Adding Tuners

[werds]

So I currently run a system with Ceton InfiniTV4's and was happy with it, but am selling one of them and will be back down to 4 tuners instead of 8. Not a major loss except occasionally there is a need for more than 4 tuners due to our recording and TV watching habits...

I have a handful of ATI HD650 pcie tuners http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6815306006 from when I first put together the HTPC in order to convince my wife that we could ditch the cable box and she would still be happy (the happy medium was the cable box was ditched but the cable was not lol). I was thinking of adding one or two of these HD650's in but was unsure on several parts of the setup.

For one If I was to use a coax run from my Attic attached to an antenna and hooked this up to the HD650, should I then use a diplexer to connect the coax to the digital and analog inputs on the HD650? Or just a waste of time to do so? If and when I get the HD650 connected to a signal properly would I then in turn need to manually edit channels to pass recording and tuning priority to the HD650 tuner whenever recording? Would this end up being a hassle if the signal was OK but suffered due to inclement weather etc? Not sure how bad the signal must get for WMC to attempt handoff to a tuner with better signal (in this case to the Ceton Tuners that wouldnt be as affected by the weather) I am probably missing other stuff but figured I would start with these and modify as responses roll in! Thanks

[barnabas1969]

Here's what I understand from your post: You want to add an OTA (Over The Air) tuner/antenna to your Media Center setup.

The HD650 tuner is a dual combo tuner. That means that one input can handle analog NTSC television signals, and the other input handles digital ATSC/QAM signals. Since the "digital transition", there are no more analog television OTA broadcasts. So there is no point in connecting the NTSC tuner to the antenna.

After you add the tuners and connect them to your antenna, you'll need to run TV Setup in the Media Center settings menu. It will detect all the new OTA channels. Then, you'll probably need to merge channels. For example, in my area, I get my local NBC channel on 2.1 OTA, and 1020 on the CableCARD. In order to take the most advantage of the setup, I merged 2.1 and 1020... and set the OTA tuners as a higher priority.

If your OTA tuner is getting no signal whatsoever, Media Center will automatically try the next tuner in the priority list. However, if you are getting an intermittent signal OTA, Media Center may use the OTA tuner anyway... and you'll be missing parts of your show.

It's funny... there have been several posts today about OTA signals. I recommend going to http://www.tvfool.com, and using their TV Signal Locator to determine the type, size, and placement of your antenna.

[werds]

Here's what I understand from your post: You want to add an OTA (Over The Air) tuner/antenna to your Media Center setup.

The HD650 tuner is a dual combo tuner. That means that one input can handle analog NTSC television signals, and the other input handles digital ATSC/QAM signals. Since the "digital transition", there are no more analog television OTA broadcasts. So there is no point in connecting the NTSC tuner to the antenna.

After you add the tuners and connect them to your antenna, you'll need to run TV Setup in the Media Center settings menu. It will detect all the new OTA channels. Then, you'll probably need to merge channels. For example, in my area, I get my local NBC channel on 2.1 OTA, and 1020 on the CableCARD. In order to take the most advantage of the setup, I merged 2.1 and 1020... and set the OTA tuners as a higher priority.

If your OTA tuner is getting no signal whatsoever, Media Center will automatically try the next tuner in the priority list. However, if you are getting an intermittent signal OTA, Media Center may use the OTA tuner anyway... and you'll be missing parts of your show.

It's funny... there have been several posts today about OTA signals. I recommend going to http://www.tvfool.com, and using their TV Signal Locator to determine the type, size, and placement of your antenna.

Thanks you answered everything I needed to know =) I assume from your response that I will need to manually go into each NEW added channel and merge them and then manually in those channels set the OTA as the higher priority. Seemingly there is no one location to set that tuner as the highest priority then.

[barnabas1969]

Well, there are some registry settings... but they probably won't accomplish what you're trying to do. The order in which you add the tuners can affect the tuner priority. Basically, you can remove the CableCARD tuners, and then manually add the ATSC tuner(s) first (don't let it automatically detect the tuners), and then manually add the CableCARD tuners. This gets it pretty close to what you want, but not 100%.

I always go through the manual process of merging and assigning tuner priority just to make sure that I get it 100% correct.

[werds]

Well got it all done, was mostly painless. Only had to merge about 10 channels that Media center didn't merge itself. It also appears that Media center automatically placed the OTA tuners as the first priority or maybe I just got lucky.

[werds]

So looks like I have more questions! One of which I will wait until I am at home to post a screenshot. The first new question is - why am I not able to see/verify the signal strength information in the Settings menu of WMC for my OTA antennas? I remember prior to using my InfiniTV4 I could find that info in there, but as of last night with 6 tuners attached (2 being OTA) the settings menu where you check Digital Signal strength only displays the 4 Ceton tuners... which is pointless as I can find this information in the Ceton diagnostics tile =/

Am I missing something/ forgetting something?

[barnabas1969]

The signal strength meters for your OTA tuners is there. I don't remember off the top of my head how to get there though.

[werds]

The signal strength meters for your OTA tuners is there. I don't remember off the top of my head how to get there though.

Well I messed around with several configurations. When I remove the Ceton tuner the menu for signal strength shows up and I can see the signals for the ATI tuners. But when I have the Ceton tuner in it only shows those 4 digital tuners and that is all (in the TV signal menu). I can see the "Quality" of the tv signals for the ATI clearqam tuners if I look at each channel individually and check the "sources" but other than that cannot find it. I wonder if this is a limitation of the WMC gui where it does not expect to be able to display more than 4 tuners or defaults to just the Cable Card tuners? Odd, although not a major issue...

[barnabas1969]

I just logged into my HTPC remotely. I can't find the signal meters. I know it's there... I've seen it... and I have 6 CableCARD tuners. It's possible that I can't see them because I'm logged in remotely. Are you doing this through a remote desktop connection, or are you logging in directly on the PC?

[TeddyR]

If you have ATSC signal then it should appear under:

Tasks | TV | TV Signal | Digital TV Antenna Signal Strength

[barnabas1969]

If you have ATSC signal then it should appear under:

Tasks | TV | TV Signal | Digital TV Antenna Signal Strength

Exactly. I tried it when I got home, and it works perfectly. I guess it can't be done from a remote desktop session.

@werds: Have you tried the menus listed by TeddyR using the TV/monitor that is connected directly to the PC?

[werds]

Yep tried that, will post a set of screenshots later this evening so you can see what I am seeing.