Is there a tuner limit?

rdefino · #1 09-28-2006, 06:22 PM

I have a Sagetv server running Sagetv 5 with a Nvidia dual tuner and 2 fusion gold USB tuners. I added a 3rd fusion USB tuner and had a problem when I went to record. I got a driver error in Sagetv. Not sure why, the tuner should have used the exsiting drivers from the other 2 tuners. When I went now to remove and setup the tuner again, I get no signal on the tuners. Any ideas?

GKusnick · #2 09-28-2006, 06:34 PM

There's no fixed limit on the number of tuners you can have. However USB tuners draw a fair amount of power, so if you're using several of them, don't connect them all directly to your PC. Use a powered external USB hub instead (and make sure it's a USB 2.0 hub).

Also any time you add or remove tuners, be sure to restart Sage (including the service, if you use it) after Windows has finished its device detection and driver installation.

rdefino · #3 09-28-2006, 06:39 PM

I'll give it a shot, thanks.

acrowe · #4 09-29-2006, 08:25 AM

Of course you may also need to make sure the devices are on seperate USB channels/busses. The bandwidth needed to run a tuner is high also.

GKusnick · #5 09-29-2006, 10:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by acrowe

Of course you may also need to make sure the devices are on seperate USB channels/busses. The bandwidth needed to run a tuner is high also.

Not that high. Do the math: three SD tuners recording at 3 GB/hour works out to about 20 Mbit/second. Nominal USB 2.0 bandwidth is 480 Mbit/s. Seems like plenty of headroom to me.

Or to turn it around, that 480 MBit/s works out to over 200 GB/hour. That's enough (in theory) for 10 simultaneous HD recordings.

On the practical side, I've had three HD tuners recording simultaneously on a single USB channel without issues.

skjardel · #6 09-29-2006, 07:54 PM

I think I have the same issue. I've been running 2 Fusion Gold USB Tuners with great success, decided to add a third. Everything appears to configure OK with Windows and Sage. I can use two concurrently but when I go to use the third tuner I receive Sage error message -4,0X800705aa. I tested each separately and they work. I tried spreading them across different USB hubs and still doesn't work. I posted a thread two weeks ago to see if anyone has experienced the same problem and if they were able to find a resolution but I haven't received a response.

I'm currently running SageTV version 5.0.4 w JVM 1.42. My PC is a Pentium 4, 1 GB memory with 3 Fusion Gold USB tuners, one analog tuner, video card is a 6600 PCIe and I'm using nvidia purevideo decoder.

rdefino · #7 09-29-2006, 08:21 PM

That's the same error I get. I tried a powered USB hub, but the HD tuners don't get reconized when they are pluged into it. The usb hub comes up as "generic USB hub" in device manager. Is that correct?

scoful · #8 09-29-2006, 10:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by skjardel

I think I have the same issue. I've been running 2 Fusion Gold USB Tuners with great success, decided to add a third. Everything appears to configure OK with Windows and Sage. I can use two concurrently but when I go to use the third tuner I receive Sage error message -4,0X800705aa.

Perhaps the problem isn't with Sage, but with the drivers. Perhaps they aren't designed to address more than two tuners.

rdefino · #9 09-30-2006, 02:41 PM

Well as soon as the 3rd tuner is accessed, I get the error. I'm not sure if it's a problem from the usb bus or the driver. Any thoughts?

gplasky · #10 09-30-2006, 03:03 PM

Look in the Windows Event viewer and look in the application and system log and see if there are any clues there. And maybe test with the Fusion app to see if you get the same symptoms. I'm not that familiar with Fusion or if they even have an app. At this point without a firm error message either the bus or the driver could be the plausible issue.

Gerry

rdefino · #11 10-01-2006, 06:53 AM

I just spoke with the company that makes the USB tuner, and they say there is no limitation of the driver to how many usb tuners you can use.

They think it has to with the usb power.

I'm going to get a pci usb controller. Now this should pull it's power from the pci bus...right? So, should this resolve the problem..am I right?

Thanks

jominor · #12 10-01-2006, 07:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rdefino

I just spoke with the company that makes the USB tuner, and they say there is no limitation of the driver to how many usb tuners you can use.

They think it has to with the usb power.

I'm going to get a pci usb controller. Now this should pull it's power from the pci bus...right? So, should this resolve the problem..am I right?

Thanks

No. That will still draw power from the board. I have 9 USB2(8 harddrives and 1 USB2 tuner[in addition to my 2 PCI tuners) devices all of which are connected to 3 hubs each with its own power supply.

I wouldn't hook heavy USB devices to the motherboard.

rdefino · #13 10-01-2006, 09:04 AM

I tried using a lisksys powered USB hub. When I connected anything but the usb tuners they wok fine. When I connected the usb tuners to it, they didn't work. The didn't even show up under device manger.

skjardel · #14 10-01-2006, 10:19 AM

I tried the following and still receive the error when trying to use my 3 USB tuners 1) connecting my 3 tuners to a powered USB hub 2) added an additional PCI card and connected them to the card and 3) distributed them between two separate PCI cards. Also tried current beta version of the drivers (v3.5) all with no luck.

GKusnick · #15 10-01-2006, 11:44 AM

Are you sure the hubs you guys are using support USB 2.0? Many inexpensive hubs are USB 1.1 only, meant for low-speed devices like mice and keyboards. High-speed devices like TV tuners won't work on those low-speed hubs. If your tuners aren't showing up at all in Device Manager, you've probably got the wrong kind of hub.

rdefino · #16 10-01-2006, 02:28 PM

Yup, tried 2 different 2.0 hubs and also a PCI 2.0 USB card. Still not working. I'm out of ideas.

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