One of the many things on my to do list is to figure out how exactly record orders work, then once I have it figured out find someone at Microsoft to ask to change it so it will work right.

What your posts says to do is use tuner 1 to watch tv every time first, and be the last tuner picked to record a show.  Tuner 3 is set up to record first and only use to watch if 1 and 2 are already recording.  This will happen if say you start recording a show at 7:56 that is 30 minutes and then start 2 more recordings that are 1 hour shows at 8:00, then decide at 8:45 to watch live tv.

But wait!

MCE seems to sometimes do wierd things.  An example is this.  at 7:45 you start watching live tv, but then stop it at 8:00.  At 8:45 MCE decides to record a show.  What tuner do you think it will use?

Tuner 1 Set to record last, watch first
Tuner 2 Set to record 2nd, watch Second
Tuner 3 Set to record 1st, watch last

You would think it would be Tuner 3 since it is starting to record a show, but often you would be wrong.  Instead what sometimes (damn near everytime) happens is it uses the tuner it is currently controlling.  Once you start to watch live tv MCE grabs that tuner and until MCE, turns off it wants to use that controller next.  Watching a recorded show will often cause it to release the tuner.

The problem I have with all this is I can't get anything to happen every single time.  Something else is going on.

Its on my to-do list.

hmmm, I may just post this in the Microsoft section to see if anyone answers.

I agree with you. The whole tuner selection process is really wacky.

The only problem I have left is if I am watching a show and decide to record it, I'll press the record button, then go watch another channel. When the recording ends, the channel I am watching will go to "no signal". I have to press "stop", then "live tv" to get the signal back.  Its something to do with MCE thinking that the tuner I'm watching is the tuner that is doing the recording.

I can live with this for now because I dont do it that often.

Making that one change in the RecordPrefered setting fixed most of my problems.

Hi and thanks reading about my problem.

I FIXED IT!! In the setup procedure it says:

Export {04CBCD6F-0EFE-4E52-9209-43B6AC9D4217}   it wont be named that but its the top one, save it to the desktop named top.reg
Export {54B4E960-C8E5-42A2-AC64-98A586B7BEA2}   it wont be named that but its the bottom one, save it to the desktop named bottom.reg

Delete both of those keys and it will look like this.

-Tuners
   -{A799A800-A46D-11D0-A18C-00A02401DCD4}
   +DVR

But when I setup to of the tuners first, exported the register settings and then NOT deleted them, then I run setup again at the last (3^rd.) tuner. By doing this the registers says one tuner active for use and the other to not in use. Then I imported the registers for the to first, set the record and watch order on all tree. –> NOW: Tree tuners working for record and watching TV! (I'm running MCE2005).

 

Thanks for nice info in this forum.

 

Best regards

LA9SHA

I've gone through this setup a dozen times and am still unable to record 4 channels at the same time with my 2 dual (digital and analog) tuners.  It seems like I am able to get them all set up but my digital tuners will not record the analog signal.  Is this even possible?  Any help would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks!

You sort of already guessed it. The analog half of your dual tuners can record analog signals (whichever type you send it, cable, OTA, set top box video). The digital half of your tuners can record digital OTA (or perhaps digital QAM if you get real advanced and use a hack or the windows TV pack). So yes, your problems are because your digital tuners are only going to record digital channels (like your over the air channels). If you have a good antenna signal going to the DTV/ANT half of both of your tuner cards, you should be able to record two digital OTA shows and then two other analog shows at the same time. Funny thing is that this is completely supported in MCE2005 and in Vista Media Center. You don't even need to hack it to do this. You should post what dual tuners you have if you are still having trouble. Good luck

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MAIN:Gigabyte EP45-UD3P, E8500 C2D, Silverstone LC16B-M case, 3xAverMedia M780, VistaView Saber DA-1N1-e, Vista Ultimate TV Pack.
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Basement: P35-DS3R, E4400 C2D, ATI3650, VBox DTA 150

Anguish19:

I've gone through this setup a dozen times and am still unable to record 4 channels at the same time with my 2 dual (digital and analog) tuners.  It seems like I am able to get them all set up but my digital tuners will not record the analog signal.  Is this even possible?  Any help would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks!

I should be able to help you get this working.  But I need to ask some questions first. 

Please explain which process you used to try to get it working.  Please be as detailed as you can be.  What type of tuner are you using?  What is the signal sources you are connecting to.  In other words are you using analog cable with a cable box, or straight cable, how are you trying to connect the HD tuners, etc.

The more detailed you are in answering the sooner we can get you up and running.

