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[glynor]

So... I'm planning on giving this a shot this weekend again (probably mostly tomorrow or later tonight).  I've just been playing around with it a bit, scanning for channels on my "traditional" tuners, and I've hit some issues already... I thought I'd just check in on them to see if anyone has any clues.

1. Digital QAM Tuners

I have a Hauppauge HVR-2250.  This device has four logical tuners (two analog and two ATSC/QAM tuners).  Two of them can be used simultaneously, independently, in whatever mix you want (basically it has two physical tuners, each of which can work in ATSC/QAM "digital" mode or "analog" mode).

Scanning using one of the digital tuners for my QAM channels comes up completely blank in MC.  No channels found at all.  There isn't much there of use, honestly (stupid Time Warner) but I get a few HD QAM channels that I like to use.

Am I doing something wrong or does MC just not support QAM tuners?  If so, there is little point in continuing with this project, because I'm not going to give those channels up.

2. Separate Program Data/Channel Lists Per Tuner

This one I haven't really played with much, so far, because I haven't even attacked using my HD-PVR, but in setting up the other "traditional" tuners, I'm getting suspicious of how this might work.  I might be making it more complicated than it is, because I still don't quite get how MC handles multiple tuners.

In addition to the HVR-2250 listed above, I have an HD-PVR connected to my Time Warner cable box.  My cable box "gets" all of the analog channels in addition to the digital-only ones.  However, I typically do not want it to tune a channel that can also be tuned by one of the analog tuners.  In essentially all cases like this that I care about, the Digital Cable also has a "copy" of the same channel up in the 600+ channels that is HD.  So, if a show is ever going to be recorded by my HD-PVR, I want it to always use the HD version of the channel in question.  Likewise, my HD-PVR can tune up to the 1000's.  Obviously, my analog tuners don't go that high (they only can tune up to about 78 or something like that).

In Sage, each tuner can have it's own Channel List, which you can edit independently.  I solve this problem by loading the Time Warner Cable "Basic" program guide for my analog tuners, and the Time Warner Cable "Digital" program guide for my HD-PVR.  Then I go through the HD-PVR's list and uncheck all of the standard def channels that have HD "duplicates".

This way, if the system decides to use the HD-PVR for a particular recording, it will always record a HD channel if one is available.  I keep the HD-PVR as my "highest priority" tuner, and it is used first, most of the time.  But, if you get a situation where it needs to record two shows simultaneously, then it can "decide" which tuners to use based on where the channels are available.  So, for example, my HBO recordings always end up on my HD-PVR, because I don't even have that channel enabled on my analog tuners.  If anything conflicts with an HBO show, then it'll either get delayed till later, or recorded on the analog tuners (if it is available there).  It works quite well.  I almost never have to manually set a particular "Favorite" to record only with one particular tuner manually.

It also makes it easy to set up my different tuners.  Since I have two identical QAM tuners, and two identical analog tuners, they each just share one program guide, so I don't have to repeat everything during setup.  When setting up the second one, I just pick the "Analog" channel list, or the "QAM" channel list, that I configured when I set up tuner #1.

It also looks like it will always use my HD-PVR to tune any channel that it is capable of tuning when I start live TV playback (if it is configured as the "top priority" tuner).  That's a problem if it is scheduled to record something 15 minutes later.  In Sage, that is only a problem if I start watching something that is only available on the HD-PVR (which is expected).  If I choose a "low number" to watch a football game or something, it automatically picks one of my analog tuners.

I don't see any way to do any of this with MC.  It looks like it only uses one Program Guide total.

3.  Duplicate Channels in Guide

Likewise, to above... It seems like I will have no fewer than 3 copies of every single channel that is available on my analog tuners in my Program Guide (one for the HD-PVR, and one for each Analog Tuner).  If something is available via QAM too (assuming I can get QAM support to work), then I'd actually get 5 copies of that channel?!?

Is this right?

[glynor]

Oh, and this...

4.  Hand Editing Channel Names?

It looks like MC lists all the channels by number pretty much exclusively.  I can go in and rename the channels to match the "station" that they correspond to (so Channel 3 is ABC, Channel 7 is PBS, so on and so forth) so that they list that way, but it doesn't look like it does any of this automatically.

