Triple or Quadruple Tuners a possibility??

[ben_keene]

Hi guys (and girls..)

I was wondering if it was posible to have a triple tuner sustem?

My thinking on this is because I have a VGX-XL201 and it has the Avermedia card built in, but I have also installed a Hauppage Nova-T dual DVB card too. The install went fine and MCE picked it up and tuned everything in for me with no problems at all. However, I have the Avermedia card too. Shouldnt I be able to record 3 programmes at the same time? Or watch 1 and record 2 others at the same time etc?

I thought that it would just be automatic, and all three tuners would work fine, and that MCE would deal with it without any probs. I have heard that MCE can support up to 4 tuners at once, but I cant seem to get it to recognise more than 2 at the same time! In the device manager, everything works fine, and all the cards are listed and reported to be working fine.

Has anyone managed to get more than 2 tuners working in the thier XL201?

I am alos about to install my copy of Vista Home Premium that was sent to me from Sony. I am hoping that this may help towards this matter.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks
Ben

[apierc1]

As far as I am aware you can only use one tuner at a time, while you may be able to have a number installed and ready to be selected.

Regards

Andy

[Blencogo]

Hi Ben,

In the UK the number of tuners recognised by MCE (2005 & Vista) has been artificially restricted to two. It was only one for MCE 2003/4.

Have a look at this way round the problem:

http://jtsang.blogspot.com/2006/11/media-center-tv-tuners.html

http://mce.ramonvanbruggen.nl/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1&Itemid=3

[kee-lo_]

3 tuners? Now what would be interesting

[ITTroll]

My thinking on this is because I have a VGX-XL201 and it has the Avermedia card built in, but I have also installed a Hauppage Nova-T dual DVB card too... ...I am alos about to install my copy of Vista Home Premium that was sent to me from Sony. I am hoping that this may help towards this matter.

I have exactly the same setup already running Vista. With Vista you are still artificially restricted to two tuners in the UK however it would seem that the Tuner Extender workaround does do the trick. I shall be running it on my system very soon...

[ben_keene]

Hi guys

Many thanks for your help with this matter.

Just a quick update: I have now successfully installed the Vista express upgrade from Sony (after months!!) I must say that I am impressed. I think it brings the Media Centre alive in a way that XP never did. It feels more like a home entertainment system now rather than a glorified PC.

Anyway that aside. I have downloaded and installed the Media Centre Tuner Extender, and have gone through all of the literature I could find on how to make it work, but I couldnt find any 'instructions' on how to use it. I know that it looks quite self explanitory, but no matter what I did, I could NOT get the 'Configure' button to 'un-grey', and so I dont know if I am using it correctly!

I can get the tuners to appear and I can rename them and check the tick box entitled 'Enable for MCE'. Even after I have enabled them all when I do a setup again in Media Centre, it still is saying that I am only allowed to check two tuners (even though it allows me to tick all three, when I click 'Next' it bollocks me and says 'NO! Only two!)

Has anyone used this piece of software with success? If so could you please let me know how you did it? I.e. What order you did things etc.

Many thanks for your help again guys - I feel like Im getting closer to a solution, maybe with a little more of a push...!

Warmest regards
Ben

PS. I did notice in the MCE Tuner Extender program it is telling me that the Avermedia card that came with the machine is capable of decoding both digital and analogue signals. Now is this a 'dual tuner' card? If so, with my installed Haupagge Nova-T 500 Dual DVB-T card would that constitute 4 tuners? Has anyone got the same setup running OK? Thanks...

[ITTroll]

I think by re-running the Media Centre tuner setup you might be resetting the config back to 2 tuners.

In the end I used the direct Registry edit method as it is quite straightforward and it means I know exactly what changes have been made. So I simply setup the 2 tuners using Media Centre setup and then enabled the third tuner using registry.

The Avermedia card is classed as a hybrid tuner which I don't think Media Centre supports (yet). As a result it will only work in one mode or the other. On my system (same config as yours) the analogue tuner is not enabled for Media Centre.

[ITTroll]

Just successfully tested my new three tuner setup by simultaneously recording three programs. Worked a treat! I then tried to record a fourth program just to see what would happen. MC informs you that all the tuners are in use and offers the conflict resolution screen. This screen shows exactly what each of the three tuners are recording and allows you to cancel one if desired.

I don't know why MC doesn't support more tuners out of the box as it all seems to work quite logically.

[kee-lo_]

Still, 3 tuners is pretty fine