Pass Priority

Channels DVR Server
#1

I'm having some problems with some passes not being recorded and was wondering if someone could help me out. On Thursdays I have the following passes set to record.

Last Man Standing on FOX at 7:00pm (Channels says is 31 minutes, but should be a 30 minute show)
Station 19 on ABC at 7:00pm (60 minutes)
Brooklyn Nine-Nine on NBC at 7:30pm (30 minutes)

I have two tuners and priority is Last Man Standing, Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Station 19 is much farther down the list. What is happening is Last Man Standing and Station 19 record, but not Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

I have a few questions. First, from what I've read Channels DVR doesn't prefer a higher priority pass if a lower priority pass starts first and runs past the higher priority pass. Is this still the case? If so, do you think that because Last Man Standing is marked as 31 minutes it blocks Brooklyn Nine-Nine from recording at all because of the minute overlap or should Brooklyn Nine-Nine just start a minute later?

Also, I have Channels DVR setup to record 1 minute before and after the pass. Would this cause any conflicts with recording a show? For example, lets say for the sake of argument that Last Man Standing was exactly 30 minutes so there is no overlap with Brooklyn Nine-Nine, would my configuration to record a minute before and after the pass cause a conflict/overlap such that Brooklyn Nine-Nine still wouldn't record or are those before/after settings ignored when shows are recording back to back?

Assume that Last Man Standing and Brooklyn Nine-Nine were on the same channel/network. I would guess in that case both would record because there wouldn't be overlapping tuner use. Am I correct on that assumption?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm just trying to get confirmation that the behavior I'm seeing is in fact expected and if not, maybe I can try to figure out why some of my passes aren't being recorded. If what I'm seeing is expected behavior is there any way to manually have Last Man Standing end a minute earlier or have Brooklyn Nine-Nine start a minute later to avoid an overlap? I may have to just cancel some of my passes or buy another tuner, but just trying to fully understand how it works and if there are any ways I can resolve the conflicts before making other decisions. Thanks!

#2

You say you have two tuners.
Does that mean an HDHR Dual with two tuners, two HDHR's (what) or an HDHR and TVE, or two TVE's?
Last time I saw this answered was awhile back regarding how recording priorities work.

#3

Yes, I think the padding is hurting you here. Since all three recording are from different stations, channels can’t share the tuners. At 7:30 when Station 19 is due to start recording, both tuners are occupied recording the other two shows. I would expect though that once the first recording finishes at 7:31 the recording for Station 19 would start, so you would just miss the first minute. Is that not happening? The DVR logs should be very helpful in determining exactly what is going on.

#4

I have an HDHR with two tuners. Model HDHR4-2US.

#5

I agree, I would think that at 7:31pm once Last Man Standing is done recording that Brooklyn Nine-Nine would start (albeit a minute late), but it doesn't record at all. It seems like there is a minute overlap that prevents Brooklyn Nine-Nine from recording at all. Maybe it's an all or nothing thing?

Regarding the logs, I'll try and look into them and see if I can find anything there.

#6

Trying to duplicate what you're seeing.

Are all three passes set with 1 min before and 1 min after padding?

Are they listed in order by priority?
1 Last Man Standing
2 Station 19
3 Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Do you have commercial detection enabled for all three?

Figured I could duplicate it on my 3-tuner PRIME by keeping one of the tuners busy recording a movie, then duplicate what you have by creating 3 new passes to test it tonight.

Pass priority order
1 Rugrats
2 Barnwood Builders
3 HARDtalk

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#7

Couldn't duplicate the problem.
It kept trying to record HARDtalk from 7:29 PM every second until a tuner freed up at 7:32 PM and then recorded it.

