Would a second identical satellite tuner card be properly recognized and work as expected? (5 Viewers)

[clarkebelt]

Now that I have MediaPortal working with a Prof 7301 DVB-S2 satellite tuner card (a huge THANK YOU to mm1352000 for his assistance in this), this question came up: If I were to add a second Prof 7301 card in the system, would MediaPortal properly recognize it as a second tuner? The reason I ask is because some of our LNB's have dual outputs, so I could attach a second DiSEqC switch and tuner card and run the second LNB port into that. But before spending money on a second card, I would like to know if MediaPortal will correctly recognize a second identical model card.

Would it be any more advantageous to use a different brand and model tuner for a second card, or would that make any difference as far as MediaPortal is concerned?

(EDIT: For the benefit of anyone searching for this information, you will probably want to avoid trying to use identical Prof Tuners in the same Windows box - see post #15 in this thread.)

 

[mm1352000]

Hello again

If I were to add a second Prof 7301 card in the system, would MediaPortal properly recognize it as a second tuner?

Yes.
There are only three things you'd need to do to get it working.

1. Enable DVB-S2 support (if the tuner supports it).
Tick the "enable DVB-S2..." option in the scan section for the tuner.
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_...rver_Configuration/02_TV_Servers/3_Scan_DVB-S

2. Configure tuner settings - conditional access (AKA decrypt, CAM, CI) support and/or any other options you prefer.
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_...nfiguration/02_TV_Servers#Edit_Tuner_Settings

3. Link your existing channels to it.
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_...Server_Configuration/03_TV_Channels/2_Mapping

Select the tuner up the top.
Select all the channels on the left (select first channel, hold down shift, press "end").
Click ">>".

Done.
No scanning required.

Would it be any more advantageous to use a different brand and model tuner for a second card, or would that make any difference as far as MediaPortal is concerned?

No. At least not in the sense that having different models might [for example] make tuning more reliable.
In your specific case you need to stick to cards where DiSEqC is supported well. Prof is a perfect choice for that. So, unless you have any reason to prefer a different type of card, I would just get another of the same.
If you are considering another card please let me know so I can advise about any known issues or limitations.

Regards,
mm

 

[clarkebelt]

Thanks, that's very good to know. I'll probably stick with the Prof card if I get another because it seems to be working quite well now.

 

[clarkebelt]

For anyone else that may find this thread, be sure to "Enable DVB-S2 channels tuning/scanning" by checking the checkbox on the second card's setup page before following mm1352000's instructions in the second post, otherwise it will NOT copy the S2 channels to the second card.

Despite doing this we are still having issues, where MediaPortal seems to recognize the second card but if you try to tune in a second channel while one is in use it basically freezes up everything; even the channel that was playing stops and things just get weird from there. See next post for details.

 

[clarkebelt]

Hello again mm1352000. I am sorry to report that we installed a second identical Prof tuner and are having issues.

I had fixed the initial issue of not having "Enable DVB-S2 channels tuning/scanning" checked when I initially followed your instructions above about assigning the channels to the new card using TV Mapping. But even though I did that and mapped the rest of the channels (and then unmapped and remapped them when I was still having problems), for some reason it still just won't use both tuners at once, and now the problem is worse because attempting to tune something using the second tuner seems to result in the first tuner losing its channel. The first stream just freezes. It doesn't report "All tuners busy", it's as though it is trying to use the same tuner that is already in use instead of the second one. I also saw it happen once where the working stream actually changed to the channel I was trying to see on the other tuner.

As a test I was trying to change channels using two clients at once and things just went haywire. I don't know how to explain this, and I wondered if you might be able to get any clues from those log files I sent you.

On the DVB-IP (IPTV) cards setup screen, "Number of IPTV cards" is set to 1. I initially didn't change that because you didn't tell me to - does that only apply to the "MediaPortal IPTV Source Filter"? Anyway I tried changing it to 2 and it didn't help a bit, same problem. So, I set it back to 1 as it was originally.

Also, the strings used to ID the two cards in MediaPortal are VERY similar, only a one character difference. I can't help wondering if for some reason it is detecting the same card twice or something.

