For those interested in using two different types of tuners, I have documented a hack that has worked for my configuration. This setup allows you to use a direct connection and STB connection within MCE. It also outlines how to setup default Recording and Watch settings for these tuners.



IMPORTANT NOTE: You must use a configuration that uses the same EPG (Guide) for both tuners as MCE supports only one guide. If this is not available, you alternatively can use just one program guide. For scheduled recording on the second tuner, the channel will be incorrect. Live TV in this scenario will display incorrect information as well on the second tuner.




Post an update to this post if it works.


Regards,

Jon


INSTRUCTIONS:
"Dual Tuner Hacks:  using and controlling different sources"



PROCEED WITH CAUTION:  This process involves registry editing.  Feel free to contact me with any questions or clarifications at 2004@seacoasttechpartners.com.  I will update this post with additions/changes to this process.   This configuration works for both two separate TV Tuner cards or a single dual tuner TV card.  I have successfully tested this with the NVTV dual tuner card and with two Wintv 150mce cards.





||     PREP     ||

-  Close MCE.
-  Backup current registry.
-  Backup Media Center branch via export routine:  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center







||     PROCESS FOR TWO SEPERATE TV TUNER CARDS     ||


TWO TV CARDS:  If using a dual tuner card, skip this step.  The process will be to setup the first card with no STB and record the registry settings for this configuration.  Then you will delete these registry settings and re-setup MCE to use the STB configuration.  Then you will merge the two sets of registry settings, and configure your Record and Watch preferences.


STEP 1:  SETUP CARD 1 AS DIRECT CONNECTION  (no STB)

-  Disable the unused TV Tuner card.  In Device manager, disable the card you intend to connect to the STB.   Do not reboot at this time.
-  Close MCE.
-  Delete the following registry key branch: 
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Service\Video\Tuners
-  Reboot PC.

-  Setup Media Center Again from within settings - General - Media Center Setup
-  choose Manual TV Signal Setup

** For first iteration, choose NO STB and only ONE tuner.  This will setup the tuner signal as if direct connection.  We will save these settings.

-  Select the appropriate service providers on next screen.  Let MCE setup guide.
-  Verify that the direct connection is complete via live tv.


-  Close MCE and open registry.
-  Within the Tuners branch (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Service\Video\Tuners) there will be listed a hierarchy of tuners:

1)    - {xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxx...}  =  MCE TV Tuner Space
2)        -  {xxxxxx-xxxx-.....}   = First TV Tuner
3)            + TuneRequest
4)            + UserSettings
5)    + DVR


-  Export Branch for the First TV Tuner in line 2.  (File, Export with line 2 selected).  Save the file with a name like "first card - no stb.reg"


STEP 2:  SETUP CARD 2 AS STB.

-  If open, close MCE.
-  Delete the following registry key branch again: 
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Service\Video\Tuners
-  Close the registry.
-  In Device Manager, disable direct card and enable STB card.
-  Reboot.

-  Open MCE and go to Settings, TV, Set Up TV Signal.
-  Choose to manually configure signal.
-  Choose Yes this time on the "Do you have STB" screen.
-  MCE will scan for a signal.  If it does not find a signal correctly, choose the signal yourself from the list (channel 2-4, SVideo1/2, etc.). 

-  Next, go through the remote control setup procedure.  This part can be tricky.  You should already understand how to setup the STB remote settings before this procedure.  If you do not already know this and cannot get past this step, I suggest restarting the procedure and attempt to setup a STB one-card only configuration to determine the remote control setup steps.
-  Make sure both IR control cables are plugged into back of IR Receiver and appropriately adhered to the STB.  You will test with both plugs first and remove the unused plug later in the process.  On the "Test Channel Changing" screen, you may have to click the "Try next IR control cable" button to get the channel changing to work.  Once it is working, proceed to next step.

-  Close MCE and open the registry.
-  Export the Second TV Tuner as in the STEP 1 process.  Save the file with a name like "second card - stb.reg"
-  Close the registry.

-  Import the first TV card tuner settings by double-clicking the firsttvcard.reg file that was saved.
-  In Device Manager, enable the first TV Card.
-  Reboot.
....SKIP THE NEXT SECTION




||     PROCESS FOR ONE DUAL TV TUNER CARD     ||


For a single TV Dual Tuner card setup, your steps are nearly identical to the steps in the above process except:

1.  Do not worry about disabling/enabling TV cards through Device Manager.
2.  It is important that you setup the no-STB configuration first before the STB configuration.
3.  During the Scanning for Signal process, make sure you select the appropriate signal manually from the list matching the current card configuration.  That is, MCE may assume you want to use the S-Video1 signal when in fact you are trying to use the Channel 2 as a direct connection.






