Howto record 4 progs simultaneously.. (1 Viewer)

bingbong

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Hello,

Can I make Mediaportal 1.19.000.0 use two cards [Hauppauge "Nova-DT Dual DVB-T Tuner Device (+IR)" each containing two tuners] and record simultaneously for a total of 4 programs?

Individually the cards seem to work eg scanning from each of the four produces the same list of channels.

But even with 4 scheduled simultaneous progs the 'test channels' state shows only two tuners recording with the remaining two as 'idle'.

Any thoughts on why, and maybe how to force use of the two idle tuners?

Not sure which logs are useful so have guessed and tried to include a TVService.n.log from a period when 3 simultaneous progs should have been recorded (@~1900)but only two were. If there is more info needed please tell me which log(s) to include.

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CyberSimian

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    But even with 4 scheduled simultaneous progs the 'test channels' state shows only two tuners recording with the remaining two as 'idle'.
    MP has the capability to record two or more channels that reside in the same MUX, and use only a single tuner. I would guess that when you scheduled four concurrent recordings, two were on channels in one MUX, and the other two were on channels in a second MUX. So MP needed to use only two tuners. To see all four tuners being used, you need to schedule concurrent recordings on channels in four different MUXes. The following web page lists channels and MUXes for UK Freeview; click on the heading for the "MUX" column to get the channels sorted by MUX:

    Digital UK | Channel listings

    As a test, try recording these channels (MUX name in parenthesis):
    BBC1 (BBC A), Pick (ARQ A), Yesterday (ARQ B), ITV1 (D3&4)

    In my first HTPC, I had two Hauppauge Nova TD500 Dual Tuner PCI cards, but I could not get them to work properly. There is some question whether two of these cards in the same HTPC is supported by the Hauppauge driver. If you schedule concurrent recordings for the channels I have suggested above, but you still only get two to record, this (alleged) driver limitation may be the reason.

    -- from CyberSimian in the UK
     

    bingbong

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    Thanks for the quick response.

    So, I did the test:

    Could get BBC1 (BBC A), Pick (ARQ A), Yesterday (ARQ B) simultaneously.

    The last one , ITV1 (D3&4), wouldn't record - 'no tuner' it said. I tried a few other channels (mainly on D3&D4) - no recording there either.

    [NB the BBC4 recordings were normal scheduled recordings that happened to be occurring during the test. Hopefully they don't matter.]

    Conclusion: I can get upto 3 tuners working but the last appears to be unassignable for recording.

    Are there any logs that might cast light on what is going on?

    (Hauppage drv version is : 28/08/2009, 4.3.27240.0 )

    testchannels1.png
     

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    CyberSimian

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    The last one , ITV1 (D3&4), wouldn't record - 'no tuner' it said. I tried a few other channels (mainly on D3&D4) - no recording there either.
    I think that your HTPC is like mine, in that each tuner can receive the same set of channels. But in general, an HTPC might contain tuners with different capabilities (e.g. analogue, digital, cable, DVB-S, DVB-S2, DVB-T, DVB-T2). To cope with this, MP allows each tuner to have a different set of tuned channels. So each tuner has to be set up with the list of channels that it can receive.

    One possible explanation for the idle tuner not being able to receive ITV1 is that you have not set up that tuner, so MP does not know what channels that tuner can receive. You said in your first post that you scanned with each tuner in turn. Are you sure that you did that?

    If you have scanned with each tuner in turn, I don't have an explanation for your observations (but I am not a TV expert). To help diagnose this, the general request is to enter "MP Config" and set the log level to DEBUG (on the first panel), run your test, exit MP, and then use the "MP Watchdog" to collect all of the logs (Watchdog packs them into a zip file). All you have to do is upload the zip file to this thread. Hopefully someone with more knowledge of the TV Server part of MP will have a look.

    -- from CyberSimian in the UK
     

    bingbong

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    You said in your first post that you scanned with each tuner in turn. Are you sure that you did that?

    Defo. I've just rechecked. See attached for present&previous channel results for the 4tuners.

    I'll try the retest with DEBUG etc tomorrow.

    Thanks again for your interest & help.

    tvmapping_3.png
    tvmapping_4.png
    tvmapping_5.png
    tvmapping_6.png
     

    CyberSimian

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    Defo. I've just rechecked. See attached for present&previous channel results for the 4tuners.
    Thank you for posting the screen shots. They don't look quite right! I notice that many channels seem to occur more than once. For example, "BBC FOUR" occurs twice in the left column, and once in the right column. I think that there are two possible explanations:

    (1) Some of the channels are dead (i.e. non-working). This happens when a channel moves frequency (e.g. the channel moves from one MUX to another, or the whole MUX moves to a different frequency). By default, MP adds the channels on each scan to the list of channels that it already has for each tuner, and so these obsolete channels remain in the list.