Are you kidding?  I do not know what channel #796 is, and I don't care to ever learn.  I haven't known about, or cared about, channel numbers in the guide since I switched to DirecTV way back in 1998.

I don't care if the channel number is there (in fact, I prefer it, they can be handy occasionally).  But I need a column that shows the Station Name that it gets from the guide data.  There doesn't appear to be one or a way to add one that I've found in my brief poking around.  The only way to "fix it" that I can see, is to manually edit the Channel Names one at a time to add the relevant station name.  Being able to hand edit them (to change WABI to CBS) is handy.  Being forced to hand edit every single channel to make it list "HBO Signature West" instead of "Channel 684" (or whatever it is) is not cool.

Honestly, this would be a show stopper too.

[JimH]

1.  MC doesn't do QAM.

2.  The list of channels is the same for all tuners.

3.  I don't know.  I only used digital channels.

4.  You have a lot of channels

Sorry not to be more helpful.

[glynor]

Hmmmm, well, ignoring the QAM issue (for now)...

4.  You have a lot of channels

I'm not sure what you meant.  If you meant that I, in particular, have more channels than a normal human, then I really don't think so.

I have the cheapest Digital Cable package Time Warner offers in my area, plus HBO.  That's it.  Basically anyone in Time Warner country that doesn't just have basic, analog cable would have the same set (maybe minus HBO).

To be clear, even though I have a channel #798, there are large swaths of channel numbers throughout the list that are completely unused.  They organize their channels into "sections" based on the hundreds digit of the channel number.  So, 1-78ish are" basic analog channels (though there are even a bunch skipped in there).  Then it jumps to 100 and has probably 50-70 channels ranging from 100-300 that are Standard Def Digital-Only channels.  Then it has a bunch of crap in the middle that I don't care about and edit out (sports packages and whatnot) and it has HD channels starting at 600 and continuing up through 800 (again, divided into groups, so the "premium" HD channels all fall in a certain section of the number sorting).

Either way, I could certainly do it, but editing all of these by hand would be a monumental task.  Am I right that there is no way to display a "station name" field, pulled from the program guide data, anywhere in the list?

[JimH]

I'm really not sure how to help.  Yaobing probably can.

If I do a scan of digital channels, I get a list of numbers on the left and I can click to the right to set the name.

We expect to give TV setup some attention in MC17.

[Yaobing]

2.  STB channels are unique to themselves.  So there will be three sets of channels, one for each channel type.  One for your STB, one for clear analog cable (only a few are available nowadays), and one for OTA digital.  Also programs are associated with a particular channel type. 

3.  Most likely, your cable channels will have to be set up as STB channels.  They have their own programs.  So there will be multiple / duplicate entries of programs.

4.  You need to manually edit channel names only for analog cable channels (ones that do not require an STB).  OTA digital and STB channels are automatically names.

[glynor]

One for your STB, one for clear analog cable (only a few are available nowadays), and one for OTA digital.  Also programs are associated with a particular channel type. 

I've heard some cable providers are doing that (my dad's down south did), but not here in Time Warner land.

I still have 70 or so channels on regular, no-STB-box-required analog cable, including all of the regular stuff like ABC, CBS, PBS, AMC, TNT, ESPN, etc.  I even get one HBO option via analog cable, though I never tune that.

4.  You need to manually edit channel names only for analog cable channels (ones that do not require an STB).  OTA digital and STB channels are automatically names.

That's good to hear.  However, one related question...

Time Warner "rejiggers" the channel lineup seemingly every 6 months or so (usually just the digital cable channels on the STB).  They add new channels even more often, seemingly once every two months or so.

Sage "detects" these changes somehow and fixes my channel guide.  Would this also work in MC somehow or would I need to know it happened and rescan?

[Yaobing]

Sage "detects" these changes somehow and fixes my channel guide.  Would this also work in MC somehow or would I need to know it happened and rescan?

It is not automatically done in MC.  You have to rescan.

[Sandy B Ridge]

Something else for YADB?