||     CONFIGURE YOUR WATCH AND RECORD PREFERENCES     ||

There are four keys within the Media Center branch pertaining to Watch and Recording preferences:


RecordOrder            =  Order of Tuners for recording scheduled shows,  sequential number starting with 0
RecordPreferred        =  Not sure how this differs from above key.    Flag field,  True or False.
WatchOrder            =  Order of Tuners for watching show when Live TV is started,  sequential number starting with 0
WatchPreferred        =  Not sure how this differs from above key.    Flag field,  True or False


Here is a view of the Tuners branch after you have successfully merged the no-STB and STB reg files:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Service\Video\Tuners
1)    - {xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxx...}  =  MCE TV Tuner Space
2)        -  {xxxxxx-xxxx-.....}   = First TV Tuner
3)            + TuneRequest
4)            + UserSettings
5)        -  {xxxxxx-xxxx-.....}   = Second TV Tuner
6)            + TuneRequest
7)            + UserSettings
8)    + DVR


You will know what Tuner branch pertains to STB because the UserSettings keys for that Tuner Branch will contain a STBCode key.  My recommended configuration is:

--  Direct no-STB TV Tuner should be first choice for viewing, second choice for recording. 
--  The STB Tuner should  be second choice for viewing, first choice for recording.

I have a few reasons behind this recommendation:
>>  First, if you have the STB as the first for Recording, all your scheduled shows should get recorded on all your covered channels.  For example, If you schedule a recording for channel 438 and the no-STB tuner is set as the record preferred, the show will not record as the direct connection supports only up to 125 channels.
>>  Second, if you set the direct connection as the watch preferred, you will not have to deal with the "channel changing lag time" that is so annoying with the STB IR control cable configuration. 


To match this configuration, make the following changes to the settings in the UserSettings keys:

noSTB UserSettings:

RecordOrder            =  hexadecimal 1
RecordPreferred        =  hexadecimal 0
WatchOrder            =  hexadecimal 0
WatchPreferred        =  hexadecimal ffffff


STB UserSettings:

RecordOrder            =  0
RecordPreferred        =  hexadecimal ffffff
WatchOrder            =  1
WatchPreferred        =  0


Note that these settings seem to apply only to scheduled recordings and when first launching MCE.  At times when watching Live TV, you may see that MCE chooses to utilize a tuner that is not your preferred tuner.  To work around this caveat, you must either:  A) hit record to "preoccupy" the current tuner and then switch the channel to utilize the desire tuner; or, B) close and restart MCE.





||     FINAL STEPS     ||

-  Test to see if both tuners are working.  Record any live channel.  Then change the channel.  If this set up process worked correctly, you will see one tuner using direct feed and another using STB.
-  If working correctly, save a backup export of the MediaCenter Branch to restore later if necessary.
-  You may now test to determine which IR control cable is being used with your STB and remove the other from the IR Receiver and STB.

Thanks for posting this.  I will give it a try.  Hopefully this will be the fix I have been waiting on.

Nicely done!  I'm looking forward to trying this out over the holiday weekends coming.  It seems as if I'll now be able to use my "digital cable" STB to tune all of the analog channels I pay for. 

Now, to complete the miracle, perhaps your registry hacking skills can help those of us with QAM256 cable HD content that we can tune with the Fusion III-T ATSC card from Dvico.  No STB is used for this, as the FCC has mandated the unencrypted carriage of local broadcast stations' digital signals on cable.  The Fusion III-T card is the only one that I know of that can reliably tune QAM256 channels, but Microsoft will not work with the QAM tuning function.

As you know, MCE currently can only handle Over The Air digital signals, and it will only use channel numbers below 99 for that purpose.  More and more, cable MSOs typically place the unencrypted QAM256 ATSC signals in the 100+ range, such as 103.1 (using the subcarriers found with ATSC signals).

I would be willing to help you by pulling any files you need.  You might even be able to get the undying gratitude of Dvico, if they had a firm enough understanding of the English language to convey it to you.

Great job Jon.  I can confirm that this does in fact work.  I just got through setting mine up.  Now if someone smarter the me can expand on this and get it so that we can switch tuners on the fly with a plug in or something.  The only real problem I see, and I have not tested this yet (my wife and daughter have reclaimed the TV), is if you are watching TV using the non-STB card and you want to watch something on channel 158.  I do not believe that you will be able to get to that channel.  Correct me if I am wrong Jon.  I will give it a try later.  If someone could make a plug in that would allow us to switch tuners on the fly, I believe all of the problems would be solved.  Any takers?

If you are using the non-STP and want to view channels above the direct input range, say channel 158 as in your example, you just need to "preoccupy" the no-STB tuner by recording any show. Then change to channel to 158 and you will be using the STB tuner.