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2020/03/29 19:29:00.011265 [DVR] Starting job 1585535340-293 HARDtalk on ch=[167]
2020/03/29 19:29:00.012601 [ERR] Failed to start stream on channel 167 via 1323AADB: HDHomeRun: 805 All Tuners In Use
2020/03/29 19:29:00.012690 [DVR] Error running job 1585535340-293 HARDtalk: could not start stream on channels=[167]: HDHomeRun: 805 All Tuners In Use
2020/03/29 19:29:01.080072 [DVR] Starting job 1585535340-293 HARDtalk on ch=[167]
2020/03/29 19:29:01.081318 [ERR] Failed to start stream on channel 167 via 1323AADB: HDHomeRun: 805 All Tuners In Use
2020/03/29 19:29:01.081367 [DVR] Error running job 1585535340-293 HARDtalk: could not start stream on channels=[167]: HDHomeRun: 805 All Tuners In Use
...
2020/03/29 19:31:59.136686 [DVR] Starting job 1585535340-293 HARDtalk on ch=[167]
2020/03/29 19:31:59.138082 [ERR] Failed to start stream on channel 167 via 1323AADB: HDHomeRun: 805 All Tuners In Use
2020/03/29 19:31:59.138135 [DVR] Error running job 1585535340-293 HARDtalk: could not start stream on channels=[167]: HDHomeRun: 805 All Tuners In Use
2020/03/29 19:32:00.154592 [DVR] Starting job 1585535340-293 HARDtalk on ch=[167]
2020/03/29 19:32:00.155875 [ERR] Failed to start stream on channel 167 via 1323AADB: HDHomeRun: 805 All Tuners In Use
2020/03/29 19:32:00.155926 [DVR] Error running job 1585535340-293 HARDtalk: could not start stream on channels=[167]: HDHomeRun: 805 All Tuners In Use
2020/03/29 19:32:00.506522 [TNR] Closed connection to 1323AADB/1 for ch215 TNCK
2020/03/29 19:32:00.521917 [DVR] Finished job 1585533540-291 Rugrats
2020/03/29 19:32:00.549009 [DVR] Starting job 1585535340-293 HARDtalk on ch=[167]
2020/03/29 19:32:01.121834 [TNR] Opened connection to 1323AADB/1 for ch167 BBCWDNA
2020/03/29 19:32:01.122125 [DVR] Recording for job 1585535340-293 from 1323AADB ch167 into "TV/HARDtalk/HARDtalk 2002-03-06 2020-03-29-1932.mpg" for 28m59.450897929s
#8

Which is a connect, right? IME, OTA is always on-time. The padding isn't going to get you any extra show and it will cause conflicts with your tuners. There may be more issue to figure out here, like why the DVR isn't retrying and attempting to start the recordings late.
But, you should get rid of that padding anyway... it should be used sparingly for live events that run over the guide times and for TVE (which is always about 1 minute late due to stream processing by the provider)... but thats it.

Additionally, you can look at the log to find out what exactly is happening with the DVR retries.

#9

Sorry I didn't respond right away guys. Life got busy for a while here. Ok, I think I maybe have found out what was wrong. I didn't realize I also had Outmatched recording at 7:30 on FOX as well, sorry about that. Here are my priorities:

  1. Last Man Standing
  2. Brooklyn Nine-Nine
  3. Station 19
  4. Outmatched

I looked at my logs for last Thursday (3/36/2020) and these are the relevant entries:

2020/03/26 18:59:18.380538 [DVR] Starting job 1585267140-4 Last Man Standing on ch=[6.1]
2020/03/26 18:59:18.758415 [DVR] Starting job 1585267140-31 Station 19 on ch=[12.1]
2020/03/26 19:29:00.292740 [DVR] Starting job 1585268940-35 Brooklyn Nine-Nine on ch=[4.1]
2020/03/26 19:29:00.433832 [ERR] Failed to start stream on channel 4.1 via 10473389: HDHomeRun: 805 All Tuners In Use
2020/03/26 19:29:00.441437 [DVR] Starting job 1585268940-33 Outmatched on ch=[6.1]
2020/03/26 19:29:00.441662 [TNR] Sharing existing connection to 10473389/0 for ch6.1 WITI-DT (clients=2, len=0)
2020/03/26 19:29:01.472732 [DVR] Starting job 1585268940-35 Brooklyn Nine-Nine on ch=[4.1]
2020/03/26 19:29:01.475859 [ERR] Failed to start stream on channel 4.1 via 10473389: HDHomeRun: 805 All Tuners In Use
2020/03/26 19:29:02.524723 [DVR] Starting job 1585268940-35 Brooklyn Nine-Nine on ch=[4.1]
2020/03/26 19:29:02.527925 [ERR] Failed to start stream on channel 4.1 via 10473389: HDHomeRun: 805 All Tuners In Use
...
2020/03/26 19:32:00.866388 [DVR] Starting job 1585268940-35 Brooklyn Nine-Nine on ch=[4.1]
2020/03/26 19:32:00.871054 [ERR] Failed to start stream on channel 4.1 via 10473389: HDHomeRun: 805 All Tuners In Use

At 6:59pm both Last Man Standing and Station 19 started recording. Even though Station 19 had a lower priority than Brooklyn Nine-Nine, it started a half an hour earlier so it took precedence. Am I understanding that correctly?

