Tuner Priority?

[docluv01]

Hey guys,

Question regarding tuner priority in WMC.

I have (2) HDHomerun Prime's, I have 2 questions:

1) I have 3 pc's on my home LAN. 2 of them only allow 4 tuners, but the 3rd actually allowed 6. Not sure what I did that enabled this, is there a setting somewhere that allows windows to do this?

2) How do I assign tuner priority? I know you can do this for each individual channel, but is there way to make the priority for the entire system? For Example, if I have this setup:

PrimeA - Tuner 0
PrimeA - Tuner 1
PrimeA - Tuner 2
PrimeB - Tuner 0
PrimeB - Tuner 1
PrimeB - Tuner 2

MAIN PC
PrimeA - Tuner 0
PrimeA - Tuner 1
PrimeA - Tuner 2
PrimeB - Tuner 2

OFFICE PC
PrimeB - Tuner 0
PrimeB - Tuner 1
PrimeB - Tuner 2

ABove, I have overlap with PrimeB - Tuner 2. My though was either tuner will use it if need be. The problem when I manually add them, its not properly putting the priority in order (checked at various channel source).

Any help would be appreciated....thanks!

[TeddyR]

Usually people use TunerSalad footlong (http://www.mychannellogos.com/Pages/TunserSalad.aspx) to get higher than 4 tuners of each type in mediacenter. There is a registy setting/procedure to manually do it but it is prone to error [ie:hosing your rig if not followed exactly]. TunerSalad is a MUCH easier/safer way to go and worth the $5.00 for peace of mind.

Cetons latest drivers also increase the tuner limit (I believe to 30?). If you ever had a ceton on that machine then the setting may have persisted.

Guidetool (http://1geek1tool.com/guidetool) should allow setting of tuner priority for multiple channels... Look at the "Merge" feature.

Note that Live TV trys to use the tuners in order of 1-X and recordings try to assign tuners in order of X-1.

The SD drivers by default will allow the dynamic sharing of devices and tuners on the same network to the same MediaCenter (or multiples)... I have 3 primes and 2 dauls shared by 1 HTPC, 2 PCs, and 2 laptops.

[docluv01]

Ahhh I did have a Ceton USB Tuner but I swapped for the HDHomerun....

Interesting!

Thanks! I'll play around with the Merge feature! Appreciate it!

Usually people use TunerSalad footlong (http://www.mychannellogos.com/Pages/TunserSalad.aspx) to get higher than 4 tuners of each type in mediacenter. There is a registy setting/procedure to manually do it but it is prone to error [ie:hosing your rig if not followed exactly]. TunerSalad is a MUCH easier/safer way to go and worth the $5.00 for peace of mind.

Cetons latest drivers also increase the tuner limit (I believe to 30?). If you ever had a ceton on that machine then the setting may have persisted.

Guidetool (http://1geek1tool.com/guidetool) should allow setting of tuner priority for multiple channels... Look at the "Merge" feature.

Note that Live TV trys to use the tuners in order of 1-X and recordings try to assign tuners in order of X-1.

The SD drivers by default will allow the dynamic sharing of devices and tuners on the same network to the same MediaCenter (or multiples)... I have 3 primes and 2 dauls shared by 1 HTPC, 2 PCs, and 2 laptops.

[docluv01]

hmmm

I installed guidetool.

I selected like 10 channels, clicked merge

Then set the priority I wanted, clicked mereg by call sign. then clicked ok. But for some reason, its not taking....

Any ideas?

Usually people use TunerSalad footlong (http://www.mychannellogos.com/Pages/TunserSalad.aspx) to get higher than 4 tuners of each type in mediacenter. There is a registy setting/procedure to manually do it but it is prone to error [ie:hosing your rig if not followed exactly]. TunerSalad is a MUCH easier/safer way to go and worth the $5.00 for peace of mind.

Cetons latest drivers also increase the tuner limit (I believe to 30?). If you ever had a ceton on that machine then the setting may have persisted.

Guidetool (http://1geek1tool.com/guidetool) should allow setting of tuner priority for multiple channels... Look at the "Merge" feature.

Note that Live TV trys to use the tuners in order of 1-X and recordings try to assign tuners in order of X-1.

The SD drivers by default will allow the dynamic sharing of devices and tuners on the same network to the same MediaCenter (or multiples)... I have 3 primes and 2 dauls shared by 1 HTPC, 2 PCs, and 2 laptops.

[barnabas1969]

The old (free) version of Tuner Salad would enable 8 tuners. I still have a copy of it, but I don't know if it's OK to post it. I've read that there are registry hacks that accomplish the same thing, but I'm not sure if those work in Windows 7 (and 8). I've always wondered about this, and tonight I monitored changes to my registry while I used the old version of Tuner Salad to enable 8 tuners, and then reset back to 4.

It turns out that the registry doesn't change... but the C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\eHome\mcepg2-0.db file does change. So... I compared the changes between the two files (before and after the change), and it is more complicated than I expected.

In summary, it's not worth my time to figure it out. I'm sure I could, but for the few bucks that it costs to buy TunerSalad, I wouldn't want to devote very much time to it.

[barnabas1969]

In regards to GuideTool, I use it and like it, but when it comes to tuner priorities, I find that the "Edit Sources" menu in Media Center is easier to use and more reliable.

[docluv01]

Thanks, i bit the bullet and bought tunersalad

thanks again guys!

The old (free) version of Tuner Salad would enable 8 tuners. I still have a copy of it, but I don't know if it's OK to post it. I've read that there are registry hacks that accomplish the same thing, but I'm not sure if those work in Windows 7 (and 8). I've always wondered about this, and tonight I monitored changes to my registry while I used the old version of Tuner Salad to enable 8 tuners, and then reset back to 4.

It turns out that the registry doesn't change... but the C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\eHome\mcepg2-0.db file does change. So... I compared the changes between the two files (before and after the change), and it is more complicated than I expected.

In summary, it's not worth my time to figure it out. I'm sure I could, but for the few bucks that it costs to buy TunerSalad, I wouldn't want to devote very much time to it.