only came across this problem when using my Streaming->DVBIP 1x tuner setup.

Cheers,
Divxmaster

 

[Owlsroost]

There is an (old, from 2014) thread that talks a little about TV Server conflict management and the apparently unfinished and very old, ConflictsManager plugin - see TV Server ConflictsManager plugin

Set one program to record from 0900-1000 (it was during that time period so it began recording immediately)

Was there any post-record padding enabled on that recording?

 

[CyberSimian]

It might be that its conflict search stops at the first conflict it finds, so multiple conflicts are not found/handled.

"TV Server" does detect multiple conflicts. Look at the two screen shots below.

In the first test, I scheduled concurrent programmes on the five main HD channels. These are all on the same MUX, so no conflict. I then scheduled a programme on "More4+1", which also did not generate a conflict (that was a surprise; is "More4+1" in the primary HD MUX?). Finally, I tried to schedule "Judge Judy" on "Blaze", and that triggered the conflict pop-up. Note that the pop-up has scroll triangles in the top right, because the entry for "More4+1" cannot be fitted within the size of the pop-up, so the list of conflicting programmes can be scrolled:



In the second test, I scheduled two programmes separated by a gap of 45 minutes (so no conflict even with padding). I then scheduled a movie that overlapped both programmes, and the conflict pop-up appeared:

There is an (old, from 2014) thread that talks a little about TV Server conflict management and the apparently unfinished and very old

The thread that you linked mentions (among other things) recording priorities. In fact, there is a recording priority panel in MP, but most skins do not show it (this may be because it does not work). In my "ClassicWide" skin, I have re-enabled the selection (first screen shot), and selecting "Assign priorities" gives you a panel on which you can re-arrange the priority order of scheduled recordings (second screen shot; I apologise for the illegibility of this panel, but it is one that I have not yet restyled):



-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[catavolt]

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