Separate Lineup for OTA and Cablecard

[SciFiGeek]

I started using EPG123 last week with 1.09 and now have 1.10. There have been trials and tribulations...

On to my current situation...

I have an SD Homerun for OTA with 2 tuners.
I have a Ceton Infinitv PCIe with 6 tuners and cablecard .

Because sometimes there is interference with the broadcast signal and sometimes the Ceton doesn't play nice (I found that a side case fan that puts air directly on it helped), my intention is to record both the OTA and Cablecard version of the broadcast shows so I am not forced to use On Demand in a browser and watch commercials when something goes wrong.

This was a HUGE pain with Media Center and Rovi. It was constantly combining the OTA and the Cable card tuners at weird intervals.

EPG123 has done better in the one week I used it. OTA and Cable are in different lineups... Except for the one vhf channel in my market that I have to add manually. I am in the Cincinnati Ohio area on the KY side of the river. FWIW my Cable data is Time Warner / Spectrum Edgewood KY. The problem channel is 12.1 WKRCDT1. Oddly 12.2 does not get combined (SD only on cable) and I don't think 12.3 is on cable at all. 12.2 is CW so to get HD CW, I need OTA anyway. By combined I mean when I set a CBS series to record such as "The Big Bang Theory", and specify it to only record on 912 and then try to set it to manually record on 12.1 as the first step to setting it up to record the series on 12.1, it won't let me because another airing will be recorded on 912. <Once a series recording is setup for the first channel instance the next channel instance requires three steps to setup, thank you Microsoft. The Steps... Manually record on other channel. Go to advance settings, record entire series. Go back out. Go to series recording (where you just were) now you can setup to record on the one channel that you could not when you were there before because it did not refresh.>

Before EPG 123, I when I had this problem, I would go to 912, the cable version, edit the channel, split each OTA tuner and then find 12.1 and combine those 2. With EPG123, they are already separate in the guide and I am at a complete loss as to how to separate them for recording.

That is it for the subject of my post but wait, there's more...

There doesn't seem to be a way to combine channels in the listings section of edit channels... I have only one tuner assigned to 12.1... because of the old fix, I tried splitting the two 12.1's. Then I couldn't combine them. Then I disabled one... Got annoyed, disabled the next, ran a channel scan, deleted the added 12.1 from the add missing channel section, added it again and it is back with 1, not 2 tuners.

In the midst of this mess I upgraded to 1.10 EPG123. I think this must have initialized media center along the way because I only have 4 tuners seen on the ceton when I spot check channels. - That could also be the channel scan above.

Presently I am facing the reality of starting over with an estimated setup time of 2 hours and the mid season premiere of the TWD is in about 45 minutes as I wrap this up. So I am sunk probably until next Saturday to try to fix it again.

2 Hours... Initialize Mediacenter with EPG123. This kills tuner salad / Ceton driver config - kicking myself for not writing down that registry key when I saw it years ago (that is all it is). So I then have to reinstall the Ceton driver to fix. Ceton driver breaks SD install - it just behaves flakily. So I have to run through SD Homerun setup. Now I can run through the media center live tv setup.... Now I have to login to EPG123 and load my lineups from my previously configured account. Now I have to add 12.1 to media center. Now I have to go run Epg123 to pickup guide information for 12.1. Now I am back where 12.1 and 912 series data is co-mingled and all my tuners are available.

Related issue, when I do finally get my lineup just so, how do I back it up (I think I know) but how do I restore it in media center?
I think the backup is similar to the backup of recordings (series): grab the appropriate folder under "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\ehome\". In ehome there will be one or more folders named "mcepg2-?" under each is a backup folder each containing folders for lineup, recordings and subscriptions. At least for recordings the most recent one out of all the versions of the folder is the current recording config. I expect the same must be true of lineups? If so what I don't know is how to reload the lineup. Being able to reload the lineup on an otherwise working box, should save me two hours of mostly impatient waiting.

[SciFiGeek]

I forgot to mention, Win 7 Pro 64bit.

[garyan2]

I started using EPG123 last week with 1.09 and now have 1.10. There have been trials and tribulations...

On to my current situation...

I have an SD Homerun for OTA with 2 tuners.
I have a Ceton Infinitv PCIe with 6 tuners and cablecard .
...