Thanks in advance for any help you might be able to provide.

 

[mm1352000]

Hello again

For anyone else that may find this thread, be sure to "Enable DVB-S2 channels tuning/scanning" by checking the checkbox on the second card's setup page before following mm1352000's instructions in the second post, otherwise it will NOT copy the S2 channels to the second card.

Argh, sorry - yes that's required for DVB-S2 support. An oversight on my part. I've updated my original post.

Let's get the other easy stuff out of the way first.

On the DVB-IP (IPTV) cards setup screen, "Number of IPTV cards" is set to 1. I initially didn't change that because you didn't tell me to - does that only apply to the "MediaPortal IPTV Source Filter"? Anyway I tried changing it to 2 and it didn't help a bit, same problem. So, I set it back to 1 as it was originally.

Yes, that only applies for DVB-IP/IPTV which is why I didn't mention it. It won't help.

Also, the strings used to ID the two cards in MediaPortal are VERY similar, only a one character difference. I can't help wondering if for some reason it is detecting the same card twice or something.

The ID strings come from Windows. As long as they're unique (which Windows guarantees) you don't have to worry - TV Serve won't have any chance of confusing configuration, tune requests etc.. I note that the one character which is different encodes the PCI (or PCIe) slot that the card is plugged into.

Now for the main issue...

Despite doing this we are still having issues, where MediaPortal seems to recognize the second card but if you try to tune in a second channel while one is in use it basically freezes up everything; even the channel that was playing stops and things just get weird from there.

Regarding the "freeze" part of the equation: MediaPortal will not respond while waiting for TV Server to tune. Normally that unresponsive time is only a second or two at most so not a big deal. However if tuning is not immediately successful the unresponsive time can blow out a bit making it appear like MP is frozen. PMT timeouts (which your logs tell me you're experiencing - you'd probably see them as "PMT not found" errors) are a relatively common cause for this.

PMT is program map table - a dictionary of substream (video, audio, subtitles etc.) info for the channel which TV Server needs in order to start timeshifting or recording. In short, the TV Server tuning process:

1. Select capable and available tuner.
   
2. Apply tuning parameters (frequency etc.) and wait for signal lock.
3. Grab PMT and send decrypt commands if necessary.
   
4. Wait for clear (decrypted) stream.

If this process fails with one tuner, TV Server automatically tries the next, and the next... until tuning is cancelled or successful.
Based on your current PMT timeout setting (which is the default value) TV Server will wait for PMT for up to 20 seconds per tuner for PMT. Since you have two tuners, the implication is that MP could be "frozen" for up to 40 seconds.

Now to the point.
You can reduce the "freeze" time by reducing the PMT timeout setting value here.
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_...n/TV-Server_Configuration/06_General#Scan_Tab
A value of 2 or 3 seconds (=> 4 to 6 second per tuner freeze) is okay for many people.

You can also control the number of tuners TV Server tries for timeshifting here (maximum free cards to try):
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_...ation/TV-Server_Configuration/08_Timeshifting
There's an equivalent and separate setting for recording here:
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_...tion/001_TV-Server/Configuration/07_Recording

Hopefully that allows you to mitigate/manage the "freeze" part of the equation to your satisfaction.

...for some reason it still just won't use both tuners at once, and now the problem is worse because attempting to tune something using the second tuner seems to result in the first tuner losing its channel. The first stream just freezes. It doesn't report "All tuners busy", it's as though it is trying to use the same tuner that is already in use instead of the second one. I also saw it happen once where the working stream actually changed to the channel I was trying to see on the other tuner.

As a test I was trying to change channels using two clients at once and things just went haywire. I don't know how to explain this, and I wondered if you might be able to get any clues from those log files I sent you.

In short, one of the key points to take from my explanation above is that you're seeing freezes etc. because your tuners aren't tuning reliably. You don't see "all tuners busy" because TV Server has [correctly] identified a free tuner and is actively trying to tune the requested channel. However, the tuners aren't playing ball nicely.

Neither tuner 3 nor tuner 4 always fail or always succeed, which makes it quite tough for me to understand the cause of the problem. It would be much easier if I could simply say "oh, tuner 4 is not working at all - go check it out"... but that doesn't appear to be the case.

