Adding a second USB tuner?

[sorethumbs]

I have a dvb-t usb tuner installed, working ok and getting a decent number of channels. If i want to add a 2nd usb tuner what is the correct way of setting it up in media center?
Am i just 'adding' the 2nd tuner and scanning for channels on that or do i have to set both of them as if they are both newly installed.
I seem to be running into trouble where when it says its found 2 tuners i then proceed to scan for channels and i get less channels than i got with the single tuner i had from the start

[StumpyBloke]

Are you splitting the feed when using 2 tuners? If so, sounds like a signal issue to me.

[holidayboy]

You could also try running TV setup with just the second tuner - see how many stations that picks up (assuming the tuners are different models).

Different tuners have different abilities when it comes to dealing with signal levels and the new tuner may be the one that MC decided to scan for channels with.

I had that issue a while back and solved it by moving around the PCIe cards - swapping USB ports might help if that is your issue?....

Failing that, I'd refer you back to my learned friend Stumpybloke

[sorethumbs]

I have a PCTV usb tuner just running off the poxy little aerial, i wasn't expecting it to pick up anything to be honest but it gets 32 channels, quite happy with that until i get my loft aerial sorted. The 2nd tuner i'm trying is some cheap dvb-t tuner i bought years ago (again with stupid little aerial) i just thought i'd see if it worked. It installed ok.
When i scan with just my PCTV i get 32 channels like i said. When i run TV setup with both plugged in it shows 2 tuners and proceeds to scan for channels but only shows 10 channels. Guidetool shows that these 10 channels are on both tuners but picture is rubbish - funnily enough if i record a channel and then move onto another channel that picture is fine. My guess is that the cheap tuner is rubbish and is set as the primary tuner so if i record using the rubbish one, the better tuner then comes into play and picture is fine (as the rubbish one is tied up recording).
I did as you said Rob and just tried the tuner on its own - 10 poor channels. So if i run setup and it finds 2 tuners i can only assume that is setting it up with only those channels that can be tuned on the cheap tuner and ignoring the extra channels the PCTV picks up
I've now ditched the cheap one and gone back to just the good tuner lol

I'll go down the internal pci/pci-e tuners route eventually this is just messing about with usb ones. So just for future reference if i were to have say a Hauppauge and PCTV dvb-t cards installed how does the tuning work? Does media center HAVE to run a channel scan jointly on those cards or can you scan and setup individually? Like you say does media center 'pick' one tuner to do the scan from? So any channels that only the secondary tuner can receive would not be included.

Bit of a waffle sorry

[CyberSimian]

how does the tuning work? Does media center HAVE to run a channel scan jointly on those cards or can you scan and setup individually? Like you say does media center 'pick' one tuner to do the scan from? So any channels that only the secondary tuner can receive would not be included.

I have done a lot of installing/re-installing/re-setting up of tuners recently (albeit mostly on Vista) in order to test various configurations. There is a path though the setup panels that does not require you to rescan when you install an additional tuner of the same type as an existing tuner. If you already have one tuner setup, Media Center uses its existing channel info for the new tuners.

If you decide to start from scratch and do a rescan, MC will choose one tuner from the several that you are setting up, and use that tuner to perform the channel scan; MC does not perform a channel scan using each tuner in turn. This can be an inconvenience in an HTPC that has a mixture of DVB-T tuners and DVB-T2 tuners. If MC picks the DVB-T tuner for the channel scan, the scan will not pick up the high-definition channels (DVB-T2). The solution is to pick a single DVB-T2 tuner when you get to the tuner-selection panel, and use that for the channel scan. When complete, you can then go through setup again and setup the additional tuners, but without performing the channel scan.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

[sorethumbs]

Yes that seems to make sense, i will try that thanks

[sorethumbs]

Right whats the right way exactly - I've installed one tuner, its found that one tuner so i proceed, it downloads guide and then goes to page where it scans for channels. Done
Now i want to plug in my second tuner and just install and have it recognised in media center without rescanning again. The page comes up and says i now have 2 tuners, if i proceed its just going to rescan for channels once more whether i choose to proceed or set up manually

[CyberSimian]

Right whats the right way exactly - I've installed one tuner, its found that one tuner so i proceed, it downloads guide and then goes to page where it scans for channels. Done
Now i want to plug in my second tuner and just install and have it recognised in media center without rescanning again. The page comes up and says i now have 2 tuners, if i proceed its just going to rescan for channels once more whether i choose to proceed or set up manually

There is a path through the setup panels that does not require you to scan twice, since I have done that (albeit on Vista). However, that does not mean that I can remember what I did to encounter it. Instead, you might like to see if the procedure described below will work for you. In this procedure, you plug in all tuners, then in setup you select one tuner to configure; when that is completed, you select the remaining tuners to configure, and then finally you do the one-and-only channel scan (at which point MC will use the first tuner that you configured):

http://www.tbsdtv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=3595

Having re-read the procedure described in the referenced post, it does not seem like the steps that I performed when I setup additional tuners without performing a second channel scan, so there may yet be another way of achieving that result.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

[sorethumbs]

Thats excellent thanks Cyber. I will try that tonight it looks a good method. I think i'd been setting up a tuner + scanning, then going in to add another and it would require scanning again. That link makes more sense (if it works!)
I will let you know

phil