Win 7 and TV Tuners

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I will struggle with jargon, but here goes….
I currently have a analogue cable signal (SD) into a Hauppauge 1200 tuner card. Tuning is via the channel selection on a set top box, so the tuner is tuned to just one frequency. This works fine.
Now I also have access to a HD digital signal from free to air transmission. I think the jargon is DVB-T (I’m in Australia). My tuner card is a hybrid tuner, so I can have either digital or analogue, but not both.
I read somewhere that Win 7 supports up to 4 tuners.
Does anyone have experience with 2 tuners, advice, help, etc?
My OS is Win 7 64 bit, hi-spec PC.
Regards
Doug
Brisbane Aus

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Hi Doug,
I’m in Adelaide…

I have 2 WIN 7 boxes with tuners
A dual tuner in a MCPC and a single tuner on a USB stick into my EeePC.

Both work extremely well – although both connect to the roof aerial.

I changed to Win 7 because Media Centre has an EPG that works very well in Win 7

Can help with any specific issues?

Bryan

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I have Win 7 32 bit and I also have four tuners in my system. The four tuners are in the form of two tuners in a Hauppauge Win TV 1800 internal card, which provides one analog tuner and one digital tuner. The other two tuners are in a Hauppauge Win TV 950 USB dongle. It also has one analog and one digital tuner.

Both of these devices came with software for selecting and recording TV programs etc. The internal card also includes (in the version I have) a remote control for the purpose of controlling Windows Media Center. Other versions of this card include a remote that controls the Hauppauge software. I never use the Hauppauge software except for the drivers. I use the WMC which will access and control the tuners through the Hauppauge drivers.

Both of these Hauppauge devices have one digital and one analog turner each. The digital tuners are ONLY capable of tuning the un-encrypted ‘free’ digital signals that are broadcast over the air as ‘free’ commercial TV and are sometimes carried on digital cable networks as clear digital signals. In North America, I believe this type of signal is called ‘clear QAM’.

In my own case, I have no access to digital signals since I am in Canada and do not subscribe to digital cable. I subscribe to analog cable. The analog cable signal is fed directly to both the internal card and the USB dongle. I start up WMC and it is able to access both analog tuners and access both simultaneously. I can watch one channel while recording another or record two channels simultaneously. I can even watch a recorded program while recording two others.

All this is done through WMC which also provides (free) a on-screen program guide that extends out about two weeks and will allow scheduled program or series recording (PVR functionality). The scheduled recording will even wake the system from Hibernation to accomplish the recording then return to Hibernation. In theory, the programming and recorded programs can be streamed to a separate TV set through an ‘Extender’ but I haven’t done that.

I also have all my photos, videos and recorded music on my PC and all is accessible through WMC using either a keyboard/mouse or the Hauppauge remote. Again all could be streamed to a TV set or Stereo via an extender but I don’t have the extender. An extender would require that I install a dual channel Wireless N router (probably).

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All this is done through WMC which also provides (free) a on-screen program guide that extends out about two weeks and will allow scheduled program or series recording (PVR functionality). The scheduled recording will even wake the system from Hibernation to accomplish the recording then return to Hibernation. In theory, the programming and recorded programs can be streamed to a separate TV set through an ‘Extender’ but I haven’t done that.

Are you sure your computer can be woken up from Hibernation to record? I didn’t think anything could wake a computer from Hibernation except for a push of the power button. My understanding always was that Hibernation mode meant the computer was off but when turned back on would “boot” from the hiberfil.sys file. Are you sure you don’t mean that your computer can be woken from Sleep mode or Hybrid Sleep mode? That’s the way I’ve always done it and the way I understood the process – I was just interested to know if I had misunderstood something.

Rob

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Are you sure your computer can be woken up from Hibernation to record? I didn’t think anything could wake a computer from Hibernation except for a push of the power button. My understanding always was that Hibernation mode meant the computer was off but when turned back on would “boot” from the hiberfil.sys file. Are you sure you don’t mean that your computer can be woken from Sleep mode or Hybrid Sleep mode? That’s the way I’ve always done it and the way I understood the process – I was just interested to know if I had misunderstood something.