My suspicion is that the tuners are not able to independently tune due to the way they're connected to your dishes.
Consider:

• Are you 100% sure your connections to the dishes are independent? In other words: is there any shared equipment apart from the LNBs?
• Are you 100% sure that the outputs on the LNBs are really independent? In other words: are you sure the LNBs can receive both linear vertical (or circular right) and linear horizontal (or circular left) at the same time?

From the way you asked your question and your understanding of previous explanations I assume(d) that you know:

• You can't feed multiple satellites down one cable (ie. you can't add a splitter on the output feed from a DiSEqC or 22k switch).
• You can't receive horizontal (or circular left) and vertical (or circular right) transponders from one LNB output at the same time.
• LNBs need power to operate which is supplied by the tuner(s) and/or STB(s) (ie. you can't use a one-port-power-pass splitter unless the tuner connected to the power pass port is active).
• Just because an LNB has multiple outputs does not mean each output can be connected to a different tuner to make it possible for all tuners to receive the same channels independently (ie. outputs can be one band only, or one polarity only... or in general not independent from the other outputs, as in all outputs get the same polarity).

If you're confident about your connections, LNBs etc. my recommendation from here would be to attempt to test each tuner independently. To do that with TV Server you'd disable (untick) one of the tuners here:
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_.../TV-Server_Configuration/02_TV_Servers#Tuners

...and then try tuning channels to see if the remaining tuner can work okay by itself. Then swap tuner.

Hopefully that helps...
mm

 

[clarkebelt]

Thanks for the response and the clarification on the things that are not part of the problem. Hope you don't mind if I skip right to the main issue.

Now for the main issue...

Despite doing this we are still having issues, where MediaPortal seems to recognize the second card but if you try to tune in a second channel while one is in use it basically freezes up everything; even the channel that was playing stops and things just get weird from there.

Regarding the "freeze" part of the equation: MediaPortal will not respond while waiting for TV Server to tune. Normally that unresponsive time is only a second or two at most so not a big deal. However if tuning is not immediately successful the unresponsive time can blow out a bit making it appear like MP is frozen. PMT timeouts (which your logs tell me you're experiencing - you'd probably see them as "PMT not found" errors) are a relatively common cause for this.

PMT is program map table - a dictionary of substream (video, audio, subtitles etc.) info for the channel which TV Server needs in order to start timeshifting or recording. In short, the TV Server tuning process:

1. Select capable and available tuner.
   
2. Apply tuning parameters (frequency etc.) and wait for signal lock.
3. Grab PMT and send decrypt commands if necessary.
   
4. Wait for clear (decrypted) stream.

If this process fails with one tuner, TV Server automatically tries the next, and the next... until tuning is cancelled or successful.
Based on your current PMT timeout setting (which is the default value) TV Server will wait for PMT for up to 20 seconds per tuner for PMT. Since you have two tuners, the implication is that MP could be "frozen" for up to 40 seconds.

Just to be clear, once it "freezes", I have never seen it restart. Tonight I was recording a movie on one channel but had forgotten about it and tried to look at something on a different channel. The recording ended abruptly at that point. It wasn't just a 40 second gap; the recording completely stopped and after that I could not tune anything until I stopped and restarted the server (even after canceling the recording, it was still non-responsive).

Now to the point.
You can reduce the "freeze" time by reducing the PMT timeout setting value here.
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_...n/TV-Server_Configuration/06_General#Scan_Tab
A value of 2 or 3 seconds (=> 4 to 6 second per tuner freeze) is okay for many people.

You can also control the number of tuners TV Server tries for timeshifting here (maximum free cards to try):
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_...ation/TV-Server_Configuration/08_Timeshifting
There's an equivalent and separate setting for recording here:
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_...tion/001_TV-Server/Configuration/07_Recording

Hopefully that allows you to mitigate/manage the "freeze" part of the equation to your satisfaction.

