On Tuesday 16 September 2008, Malte Forkel wrote:
Hello,
I just upgraded from vdr 1.4.7 to vdr 1.6.0 (from the e-tobi.net experimental repository). That has changed the order in which devices are selected for recording significantly. Now, the only card with the CAM is selected first when recording non-encrypted channels, preventing later timers from recording encrypted channels.
This is my hardware setup: DVB1: full-featured card (Hauppauge WinTV DVB-C rev 2.X) DVB2: budget card with CI and CAM (TerraTec Cinergy 1200 DVB-C) DVB3: budget card (TerraTec Cinergy 1200 DVB-C)
As a test, I started tree recordings on non-encrypted channels, one after the other. With vdr 1.4.7, these recordings use DVB3, DVB1, and DVB2, sparing the card with the CAM as long as possible. With vdr 1.6.0, the recordings use DVB2 (!), DVB3, and DVB1, but using the the card with the CAM first. So one recording of a non-encrypted channels blocks all encrypted channels.
I think I ran into a similar problem earlier myself. I have only two cards; one DVB-C TT budget (without CI/CAM) and one DVB-C Hauppauge FF with CI/CAM, and a DXR3 as the primary device.
I haven't run into this problem in a while, but I'm not sure why - it might be that I swapped the cards' PCI slots or maybe I just haven't had a scenario where this would bite in a while.
But anyway, I agree that VDR should save the CAM for last.
And as a nice addition to that, perhaps even change the card used for a recording on the fly if that's what it takes to get all needed programs recorded, for example:
Timer 1: 20:00-21:00, non-encrypted Timer 2: 20:30-21:30, non-encrypted (different MUX/$something than timer 1) Timer 3: 21:00-22:00, encrypted
Card A: no CAM (can in theory do timers 1 and 2) Card B: CAM (can in theory do timers 1, 2 and 3)
So, card A starts recording timer 1. Then, card B starts recording timer 2 (because it's on a different $something than timer 1, so card A can't take care of it simultaneously with timer 1). When timer 3 starts, timer 2 would be changed on the fly to continue recording on card A, and card B would start recording timer 3.