Rob

It is not a feature I use very often but I will schedule a program to record during the night tonight and I will be able to say with certainty by tomorrow morning. My recollection at this time is that I was very surprised that it does work. I recall setting the system to record a Soap for my wife when we went away for a few days. I can’t recall if she actually watched it on our return. I am certain I would not have left the system fully running while away. I do know that my system was greatly troubled by insomnia until I disabled the facility “Wake on LAN” which allows a “Magic” packet to remotely wake a Hibernating system.

I just reviewed my Power Settings and I have the Power button set to cause the system to enter Hibernation. I have the option to Sleep After set to Never. Perhaps most important and critical is that I have the option to Allow Wake Timers set to Enabled.

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Are you sure your computer can be woken up from Hibernation to record? I didn’t think anything could wake a computer from Hibernation except for a push of the power button. My understanding always was that Hibernation mode meant the computer was off but when turned back on would “boot” from the hiberfil.sys file. Are you sure you don’t mean that your computer can be woken from Sleep mode or Hybrid Sleep mode? That’s the way I’ve always done it and the way I understood the process – I was just interested to know if I had misunderstood something.

Modern computers in hibernation can be woken by any scheduled task as long as the scheduled task has its “Wake the computer to run this task” option set. In fact, such scheduled tasks run on my computer even when it’s powered down. Nowadays computers are never really off unless the power is disconnected (look at the network light, which is usually always on).

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And, the answer is. Yes!

A scheduled program record in Windows Media Center will wake the system from Hibernation, record the program and return to Hibernation.

I must add that Acronis True Image backup application will not wake the system in order to do a scheduled backup. Bummer!

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And, the answer is. Yes!

A scheduled program record in Windows Media Center will wake the system from Hibernation, record the program and return to Hibernation.

I must add that Acronis True Image backup application will not wake the system in order to do a scheduled backup. Bummer!

Wow. That’s bizarre. My understanding of the whole sleep/hibernation thing has been turned on its head! I could’ve sworn that hibernation powered off the computer and left a file that returned Windows to its last state when the computer was next powered on. I can’t for the life of me understand how WMC, or anything else, could turn your computer on. Maybe you have hybrid sleep set? That does a combination of sleep and hibernate that is basically used to get your computer restored if it locks up while asleep. It writes the normal sleep stuff to RAM and also the hibernation file (hiberfil.sys). Standby is also called S3 while hibernate is called S4. S3 is a low power state with most everything off except the RAM. S4 is off with the hiberfil.sys file. See wikipedia for more info.

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Wow. That’s bizarre. My understanding of the whole sleep/hibernation thing has been turned on its head! I could’ve sworn that hibernation powered off the computer and left a file that returned Windows to its last state when the computer was next powered on. I can’t for the life of me understand how WMC, or anything else, could turn your computer on. Maybe you have hybrid sleep set? That does a combination of sleep and hibernate that is basically used to get your computer restored if it locks up while asleep. It writes the normal sleep stuff to RAM and also the hibernation file (hiberfil.sys). Standby is also called S3 while hibernate is called S4. S3 is a low power state with most everything off except the RAM. S4 is off with the hiberfil.sys file. See wikipedia for more info.

Well I just confirmed that my computer will also wake from hibernate to record – proving once again that computers are a complete mystery to me. The only thing I will say is that waking up from hibernate takes a lot longer than the instant wakeup from sleep mode. I missed the first minute of the show I was recording.

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Well I just confirmed that my computer will also wake from hibernate to record – proving once again that computers are a complete mystery to me. The only thing I will say is that waking up from hibernate takes a lot longer than the instant wakeup from sleep mode. I missed the first minute of the show I was recording.

You can configure WMC to start recording one minute before the scheduled program start time (and stop one minute after the finish time) if you wish but I figure the first minute of a program isn’t worth much anyway.

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I find this conversation quite facinating. Though admit I don’t understand the “jargon”
My small community was changed overr to digital TV. No choices given. I now have a box with a remote sitting on top of my Win 7 64bit pc.
In WMC I have to be on Channel 3. To watch a different channel I HAVE to use the tv remote to change channels by pointing it at the box.
There have been times that I wanted to record. But have had no luck to date. If I use the online guide to change channel I also lose the signal. Chosing a programme in the guide to record without moving from channel 3 has not happened for me yet.

