MythTV - HD HomeRun & Analog Capture Card

[Armor Gnome]

Silicon Dust HD HomeRun (dual tuner)

I have had this networked tuner for some time now and am still very happy with how it is configured automatically and how easy it was to get working with MythTV.

Recently however when toying around with a MD build I realized that my current settings only allow me to watch one live TV feed at a time.  These are not premium channels so I do not think the HomeRun would be limited to one feed because of that like some cable boxes are.  I was under the impression that a dual tuner HomeRun could feed two media directors with their own separate channel as long as no recording was going on.

In the web-admin each tuner has it's own IP address (-0 & -1)
In MythTV I did a full channel scan on each tuner (-0 & -1) to confirm each was working

The only setting I am unsure of is several of the recording rules where I left "LinuxMCE Default" as my selection choices.  I am under the impression that the system (lmce default or mythtv) is keeping one of my tuners in reserve, so that if a scheduled recording came up it would be ready?   Does anyone have experience using this Dual tuner and having to adjust tuner rules?  I eventually plan to add more of these units as the number of MDs in my house grows.  If I dual can feed two MD's then two HomeRuns would feed four MDs.  Under the current settings I would need 4 dual tuners to support 4 media directors...     

WinTV-150 PVR MCE Edition (PCI Analog only)

So I accept that this card is ancient and that unless I am going to be converting VHS tapes to DVD I should probably pull it.  It is working great now though under the ivtv utils and I would like to pick back up some functionality out of this dated card.  My question is for anyone who has configured a cable box in MythTV.  Using a IR controlled digital-to-analog converter I should be able to use this card much like one would use a cable box or satellite receiver.  I have a schedulesdirect subscription so I know the channel info.  What I am unable to figure out however is how to communicate to MythTV that everything will come in under channel 3.  When trying to apply the channel settings from my HD HomeRun channel scans I get the error that Myth is set to tune to channel 3 and channel 3 is not valid. 

*The IR converter box info is: Access HD DTA1010.  It has Coax output as well as component outputs (I get component and composite mixed up, its red yellow white) there is also a RS-232 port but I haven't had luck talking to it yet via serial, it's labeled "service" though I have seen that before on devices that once you get the port settings there is more available.  Once I troubleshoot the MythTV configuration I will get a simple template made based on a cable box and provide that for anyone wishing to dust off old cards and converters. 

[JaseP]

I have 2 HDhomeruns. They all have been allowed their own channel scan, but share the same channels.conf... Each one is set up as a different "source?!" (I think MythTV calls it)... Other than that, I've had no difficulty having each of the four tuners (two per unit) be used by the core. Don't know if that's a help.

For the Cable Box,... Maybe try setting the channels.conf file to force the tuning every channel to the frequency of channel three, but otherwise use the IR codes to send it to the correct channel?!

[Armor Gnome]

Thanks JaseP,

I wasn't aware of where these settings were wrote, thank you and I will check out my channels.conf.  I am going to do some troubleshooting and setting changing later this week when I add my roommates Media Director.  I plan to start with removing the HDhomerun device and unplugging it from the network.  When reconnecting I am going to test with only having a single coax line fed to it.  Configure Myth with one tuner and see how it goes.  Then I can remove it again and do the setup again with the coax going to the other tuner.  This should give me volumes of information about how the tuners are handled within Myth and LMCE.  Careful research of my various log files will help me understand what the problem is when I try to watch tuner-0 on one MD and tuner-1 on another.  Any blaring errors I can troubleshoot or take over to the Myth forums.

For the adapter as cable box issue I haven't found a good avenue to start testing.  I briefly looked over the template for a cable box but without one here to connect and test I can't see how Myth treats it.  Ideally I would like to have IR-controlled digital-to-analog converter box (AV out) going to the living room TV, converter box (coax out) going to the tuner input of WinTV-150 and streamed to my hybrid, HDhomerun-0 tuner streaming to my roommate's MD and HDhomerun-1 reserved for recordings.  I believe this addresses most known issues and problematic installations I have read about:

WinTV-150 likes to default back to Tuner input if not told otherwise
IR control of a device doesn't give feedback so I wouldn't trust it for recordings
This particular converter box uses the same IR code for on/off so I need visual feedback that it is in the right state (ie onscreen tv)
Neither me or my roommate watch many shows so it's unlikely that we would ever need more than 1 recording at a time
My USBUIRT is destined for the living room after I do more testing at my bench, it can reach the converter from there easily.

[JaseP]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding about the cable box thing...

I thought that your problem was that the output was always channel 3, but you were trying to tune with the cable box or VCR or whatever. If you use and IR blaster controlled by LinuxMCE, you could have the IR blaster change stations on the box you are trying to send output to your analog card from. Every station, as far as the source/channels.conf is concerned, could be set to channel 3 for the WinTV-150 inside MythTV,... That way,... You would send IR signals to the cable box to switch to,... say channel 21,... but the MythTV setup would pull that in at channel 3...  Don't know if that'd work,... but worth a try...

Personally, I had the Haupaugue (sp?) HVR-1600 (2 of them, actually) and I pulled them both, because they were such a pain in the backside to configure. I rely on the four tuners in my 2 HDhomeruns.

It seems like your indication is that the tuners aren't pulling in a signal...

As far as the tuners are concerned, you might need to boost your coax signal a little bit,... especially if it's also your source of broadband internet. Multiple splits can degrade signals, causing one or both tuners to fail to lock in signals (a worse problem with QAM signals than analog). I used an amplifying RadioShack coax booster that's claimed to be digital/broadband compatible. If your cable is your broadband, you might want to make sure that your cable modem is working off the first, non-boosted split, and boost the cable TV signals off the second branch of the split.

There are sometimes signal strength issues with cable Co.s,... monitoring your signal power levels and adjusting them very fine to; (a) prevent multiple unbilled splits & (b) cause you to wrack up service charges on your setups. Their fine tuned settings in their equipment can mess with your internet connection.

Another thing to look at is the Mhz rating on the splitters and cable being used. You want to make sure that it's high quality enough for digital signals,... the cables preferably being well shielded. There are some shielding/signal improving tricks you can use, as well, when you have a lot of different cables (power & data) running close together and are fearing signal interference (like using a grounded foil wrap to provide extra shielding, or using a ferrite ring or bead on self-wired data connections).

PS: Regarding output switching... I have an AV switcher that automatically switches to the live connection from a number of different outputs,... don't remember where I got it, but probably RadioShack. No IR involved. The main thing is to turn off output from the device you aren't using... Causes a hassle when my stepson forgets to turn off the Wii, and the Mrs. wants to switch the TV off LinuxMCE over to regular cable. For the technically gifted, you could also turn on/off devices with Z-wave, serial or something, as defined by a LinuxMCE viewing scenario... An auto-switching AV box would then just send the "right" signal to the viewing/listening device (TV and/or Amp).

[theteju]

Personally, I had the Haupaugue (sp?) HVR-1600 (2 of them, actually) and I pulled them both, because they were such a pain in the backside to configure.

I rely on the four tuners in my 2 HDhomeruns.

I agree the HVR-1600 are pain, but once configured properly they work flawless. awesome cards.