7MC "thinks" there is no signal

[jiggahits@yahoo.com]

Background:
I built my first dual tuner DVR 5 years ago using 2 Hauppague 1800 tuners. It worked great for a few years and then all of a sudden I could not watch live tv on 2.1, 4.1 or 13.1 (major network channels) However, I could record the channel, and then watch it from the recorded shows. Not convenient when wanting to surf the channels, but it worked because we record 98% of our tv viewing. I upgraded to dual Hauppauge 2250 tuners when I upgraded to Windows 7 and have enjoyed 4 tuners in my DVR!

Problem:
2 weeks ago my DVR's hard drive went out. Upon installing the OS on a new hard drive and setting everything up I discovered some issues:
1: I can magically watch 2.1, & 4.1 in live mode again! Yeah!
2: I can no longer record 2.1 or 4.1 because media center "thinks" the signal is not there. Boo!
3: I must still record 13.1 to watch a show because windows cannot detect a signal. Yet it records just fine.
4: Signal strength indicates no signal for 2.1 or 4.1 (but shows perfect signal for 4.3 and every other channel) (I checked my signal strength with the TV's built in tuner and I get 98% signal strength on all channels so it is not an issue with my antenna)

On a second DVR I built for my children I put my old 1800 tuners in it. They work great. When I swap the tuners, the children's DVR has no issues with the 2250 tuner cards, but the main DVR still has the same problems with the old 1800 cards reinstalled. So the Hauppauge tuners seem to be fine, but Windows doesn't want to find the channels any more.

I have also uninstalled the drivers and installed from the original disk with the original drivers but still cannot get the problem solved.

Help!!!!
Any solutions would be most appreciated as I have searched the web with no success.

Thank you.

[bmblank]

I don't exactly have a fix for you, but I can tell you you're not alone. I have some sort of bug where the signal that records is weaker than watching it live only on select channels. I did have some luck a while ago deleting an old driver for a tuner I wasn't using at the time. The bug has since returned, so I'm a little stumped.

But like i said, you're not alone!

[dmagerl]

Go edit the channel and look at your sources. I bet you have some weird things/bad sources. Watching live TV would then use a different source than recording TV. Hence you get the issue of live TV being OK but recording not OK.

This issue is particularly bad with certain old time major network stations that were in the VHF range pre-digital changeover and elected to stay on VHF post changeover. Around here, they all added repeater stations in UHF which MCE doesnt handle very well. It lumps both the main channel and the repeater channel under the same guide listing and if you can only receive one of those channels you have problems.

This BTW, only applies to OTA, which you didnt say if that was your case.

[bmblank]

This sounds very possible in my case. I'll have to go in and check out my channels setup. I thought I changed them up to get some good results, but maybe things changed.

[jiggahits@yahoo.com]

Problem solved!

Thank you all for your replies.

dmagerl - THANK YOU! That worked. I had no idea that the tuners were aggregating multiple signals and showing them on one mce channel. After deselecting the bad sources I can now watch live tv and record with no problems! The dream of being cable/ satellite free continues! (Yes, strictly OTA for 5 years and counting)

[Ack]

Problem solved!

Thank you all for your replies.

dmagerl - THANK YOU! That worked. I had no idea that the tuners were aggregating multiple signals and showing them on one mce channel. After deselecting the bad sources I can now watch live tv and record with no problems! The dream of being cable/ satellite free continues! (Yes, strictly OTA for 5 years and counting)

I'm almost 2 years OTA with just a little supplement from the web for those few programs we just "have" to have.

Of course, being mostly OTA depends on your geographic area. In the St. Louis area I'm lucky enough to have good signals from all the major broadcasters and a few independents. I have friends in the Branson area, for example, that if they didn't have cable, they'd have basically no choice but what's available online.

Now back to the topic - also thanks to dmagerl. I have a couple of what I thought were weak signals and by using that advice I see I had a few weak sources in these channels. I've removed them leaving the 100% ones and am hoping the occasional bad recording will be a thing of the past. Mine too had great signal watching directly on the television; it was only through the tuner the issue happened.