Any one have suggestions for this situation.

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I am grateful to all the people that have sent advice. I will need to try it now. Many thanks.

Chet, I am thinking about extenders also. I am told the N routers are fast enough for DVD but not for Blueray. And Chet, can you confirm that WMC allows one to select which tuner to use, and switch between tuners?

Bryan, I have never been able to get the EPG to work. I must try again.

Regards
Doug
Brisbane

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I can confirm that WMC does NOT allow you to choose which tuner to use – at least, I have never been able to find a way to do so and I have never been able to even find a way to tell which tuner is in use at any given time. I guess I could yank the USB dongle and then by default it would have to use the other one.

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Poking in WMC with two TV Tuners I get this

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk297/Oldbloke49/Scratch/13-03-20107-01-38PM.jpg

So WMC in Win 7 is seeing two tuner cards. Alas, we have had extreme winds in the last few days and I now have no signal ferom my TV aerial. So I can’t keep trying to understand it all

Regards
Doug

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Poking in WMC with two TV Tuners I get this

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk297/Oldbloke49/Scratch/13-03-20107-01-38PM.jpg

So WMC in Win 7 is seeing two tuner cards. Alas, we have had extreme winds in the last few days and I now have no signal ferom my TV aerial. So I can’t keep trying to understand it all

Regards
Doug

I misunderstood your question. Yes, if I go through the manual Setup, I see my two tuners (in my case, they are analog tuners since I select Cable as my signal source). I can elect to use either tuner or both. I have selected both during this setup. Beyond that, I have no control over which of the two tuners are used at any given moment to view or record a program, nor can I tell which is in use.

During the Setup, I also see two additional tuners that WMC says are incompatible with the type of TV signal I am using (analog cable). If I ask for additional information, it tells me the additional tuner names and they are both BDA (digital) tuners such as the ones you are using. These BDA (digital) tuners are only compatible with clear digital signals such as you get off-air. In North America, most cable companies are required to carry certain local “off-air” stations as part of their “Basic” cable package. Since these local stations are now broadcasting in digital (in the US, not in Canada) and the ones in Canada that broadcast in analog but have their signals converted to digital by the cable companies (to be delivered to Digital Cable Subscribers), the cable companies are required to carry these signals as clear digital not requiring a digital decoder for viewing. They would (for example) be viewable by any standard digital TV set either off the air or within a “Basic” digital cable service. Cable companies don’t make a point of telling customers that.

Since most digital cable subscribers select something more than the Basic service, they require a box that decodes the signal. In some cases, the actual TV may be equipped with a card slot into which the cable company can insert a card that performs the function of the set top box.

Because if this requirement for a decoder box in order to subscribe to digital cable, I have elected to stay with analog cable service. The downside is that I cannot get any HD broadcasts nor can I get some of the speciality services such movies-on-demand, instant replay, time shifting, PVR, etc. But I get most of those with the facilities of WMC and WMC doesn’t cost anything. Eventually, the cable companies will discontinue their analog service and I will be screwed.

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Thanks, it is a fascinating topic. see
http://thedigitallifestyle.com/cs/blogs/members/archive/2009/05/14/multiple-tuners-windows-7-rc-and-channel-merging.aspx

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In particular
Now you can set the tuner priority by moving your prefered tuner up or down the list.

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In particular
Now you can set the tuner priority by moving your prefered tuner up or down the list.

Thanks. I was unaware that the priority of the tuners could be altered.

As a matter of interest, I have a dual monitor setup and one of the reasons I got a tuner in the first place was to be able to watch TV while I work. I recently purchased a device from Patriot that they call the “Box Office”. I haven’t had time to set it up yet but it is approximately like an extender with a disk drive. I should be able to send ‘stuff’ to the disk drive in the Box Office and then play/watch/listen to it at my main TV/Stereo. It cost around CN$115 without a drive. I happened to have an 80 Gb drive laying around from when I upgraded my laptop to a larger drive.

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