How hard would it be to have ChannelsDVR notify us if we schedule more programs to record than we have tuners to record them? I'm always having to check if I have any conflicts! Very frustrating!
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Not an official response, just another DVR user responding.
It's not a closed box system like some hardware DVR in a black box.
Think about the fact that Channels does NOT have total control over your 1,2,3+ tuners and other clients, including Channels that can use them to view Live TV or record from them.
I think it would be possible to maybe display how many tuners are being/going to be requested by Channels DVR on a timeline, but that gets complicated when you have more than one tuner and tuner/schedule priorities come into play.
I would also like to see this, maybe a graph by time within a day that shows how many tuners will be used to record what's scheduled, or at least times when your 1,2,3,4,5,6,whatever tuners would be over-commited, but I'm not holding my breath 'til I turn blue on that since Channels isn't in a black box with your tuners.
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Good points. I'll throw in one other scenario that has bitten me a few times.
I have an HDHR with 2 tuners. I've had situations where I scheduled two recordings at the same time. No problem, right? But, in the time slot just before the scheduled recordings, I was watching live on a different (3rd) channel. When it was time for the scheduled recordings to start, Channels DVR could not allocate both tuners and simply skipped recording one of the shows with no notification.
I would like to see a notification on the live tv display when this happens. Channels DVR can certainly know when it was able to allocate a tuner or not for a scheduled recording. If I'm watching live and it's a tuner short for a scheduled recording, tell me so I can release the tuner.
Good point! I'm not suggesting Channels make any change to recording schedule just notify us if a conflict exists!
I believe you've missed the point. They don't have a lock on the tuner resources. There's absolutely no way for them to know if there's going to be a conflict.
Sure: They could raise a flag if you've programmed more recordings than there are tuners in a particular time segment, but that's all they can do. There's nothing to prevent other use of one-or-more tuners, perhaps even by another app, from trumping that
"Sure: They could raise a flag if you've programmed more recordings than there are tuners in a particular time segment, but that's all they can do."
In my case that is exactly what I want! Would make my life so much easier!
My tuners are only used with the Channels apps and DVR. I would also like Channels to warn me of upcoming conflicts. I wouldn't mind if Channels warned me that all tuners were busy recording programs if someone tried to tune another channel. Basically, I want Channels to act like a dedicated DVR that you get with cable or satellite television. That's my long-term want list, but just a warning would be good for now.
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Are there any third party apps that could do this?
I can forsee no way this will come to Channels, based on all the variables I know of as a NOOB.
i.e. One of too many scenarios where if one of your many HDHR tuners couldn't tune to a scheduled recording and Channels DVR had to keep retrying it until it moved on to the next tuner, HDHR, etc.
I would like to see an interface where you can tell the web interface you have x HDHR boxes, with x tuners and it would show you the HDHR boxes and tuners it thinks it will need to meet your scheduled recordings.
I really don't think Channels or HDHR will implement this.
Maybe something for a developer to come up with as an add-on to Channels?.
Like a grid-style timeline where your HDHR boxes/tuners are listed vertically and the time/scheduled recordings are on the horizontal plane. So you could see at a glance when your tuners are over-commited.
Would be nice, but sounds like dreaming to me and I'm not a developer either.
I'm not looking for Channels or for that matter Homerun to step in and prevent me from scheduling more programs than I have tuners! I just want to be warned that I have done this and it is up to me to correct my problem! Don't see why that would be so hard. Like just putting a red circle with an X in the middle somewhere on the recording that has exceeded the number of tuners I have!
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