Prioritization based on channel

Between support for Locast and TVE, in many cases I now have 3 copies of the channel (more if you count HD vs SD). I prefer OTA for all the channels that come in without an issue, but that's not the case for all of them. Likewise I may prefer Locast from some of the channels I can't get locally and TVE for others. And in many cases, the OTA channel is at least usable in case we're without power and have no network.

So with all that being said here's the feature request:

  1. Be able to limit what channels show up in the guide based on the channel. I don't need to see three copies of the same channel. (Maybe even be able to collapse HD and SD channels to the same channel))
  2. Be able to prioritize which source (or tuner if you have multiple tuners) each channel comes from. (This extends to HD vs SD.)
  3. Be intelligent in that if my preferred source is not available (external network not available, tuner not available, etc.), use the second source. If the second source is not available, use the third. And so on down the line. Note: If you have to limit this to 3 sources, I'm perfectly happy, and if you have to limit this to the top 2, while not ideal it is acceptable (and way better then what we have).
  4. Give the shear number of channels I now have available, some way of grouping or ordering. Sometimes the ancillary channels of a station aren't grouped near it. Being able to control this would be great. And yes, I know about the categories, but those seem to be based on HD, SD, Favorites (1 thing I can select), and content. I'd rather group my channels regardless of current content.

Oh, and in case I haven't said it before, THANK YOU for making such a great product. It has really changed my world.

You can favorite the channels you care about, then reorder your favorites. Recordings will also automatically prefer your favorited channels when multiple options exist.

What device are you running Channels app on? It should already be combining similar channels across tuners, and also should be automatically falling back to secondary sources when the first one is busy.

I believe the OP is requesting finer-grained control over priorities, on the level of individual channels, rather than by the input source as a whole.

When recording, priorities are given first to favorites before working down the list of sources. However, the use of favorites has some shortcomings for live viewing:

  • ABC can be found on 3 different sources:
    1. 707 on a Prime
    2. 7.1 on an OTA tuner
    3. 6001 on TVE
  • The previous list reflects the priority on both the DVR and the client
  • Channel 7.1 has been marked as a favorite on the OTA turner, so it is tried first for recordings
  • When browsing the guide on the client, ABC will only be shown on channel 707, not 7.1 or 6001.
  • Selecting ABC from the guide on a client will first try to tune 707 on the Prime, even though 7.1 via OTA has been favorited
  • Selecting ABC from the On Now listing will tune on channel 7.1, since that is the favorited channel

If finer grained priority ordering is allowed, it will help rectify this situation to make recording and live viewing follow the same priority lists. However, I don't see this happening any time soon, as the infrastructure needed to make this happen would require a considerable amount of work; further, designing the UX for this feature would be a nightmare.

Edit: I just had another though regarding this: perhaps the clients' logic for selecting channels to tune could be modified to follow the same path that the DVR uses when trying to open a tuner for a recording. If the channel in the guide represents more than one source (i.e. multiple channels have been collapsed into a single logical channel), then:

  1. The sources are tried in priority order to see if any of the channels are favorited
  2. If there are no favorites (either because they don't exist, or because all available tuners in the source that has the favorite channel are in use), then each source is tried in descending order to tune a channel for live viewing.

I feel that modifying the clients' behavior to match the DVR's would make the Channels ecosystem more consistent, and offer a similar level of fine grained priority requested by the OP without necessitating too much additional work.

Thanks for making my thoughts clearer, you seem to have understood what I was trying to say. I should have spent more time writing before posting, but I was trying to be quick and get it done in between items on my honey do list.

As a follow-up, perhaps this feature could be rolled into the tuner sharing setting. Meaning, if tuner sharing is not enabled on the client, then it can continue to operate as it does presently. However, if tuner sharing is enabled, then the selection of which source/tuner to use could be left up to the DVR server and use its existing logic.