Maybe YADB could keep a log of TV channel data for each region/transmitter. This would be uploaded in XML (or whatever) on doing a channel scan in MC for each user (with a user option to opt out of course!). An automated database could compare the data uploaded for each region each time to compile the 'latest channel data'. If it noted a change in the lineup it could 'flag' it up centrally. Then maybe an option in MC to 'check latest channel lineup' once a week or whatever (in a similar way to how it checks for xmltv once a day). All this would have to do is warn you that the channel lineup had changed to do a manual scan, although if *really* clever it would automatically add the channel in the background.

Other than initially writing the database code, uploading code and scheduling code, the system should be self sufficient. It would need a 'critical mass' in each region to populate the database. Making it comprehensive and worldwide would be a challenge!

SBR

[Sandy B Ridge]

2. Separate Program Data/Channel Lists Per Tuner

I've been thinking some on this.

With MC (hopefully) supporting more broadcast standards, be it MC17/18/19 or whatever, there will be a time when users will have more than one tuner in their PC with different channel lineups for the exact same channel. Note that I am not talking here about the same channel on analogue, digital, or digital HD, but the exact same. For example I have a combined DVB-T, DVB-S tuner in my PC which can tune the exact same channel (say BBC One). I could also have a Cable STB or a DVB-C tuner to tune the same BBC One channel.

Ideally I would like to see a 'channel centric' approach to the lineup in MC rather than a 'tuner centric' approach. If I wanted to record something on BBC One for example, I would want to be able to look at the EPG (single EPG, not one for each tuner modality) and tell MC to 'record program X on BBC One'. MC would then (intelligently) choose which tuner to use. Ideally the 'least common denominator' tuner. For example the channel lineup on my DVB-T card is less than the DVB-T2 card, which in turn is less than the DVB-C, which in turn is less than DVB-S which in turn is less than DVB-S2. So having MC default to the DVB-S2 channel wouldn't be great, because I may then want to watch a HD channel on satellite whilst recording the original program. If MC had 'chosen' the DVB S2 card for the recording this wouldn't be possible.

I'm sure, with broadcasters now transmitting via various modalities, that this is a worldwide situation, eg. In the US if you had a FTA digital card and a Ceton Cablecard in your PC, you wouldn't choose to use the Ceton card to record a FTA channel (ABC for example), because you may want to watch (or record) other channels on the Ceton card at the same time. But also you wouldn't want the EPG to have an ABC (FTA) as well as a ABC (Ceton) channel in the lineup.

SBR

[nwboater]

Time Warner "rejiggers" the channel lineup seemingly every 6 months or so (usually just the digital cable channels on the STB).  They add new channels even more often, seemingly once every two months or so.

Sage "detects" these changes somehow and fixes my channel guide.  Would this also work in MC somehow or would I need to know it happened and rescan?

It is not automatically done in MC.  You have to rescan.

It seems that each time I do an MC update I have to rescan channels for our HDPVR. I believe Yaobing said this is a necessity for analog tuners which MC considers the HDPVR to be. This has been a big nuisance for me considering the amount of Beta updates we get. In your case it would help you to keep up with any channel changes.

Good luck with all this, glynor.

Rod

[glynor]

With MC (hopefully) supporting more broadcast standards, be it MC17/18/19 or whatever, there will be a time when users will have more than one tuner in their PC with different channel lineups for the exact same channel. Note that I am not talking here about the same channel on analogue, digital, or digital HD, but the exact same. For example I have a combined DVB-T, DVB-S tuner in my PC which can tune the exact same channel (say BBC One). I could also have a Cable STB or a DVB-C tuner to tune the same BBC One channel.

Ideally I would like to see a 'channel centric' approach to the lineup in MC rather than a 'tuner centric' approach. If I wanted to record something on BBC One for example, I would want to be able to look at the EPG (single EPG, not one for each tuner modality) and tell MC to 'record program X on BBC One'. MC would then (intelligently) choose which tuner to use. Ideally the 'least common denominator' tuner. For example the channel lineup on my DVB-T card is less than the DVB-T2 card, which in turn is less than the DVB-C, which in turn is less than DVB-S which in turn is less than DVB-S2. So having MC default to the DVB-S2 channel wouldn't be great, because I may then want to watch a HD channel on satellite whilst recording the original program. If MC had 'chosen' the DVB S2 card for the recording this wouldn't be possible.

