[UPDATE: This method doesn't work, leaving the rest of the post so you know you don't need to try it]

How to have up to 4 set top boxes, THIS MIGHT NOT WORK.

Parts to get:

Dual output emitter.  Looks a lot like the irblaster cable that came with the mce remote but has 2 emitters.  1 in the middle, 1 on the end.  If you have a tivo, you have one of these.  You may have gotten them with your stbs or even your tv to control vcrs.  I used 2 from old tivos for this.

Set top boxes: you MUST use 1 of the following: set top boxes that have the option to run side my side with a remote control number.  or 2 different model set top boxes that use different remote control codes.

How to wire:

IR PORT 1 -----> Set top box connected to tuner 1 ---------> Set top box, other brand to tuner 2.

IR PORT 2 -----> Set top box to tuner 3, same brand as 1 ------> Set top box, same brand as 2, tuner 4.

I have not done this with 3 or 4 tuners in the machine yet so here is where I can use scuffs input for where in his instructions to do this.  Having MCE learn 2 different remote controls then reg hacking the stb line so the correct codes are used with the correct ir port and this will work.

The idea is when its time to change the channel on tuner 1, it will send the IR code down ir blaster port 1 with ir codes for remote 1.  box 2 ignores it because its the wrong codes for it.  When its time for 2, it sends the codes down port 1, and tuner 1 ignores it because its the wrong codes.  Same with tuner 3 and 4, just a different port.

The catch 22:  I can't test this yet, but if MCE sends out the remote codes for box 1 and 2, or 3 and 4 or all of them at exactly the same time, it may not change channels for any of them.  After my machine is done recording shows tonight, i will test this with a 2 stb setup using 1 ir cable.

UPDATE: I changed 1 of my stbs to get codes for both tuners.  I figured if it back to back changed channels correctly for the 2 shows that were about to record, then it was fine.  It didn't.  but it didn't break either, looks like the ir reciever took the last command it got to change and used that successfully

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Bryan Socha
Media Center MVP

Im going to kingdom of heaven now, but to try this idea out...

just use a 3 way splitter off a cablebox and 1 emitter if it works theoretically it will work with differnt boxes.

Ill explain later if that didnt make sense.

Im buying another remote tommorow just to see what happens when I plug them both in.

 

I love my rig now that I have added the Happauge PVR150 NTSC tuner and the ATI ATSC tuner. Installed the MCE drivers and went into TV setup and it worked like a charm, so 2 analog and one 1 HDTV is plenty for me to watch or record!

I guess if I added a dual NTSC card in it might be even better!

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Gateway MCE 820GM, 1G RAM, added ATI HDTV, and Hap

I moved around some equipment and tried the dual ir emitter thing again with 2 different stbs today and it works fine.  My initial test may have changed the channels too fast for a single stb to show the channel changed twice.  I'm going to let it run for a couple more days to make sure it doesn't mess up before recommending it to anyone.

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Bryan Socha
Media Center MVP

My roomate started recording stuff while I was out buying another USB remote, but its installed now and I am going to start testing as soon as the recordings finish.

Here is my plan.

I only have 1 STB so I am going to fake 2

I will split the coax output into 2, and use the RCA for the last one.  All three will change the channel on the STB but MCE is stupid that way and doesnt care.  If I can change the channel on 3 different cards then it will work, although I may need to do some hacking /shrug.  I am going to have to set them up 1 at a time but I "think" that I have the IR ports figured out.  If I am right this wont be all that hard.....

ok starting the work in 10 minutes

 

Just wanted to report a successful hack... Tried this with 3 Twinhain Visionplus cards for DVB-T in Australia (ran out of PCI slots so couldnt go the hog to 4 or more....)

So, if there are doubters - yes it works in Australia, yes it works with DVB-T cards, yes I LOVE IT...

 

If interested visit the Australian XP Mediacenter community at: http://www.xpmediacentre.com.au/ and you can read about my success at http://www.xpmediacentre.com.au/community/showthread.php?t=1201

 

Thanks guys - keep those great finds comming !!!!!

 

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Impact

I so hate IR emitters

I just friggin hate them, 5 hours wasted, Microsoft doesnt want us doing this.  It really looks like we have to use 2 differnt boxes to use 4 STBs

Bummer,

This really kills the idea of having a single media server to suppor the entire house. I was really looking forward to having 4 DTV STB's connected to my mce and adding a couple extenders.

MCE is by far the best DVR out, bar none. However, if they would fully support up to 4 STB's and provide HDTV support from a STB I would be completly satisfied.

With luck maybe the next release of mce will provide this type of support.

terry

Scuffs what exactly did you try?  So far my dual output emitter on 1 port seems to be working for my 2 tuner test setup.   Its using a d10 and some lame rca hd stb for the 2 different stbs.

I also have a machine initially working with 4 tuners.  my cable install was delayed until today so it hasn't been running that long.  I installed this a little different that your hack, I just enabled and fixed up the tuning spaces for the cards that mce didn't install on its own.   I also have the qam project going on but haven't started that yet (I forgot a computer at work and the only spare I have left is a pci-express only setup).

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Bryan Socha
Media Center MVP

I split the output from a STB into 2 coax lines and sent them into 2 cards, I disabled the second tuner on the dual card set up the 2 tuners using 1 usb emitter.  I then disabled both of those and the USB emitter and plugged in another USB emitter, enabled the 2nd tuner on the dual card and set it up.

Then I renabled everything and reimported the registry setting and... well everything got ****ed up.

the 2 USB recievers just really hate each other.

 

oh ok!  you actually had 2 recievers plugged in.  thats what I was missing from your description.

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Bryan Socha
Media Center MVP

Are they both the same brand or different. I posted on page 5 that I plugged in 2 different branded receivers (MS & HP) and compared the hardware ID. I see in the registry a list that includes the 2 branded IR receievers I have. Looks like about 12 or more differnet ID numbers. Are there that many different branded IR Recievers with OEMs?

The first one stops recieving commands after plugging in the second. Removing the second and the first starts working again. No reboots in between on this quick test. I do not have any external STB to play with directing the IR out different IR hardwared and ports like you described on page 2.

Does this help or are you guys way past this?

Yeah I read that you said that. I ordered the HP branded and the phillips oem version (not ms branded) in hopes one of them would work. Ultimately, I do not want to run 2 different brand stbs so having 4 outputs would work best. Especially when its $50 an stb for the low end directv units but mixing it up can cost a lot more. I should be getting them in within the next day or two.

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Bryan Socha
Media Center MVP

Wow, you stumbled upon a pretty sweet hack... going to merge my two mce units back into one and just use xbox extenders all routed to the one box.  Thanks man!

My setup is going to look like this

1 A180 Slot 2 = HDTV OTA or QAM if we can force it.

2 NVTV slot 3 = Basic cable Watch 0 Record 4

3 NVTV slot 3 = Basic Cable Watch 1 Record 3

4 NVTV slot 4 = Basic Cable Watch 2 Record 2

5 500 MCE Slot 5 = STB Watch 3 record 1

6 500 MCE Slot 5 =STB Watch 4 Record 0

 

That will give me 5 NTSC tuners with 1 ATSC.  If we ever get QAM working with the A180 then I will swap out the single NVTV in slot 4 for another A180.  For now I am going to use the first tuner on the 500 MCE for basic cable since I only have 1 STB atm and I dont have the cable for the second S-Video.  (The card isnt here yet either but its on its way /shrug)  If someone comes out with a dual Theater 550 card I will proably swap the NVTV Dual card out for it.  The downside to all of this is my board only has 100mb network which means I have to lose my gigabit nic.  But 6 tuners will be worth it.