Using 2 Tuners in WMC

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yossarian

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Nov 2, 2004
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I've been using a Hauppauge WinTV HVR 1600 pci in my pc for years with both analog cable in and antenna in for over the air HD. I'm getting tired of the limited cable channels in SD since I'm running straight cable (Time Warner) without a box. I'm thinking of getting the Silicon Dust HD Homerun Prime (3 tuner) with cablecard, and attach it to my 1GB router for all my pcs to use. However, I'd still like to keep my HVR 1600 in my primary pc for the over-the-air signal and for video-in so I can (someday) record my camcorder hi-8 tapes into digital files. I only use Windows 7 x64 WMC.

Question: Can both tuners co-exist on my pc and in WMC without conflict? If they can work together, can I just disable the analog cable channels so I don't have duplicate channels in WMC? Right now, the over-the-air channels are decimal (4.1, 4.2, etc) while the analog channels are 4, 6, and so on.

Also, has anyone used a cablecard device on TW? Their website for my zip code lists this SD device as one they support for CableCard for a $2.50/mo. fee.
 
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I"m using a Ceton tuner with Time Warner right now. The cable card fee is $2.50 and they do require a truckroll (cost me $30) to install it, even though the tech will be useless and the practice is about to be banned. A tuning adapter is likely going to be needed, so make sure to mention this when you're getting it scheduled, and even then, they'll drop the ball so you'll have to hope the tech is decent enough to grab one. It also took about an hour and 5 transfers to different departments to finally get an appointment setup - it must be scheduled through sales, although they will try to transfer you to the national cable card gurus who are only responsible for 2nd+ level support the moment you utter "cable card".

Basically, I wouldn't bother configuring the other tuners in WMC. It'll just make things messy, however, if you really want to, I think there are ways you can remap the Digital OTA channels to fit into the TWC lineup so you use the OTA tuners for the major networks and the CC tuner for the rest..
 
Thanks for the tips. I've seen others have had multiple tuners work in WMC, and if I disconnect the direct cable I shouldn't have duplicate channels. Or maybe that's why WMC has channels 4, 4.1, 4.2, and so on now (with the .1, .2 being OTA HD). Seems silly to have a tech watching while I try to get WMC running. I'd rather just have someone flip a switch over the phone.
 
yossarian said:
Thanks for the tips. I've seen others have had multiple tuners work in WMC, and if I disconnect the direct cable I shouldn't have duplicate channels. Or maybe that's why WMC has channels 4, 4.1, 4.2, and so on now (with the .1, .2 being OTA HD). Seems silly to have a tech watching while I try to get WMC running. I'd rather just have someone flip a switch over the phone.
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If you manually add the channels instead of auto detecting, you can actually renumber them to whatever you want - thus, 4.1 could become 1035, etc. Before I got the cable card, I had an HD Homerun and a PVR-500 paired up, but I mapped the HD Home run into the TWC lineup for consistency.

Make sure to read all of the related guides before the tech comes by - I didn't let him touch my box - I put in the cable card myself, then ran the setup myself. He was basically there to make sure he could punch in the codes into their system.

If your area uses Cisco TAs, contrary to internet folklore, you will only need one of them, as TWC went to the newer firmware that will support up to 4 streams per TA (or maybe 6). The older Cisco firmware was capped at 2, so most folks getting a Ceton card would need 2 TAs.

Ninja Edit: They tried to charge me for a "digital programming guide" in addition to the CC charge. If that shows up on yoru bill, you'll probably need toc all them a few months in a row to get it taken off for good, since you are bringing your own guide rather than using theirs for that device.
 
Adding the tuners won't change anything at all. MCE supports 4 tuners per type by default (that is 4 ATSC, 4 CCC, 4 NTSC, etc at the same time) and just because multiple tuners can access the same channels it won't put 4 variations in the listings. At the most the only thing that would happen is if you had two recordings back to back on the same channel it would use one of the unused tuners to record the two minute buffer for the next show while the other recording is still going on.

There is software that will allow you to increase the limit to 12 per type, but it's not free. http://mychannellogos.com/TunerSalad.aspx
 
Thanks again everyone. The tuner is on it's way from Amazon. Time to order the card...
 
I got the 3rd cable card from Time Warner in my area, and this includes a Army base, and the tech they sent was a computer geek, ... like most of us, and the install went real smooth. I still have to use my WinTV 2250 to get the channels 1-70 and the new WinTV 2650 for the Digital content. Getting WMC to see everything took me some trial and error but once you stumble on the right combination, which I didn't document :( ....everything works like a champ.
 
Picked up the cablecard and tuner today. Plus the nice lady at the counter found a promotion that dropped my bill by $25, so in 8 months the SD Tuner will pay for itself (I fool myself easily). The SD should arrive Friday.
 
Final report: Activated the cablecard today. Tried the activation number on the TW website, but they said they were closed (even though the webpage said they were open Saturdays). So I tried the number WMC gave on the cablecard setup screen which was local. The local guy got some info from me but then transferred me to the cablecard activation techs (guess they were in after all, just the number has changed). Waited on hold for over an hour. Finally got a tech and got it activated. Note: All the instructions say to activate the cablecard, THEN connect the tuner adapter. But the tech had me connect it just after I gave him the card and device IDs. So if anyone else does it, have the tuner adapter ready to go to save time.

Now, I had a problem with WMC and Playready. WMC said Playready update had failed and it kept failing each time. After doing some research I ended up doing the uninstall of WMC and then reinstall. Now Playready downloaded and updated.

Ready? Not yet. Now I start WMC and it gives me a display error on the cable (not on the antenna channels though). I'm running it on a second monitor in extended mode. Quick search on the internet mentioned extended mode issues. So I disable the second monitor, start up WMC and it works! HBO and everything in HD. Just for kicks I enable the second monitor in extended mode while WMC is running, then drag it to the second screen and everything's still working. Turned off WMC and on again on the extended screen and still working. Maybe the extended mode thing only happens on the initial setup?

So, it was a PITA setting up but it works. Oh, and the SD Homerun Prime lives happily with my Hauppauge 1600 so far.
 
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yossarian said:
Ready? Not yet. Now I start WMC and it gives me a display error on the cable (not on the antenna channels though). I'm running it on a second monitor in extended mode. Quick search on the internet mentioned extended mode issues. So I disable the second monitor, start up WMC and it works! HBO and everything in HD. Just for kicks I enable the second monitor in extended mode while WMC is running, then drag it to the second screen and everything's still working. Turned off WMC and on again on the extended screen and still working. Maybe the extended mode thing only happens on the initial setup?

So, it was a PITA setting up but it works. Oh, and the SD Homerun Prime lives happily with my Hauppauge 1600 so far.
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The display error will also happen on other DRM infested media, i.e. during DVD playback. Something with the extended monitor makes windows unhappy and doesn't want to play the content back to the second screen - this happened even back in the XP days for me (I could even drag half the DVD window onto the extended screen and get half video, half black. It'd be great if you can get it to work, but I honestly wouldn't rely on it.
 
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