That's pretty much exactly how Sage works.  The tuner choosing logic isn't quite that smart, but you can hack it to be basically that smart by using judicious channel lists.  That's basically what I was talking about.

My tuners do tune essentially the exact same channels on my HD-PVR and my analog tuners for channels 1-78ish (I should really look to see what the top number is, but I'm too lazy).  My digital STB gets all of the stuff, with the same channel numbers, that I get on my analog cable, plus a bunch more.

It seems that each time I do an MC update I have to rescan channels for our HDPVR. I believe Yaobing said this is a necessity for analog tuners which MC considers the HDPVR to be. This has been a big nuisance for me considering the amount of Beta updates we get. In your case it would help you to keep up with any channel changes.

Oh no!

Could you explain this in more detail?

[glynor]

I just looked... My analog cut-off appears to be channel 70.  Anything below channel 71 is available on the STB and on regular "analog" (just plug the coax in) cable.  From there, my channel numbers skip to 102, which is the first "digital only" channel that requires my STB.

To explain a bit more how I have it set up currently with an example (this is all just informational, I know that MC can't do this):

Channel 58 on my analog cable is Comedy Central.
Channel 58 on my STB is Comedy Central as well, but I have it disabled from that list.
Channel 782 on my STB is also Comedy Central (the same exact channel, always showing the same exact programming), but it is in HD.

Sage only lists this channel in my program guide once (labeled 58, but that's fairly arbitrary, I could have picked 782, any number I wanted, or no number at all).  If I just go through my guide in Sage and pick Channel 58 and start watching live TV on Comedy Central, it does the following:

1. If the HD-PVR is available, it will tune my STB to 782 and I'll get Comedy Central in HD.  It gets picked first because it is the "higher priority" tuner.  It never uses the channel 58 version because that channel is disabled in its channel list (if you're going to use my HD-PVR, and a HD channel exists, use it instead).  I had to manually remap "Comedy Central" to match "Comedy Central HD" when I did the initial setup, but it was relatively easy to do.

2. If the HD-PVR is in-use, then it picks from one of my analog tuners and tunes to channel 58 on regular cable.  This is SD but much of the time (especially for Comedy Central) I don't care very much.

3. If one of my analog tuners is also in use, it uses the other one to do it.

For some of the broadcast networks, the Program Guide hides even more complexity.  For PBS I have a whole bunch of options to choose from:

1. Channel 13 on Analog Cable (SD)
2. Channel 13 on my STB (SD, disabled)
3. Channel 712 on my STB (HD)
4. Channel 89-0-1 on my QAM tuner (1080i)
5. Channel 96-0-5 on my QAM tuner (480i, disabled)
6. Channel 97-0-1 on my QAM tuner (1080i, disabled)*

* I have no idea why they provide the exact same programming stream on two separate QAM channels, but they do.  I think that one of them is always 1080i, and the other is either 1080i or 720p depending on the programming airing.  Either way, for whatever reason, the signal strength on 97-0-1 is crappy in my house and it flakes out, so I use the other one.

In this case, they all show up as "channel 13" in my guide.  If I tune to live TV there, it chooses one of my QAM tuners first (and tunes to 89-0-1) and uses that.  If both of my QAM/Analog tuners are in-use (this never happens) then it will tune to 712 on my STB and use my HD-PVR.  It does this because my tuner priority list has the QAM tuners at the top, then the HD-PVR, and then the lowly analog ones at the bottom.  I put the QAM tuners at the top because they are always the best quality possible and because I have two of them, and only one HD-PVR/STB combo.  That way, it never records something from PBS on my HD-PVR, and blocks my HD-PVR from being used elsewhere (for HBO, for example), since the same thing is available in the same or better quality on QAM.

[nwboater]

It seems that each time I do an MC update I have to rescan channels for our HDPVR. I believe Yaobing said this is a necessity for analog tuners which MC considers the HDPVR to be. This has been a big nuisance for me considering the amount of Beta updates we get. In your case it would help you to keep up with any channel changes.
Rod

Oh no!

Could you explain this in more detail?

Each time I update MC my guide is GONE. So I have to do a channel scan. Actually two scans - one for my Cable Providers analog channels and one for their digital channels.

