Would a second identical satellite tuner card be properly recognized and work as expected? (1 Viewer)

[clarkebelt]

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.

After doing that, if I leave both tuners enabled I have all kinds of trouble connecting to anything. It takes at least 20 seconds to connect but then after the first successful attempt, if I try to switch channels it gets into this weird state where the server seems to become totally unresponsive, at least to channel change requests.

If I disable the card with Priority 4, ID 3 then I get the No PMT Found or No Signal detected errors. If I re-enable that card and disable the card with Priority 2, ID 4 then everything seems to work and I can switch channels with no problems.

 

[mm1352000]

In short, no difference right?
I guess the only other test I can think of right now to absolutely rule out the hardware is to physically remove the card with ID 3.
Other than that I'm puzzled. Will think on this overnight (9pm here in NZ).

 

[clarkebelt]

Right, no difference, the card with ID 3 still works and the card with ID 4 still doesn't.

Thanks for looking at this and if you think of anything else I will be most interested.

By the way it's 5 AM here in the USA (Eastern time zone).

 

[clarkebelt]

Just a short addendum: We tried physically pulling the original Prof card, leaving only the new one in the same card slot where it was originally installed. Then when we fired up MediaPiortal, with that card enabled, it took several seconds to tune the first signal but after that it worked great.

Unfortunately, when we reconnected the original card, it went right back to the same situation we had seen previously. So the new card IS good, it's just that for some reason both cards won't work simultaneously, and when the first card is installed it's the second one that won't work.

 

[clarkebelt]

I sent a message to the Prof Tuner people via an online contact form asking how to make the two tuners work together. This was their response:

To do this, two drivers WDM and BDA.

1. Insert the first DVB card in our computer and put it on the ordinary (WDM) drivers.
2. After installing the drivers restart the computer.
3. If the driver successfully put on, turn off the computer and insert a second DVB card.
4. After starting Windows will tell you it has found new hardware, will choose the driver installation from the specified location and select the folder that will contain BDA driver.
5. After installing the BDA drivers again to restart your computer.​

I wrote back, saying this:

Thank you for the reply, but I am not sure I understand. We are running Windows 7, not XP, and after installing the first card, we downloaded a driver from your web site - Prof7301_Driver_2.1.0.1_W7 64.zip - and installed that. We used that for a couple of weeks and then purchased the second card, and after installing it, the first time we rebooted it automatically found that driver and used it for the second card as well.

So, is the driver we have already installed the WDM or the BDA driver, and now that both tuners are already using it, how do we install the other driver and get one of the cards to use it? And also, where do we download this other driver and what is the filename?​

But that got only this as a response:

Officially we have BDA driver. If you can find in interenet WDM driver, you will succeed. If not, unfortunately one driver two DVB cards do not work.
​

The problem is that I have no idea where to find a WDM driver for Windows 7 that would support this card. But, unless we can find such a driver, it seems that the correct answer to the question posed at the start of this thread is "No", not because of any fault in MediaPortal, but because the stupid Prof driver isn't smart enough to properly handle two identical cards in the same system. I just wish we'd known that before we bought two of these cards!

 

[mm1352000]

Oh, for crying out loud!
That's the first time I've ever come across a BDA driver that can't handle multiple instances. I'm sorry I put you wrong. Please believe me when I say I didn't know about this. I certainly would have told you had I known. Prof is squarely crossed off my "okay to recommend" list.

The problem is that I have no idea where to find a WDM driver for Windows 7 that would support this card.

Even if you could find such a driver it wouldn't work in MediaPortal (and most other modern TV software). MediaPortal only supports BDA drivers (well, there are some exceptions... but in this case it is BDA or the highway).

 

[clarkebelt]

Oh, for crying out loud!
That's the first time I've ever come across a BDA driver that can't handle multiple instances. I'm sorry I put you wrong. Please believe me when I say I didn't know about this. I certainly would have told you had I known. Prof is squarely crossed off my "okay to recommend" list.

I believe you, and accept your apology, but really it is the Prof Tuners company that should be apologizing to their customers. I cannot understand why whoever wrote the drivers for this card never anticipated that someone might want to use two of them in the same machine, but it's really stupid that they didn't plan for that possibility. And then when you write them about it and they act as though this is normal, and say nothing at all about the possibility of fixing their poorly-designed driver, that doesn't inspire me with much confidence in that company.

What do you think about TBS tuners, particularly the dual or quad tuner models, such as the TBS6985?

 

[mm1352000]

What do you think about TBS tuners, particularly the dual or quad tuner models, such as the TBS6985?

A lot of people use them and most of the time they do their job well. If I were you the main thing that would scare me is that (AFAIK) the Prof tuners are clones of some of the older TBS cards (QBOX [1], 6920, 8920 etc.)...