Handling cable lineups with both digital and analog content

[dalleyg]

I have a Hauppauge PVR-500MCE (PCI dual analog tuner) and an SiliconDust HDHomeRun (ethernet dual digital tuner). My cable provider serves some channels in analog (NTSC) and a few in digital format (clear QAM256). Sage seems to assume that the entire lineup must be either digital *or* analog...

If I configure Sage to only use the 500MCE, the downloaded lineup contains both analog and digital channels. I can disable the digital channels and see the analog ones fine. Naturally, only analog channels show up in the program guide.

If I then add the HDHomeRun (I'll call it HDHR from here on) and select the channel lineup, the lineup that appears has the channel selections I made for the 500MCE. This happens whether I tell sage to reuse an existing lineup or if I repeat the whole lineup selection process. If I invert my selections to pick only the digital channels, only the digital channels show up in the program guide. I can watch digital channels this way (but no analog ones since disabling them in the HDHR's setup disables them for the 500MCE too).

If I then go back to the channel setup for the analog 500MCE card and enable a channel and then attempt to watch it, I get "no signal" errors, suggesting that the digital tuner is trying to tune the analog channel.

If I remove the 500MCE from the sources list then add it back, I get choppy playback for analog channels (~1fps with most of the screen being green and audio constantly cutting out). The digital channels now cannot be tuned. To get rid of the analog choppiness, I have to reboot (or at least that's the only thing I've found that works--quitting sage and killing the server, then restarting sage doesn't do it). The choppiness is not a display problem--the recorded videos have the same artifacts.

I'm using 64-bit Vista Ultimate.

Does anyone know how I can get Sage to let me use an analog tuner and an HDHR at the same time when both are using the same feed?

[Opus4]

The enabled/disabled channels are shared by any tuners using the same lineup, so you would have to assign different lineups to the two tuners in order for them to use seaprate lists of enabled channels. There may be multiple lineup choices for your provider listed during source setup. You could choose another lineup for one of the tuners, then remap any channels that either are aren't available on that lineup or are listed as a different channel number.

- Andy

[dalleyg]

Originally Posted by Opus4

The enabled/disabled channels are shared by any tuners using the same lineup, so you would have to assign different lineups to the two tuners in order for them to use seaprate lists of enabled channels. There may be multiple lineup choices for your provider listed during source setup. You could choose another lineup for one of the tuners, then remap any channels that either are aren't available on that lineup or are listed as a different channel number.
- Andy

My provider has only a single entry in the provider list. They do have two lineup listings, called basic and extended basic. These two lineups are in reality identical (they canceled the fees and benefits of the extended plan in January), and when I tried to have one tuner use each lineup, I get the same problems.

This seems to me to be a common problem (now that the admins have graciously moved this topic to the right forum). It would be really nice for Sage to provide a mechanism to assign different channels to different tuners when they are using the same lineup. With the changeover to all digital broadcast, I expect a lot more people will have combo tuners and will be running into this issue, at least in the US.

[Opus4]

Since there aren't any other lineups for your provider, perhaps try using a completely different provider/lineup for the tuner with the least number of usable channels. Then, disable all the channels on that fake lineup & use the Remap option to remap the real stations -- you will be able to choose stations available on any lineup during this remap operation.

Other than that, I'll let someone else with an HDHomeRun offer further suggestions, since I don't use one of those tuners.

- Andy

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Since there aren't any other lineups for your provider, perhaps try using a completely different provider/lineup for the tuner with the least number of usable channels. Then, disable all the channels on that fake lineup & use the Remap option to remap the real stations -- you will be able to choose stations available on any lineup during this remap operation.

Yup, that is what most of us that are using HDHRs are doing. I run 3 separate lineups from 2 different cities right now, one for my analog tuners, one for my FW'ed STB, and the third for the HDHR. All are fed by the same source, but the available channels for each require the 3 different lineup.

[dalleyg]

Originally Posted by ke6guj

Yup, that is what most of us that are using HDHRs are doing. I run 3 separate lineups from 2 different cities right now, one for my analog tuners, one for my FW'ed STB, and the third for the HDHR. All are fed by the same source, but the available channels for each require the 3 different lineup.

Thanks for all the suggestions. In the end I ended up using the ATSC lineup (even though I'm receiving QAM). At this point, I only lose one channel--one that's exclusive to my real provider.

I hope that a future version/update for Sage makes it so those of us with hybrid/combo tuners don't have to keep jumping through these hoops.

[DRM2PVR]

I seem to be having a similar issue. I have always had my single pvr 250 card as 2 sources, one using the tuner (ch 1 -99) and the other using the svideo to my STB (ch 100-900) - both pointed at the same EPG. My provider was bought out by another which changed the EPG lineup. When I tried to edit my one source to the new EPG , it automatically deleted my other source. It will no longer allow me to add a source to the same card. I think I set this at version 2.0 and have upgraded systematically to 5.0 which has carried these setting with it. How do I restore the dual setup I had before changing it? Thanks!

[Opus4]

A second source for the same encoder needs to use a different channel lineup and have no overlapping channels as the first source on that encoder, or else when you add the 2nd source, the first one will get removed.

If you are doing this & they are still getting removed, I guess you would need to try a fresh properties file or at least one where the source config settings have been removed.

- Andy

[DRM2PVR]

Thanks for the clarification. My previous EPG listings must have been really close to the same names. Thankfully, my area has the EPG broken out into basic and digital with the new service.