I really wish JRiver could do something about this. Not sure why everything else in the program is handled fine with program updates except this.

I have been planning to do a post on "The State of TV with our HDPVR" to show what we see as the problems remaining, with this of course being one of them. I hope I didn't paint too rosy of a picture with my post yesterday about my Wife being happy with the switch from Sage. We definitely are glad we made the change because I have long wanted one program for all media. But there are certainly improvements that I hope will be made with TV in MC.

Rod

[Yaobing]

It seems that each time I do an MC update I have to rescan channels for our HDPVR. I believe Yaobing said this is a necessity for analog tuners which MC considers the HDPVR to be. This has been a big nuisance for me considering the amount of Beta updates we get. In your case it would help you to keep up with any channel changes.

Good luck with all this, glynor.

Rod

Your tuner is on a Library Server client machine.  It has nothing to do with whether the tuner is analog or digital.

When a computer is running as a client, every time MC starts, it loads a copy of the server library.  With a tuner on the client, the tuner data is lost because the server does not have the tuner.


This is an issue we will eventually solve.  It is on my list, but I have gotten a full plate.

[nwboater]

Your tuner is on a Library Server client machine.  It has nothing to do with whether the tuner is analog or digital.

When a computer is running as a client, every time MC starts, it loads a copy of the server library.  With a tuner on the client, the tuner data is lost because the server does not have the tuner.


This is an issue we will eventually solve.  It is on my list, but I have gotten a full plate.

Hi Yaobing,

Because I could not use our HDPVR with our WHS Server I moved the tuner to our HTPC some time ago. It is not a Client now but a standalone Win7 PC.

I have had a 'memory lapse' with this issue. Just looked at my thread where we discussed this http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=67514.msg453703#msg453703 and the cause was determined to be that I had created a new library, not just the update. But I thought that in subsequent Updates I have had to rescan. To check this out I just downgraded MC to an older version and the Guide was still there. Then updated to the latest version and Guide was still fine.

So very sorry about my faulty memory and  this false alarm!

Rod

PS I know that your plate is not just full, but I imagine overflowing. We do appreciate all you do!

[Sandy B Ridge]

I just looked... My analog cut-off appears to be channel 70.  Anything below channel 71 is available on the STB and on regular "analog" (just plug the coax in) cable.  From there, my channel numbers skip to 102, which is the first "digital only" channel that requires my STB.

To explain a bit more how I have it set up currently with an example (this is all just informational, I know that MC can't do this):

Channel 58 on my analog cable is Comedy Central.
Channel 58 on my STB is Comedy Central as well, but I have it disabled from that list.
Channel 782 on my STB is also Comedy Central (the same exact channel, always showing the same exact programming), but it is in HD.

Sage only lists this channel in my program guide once (labeled 58, but that's fairly arbitrary, I could have picked 782, any number I wanted, or no number at all).  If I just go through my guide in Sage and pick Channel 58 and start watching live TV on Comedy Central, it does the following:

1. If the HD-PVR is available, it will tune my STB to 782 and I'll get Comedy Central in HD.  It gets picked first because it is the "higher priority" tuner.  It never uses the channel 58 version because that channel is disabled in its channel list (if you're going to use my HD-PVR, and a HD channel exists, use it instead).  I had to manually remap "Comedy Central" to match "Comedy Central HD" when I did the initial setup, but it was relatively easy to do.

2. If the HD-PVR is in-use, then it picks from one of my analog tuners and tunes to channel 58 on regular cable.  This is SD but much of the time (especially for Comedy Central) I don't care very much.

3. If one of my analog tuners is also in use, it uses the other one to do it.

For some of the broadcast networks, the Program Guide hides even more complexity.  For PBS I have a whole bunch of options to choose from:

1. Channel 13 on Analog Cable (SD)
2. Channel 13 on my STB (SD, disabled)
3. Channel 712 on my STB (HD)
4. Channel 89-0-1 on my QAM tuner (1080i)
5. Channel 96-0-5 on my QAM tuner (480i, disabled)
6. Channel 97-0-1 on my QAM tuner (1080i, disabled)*

* I have no idea why they provide the exact same programming stream on two separate QAM channels, but they do.  I think that one of them is always 1080i, and the other is either 1080i or 720p depending on the programming airing.  Either way, for whatever reason, the signal strength on 97-0-1 is crappy in my house and it flakes out, so I use the other one.