So just hit record, then change to the channel of your choice.


JC

This is my first post here on the forum, but I got a lot of tips already ...

My Haupauge 500 arrived 2 days ago and I have the same problem here. I could only setup the Digital Cable and no the analog coax ...

I will give your way a try (when the TV is available again) and let you know the results ...

 

Thanks,

Rick

John,

 

I have got the Haupauge WintV-PVR-500MCE dual tuner card and have tried your setup without any luck.
I first installed the whole (according to your instructions) as if its a dual tuner card (so no disabling).

After finishing the setup and restarting the pc, you will get an error when you want to watch live tv.
Update:
Its reporting after enabling both tuners (via the reg import) somelike that my country selection is not compatible :crying.

I'm in holland, but I dont think that should matter ...

I've also tried the setup as if I have 2 seperate tuner (so with disabling of the cards). This was giving me the same results ...

I've still got the registry files of both tries. Please let me know if you can use those to see whats going wrong?
I would appreciate any help ...
btw, i want to use one tuner for analog cable and the other tuner for digital cable (with stb)...

Luckely I made a system state backup

Did anyone tried this with the Hauppauge 500mce?

Rick

i tried the hack and it works flawlessly in my setup. i have 2 Hauppauge PVR-250MCE. i got it the second time(I should have disabled my HDTV Tuner first).now I have 2 SDTV Tuners w/direct cable and a STB and an OTA HD tuner.cant be much happier.thanks jon for sharing this hack!

I did get this working with the nVidia dual tuner card, so it should work for the 500MCE. Here are some ideas:

1. delete the tuners branch from the registry. Then restart and rerun the MCE setup from the beginning (not just the TV Signal setup, but the MCE setup). During this setup, do not configure the TV Signal. Then restart and run through instructions again.

2. With the dual tuner card, make sure that you select the correct signals for card. Also, try setting up as a dual tuner direct connection first and save each of the tuner branches into seperate reg files. You can then test by combining each of these reg files with the STB reg files to see which tuner settings work correctly.

3. If these two steps don't work for you, try setting up the STB configation first.


Good luck and post an update.


Jon

Jon,

Thanks for the help. I will try the various options when I have some time (and the when the tv is not being used ...).
I will post an update soon and I appreciate your help ...

Rick

Update:
Jon, its working now. First the tuner with the STB and then add the analog one did the trick.
Thanks

I have one other question though.
I'm pretty new with MCE and I was wondering how to do it with the guide.
I'm located in the Netherlands and I have 5 guides here:
General analog
General Digital
Multikabel Digital
Multikabel Digital (Extra)
Multikabel analog

For the STB I normally use Digital (Extra), that gives me about everything.
For the analog cable I normally use Multikabel analog.

What should I configure when using both? I was getting real strange results when I was using the analog with both tuners configured, ie analog was working correctly, but the STB was changing channels completly wrong ...

Thanks again for the help,

Rick

Jon,

I am a real newbie to MCE.  I think your forum/how-to guide has some good points of reference for me, but I am not sure.  Here is my situation:

I just built a MCE box with the components listed below in my forum signature.  I basically was hoping to watch cable and HDTV (OTA).  I just realized though that my roommate had installed (Comcast) digital cable, and I now need to hook up some kind of STB from Comcast.  So I have the Avermedia analog card and the ATI HD Wonder (dual tuner).

Here are my questions: A) Do I even need the Avermedia analog card, and

B) Is there anything else I need?

I thought I would hook up the STB to the Avermedia, and the HD antenna to the AT HD Wonder, but now I don't know.  Please excuse my simplistic understanding (or lack there of).

---

Sasha
________________________________

Windows MCE 2005
Antec Aria (micro-ATX) case
MSI K8T800 K8TM-ILSR motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 3200+
1GB DDR PC-3200
Hitachi 250GB SATA hard drive
ATI Radeon 9600se
ATI HD Wonder
Avermedia UltraTV 1500 MCE (analog tuner)
Netgear 108 Mbps Wireless PCI Adapter

My computer Dual Tuner works fine except when I am trying to watch Live TV then I recive an error and my Video Processor unit crashes. Would this setup help me fix that problem?

---

---

AMD XP 3000 Asus

A7N8X-E Deluxe

1.0 gig PC 2700

WinTV 500 MCE PVR

8xDVDRW

 

Have you tried setting it up in a single tuner only scenario? This needs to be working before using this hack.

Jon

I had a Hauppauge 250MCE PVR before the 500 MCE PVR and it worked fine..

---

---

AMD XP 3000 Asus

A7N8X-E Deluxe

1.0 gig PC 2700

WinTV 500 MCE PVR

8xDVDRW

 

Actually, have you attempted to setup the 500 as a single tuner?