Just a couple things that might help out in no particular order.

• If you decide to start over (delete ehome), you can leave the epg123 folder alone. No need to redo lineups or anything.
• Restoring the lineups is the same as restoring the recordings. Latest file in "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\ehome\mcepgX-Y\backup\lineup" will restore your tuner channel scans and even the mapped listings. That's how I do the database rebuild from the epg123Client.
• I think an easy way to get your OTA channels back the way they should be would be to go to [settings]->[TV]->[TV Signal]->[Scan for More Channels], select [Delete All] and then [Start Scan].

I'm not sure what you mean by splitting the OTA tuners to record a second instance of a CW series while the first is on cable tuners. But I'll play around here to see if I follow. I have a workbench with both my OTA and a HD PVR.

[garyan2]

I just did this on a test bench ... don't know how, but I have a series record of the same series on both the OTA and the Digital Cable. I have scheduled the same shows to be recorded on the same station on both mediums. This is actually pretty cool.

I believe I did the same thing you did.

I setup a normal series record on the OTA channel only.
I then found an episode of the series on cable and set that episode to record, backed out of settings, went into Record Settings for that same episode, changed frequency to Record Series, and done!

[SciFiGeek]

Okay now disable a OTA channel and manually add it as if Media Center did not detect it. Now run epg123 with automatch on, once complete, try to set up a series recording the same way. My expectation is it will tell you the show is already set to record and will not set up the recording. The Catch-22 for me is that one of the channels is not detected and create this conflict.

[garyan2]

Okay now disable a OTA channel and manually add it as if Media Center did not detect it. Now run epg123 with automatch on, once complete, try to set up a series recording the same way. My expectation is it will tell you the show is already set to record and will not set up the recording. The Catch-22 for me is that one of the channels is not detected and create this conflict.

Was still able to setup a series record of the same series on 2 different channels which will record at the same time.

I think maybe what I am doing different is, for the second series record, I initially set to record an episode. I then modify the episode recording to be a series recording.

[SciFiGeek]

I figured it out... Finally the 2x4 of enlightenment struck me in the head... read on.

No actually I am doing the same thing, as far as I know you HAVE to start with a single episode recording on the second channel.

Earlier in the week I had someone rerun TV setup in the hopes of fixing cablecard tuner... The whole thing went sideways and I had to do a clean setup. For whatever reason 1.09 simply did not update the guide for me. Possibly I have not grasped some nuance of the server / client program setup. This was fortuitous as only in my mind had I backed up the series recordings from a 1.09 install but I definitely have a 1.02 backup.

Now things work mostly the way I expect on 1.02. I have set up several series on my 912/12.1 combination but I am running into the same issue with "Kevin Can Wait". I should clarify something. On the other showing it always says that another airing will record on the other channel. However when I click record, nothing happens. To my chagrin, I could set it up on 7.1 (Dayton, OH CBS). That would risk reception issues from weather as a permanent solution. Possibly related, that shows me a tuner conflict. Hypothesis, it happens when no OTA Tuner would be available to fulfill the request AND Media Center somehow knows it is the same channel already set... So I deleted everything and tried to set it up to series record on 12.1. It let me BUT it actually is planning to record 912. I think we have a winner. There just is no workaround under EPG123 for guide - And the fact is Media center with native guide will wipe the workaround on its own sooner or later anyway. It is just bad pooling of tuners on Microsoft's part. Conclusion, I need another OTA tuner for sanity. Reality tells me the prospect of another antennae / splitter + amplifier may deter me. I did have one more thought. I tried setting the airing on 7.1 to record then change that to series recording on 12.1. No luck, it still sticks to 7.1 for recording. Which brings me to a tip... ALWAYS and I mean ALWAYS set up your series recording on the same channel you intend to limit it to on the series recording. I don't know if it is just this tuner conflict issue but it is a rule I picked up along the way. Now that I have identified this bug, I am sure Microsoft will get right on it... (sarcasm or deluded optimism, take your pick).

There is a new oddity that I file under annoyance. Sometimes when I go to an episode that is set to record and go to other showings, it does not show the episode on the other tuner type / channel. I can still go to the other channel, select it and set the recording through the multiple steps. I may switch to always using the search function instead, so I can see everything in one place.