I can try experimenting with those if we ever get to the point where the tuner will come back at all, but right now I don't actually think those are the solution. I probably should have said it "locks up" rather than "freezes" because I may have left the impression that it was a temporary disruption, and it isn't. I don't always have to stop and restart the backend when it happens (I think that may have been because it was recording at the time it happened), but I have never seen a stream restart on its own.

In short, one of the key points to take from my explanation above is that you're seeing freezes etc. because your tuners aren't tuning reliably. You don't see "all tuners busy" because TV Server has [correctly] identified a free tuner and is actively trying to tune the requested channel. However, the tuners aren't playing ball nicely.

Neither tuner 3 nor tuner 4 always fail or always succeed, which makes it quite tough for me to understand the cause of the problem. It would be much easier if I could simply say "oh, tuner 4 is not working at all - go check it out"... but that doesn't appear to be the case.

Well, I am not so sure about that - see below.

My suspicion is that the tuners are not able to independently tune due to the way they're connected to your dishes.
Consider:

• Are you 100% sure your connections to the dishes are independent? In other words: is there any shared equipment apart from the LNBs?

Yes, I am sure and no, there is no shared equipment. The two tuners are connected to exact duplicates of the same setup. In other words, each tuner connects to its own DiSEqC switch, and each numbered connection from the DiSEqC switch either goes to one of the outputs on the same dual LNB, or in one case (DiSEqC port 3) each is connected to a separate 22kHz tone switch which switched between one output of a dual output C and Ku LNB's.

• Are you 100% sure that the outputs on the LNBs are really independent? In other words: are you sure the LNBs can receive both linear vertical (or circular right) and linear horizontal (or circular left) at the same time?

Yes. I know that there are LNBs that have dual outputs but each output is a different polarity, and I have even seen LNB's where one output is C-band and the other is Ku. But these LNB's have two totally separate outputs, covering the same frequency range, and which can be switched to either polarity depending on the voltage applied. Technically, each output can only be receiving horizontally or vertically polarized signals, not both polarities simultaneously, but either output can be switch to horizontal or vertical polarity at will by the tuner.

Note that if we disconnect the wire from the new tuner and connect it to a standalone receiver, then we can tune channels independently with no issues and everything works as you'd expect. I am 100% certain that wherever the problem lies, it's not in the LNB's or the tone or DiSEqC switches.

From the way you asked your question and your understanding of previous explanations I assume(d) that you know:

• You can't feed multiple satellites down one cable (ie. you can't add a splitter on the output feed from a DiSEqC or 22k switch).
• You can't receive horizontal (or circular left) and vertical (or circular right) transponders from one LNB output at the same time.
• LNBs need power to operate which is supplied by the tuner(s) and/or STB(s) (ie. you can't use a one-port-power-pass splitter unless the tuner connected to the power pass port is active).
• Just because an LNB has multiple outputs does not mean each output can be connected to a different tuner to make it possible for all tuners to receive the same channels independently (ie. outputs can be one band only, or one polarity only... or in general not independent from the other outputs, as in all outputs get the same polarity).

Correct, I am well aware of all that. And as I noted, with these LNB's the outputs are truly independent of each other, and not the type where each output is a different polarity or different band.

If you're confident about your connections, LNBs etc. my recommendation from here would be to attempt to test each tuner independently. To do that with TV Server you'd disable (untick) one of the tuners here:
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_.../TV-Server_Configuration/02_TV_Servers#Tuners

...and then try tuning channels to see if the remaining tuner can work okay by itself. Then swap tuner.

Aha, now we are getting somewhere, though not a place I particularly wanted to be. It seems that if I uncheck the card with Priority 2, ID 3, then I cannot receive anything at all. But if I recheck it it, and then uncheck the card with Priority 1, ID 4, I can receive all the channels again. So it seems like the Priority 2, ID 3 card is good, while the Priority 1, ID 4 card is suspect.

The only problem now is that I don't know how to proceed. I suppose it is possible we got a defective card but I hate to try returning it without exhausting all other options. Yet I have no idea how to tell for sure if it's the new card or something else that is the problem. What I wonder now is whether the card is really bad, or whether Windows is just not recognizing it properly or connecting to it correctly, or whether something else is going on. Again, if I disconnect the cable from the new tuner and connect it to a standalone satellite receiver then everything works, so that pretty much eliminates the LNB's, tone and DiSEqC switches, and cables. If you or anyone has any suggestions on how to further diagnose the root cause of this problem, they would be quite helpful right about now.

