Service Priority Settings Ignored – DVB-T2 Always Selected Last

niwi niwi

In TVHeadend, I receive TV channels from various sources. Here’s a simplified example:
Service ZDF from DVB-T2 stick in 1080p
Service ZDF from Sat>IP source in 720p
Service ZDF from IPTV Automatic Network1 in 720p
Service ZDF from IPTV Automatic Network2 in 1080p

Now I map all four services to the channel "ZDF."

My goal is to specify the order in which TVHeadend selects the service when opening the channel. Here's what I’ve tried:

In TV Adapters, under Priorities and Streaming Priorities:
For the DVB-T2-stick: 10
For the Sat>IP source: 9

In Networks, under Priorities and Streaming Priorities:
For IPTV Automatic Network1: 8
For IPTV Automatic Network2: 7

With these settings, I expected that ZDF would open in the order described above: DVB-T2 → Sat>IP → IPTV Network1 → IPTV Network2.

In reality, however, the order is: Sat>IP → IPTV Network1 → IPTV Network2 → DVB-T2.

The issue therefore seems to be specific to DVB-T2, while my approach works for other sources. I even tried setting the priority of the DVB-T2 source manually via DVB Inputs → Services. There, I gave the ZDF service from the DVB-T2 tuner a priority of 10 and all other variants a value of -10. Nevertheless, TVHeadend still selects the same order, putting DVB-T2 last.

Can this problem be resolved cleanly with TVHeadend?

niwi niwi

I’ve found a solution myself, but it’s rather inelegant due to its complexity and also comes with some drawbacks. It works if you first map the required DVB-T2 services without merging. For these channels, you then create a local M3U file. This M3U file is then newly integrated into TVHeadend as an IPTV Automated Network. Now you can assign the desired priority to this network and map the services to the intended channels. The method is described here in another context: https://www.kodinerds.net/thread/72527-howto-tvheadend-m3u-mit-persistentem-auth-erstellen-transcoding-profile-verwende/

What are the drawbacks:

Only one DVB-T2 service can be used at a time, even if other DVB-T2 channels are located within the same mux.
Under Channels / EPG → Channels, there are duplicate entries for the DVB-T2 channels. On the end device (Kodi), however, they can at least be hidden if you assign them a separate tag and restrict that tag for the Kodi user.

niwi niwi

niwi niwi Only one DVB-T2 service can be used at a time, even if other DVB-T2 channels are located within the same mux.

Here's another update from my self-talk: With my solution above, you can actually open more than one DVB-T2 service at the same time. To do this, you need to enter, for example, a value of 2 under "Maximum input stream" in the IPTV Automated Network so that up to two streams from the same mux can be opened. Of course, this only works if the services actually originate from the same mux. Otherwise, it takes quite a long time for the second-highest service of the channel to be selected. Still, at least there’s no error message. Since this delay only occurs when the tuner is actually in use, I consider this an acceptable inconvenience.