Thanks scuffs and denyart.  Here are the details you requested:

The first time I tried to get this setup running, I installed 1 of my cards through MCE and then used the MCE Tuner App to set up the remaining 3 tuners.  Afterwards, I realized I was only recording from 2 tuners.  I deleted the tuners from the registry and tried again.  This time I've been trying to install 2 tuners through MCE (I disable one of my duals in the Device Manager) and then export these registry keys.  Then, I disable the one i installed previously and enable the other dual tuner.  I install this tuner through MCE and then import the keys from the first tuner.  I set up all the record preferences for each of the tuners.  I made sure everything was enabled and rebooted, but MCE still only records 2 channels at once.  I've tried this method numerous times.

My signal source is cable, analog cable direct from the wall with no set top box.  The tuners I'm using are:
1) Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1600 NTSC/ATSC Combo (Driver version 1.62.25108.0)
2) ViXS PureTV-U 48B0 (NTSC/ATSC Combo) (Driver version 6.1.100.18)

I'm using Vista MCE.  Is there any additional info I should provide?  TIA!

Well, like I was eluding to earlier, you cannot use the digital half of these cards to record your analog cable. In fact, you do not need to do the tuner hack here. All you need to do is have both tuners in and drivers installed and let media center do the regular setup. Hook a cable up to both analog/cable inputs (one on each obviously), and then media center should see two cable inputs. It will (should) also ask if you have an antenna connected and want to use digital tuners as well. If you don't use an antenna you would say no to this, but this is the only way you will be able to record more than 2 channels at once, and these #3 and #4 channels would be from the antenna inputs and only whatever channels you can get over the air with your antenna. They cannot tune your analog cable. Thats just the way it is. The people who are using this hack to get more analog tuners are use 3 or more analog tuners. You only have 2, so you are supported already by media center. No hack required.

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MAIN:Gigabyte EP45-UD3P, E8500 C2D, Silverstone LC16B-M case, 3xAverMedia M780, VistaView Saber DA-1N1-e, Vista Ultimate TV Pack.
Bedroom: HP SL4282N Media Center Extender TV
Basement: P35-DS3R, E4400 C2D, ATI3650, VBox DTA 150

denyart is correct, your tuners will only record 1 thing each.
For the hack to work you need duel tuners not combo tuners.
Look at this picture of your card

See the box where it says WinTV, thats your analog tuner, and below it is your HD tuner.

Now look at this card

It has 2 analog tuners but no HD tuner.  Notice also how it has two chips on the right side not one.  Those are the hardware decoders.  Yours only has one.  What this means is this card can decode 2 signals at once.  Yours can only decode one, but yours can decode either analog or pass through digital.  This card can only decode analog.

If you want to record more than 2 things you will need to buy more tuners.  I would suggest going with HDHomeRun since they can record 2 QAM shows at once (HD off your cable line) although it will be a bit of work to get them working correctly.  If you need more analog tuners try to find a mce500 or a nvidia dual tv.  They are hard to find because of the analog

Thanks for all your help.  It was my fear that the digital tuner simply wasn't compatible with the analog signal.  I have a dual analog tuner from my old MCE 2005 machine so I'll see if that's compatible with Vista MCE (crosses fingers).  Thanks again!

Edit: 
What kind of hardware in an MCE computer is required when the US does their switchover to all digital??  I'm considering purchasing 2 dual analog tuners (I want to be able to record 4 channels at once) to put into my system and are worried that these tuners will be obsolete after the switch?  The description of the switch makes it sound like it should be ok since I'm paying for the cable service and not using the antenna, but can someone quell my fears? 

You are correct that since you use analog cable the analog tuners will still work. As long as your cable company keeps piping analog cable to you it will work. In my opinion most cable markets will continue to use regular analog cable for some time (at least several years).

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MAIN:Gigabyte EP45-UD3P, E8500 C2D, Silverstone LC16B-M case, 3xAverMedia M780, VistaView Saber DA-1N1-e, Vista Ultimate TV Pack.
Bedroom: HP SL4282N Media Center Extender TV
Basement: P35-DS3R, E4400 C2D, ATI3650, VBox DTA 150

Even if all the signals are digital, the cable box will still have analog outputs you can use with your analog tuner.

Can this hack help build a system like this monster mce box? http://www.tomshardware.com/news/lifeware-media-center,6332.html

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x2 3600
2 gig kingston value
M2A-VM
Sapphire HD3450 512mb ddr2
Vista Home Premium 64 Bit
2 x Hauppauge mce 150
500 GB Seagate

Yes easily if you had all the tuners

Nix that last statement.

 

This will not help you get that many extenders working.

As a side note.

This post finally fell off the top 10 list sometime this week.  Its been up there a long time.

Since the app was made and works so well, this isnt really needed much anymore.