How to handle different channels on multiple tuners?

[drewg]

Hi,

I'm a recent convert.. I have 3 ATSC tuners. My PBS station is in a different direction from the commercial towers, so I have one tuner with a dedicated antenna pointing at PBS. I have 2 other tuners pointed at the tower where all the commercial stations have their transmitters. My old software allowed me to configure my tuners separately. Eg, it would user tuner "a" for PBS, and only PBS. And tuners "b" and "c" for everything else.
Is this possible in Sage? How? It seems to gang everything by the channel lineup.

I tried choosing "Local Broadcast" rather than "Digital Broadcast", and that *sort* of worked. It found all the PBS channels in the guide, but they all tune into the same 4.1 (labeled 59 in the guide) subchannel. I tried remapping the physical channels for the subchannels to 59-1, 59-2, etc. After doing that, nothing tuned at all.

Help.. I need to get Sesame Street recorded from the 4.3 (kids) subchannel

Thanks,

Drew

[GKusnick]

If you receive different channels on different tuners, you need to configure those tuners to use different channel lineups in Sage. Then go through each lineup and disable any channels you can't receive on that tuner. Sage will then know which tuner to use for which channels.

[drewg]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

If you receive different channels on different tuners, you need to configure those tuners to use different channel lineups in Sage. Then go through each lineup and disable any channels you can't receive on that tuner. Sage will then know which tuner to use for which channels.

Can you clarify what you mean by "different channel lineups"? I selected "Raleigh-Durham (Fayetville) - Digital Broadcast" freshly for the tuner a, and I selected it again (rather than "use existing lineup") for "b". When I toggled a channel in "a", the same channel seemed to get toggled in "b".

Could it work differently with a Linux server? What you said above gives me hope that I just screwed something up. I'll try it again when it is done recording tonight's network shows.

Thanks for your help,

Drew

[GKusnick]

Choosing the same lineup again isn't good enough; you need to choose one with a different name, preferably one from a nearby town with the same (or nearly the same) channels as your native lineup. Then you'll be able to configure the enable/disable states separately for the two lineups.

Don't feel bad for being confused. There really ought to be a way to clone a lineup for just this sort of purpose, but there isn't. The best you can do for now is to find another one that's close enough.

[drewg]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

Choosing the same lineup again isn't good enough; you need to choose one with a different name, preferably one from a nearby town with the same (or nearly the same) channels as your native lineup. Then you'll be able to configure the enable/disable states separately for the two lineups.

Ah, OK. I looked up and down for another Digital lineup for my area, but nothing looked promising. That's why I went back and selected "Local Broadcast" rather than "Digital Broadcast" like I mentioned at the beginning of the thread. This lineup has both the analog and digital stations, including my PBS station and all its subchannels. But, like I said above, tuning to any of the subchannels gets the "primary" (59-1, physical or 4-1 logical) subchannel. My lame attempts at remapping led to nothing tuning. Also, it does not have the right logical channel numbers for PBS..

Am I on the right track by using this lineup, and trying to get the tuning to work? (it works fine when using the "Digital" lineup).

Is there a file someplace I can just run vi on to correct the physical/logical channel numbers?

Thanks,

Drew

[drewg]

Originally Posted by drewg

Am I on the right track by using this lineup, and trying to get the tuning to work? (it works fine when using the "Digital" lineup).

I managed to get tuning to work last night after doing both the physical and logical remapping using the "Local" lineup. The physical remapping seems... strange.. to me. Other systems (like my TVs) refer to physical channels as 59-1, 59-2, and logical channels as 4-1, 4-2. It took me a few passes through the manual and looking at what the good (Digital) channel scan provided to get it through my thick skull that Sage wanted 59-4-1 and not 59-1 for the physical channel.

Once I remapped it like that, everything started to work. It would be GREAT if there was some input validation, or a file to edit. Either extreme would be preferable to a menu/dialog box with no hints if you're not formatting things right.

Thanks again for the help,
Drew