Tvheadend

Hi,

I went from a Toppy with Mystuff to a Humax FoxSat-HDR then to TVH (after a brief stint on Myth) about 12 months ago...

- using the series crid for identifying the first choice channel (avoiding +1 etc)

This works well in practice - I've got both the xmltv feeds and the EIT feeds inputting into the EPG - past about 7 days out in the EPG I have the option to 'Autorec' a show, this is more looking for it by regular expression around the times you specify. Closer to a week out the Series Link becomes available, then it'll handle things a lot more intelligently. Normally it works well - for most shows it'll record it at the right time, on the right channel, but sometimes it'll do something a little abnormal - record it on BBC1 NI HD instead of BBC1 HD, or pick 5+1 over 5.

- using the episode crid to ensure that every episode is recorded without repeats

This seems to work pretty well - if it records it on ITV, it won't normally pick up +1, or when it's on at 4am on ITV3 or whatever...

- using recording the same episode from a different series crid only if clashes require

This doesn't really work well - if you try and record too many things at the same time, the recording will fail due to having no tuners available. It won't be rescheduled to pick up another showing. MythTV is better in this respect as it can handle this, but I think it's also roadmapped for TVH. However - with 3 HD tuners (2 USB DVB-T2 and 1x PCI DVB-S2) it's very rare that you have stuff spread across enough muxes that you wouldn't have enough tuners...

- rescheduling existing recordings if need be if a new recording is scheduled which clashes with existing ones but doesn't clash with other times available for the existing one

It doesn't really do this...

- using crid data to start and stop recordings at the actual time a programme starts and stops

... or this - but I found it unreliable even when I was on the toppy (and the humax) so basically disabled it and chose a flat 5 min before, 15 after so it's not a feature I really miss...

If these are big features for you, Myth probably has a better scheduling engine than TVH, but is so overcomplicated to setup compared with it's SQL requirements and add ons needed just to have human readable file names that I gave up with it and haven't looked back since...

I've been running for about 3 weeks now and it's mostly OK. Nothing has been missed.

It does occasionally record multiple copies though. For example I have SeriesLink recordings set for, among others, Shameless USA and The Gadget Show and both have multiple recordings. Shameless USA on 3/3 at 00:10 and also on 6/3 at 02:05. The Gadget Show on 3/3 at 19:00, on 5/3 at 12:15 and on 7/3 at 19:00. But I'd rather have multiples than it miss some.