HDHomerun and PVR 500 combo

[marvinpandroid]

I recently put together this PVR system:

Athlon64 3800
ABit UL8 motherboard
2 GB Crucial RAM
ATI Radeon All-in-Wonder 9700 Pro (just for display--not being used as a tuner)
20 GB ATA/133 IDE drive (system)
320 GB SATA drive (recordings)
SoundBlaster Live! Platinum
Sony DRU-820A DVD burner
Hauppauge WinTV PVR-500
HDHomeRun network tuner
ATI Remote Wonder Plus USB (RF)
Windows XP Pro SP2

The issue I'm having with SageTV is that I haven't been able to find a way to switch between the different tuners when I'm watching live TV.

I bought the PVR 500 because I like the option of dual NTSC tuners. Most of the TV I watch is on basic cable, like Food Network, Travel Channel, Discovery, Comedy Central and Cartoon Network, all of which work perfectly with the tuner and SageTV.

I bought the HDHomeRun because I wanted to view and record whatever unencrypted HD channels Comcast provides in my area. The HDHR QAM seems to be able to get most of the local networks and their HD channels, plus a few bonus movie and audio channels that I can't receive at all with the Hauppauge.

I want to be able to easily switch between these tuners when I'm watching TV. Sometimes I want to watch HD, and sometimes not.

The only reference I can find to switching tuners for live TV is a forum post about changing a config file to assign a higher priority to a different tuner. This doesn't sound quick and easy.

I've read through the user's manual, I've googled for answers, and I've looked through these and the HDHR forums, and I cannot find a good answer.

I am currently using the trial version of SageTV, so I'd love to get this issue resolved before I decide whether or not to buy.

Thanks to anyone who can help.

MPA

[clmolnar]

I currently use a HDHomeRun and a PVR-500 as well.

I don't actually understand what you mean though. As long as you are using different lineups for the HDHomeRun and the PVR-500, you should be able to easily distinguish between your digital and analog channels by their channel numbers and names.

Are you using the same lineup for both tuners? In this case SageTV will try to tune with a digital tuner first, when a digital tuner is not available, it will use an analog tuner.

Conversely, I had a weird case back in Toledo, OH where the digital channel had the same name as the analog channel. The numbers were different, but the names were the same. Sage treated these as the same source, so always tried to tune with my HDHomeRun even when a tried to view the lower channel number (analog) from my guide. However I am now in MA with Comcast Cable, and all of my digital channels are named differently from their analog counterparts.

Hopefully this helps!

[Polypro]

The 500 should be using the "Basic" or "Extended Basic" (whatever you're paying for) lineup...usually channels 2-~80. The HDHR should be using the "Digital Cable, Mac Daddy, Top Dog" lineup with just the HD channels you can get via QAM, selected (they will probably have virtual channel numbers in the xhundreds). Remap to the physical number you get from the QAM scan. For instance, I have ABC on channel 7 (PVR500, Basic Cable Lineup)...and ABC-HD on Channel 220 (HDHR, Digital Lineup, Re-Mapped to 83-6).

P

[marvinpandroid]

I think I understand what both of you are saying. When I'm flipping through channels, SageTV should know (based on the lineup data I've provided to it) which tuner to use to show me the channel I've selected.

So I need to go through the two different lineups to weed out the ones that each respective tuner can't provide, and when I'm watching live TV I'll see all of the channels I've selected, making the tuner selection transparent to me.

Yes?

Thank you! I'll start working on my channels now!

MPA