At 7:29pm Brooklyn Nine-Nine tried to start but the 2 tuners were busy, then Outmatched tried to start and because it was on a channel that was already being used it started recording.

Then every second after Brooklyn Nine-Nine tried to record but couldn't because eventually Outmatched took over the tuner that was recording Last Man Standing and blocked Brooklyn Nine-Nine

I'm really sorry I missed the fact that Outmatched was recording as well because obviously that is material. Didn't notice it until looking at the logs. So what I concluded is that Station 19 took priority over Brooklyn Nine-Nine because it was scheduled to start about 30 minutes earlier. Even though Outmatched was a lower priority than Brooklyn Nine-Nine and started at the same time, there was already something on that same channel (Last Man Standing) recording so it just piggy backed off of that. In fact, if I didn't have my 1minute before/after buffers set, I bet Brooklyn Nine-Nine would have recorded and Outmatched wouldn't have because they would have both tried to start at 7:30pm when Last Man Standing was done and Brooklyn Nine-Nine would have received priority over Outmatched.

Do you guys think my assumptions and analysis here is correct? After looking at the logs it makes sense to me and is more apparent that it probably did what it was supposed to. I'll remove the 1min buffers and keep an eye on things. If I notice something funky in the logs I'll reach out again. I guess the only thing I wish Channels DVR would do is not start a recording for a lower priority show if it would block a higher priority show from recording in the future. From what I've read in the forums though, this is expected behavior correct?

#10

It is working normally. Currently, the DVR does not look ahead for future airings and compare to the number of tuners you have.

You should take off the padding for these shows, since the shows start and end on-time.

You could get more tuners (add another HDHomeRun), and then you wouldn't need to worry about this so much.

#11

Hehe, ok. So after analyzing the logs from last week, I analyzed the logs from tonight to see how things behaved and noticed something behaving different. Let me run it by you guys to see what you think.

Schedule (I still had 1 minute buffers enabled and I'm accounting for that in the schedule below):

  • 6:59pm - 7:32pm Last Man Standing on FOX
  • 6:59pm - 8:01pm Station 19 on ABC
  • 7:29pm - 8:01pm Brooklyn Nine-Nine on NBC
  • 7:29pm - 8:01pm Man With a Plan on CBS

Priority:

  1. Last Man Standing
  2. Brooklyn Nine-Nine
  3. Man With a Plan
  4. Station 19

Logs:

2020/04/02 18:59:18.319753 [DVR] Starting job 1585871940-4 Last Man Standing on ch=[6.1]
2020/04/02 18:59:18.319882 [DVR] Skipping job 1585871940-31 Station 19
2020/04/02 18:59:18.319976 [DVR] Waiting 29m41.680045546s until next job 1585873740-35 Brooklyn Nine-Nine
2020/04/02 18:59:18.636966 [TNR] Opened connection to 10473389/0 for ch6.1 WITI-DT
2020/04/02 18:59:18.655465 [DVR] Recording for job 1585871940-4 from 10473389 ch6.1 into "TV/Last Man Standing/Last Man Standing S08E17 Keep the Change 2020-04-02-1859.mpg" for 32m41.664892683s
...
2020/04/02 19:29:00.026798 [DVR] Starting job 1585873740-35 Brooklyn Nine-Nine on ch=[4.1]
2020/04/02 19:29:00.026873 [DVR] Waiting 59.973151476s until next job 1585873800-44 Man With a Plan
2020/04/02 19:29:00.243568 [TNR] Opened connection to 10473389/1 for ch4.1 WTMJ-DT
2020/04/02 19:29:00.260305 [DVR] Recording for job 1585873740-35 from 10473389 ch4.1 into "TV/Brooklyn Nine-Nine/Brooklyn Nine-Nine S07E10 Admiral Peralta 2020-04-02-1929.mpg" for 31m59.973050228s
2020/04/02 19:30:00.024271 [DVR] Skipping job 1585871940-31 Station 19
2020/04/02 19:30:00.024392 [DVR] Starting job 1585873800-44 Man With a Plan on ch=[58.1]
2020/04/02 19:30:00.024475 [DVR] Waiting 58m59.975554595s until next job 1585877340-38 Indebted
2020/04/02 19:30:00.052166 [ERR] Failed to start stream on channel 58.1 via 10473389: HDHomeRun: 805 All Tuners In Use
2020/04/02 19:30:00.052347 [DVR] Error running job 1585873800-44 Man With a Plan: could not start stream on channels=[58.1]: HDHomeRun: 805 All Tuners In Use
2020/04/02 19:30:01.080880 [DVR] Skipping job 1585871940-31 Station 19
2020/04/02 19:30:01.080976 [DVR] Starting job 1585873800-44 Man With a Plan on ch=[58.1]
2020/04/02 19:30:01.081044 [DVR] Waiting 58m58.918975305s until next job 1585877340-38 Indebted
2020/04/02 19:30:01.097556 [ERR] Failed to start stream on channel 58.1 via 10473389: HDHomeRun: 805 All Tuners In Use
2020/04/02 19:30:01.097652 [DVR] Error running job 1585873800-44 Man With a Plan: could not start stream on channels=[58.1]: HDHomeRun: 805 All Tuners In Use
...
2020/04/02 19:32:00.386081 [DVR] Finished job 1585871940-4 Last Man Standing
2020/04/02 19:32:00.412538 [DVR] Skipping job 1585871940-31 Station 19
2020/04/02 19:32:00.412626 [DVR] Starting job 1585873800-44 Man With a Plan on ch=[58.1]
2020/04/02 19:32:00.412694 [DVR] Waiting 56m59.587325935s until next job 1585877340-38 Indebted
2020/04/02 19:32:00.607564 [DVR] Skipping job 1585871940-31 Station 19
2020/04/02 19:32:00.607661 [DVR] Waiting 56m59.392358738s until next job 1585877340-38 Indebted
2020/04/02 19:32:00.650064 [TNR] Opened connection to 10473389/0 for ch58.1 WDJT-HD
2020/04/02 19:32:00.678553 [DVR] Processing file-266: TV/Last Man Standing/Last Man Standing S08E17 Keep the Change 2020-04-02-1859.mpg
2020/04/02 19:32:00.711733 [DVR] Recording for job 1585873800-44 from 10473389 ch58.1 into "TV/Man With a Plan/Man With a Plan S04E01 The VWord 2020-04-02-1932.mpg" for 29m59.587242921s

