Problems when using external set top box (1 Viewer)

[hairlesshobo]

OK, so here's the scenario. I have two Analog/Digital tuners (both are dual tuner). I have an antenna connected to the ATSC digital side of things and all works well. We have two of Comcast's DTA (tiny little adapter, basically mini cable box). Just out of curiosity, I plugged one in today and discovered that we actually have around 100 channels of cable instead of the roughly 13 that we thought. I want to use the two analog tuners in my HTPC to record these as well. I have confirmed that the analog tuner works fine when connected to the DTA, and I even was able to get the IRSS ST3 blaster plugin working just fine.

The problem, however, is that when adding these channels, I have to specify what physical channel the DTA converter should be tuned to. The IRSS TV3 plugin uses this as the channel to blast to the DTA. This works fine, except that I am forced to connect the DTA to the tuner card using Coax because the DTAs do not have S-Video or Composite out on them. The DTAs are set to output on RF channel 3, but whenever you try to view any channel in MediaPortal other than channel 3, MP sets the DTA's channel to the correct channel, but then tunes the internal tuner to the same channel (for example, channel 9). This means that the internal tuner is looking for signal on channel 9, but there is no signal because the DTA outputs on Channel 3.

I was wondering if anyone knows of a way to force MediaPortal to NEVER change the channel of the internal tuner card, and always leave it at 3. I looked all over and have done hours of Googling without any success. I even tried VCR mode hoping that it was designed for this, but to no avail (I also could not find a definitive answer as to what VCR mode does for analog channels).

If there is no way to force MP to never change the channel on a specific analog tuner, is there perhaps some way to tell MP the channel the internal tuner should be on, but then elsewhere tell the IRSS TV3 plugin where to tune to. For example, is there an option somewhere that lets MP know that the channel should be tuned externally and to separately specify the internal channel?

I hope this makes sense, please let me know if you guys (and gals) need any more information.

Thanks in advance!

-Steve

 

[mm1352000]

Hello Steve

Yes, there is something of a conflict over the use of the "channel" field. As you say, it is used for tuning the tuner to the correct frequency, and it is also used as the number blasted to the STB. I guess back in the day nobody envisioned tuners being connected to external sources with coax.

There is one possible workaround for you - specify the frequency for each channel. The frequency should override the channel number, allowing you the independence that you need. I think channel 3 is something like 61.25 MHz. Don't quote me on that though - you might need to experiment.

This topic is discussed -->here<-- at around page 2 and 3.

I note that ultimately mystraven found it was unreliable to use the coax. I hope you have better luck, but ultimately if it doesn't work I don't think there is much we can do to "fix" it short of adding an extra "blaster channel" field... and that solution would not come fast I'm afraid.

Good luck!
mm

 

[hairlesshobo]

That (with an additional workaround) did the trick. I tried that method yesterday without any luck, but after reading that other thread I determined that I was on the right track but it just didn't work. We'll I tried it again, and and at first it did not work which lead me to Google to hunt down which registry key was being modified. Come to find out, there are two registry keys that hold this info on 64 bit systems. MediaPortal only modified the one for 32 bit, and it appears the tuner driver itself looks at the 64 bit. I copied the keys to the 64 bit side, rebooted and it worked!!

Thanks for the quick reply! I now if only I could have gotten MediaPortal to play nicely with my NAS instead of having to pull the drives out of the NAS and put them in the HTPC, and but oh well. On a side note, MP + NAS = total pain in the butt.

Thanks again!

-Steve

 

[mm1352000]

Hello Steve

MediaPortal only modified the one for 32 bit, and it appears the tuner driver itself looks at the 64 bit. I copied the keys to the 64 bit side, rebooted and it worked!!

Sounds like a bug. Can you please confirm the 64 bit key(s) so we can fix this. At a guess:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\TV System Services\TVAutoTune\TS0-0
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\TV System Services\TVAutoTune\TS0-1
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\TV System Services\TVAutoTune\TS<country code here>-0
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\TV System Services\TVAutoTune\TS<country code here>-1

Cheers,
mm

 

[hairlesshobo]

Those are the keys that MediaPortal DOES modify on a 64 bit system, and the ones that should also be modified are the same, except without the Wow6432Node in the path.

 

[mm1352000]

Thanks Steve - much appreciated.
Issue raised...

 

[hairlesshobo]

Just wanted to report back after using this for the past couple weeks, with the workaround stated above, it has been running perfectly! Good luck to anyone else that may stumble across this thread.