In this case, they all show up as "channel 13" in my guide.  If I tune to live TV there, it chooses one of my QAM tuners first (and tunes to 89-0-1) and uses that.  If both of my QAM/Analog tuners are in-use (this never happens) then it will tune to 712 on my STB and use my HD-PVR.  It does this because my tuner priority list has the QAM tuners at the top, then the HD-PVR, and then the lowly analog ones at the bottom.  I put the QAM tuners at the top because they are always the best quality possible and because I have two of them, and only one HD-PVR/STB combo.  That way, it never records something from PBS on my HD-PVR, and blocks my HD-PVR from being used elsewhere (for HBO, for example), since the same thing is available in the same or better quality on QAM.

Cheers glynor,

I was a little late into using my HTPC as a PVR and missed out on Sage unfortunately. It does seem the most fully featured PVR software of the lot. What you describe is perfect! I want it!

Hi Yaobing,
 I know that your plate is not just full, but I imagine overflowing. We do appreciate all you do!

Hear, hear!

SBR

[glynor]

I was a little late into using my HTPC as a PVR and missed out on Sage unfortunately. It does seem the most fully featured PVR software of the lot. What you describe is perfect! I want it!

In theory it is good.

In practice?  I don't know.  I find Sage fiddly, poor-performing, and fragile.  And the navigation of the UI is an inconsistent mess.  I've never been extremely happy with it (hence trying to switch).

[Sandy B Ridge]

What you describe is perfect! I want it!

In theory it is good.

In practice?  I don't know.  I find Sage fiddly, poor-performing, and fragile.  And the navigation of the UI is an inconsistent mess.  I've never been extremely happy with it (hence trying to switch).

Ah glynor, you misunderstand me......

When I say 'I want it', I mean as part of JRiver MC!

SBR

[glynor]

Ah glynor, you misunderstand me......

When I say 'I want it', I mean as part of JRiver MC!

Right on.

Give it time. 

[gtgray]

.
 But also you wouldn't want the EPG to have an ABC (FTA) as well as a ABC (Ceton) channel in the lineup.

SBR

The way WMC is the way it should be. If you have ATB terrestrial broadcast at 13.1 that is the way the guide should show it. If you also have the same channel on the Ceton via Comcast at 613, that is the way it should show it. I never use the Ceton for a channel I can receieve over the air. I would tune 13.1 and get the OTA signal it is better no extra compression and I don't waste a cable tuner. Really when people are designing an EPG and how to deal with Live TV... let WMC be your guide. I am not saying WMC can't be improved on.. but it handles a ton of tuners of multiple types. You can 12 tuners of each type and the program guide integrates them so the channel number you are familiar with is the channel number you select in the guide.

For example my local PBS station is 8 for SD Digital Cable, for OTA HD it is 8.1 and then it subchannels 8.2,8.3. The HD channel from Cable is 608. There are equivalents for the sub channel on cable but I don't remember what they are as again I never use cable for what is available from my antenna. I am using 2 dual tuner HD Homeruns for ATSC and a single 4 tuner Ceton for Digital Cable. WMC makes all that completely transparent.

I want the channel numbering to be the same as it would be on the TV itself for ATSC over the air, and the same as it would be from the Cable Company's STB for digital cable. That is exactly how WMC does it.

[Sandy B Ridge]

We are 'cursed' in the UK with 4 different EPG numbering systems which do not agree.

Freeview (digital terrestrial)
Freesat (digital satellite - free)
Sky (digital satellite - paid)
Virginmedia (digital cable - paid)

It's quite laughable when there's an advert for a different channel which is on all of them. Such as 'watch The Hunt for Red October on Film4 tonight - it's on freeview channel x, freesat channel y, sky channel z, and on virginmedia channel q'!

