User - Priorities

The User Priority system allows you to configure which user should be served first by the TV-Server. For example you might configure the main HTPC with a higher priority than the bedroom HTPC which means live TV could be stopped in the bedroom if the main HTPC needs to watch a channel on another frequency and there's no other free tuners. You could even configure the priorities to prevent scheduled recordings from stopping live TV.

You can reach its settings by selecting User Priorities from the TV-Server Configuration Navigation panel.

This is what the User Priorities screen looks like when you open it for the first time:

A user can be many different services that happens to use a channel. For example it can be the scheduler, EPG grabber, simulated user used for stress testing and of course the casual timeshifting human user.

Settings

  Tip
It's a good idea to give the EPG grabber the lowest priority and the Scheduler the highest priority. Then place human users in between these two.

Default Settings

• EPG Grabber: 1
• Default user (Timeshift user): 2
• Scheduler: 100

Custom User Priorities

You can define your own specific timeshifting users in the Custom User Priorities table which would override the default values. Username for timeshifting users are the same as the client's computer name.
If you want a computer called HTPC to have highest priority, you should enter HTPC in the User column and a high value in the Priority column - for example 200.

In situations when conflicting tunes are occurring, the user with the lowest priority will be cancelled. A user with a lower priority will be disconnected if a high priority user is requesting a channel which could not be viewed simultaneously.

Example

User priorities are used in the following situations:

Scenario 1

1. The EPG grabber locks the card and starts tuning the channel but tuning hasn't completed yet. The card is still in reserved mode.
2. Now User #1 tries to start timeshifting a channel on the same card. This would normally fail since the EPG grabber still haven't released the lock on the card.
3. What happens now in this card lock collision situation is that the user priorities are compared. The user with highest priority wins which in this case is User #1.
4. The EPG grabber card reservation is cancelled and User #1 is allowed access to the card.

Scenario 2

User #1 has priority 2
User #2 has priority 3

1. User #1 tunes channel 1 on mux 1 and is now the owner.
2. User #2 tunes channel 1 on mux 1. Both users can watch the same channel simultaneously.
3. User #1 tries to change to channel 2 on mux 2.
4. There are no other TV cards to use so User #1 needs to kick User #2.
5. User #1 is unable to kick User #2, since it has a lower priority. Changing channel failed.
6. User #2 tries to change to channel 2 on mux 2.
7. There are no other TV cards to use so User #2 needs to kick User #1.
8. User #2 is able to kick User #1 since it has a higher priority. User #2 can watch channel 2 and User #1 is disconnected.

Scenario 3

User #1 has priority 2
User #2 has priority 2

1. User #1 tunes channel 1 on mux 1 and is now the owner.
2. User #2 tunes channel 1 on mux 1. Both users can watch the same channel simultaneously.
3. User #1 tries to change to channel 2 on mux 2.
4. There are no other TV cards to use so User #1 needs to kick User #2.
5. User #1 is able to kick User #2 since both users have the same priority. User #1 can watch channel 2 and User #2 is disconnected.