Edit 01/23/07
There is now a program that does this. Please see Ramon's page to download it.
(Yes I know its down right now)
edited 04/20/2006
11 Months ago I found the registry hack to add more than 2 tuners to Media Center. At the time Microsoft refused to admit that it was even possible. They still haven't admited that multiple sources are possible, but Peter Rosser of the MCE development team posted these methods on how to add N tuners. Poeple have complained about thier accuracy so I am moving them to the bottom. If you have problems with my instructions you can read his.
Peter if you happen to read this post; this isn't just the version posted on TGB, it was the first post, and I was the first person to find a way to do this. Previously the answer was it can not be done. Instead of doing what you should be doing as an MCE developer, and adding this functionality into MCE, or even TweakMCE, you just copied my instructions, then broke them down and rewrote them using your inside knowledge of MCE.
I will rant more about this later, for now here are the instructions. The first is the original I wrote. The second 2 ways are written by Peter.
NOTE: The following keys are used in the HOWTO. They are variables used by MCE and will be different for every machine, and are only shown here as an example.
{A799A800-A46D-11D0-A18C-00A02401DCD4}
{04CBCD6F-0EFE-4E52-9209-43B6AC9D4217}
{54B4E960-C8E5-42A2-AC64-98A586B7BEA2}
{BAF147BF-2181-466D-96FE-48020D0861DD}
See the screen shot below for a better look.
Close MCE
Start regedit
Open [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center]
Export the Media Center Key and all Subkeys, save it as Backup.reg (This will help you with restoring the settings you started with if something doesnt work.
Open [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Service\Video\Tuners]
Within that key is another key named DVR and another named something like {A799A800-A46D-11D0-A18C-00A02401DCD4}
It will look like this
-Tuners
-{A799A800-A46D-11D0-A18C-00A02401DCD4}
-{04CBCD6F-0EFE-4E52-9209-43B6AC9D4217}
+TuneRequest
+UserSettings
-{54B4E960-C8E5-42A2-AC64-98A586B7BEA2}
+TuneRequest
+UserSettings
+DVR
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
Close Regedit and Open the device manager
Open sound, video and game controllers, Disable Your TV cards
Shut down, and install your new capture card, then restart. If your card is already installed Reboot anyway.
Start MCE, and go to settings > TV > Setup TV Signal
Run through the setup process for your tuner, and guide.
Make sure it works and is not stuttering.
Close MCE
Open Regedit, and you should see this.
-Tuners
-{A799A800-A46D-11D0-A18C-00A02401DCD4}
-{BAF147BF-2181-466D-96FE-48020D0861DD}
+TuneRequest
+UserSettings
+DVR
Expand the keys make sure the keys are filled out.
-Tuners
-{A799A800-A46D-11D0-A18C-00A02401DCD4}
-{BAF147BF-2181-466D-96FE-48020D0861DD}
+TuneRequest
Components
Tuning Space
+UserSettings
Components
Tuning Space
+DVR
Export the key {BAF147BF-2181-466D-96FE-48020D0861DD} save it as new card.
Restart Your computer now.
Open Device Manager
Open sound, video and game controllers, Enable Your TV cards
Import the Registry Entries you exported
Double click on both top.reg and bottom.reg and say yes to import them.
Reboot
Open Regedit, make sure your on these keys
-Tuners
-{A799A800-A46D-11D0-A18C-00A02401DCD4}
-{04CBCD6F-0EFE-4E52-9209-43B6AC9D4217}
+TuneRequest
+UserSettings
-{54B4E960-C8E5-42A2-AC64-98A586B7BEA2}
+TuneRequest
+UserSettings
-{BAF147BF-2181-466D-96FE-48020D0861DD}
+TuneRequest
+UserSettings
+DVR
All off the keys should look alike. The settings within will be slightly different.
Close Regedit
RESTART one last time.
Start MCE
Start recording
Change the channel
Start recording
Change the channel
If that worked you now have 3 working tuners
Do it again to add more.