At 6:59pm Last Man Standing started recording, but Station 19 was skipped. Then at 7:29pm Brooklyn Nine-Nine started recording. At 7:32pm once Last Man Standing was done, Man with a Plan started (it was a little late, but started never the less). My question is, why was the behavior different with Station 19 this week (today it was skipped but not last week)? It seems like the results from today are exactly what I would hope it would do. Station 19 was skipped, Brooklyn Nine-Nine recorded and Man with a Plan recorded as soon as Last Man Standing was done. Station 19 never recorded because it was last on priority. Seemed perfect today, just don't know why I didn't see similar behavior last week.

#12

Damn, Channels DVR updated on 3/27/2020 it looks like. I checked the version that was running and I'm running 2020.03.27.1730. Is it possible they improved the way recordings are handled with priorities now? That might explain the difference between last week and this week.

If that is the case, that is awesome they improved things. Works just like I would have hoped.

#13

Yes, thanks for the advice. I will definitely disable the 1 minute buffers. Might pick up another couple tuners too.

#14

Probably because the Priority changed from 3 to 4.

I'm not sure why you would schedule 2 shows that have a 1/2 hour overlap though.

#15

I never changed the priorities in the software. I was just showing you the order of the shows that were pertinent to my issue/question. Priorities should all be relative. I actually have many more shows setup to record but didn't list the priorities because they weren't important.

#16

I was comparing those two.

#17

I didn't explicitly try to schedule shows that are overlapping. I just setup Passes for the shows I might be interested in and if they can record, great. If not, that's fine too. That's why I'm relying on the priorities.

#18

Yup, those priorities were exactly the same between last week and this week. I just didn't include Man With a Plan in my post about last week because it wasn't recording (it premiered this week) so it wasn't relevant to my issue. Same thing with Outmatched this week. I didn't include it in my priorities because it wasn't on this week.

What I'm trying to say is I never changed the priorities in the software. I only provided the priorities relative to each other when trying to describe the issue I was seeing to you guys. I have 39 Passes setup and wasn't going to give you a list of all my priorities because most of the shows are irrelavant.

#19

Looked at the changelog for the version that was released on 3/27/2020. Looks like they did some work with tuner sharing and priorities. Maybe that was it?

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#20

Right, Station 19 is two levels lower than Brooklyn Nine Nine which is why BNN was recorded and not S-19.

So priority counts and the Schedule counts. I don't think just the Priority is accounted for.

I would think @eric or @tmm1 know.....