So copying one of the EPGs (probably proprietary and copyrighted anyway) would be a bit silly in the UK. I would much rather have a system that I could configure to my own liking. Personally I would drag the channels I watch the most to the top of the EPG in a vague alphabetical order and forget about numbers for channels at all (too confusing with 4 different numbering systems). If someone else wanted to copy the freeview/freesat/sky/cable schema because that is what they are used to, then great, that would be possible too. It may be a pain to set up initially, but once done should stick. Maybe have some set schemas for different countries? Probably over-complex.

I think Microsoft pays a license fee to use the freeview and freesat EPG data in WMC in the UK as IIRC the data for the full EPG is encrypted in one of the streams.

SBR

[glynor]

Just a quick update... With all of this in mind, I think I'm actually going to bail on the whole project for now and stick with Sage for recording and Live TV.  The main reasons why are this:

1. QAM Support:  Like I said, I don't have that many QAM channels that I care about, but I do have a handful.  Primarily CBS, FOX, and PBS.  Fox, in particular, is important because (I believe due to a fight between our local Fox affiliate and Time Warner Cable) Fox does not broadcast AC3 surround via my digital cable box but does via QAM and broadcast.  Up until about a year ago, they didn't even carry Fox in HD on my digital cable STB because of this fight.

I can't switch to ATSC instead of QAM because: (1) I live in Maine and my Fox station, along with a few others, broadcasts from ~150 miles away from my house; and (2) my Hauppauge HDR-2250 only has one Coax input for "TV" that is used for both the analog and digital reception (it has two coax plugs, but the other one is for FM radio).  So, I'd have to choose between analog cable and ATSC, in addition to installing a big rooftop antenna (or buy a second tuner card).

2. Multiple Tuner Support: Even if I gave up on QAM support (which I considered), I'm not very keen on the tuner-centric design of the current TV Recording system in MC.  I like that my guide in Sage is simplified as I described above, while still giving me access to a variety of channels in the best possible quality.  I think the WAF of having most channels listed multiple times in the Program Guide would be pretty low.  I edit my channel list very heavily in Sage to hide all the channels we'd never, ever use (like all of the Home Shopping channels and Jesus channels, for example).

3. Recording Conflict Resolution and Rerun Detection:  Honestly, this is what made me finally decide.  I really like that Sage doesn't care what tuner is "supposed" to record a particular show, and can tell the difference between a first-airing and a rerun.  In almost all cases, I don't have to worry about conflicts when I schedule recordings.  I have a "pool" of Tuners that have different capabilities, and I just schedule TV Shows to record as favorites, and Sage figures it out.  On some particular days (Sundays and Thursdays right now), I have a TON of overlapping recordings.  But, a bunch of those shows re-air multiple times on other "stations" throughout the night and week (mostly the HBO ones).  I just don't have to care.  I say "record this show, all new episodes" and Sage figures it out.  If a particular recording gets missed because the server was shut down or something, it keeps looking for that episode and if it airs, it grabs it whenever it can, on whatever channel it can, with whatever tuner it can.  Intelligent recording conflict resolution is a must for me, since I'm already well used to having it.

4. MC's Auto-Import Improvements:  And, this has a big impact for me as well.  It used to drive me nuts how bad Sage was to navigate and use daily, and I hated going one place for some media and another for other media.  Now, with MC17, I never actually have to see the Sage UI or open it up unless I want to either watch Live TV or go in and schedule some new recordings.  MC just monitors the recording directory, and picks up the new recordings, and Carnac auto-tags them.  So, I don't actually use Sage anymore other than as a process that sits there and does its thing on my server.  In other words, it is much less annoying now that MC is so much better, because I don't have to use Sage directly anymore.

As far as the Rerun detection, I didn't see any way to "subscribe" only to First-Run Airings of a show in MC.  I suspect this has something to do with the mc2xml source of guide data not providing the necessary metadata for MC to know which shows are new and which are reruns, but frankly... I just don't care.  It works in Sage.  Going forward (assuming the other problems are resolved), I'd be happy to pay a modest monthly fee to some provider to get high-quality guide data in MC (on the order of $2/month billed annually would be fine).

Lastly, I thought I'd add this:

If you are going to work to improve some of this, what I'd recommend focusing on most would be the ability to use an OCUR device like the Ceton devices.  If I could set MC up to use a Ceton and a HD-PVR together (I'd still keep my cable box and keep my HD-PVR since I already have it to avoid DRM on most of my recordings), then I wouldn't care about QAM or analog cable or any of that.  I'd just pull those cards out of my system and retire them.

