More > JRiver Media Center 25 for Windows
NEW: Television tuners on clients are allowed to be used for recording
imeric:
Since the client seems to be dependent on the server for recordings I guess it does not make sense you’re right.. Let me rephrase then. :) make the client able to record on its own without a server connection...
Yaobing:
If the "client" is not connected to a server it is not a client. You will need to configure that instance of your library to record. A computer not connected to a server only knows its own library and will not have anything to do with any server library. You can manually configure the independent version of the library so that it will record any show you want, perhaps the same shows that the computer will record when it is in a client-server connection. This way you will be sure that the shows are recorded whether the computer is connected to a server or not.
imeric:
--- Quote from: Yaobing on March 04, 2019, 09:48:57 am ---Why? Does not make sense to me.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: imeric on March 04, 2019, 10:07:27 am ---Since the client seems to be dependent on the server for recordings I guess it does not make sense you’re right.. Let me rephrase then. :) make the client able to record on its own without a server connection...
--- End quote ---
Since this doesn't seem to be a viable option let me rephrase...
I have the same subscriptions to record the noon and evening news on the Living Room PC (server) AND the kitchen PC. If I have the option of recording on both machines I don't have to create duplicate subscriptions on the server so I don't miss the recordings when the Kitchen PC is connected to the server. This also serves as a backup if one of the 2 PCs missed the recordings...
This way, the recordings will take place on the kitchen PC whether or not it's connected on its main library or as a client and I don't have to create duplicate entries on the server. (And yes those subscriptions also have to be set on the Kitchen PC's main library.)
madbrain:
--- Quote from: Yaobing on February 25, 2019, 02:35:54 pm ---Some users have TV tuners on client computers instead of the server and can not move them to the server for various reasons, such as not having TV antenna/cable at the server location. For a long time we can only use the tuners on clients for live viewing, not for recording. The reason for the limitation is that any time a user schedules a recording, the recording rule is sync'ed to the server and thus the server would perform the actual recording.
--- End quote ---
I'm not completely clear on what the distinction is between "client" and "server" here. What server are we talking about here ? Media Server ? Storage server ?
The place where my OTA coax cable comes is my home theater room. I have a HTPC in it running Win10, with 5 ATSC tuners. It records shows locally to a 1TB SSD using MC25. I normally watch TV in my home theater only, so this has worked for me so far. I just enabled the HTPC to share its library using the Media Network options. So I guess technically, you would now call this HTPC machine the "server" ?
I am typing this from a desktop PC in my home office, also running Win10 and MC25. It's connected to the HTPC via wired 10 Gb ethernet (there are two 10 Gb switches in between). I used the "Add library" feature to load the library from the HTPC. I am able to play TV shows from it just fine.
However, from my desktop PC, I can't use any of the tuners from the HTPC. When I go to the "Television" option on the sidebar of MC25 on my desktop PC, I see a list of all the TV channels that are configured on the HTPC. I double clicked one. It shows the name of the channel and program, and "Waiting for signal lock ...". And then nothing happens. Same is true on every single channel. Any idea why this is happening ? Is live playing supposed to work ? I'm pretty sure if I walk to the home theater room and turn on the projector, I can tune any channel I want. At least, that has always worked. I'm wondering if MC25 in this case is trying to use the HVR-1265 card that is in my home office desktop PC. I use this card only for video capture. It has one ATSC tuner, but no coax cable is plugged to the antenna input. If MC25 is trying to use the channel guide from the HTPC (server) with the local card in my desktop, that would certainly cause this "no signal lock" behavior. It also wouldn't make a whole lot of sense for it to be trying to do that, IMO. It should be tuning to the selected channel on the HTPC using one of its 5 tuners, and then allow the MC25 client on my desktop to view this recording over the LAN. At least, that's what I assume it should do. But it's not doing that. I have remote desktop access to the HTPC, and I can see it doesn't start any recording. None of the ATSC tuners are in use. The other thing it could do is stream the ATSC data over the LAN to the client, assuming the network bandwidth is high enough, which my 10 Gb ethernet connection certainly is, even if I wanted to use all 5 ATSC tuners at once. A single TCP stream can do up to 5 Gb/s with iperf3, and with 3 TCP streams, I can max out 10 Gb/s. Of course if we are talking about more bandwidth constrained networks like, say, wireless G, it could be an issue. But even on wireless AC I can do >200 Mbps, so I would think this should work too for sharing multiple ATSC tuners.
FYI:
When I go to "Television / Show status" on my desktop PC, ie. the MC25 client, I see 3 devices. There is 1 ATSC tuner, 1 capture device, and my Logitech webcam.
When I go to "Television / Show status" on the HTPC, ie. the MC25 server, I see 8 devices : 5 ATSC tuners, and 3 capture devices.
I wish I could copy/paste that data, but that doesn't seem to work.
madbrain:
--- Quote from: Yaobing on March 04, 2019, 09:48:57 am ---Why? Does not make sense to me.
--- End quote ---
I can certainly conceive some use cases where you would want only the client to do the storage. If the machine with the physical ATSC tuners (which I will call the "server") has, say, zero local storage, or limited storage, but beefy network bandwidth - enough to support the concurrent data streams for all the tuners at once over LAN or WLAN - you would certainly want to be able to initiate recordings from the client side. The server physical machine with the tuners could even be completely diskless, booting its OS from the network. The client could choose to store the ATSC stream on the location of its choice - either local, or, if it is also diskless, a 3rd machine.
IMO, you wouldn't want the server machine (with the tuners) to depend on a network share from a file server to be available, as this would require that second machine to be available, and it can be tricky if you don't want to keep that file server up 24/7. I don't keep my file server up 24/7. Currently, I have my clients wake it up my file server with WOL when they need to perform backups to it. The heuristics for when the file server goes to sleep aren't well defined yet. I have yet to write the script for it. I wish there was some sort of standard protocol where a client could tell a file server "I need access to this network share now" and "I am done with this share, it's OK with me if you go to sleep".
My preferred way would be for something that will work well with a diskless server (with the physical tuners in it), and either with a client with its local disk, or with separate diskless client and file server, to be all kept powered down as much as possible, ie. none of the 2 or 3 systems should ever need to remain up 24/7. Only the machine with the tuner and the machine with the storage should need to be up during recordings. Only the client machine and the file server should need to be up when playing back previous recording. If playing live TV, only the client and the tuner server should need to be up, not the file server. If pausing live TV - ie. delayed, then the storage server also needs to be up.
All this can be accomplished in a number of different ways. I have been admonished before about suggesting specific ways to implement things in software, so I will abstain from doing so, and only state what I would personally like to see supported. Maybe this is for MC78 and not MC25, but one can dream :-)
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