    The way to stop this happening is to select the "Enable channel movement detection" setting when you perform the scan. This causes MP to match up the channels found on the scan with the existing channels in its list for that tuner, and avoid duplications. (The one case where this does not work is when a channel moves from one MUX to another, but that is an infrequent occurrence.)

    There have been various MUX moves in various parts of the country in the past few months, so this may be what has happened here.

    (2) The other possibility is that you are receiving channels from more than one transmitter. I think that this is supported by MP for general viewing, but I am not sure that the EPG will be correct when channels are duplicated. (It may be possible to set up the EPG so that it does work for the duplicated channels, but that is an advanced topic, so let's get the basics working first.)

    So, where do we go from here? The simplest solution is to perform a multi-select on the "TV Channels" panel and delete all of the channels. Then do the same on the "Radio Channels" panel. The disadvantage of this is that it also deletes the recording schedule for the channels deleted (i.e. all of them), so you would need to set up your recording schedule again. But you will be starting with a clean channel database.

    If you want to retain your existing recording schedule, you will need to go through the list and test each channel in turn to see if it is working. If it is working, retain the channel; if it is not working, delete the channel. So quite a bit of work to do all of the channels in the list.

    My recommendation would be to perform the multi-select and delete all of the channels (both TV and radio), and then rescan each tuner.

    -- from CyberSimian in the UK
     

    bingbong

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    other possibility is that you are receiving channels from more than one transmitter.

    This is possible. Originally I tuned for 'all channels' then later for the specific nearest transmitter. This produced the channel duplication which I attempted to resolve as per the 4 files above.


    I later noticed the TVguide/EPG had multiple entries for some channels, so did something similar to your suggestion

    set up the EPG so that it does work for the duplicated channels, but that is an advanced topic

    ie 'fixed' this by modifying the epg grabber tables, as per the 2files below.


    If you want to retain your existing recording schedule, you will need to go through the list and test each channel in turn to see if it is working. If it is working, retain the channel; if it is not working, delete the channel.

    Did a variation of this with selective group deletes in TVChannels (and RadioChannels). This cleared the Available Channels from the TVMapping pages and left one of each channel allocated to each tuner. Similarly it cleared out (ie the unticked lines) from the TV EPG Grabber tables (below). The TVGuide is still fully populated as is my Scheduled progs so maybe that is enough.. and keeps the work down.


    I'll try the retest with DEBUG etc later this evening. If the above hasn't fixed the orig problem, at least there may be some better diagnostics.

    Thanks..




    epg_grabber.png
    radio_epg_grabber.png
     
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    CyberSimian

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    Did a variation of this with selective group deletes in TVChannels (and RadioChannels). This cleared the Available Channels from the TVMapping pages and left one of each channel allocated to each tuner.
    That is the outcome that I would expect. (y) However, I am surprised that the EPG screen shots still show multiple entries for some channels. That is not what I would expect. That suggests that the channels have not really been deleted, or that the channel database is in some weird state. :confused:

    The optimal settings for EPG grabbing in the UK are not obvious. If you are receiving from only one transmitter (true for most people), you need to tick only one TV channel, with "BBC ONE" being the preferred choice. More details here:

    TV Not Recording

    What these settings don't allow for is receiving two different versions of the same channel from different transmitters. If you can receive (say) "BBC ONE" from two different transmitters, they may be transmitting different local programming, which you may wish to receive. If that is the case, your EPG settings should give you the correct EPG for both versions of "BBC ONE". The cost is that MP will spend much more time grabbing the EPG, which you may notice in the form of your HTPC running when you think it ought to be sleeping. So, if you don't want to receive from multiple transmitters, follow the advice in the post linked above.

    -- from CyberSimian in the UK
     

    bingbong

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    that the EPG screen shots still show multiple entries for some channels.

    I probably wasn't clear : those screen shots were taken before the deletes. The deletes did clear the duplications on the EPG screens.

    =========

    Ok. just tried the 'BBC1 (BBC A), Pick (ARQ A), Yesterday (ARQ B), ITV1 (D3&4)' test again, and got 4 in-use tuners!

    testchannels_4tuners_working.png


    ==============================

    which you may notice in the form of your HTPC running when you think it ought to be sleeping.

    I'm actually ok with this as the PC is in constant use for other functions (cctv etc) so never sleeps/suspends. I will however have a look into this later just so the beastie can be set up to run normally.

    Glad I posted the screen shots and particularly that you knew how they should look!

    Thanks for your help.
     

    CyberSimian

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    Ok. just tried the 'BBC1 (BBC A), Pick (ARQ A), Yesterday (ARQ B), ITV1 (D3&4)' test again, and got 4 in-use tuners!
    Excellent! I am not a TV expert, and I can only speak from my own personal experience, so I am glad that we were able to solve your problems. (y)

    -- from CyberSimian in the UK
     

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