I certainly wouldn't want to see five different copies of each channel though (one for the HD-PVR and one for each of the Ceton's four "tuners").

I'll continue to watch for improvements in this space in MC and will resurrect this attempt in the future when some of these issues/shortcomings have been resolved.

[glynor]

PS. If Fox ever cancels Fringe, then I might not care much about it anymore either. 

[glynor]

For what it's worth:  Even though with MC17 and Sage, my system is actually working quite smoothly now (see item #4 in my "why I'm not switching" diatribe above), I thought I should mention that I do still want to switch when it is possible for me to do so.

I'm also not going to demand that all of my issues with the TV system described above would be all perfectly solved before I go forward.  I'd just like to see some improvement towards those goals and I'll try it again.  Of particular importance is #2 and #3 above, for me.  I'd kvetch, but I'd probably give up my QAM tuners in order to switch over to MC, or deal with #3 if #2 was solved, or some combination of the above (in that case, I'll probably just buy a Collosus and get a second STB, which I might do anyway).  It is just with all of those issues in total, balanced against the fact that my system is actually working quite well as it is, that I'm hesitant to actually commit to the switch.

That said, I now have MC set up to use my analog tuners, and I might set up my HD-PVR when I get some time, I'm just not planning to actually use the feature "in production" until I see some further improvement.  The majority of the leg-work is done though, or will be if I set up my HD-PVR (the only glitch there is that I need to find my WinTV disc and install it, since I never installed it when I got the device originally).

And, of course, should my Guide Data ever cease to work in Sage, I'll be quickly switching over. 

[stanger89]

The way WMC is the way it should be. If you have ATB terrestrial broadcast at 13.1 that is the way the guide should show it. If you also have the same channel on the Ceton via Comcast at 613, that is the way it should show it. I never use the Ceton for a channel I can receieve over the air. I would tune 13.1 and get the OTA signal it is better no extra compression and I don't waste a cable tuner. Really when people are designing an EPG and how to deal with Live TV... let WMC be your guide. I am not saying WMC can't be improved on.. but it handles a ton of tuners of multiple types. You can 12 tuners of each type and the program guide integrates them so the channel number you are familiar with is the channel number you select in the guide.

For example my local PBS station is 8 for SD Digital Cable, for OTA HD it is 8.1 and then it subchannels 8.2,8.3. The HD channel from Cable is 608. There are equivalents for the sub channel on cable but I don't remember what they are as again I never use cable for what is available from my antenna. I am using 2 dual tuner HD Homeruns for ATSC and a single 4 tuner Ceton for Digital Cable. WMC makes all that completely transparent.

I want the channel numbering to be the same as it would be on the TV itself for ATSC over the air, and the same as it would be from the Cable Company's STB for digital cable. That is exactly how WMC does it.

I just wanted to chime in that I think Sage's method is actually preferable, it offers similar functionality but more automated.  In SageTV, when you set up your lineups say an OTA and a Satellite, SageTV will download the channel lists.  If it finds the same callsign it will merge these channels in the guide and in the tuning/recording logic.  So if my OTA lineup has KFXA-DT, and my Dish lineup also has KFXA-DT, it will only show up once in the guide.

Now to your comment about not using a cable tuner for stuff available OTA, the way you manage that in SageTV is to assign the OTA tuners a higher priority ("merit") than the Cable Satellite tuners.  This ensures that if a recording, or liveTV, or anything else wants to record off KFXA-DT, that it will use OTA tuners.

But here's the part that I think makes SageTV's approach better (at least based on your description), because SageTV merged the channels, if I want to watch Fringe, I just pick it from the guide.  If an OTA tuner is free, Sage will use it, but (and this is the part that IMO is better) if you don't have any OTA tuners available, you don't get any warning messages, or error messages, Sage will just seamlessly, automatically use one of your other tuners.

So with Sage's logic/method, you get the same result, OTA tuners used first, but Sage handles that all for you automatically, and you as a user don't need to worry about which tuner to pick or if there are too many recordings going on.