Thanks to Jon and his Post on multiple sources which got me looking into these registry keys.
N Tuners in MCE, Method 1 (only registry editing): Peters
- Stop the Media Center Receiver Service (net stop ehrecvr)
- Open Registry Editor (regedit.exe) and open this key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Service\Video\Tuners\{GUID}
where {GUID} is either {71985F48-1CA1-11D3-9CC8-00C04F7971E0} for Digital (ATSC or DVB-T) or {A799A800-A46D-11D0-A18C-00A02401DCD4} for Analog (NTSC or PAL).
- Under the {GUID} key, there will be one key per tuner device.
- Select the first tuner's key.
- Select the UserSettings key.
- Set these DWORD values as follows (case sensitive, all values in hexadecimal), creating them if they do not exist:
EnabledForMCE = 0xffffffff
UseSTB = 0
- Create a REG_SZ value named UserDefName and set its value to "Tuner X", where X is the tuner number (1 for the first tuner, 2 for the 2nd, etc.)
- If this is the FIRST tuner:
RecordOrder = 0
RecordPrefered = 0xffffffff
WatchOrder = number of tuners - 1, e.g. for 4 tuners set this to 3
WatchPrefered = 0
If this is the LAST tuner:
RecordOrder = number of tuners - 1, e.g. for 4 tuners set this to 3
RecordPrefered = 0
WatchOrder = 0
WatchPrefered = 0xffffffff
If this is a tuner somewhere in the middle:
RecordOrder = whatever you put for the last tuner + 1
RecordPrefered = 0
WatchOrder = whatever you put for the last tuner - 1
WatchPrefered = 0
The idea here is that you increment the RecordOrder by 1 for each tuner, and decrement the WatchOrder by 1. RecordOrder starts at 0 on the first tuner and goes up to #Tuners - 1; WatchOrder starts at #Tuners - 1 and ends at 0 on the last tuner. RecordPrefered is true (0xffffffff) on the first tuner, false (0x00000000) everywhere else; WatchPrefered is true on the last tuner, false everywhere else.
- Repeat steps 7 - 10 for each tuner, adjusting the values of RecordOrder, RecordPrefered, WatchOrder and WatchPrefered as appropriate.
- Close Registry Editor.
- Start Media Center. Voila!
Yes, "Prefered" is misspelled. We caught that after we shipped, and it's a little late to change now...
N Tuners in MCE Method 2 (a little registry stuff, no manual editing though): Peters
- Start the Media Center shell (Green Button)
- Go to Settings-->TV-->Set Up TV Signal
- Choose the 2 tuners from the list of tuners that you will configure this time (first time through, just the first 2)
- Close the Media Center shell.
- Stop the Media Center Receiver service (net stop ehrecvr or stop the service from Control Panel-->Administrative Tools-->Services)
- Open Registry Editor (regedit.exe) and open this key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Service\Video\Tuners\{GUID}
where {GUID} is either {71985F48-1CA1-11D3-9CC8-00C04F7971E0} for Digital (ATSC or DVB-T) or {A799A800-A46D-11D0-A18C-00A02401DCD4} for Analog (NTSC or PAL).
- Under the {GUID} key, there will be one key per tuner device.
- Find the 2 keys that were just configured by Media Center. You can tell which ones they are by looking for the "EnabledForMCE" value under the UserSettings key. If it is set to 0xffffffff, it was configured--otherwise it will be 0x00000000 (0).
- Export the 2 keys to .reg files on your hard disk. (right-click on the {GUID} key and choose Export [selected branch only]). Make a note of where you save those files... you're going to need them! Name each one differently (e.g. Tuner1.reg, Tuner2.reg).
- Repeat steps 1 - 8 for each set of 2 tuners (if you have 3, then just then 3rd, etc.), selecting different tuners each time.
- Repeat steps 4 and 5.
- Double-click on each of the .reg files you created in step 9 to import them into the registry.
- Close Registry Editor.
- Start Media Center. Voila!
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