Hopefully that helps...
mm

It does. Thank you once again for your assistance!

 

[mm1352000]

Okay regarding the freezes. We'll come back to them if necessary.

If you or anyone has any suggestions on how to further diagnose the root cause of this problem, they would be quite helpful right about now.

1. What happens if you switch cables between the two tuners (rather than trying the satellite receiver)?
2. Are the DiSEqC switches identical brand and model?

From the log excerpt that you posted privately the tuner seems to lock on signal but we fail to find PMT for the channel. My suspicion is that the tuner is:

• locking on the wrong satellite (or wrong transponder) OR
  
• not receiving/delivering the stream at all

In the first case, that would explain the PMT error - the service is simply not present in the stream. This could be caused by failure to select the correct satellite with either DiSEqC or 22 k. Therefore it would be interesting if you could try channels on port A instead of port C, and/or try the feed from the other tuner where we know the DiSEqC switch works and is compatible with Prof tuners... or in some other way eliminate DiSEqC and 22k switching from the equation.

The second case would be much tougher to diagnose. Fingers crossed it is not that.

Again, if I disconnect the cable from the new tuner and connect it to a standalone satellite receiver then everything works, so that pretty much eliminates the LNB's, tone and DiSEqC switches, and cables.

DiSEqC in particular can be a weird beast. Don't assume that any switch will work with any tuner that supports DiSEqC. Sometimes some tuners work fine with some switches and not with others (hence the identical brand and model question, and suggestion to try swapping feeds).

mm

 

[clarkebelt]

1. What happens if you switch cables between the two tuners (rather than trying the satellite receiver)?
2. Are the DiSEqC switches identical brand and model?

If I switch the cables everything works as before. In other words, before I switched the cables I had it set so that only the card with Priority 2, ID 3 was enabled, and everything worked. After switching the cables, everything still works with that setting. And if I change it so the other tuner is the only one enabled, then nothing works on any of the DiSEqC inputs (I get the "No PMT found" error).

As it happens, the DiSEqC switches are indeed identical. A few years ago, I lost a DiSEqC switch during a lightning storm, and had to wait for a new one to be delivered. Since they were relatively cheap and I know how sensitive DiSEqC switches can be, I decided I'd buy two at once so I'd have a spare in case something like that ever happened again. That "spare" is now the second DiSEqC switch.

From the log excerpt that you posted privately the tuner seems to lock on signal but we fail to find PMT for the channel. My suspicion is that the tuner is:

• locking on the wrong satellite (or wrong transponder) OR
  
• not receiving/delivering the stream at all

In the first case, that would explain the PMT error - the service is simply not present in the stream. This could be caused by failure to select the correct satellite with either DiSEqC or 22 k. Therefore it would be interesting if you could try channels on port A instead of port C, and/or try the feed from the other tuner where we know the DiSEqC switch works and is compatible with Prof tuners... or in some other way eliminate DiSEqC and 22k switching from the equation.

I was trying to keep things simple for those logs but I did try channels on all of the LNBs. With the one card enabled I could get channels on all of them, with the other card enabled we got nothing on any of the LNBs. Note that the channels should be right because I followed your instructions in post #2 of this thread and simply copied the original channel mapping to the new tuner. Of course I have no way to verify what the program is doing internally but I did not attempt to scan anything with the new tuner, I simply used the existing channel maps.

Is there any relatively easy way I can tell if it's locking on the wrong transponder or satellite? I really don't see how it could be, but I suppose it would be better if I could positively eliminate that possibility.

 

[mm1352000]

Is there any relatively easy way I can tell if it's locking on the wrong transponder or satellite?

Not that I can think of. The way I'd do it is by creating a patched version of TsWriter that logs the PAT (the list of services on the transponder).

Humour me for a moment: could you please try swapping the priority of the two tuners. This shouldn't make a difference... but I just have a hunch that I'd like to 100% rule out.