Using Two HDHomeRuns for OTA recordings?

[steingra]

I currently have one HDHomeRun setup and working with my SageTV server version 6.3. It is hooked up to an OTA antenna for my local HD channels.

I am wondering if anyone has setup two of these to work with Sagetv. What I am thinking about doing (since my local HDTV signals come from two oppisite directions) is to purchase a second HDTV antenna to point the other way in the sky, and then hook it up to a second HDHomeRun. Then I can watch and record all local HD channels clearly. I want to record two HD shows at the same time from these different channels.

So I am wondering how SageTV might handle that situation, specifically the Program Guide. Since I would typically think I would set it up the same way as the first one. I am thinking there will be problems with the program guide, since both of them would be using same information.

Any thoughts on this situation?

Thank you !

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by steingra

I currently have one HDHomeRun setup and working with my SageTV server version 6.3. It is hooked up to an OTA antenna for my local HD channels.

I am wondering if anyone has setup two of these to work with Sagetv. What I am thinking about doing (since my local HDTV signals come from two oppisite directions) is to purchase a second HDTV antenna to point the other way in the sky, and then hook it up to a second HDHomeRun. Then I can watch and record all local HD channels clearly. I want to record two HD shows at the same time from these different channels.

So I am wondering how SageTV might handle that situation, specifically the Program Guide. Since I would typically think I would set it up the same way as the first one. I am thinking there will be problems with the program guide, since both of them would be using same information.

Any thoughts on this situation?

Thank you !

The new Beta's allow you to use the same lineup of channels but allow you to choose different channels to be set as active so that is taken care of and I know several people use multiple HDHomeruns. I only use one, but there are those with 2. You should be good to go.

[gjvrieze]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

The new Beta's allow you to use the same lineup of channels but allow you to choose different channels to be set as active so that is taken care of and I know several people use multiple HDHomeruns. I only use one, but there are those with 2. You should be good to go.

Yup, I have 2 running Clear QAM but with the new beta, I do not think it will be an issue....

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

The new Beta's allow you to use the same lineup of channels but allow you to choose different channels to be set as active so that is taken care of

Just so you know: technically, the tuners aren't using the same lineup if you are enabling different channels for each tuner. If they are using teh same lineup, the will share the enabled channel selection.

When configuring a tuner, v6.4.5 has an option to copy a lineup to a separately configurable lineup, or the HDHR setup in SageTV has a special ability to choose no lineup & have it match channels that are already available via another tuner's lineup.

- Andy

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Just so you know: technically, the tuners aren't using the same lineup if you are enabling different channels for each tuner. If they are using teh same lineup, the will share the enabled channel selection.

When configuring a tuner, v6.4.5 has an option to copy a lineup to a separately configurable lineup, or the HDHR setup in SageTV has a special ability to choose no lineup & have it match channels that are already available via another tuner's lineup.

- Andy

Thank you for clarifying Andy.

[pjpjpjpj]

steingra,

I have two HDHomeruns, with this exact same scenario. I have one antenna pointing north and another pointing south, each connected to an individual HDHR (two tuners each). The difference (maybe? …not sure about your set up) is that my north antenna gets one city, and the south antenna gets another, so I have each HDHR on different EPGs.... but as you will see below, I could have them all on the same EPG, so this doesn't really matter.

Both cities’ EPGs contain the other city’s stations. But they are named differently (one, for example, will be “WXXXDT2” and the other “WXXX – DT2”). So if I leave every channel enabled, I get duplicates of every station in my EPG, which I find very annoying. And, since I now use very “directional” antennas, they do not receive the other city very well anyway.

So I disabled the “south city channels” from the north tuner channel setup, and vice versa. That means I can only get the north city stations in two tuners (one antenna), and the south city stations in two tuners (the other antenna). Doing that worried me at first, but…

Since this is OTA (and there aren’t exactly 500 stations to choose from), there are only a few channels in one city only – “exclusive to one antenna”, if you will – that are not available in the other city. In other words, much of what I watch is on ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox… so I can get that from either city’s affiliate. The only channels where I am limited to two of my four tuners are the PBS channels, “MyTV”, or watching “local” broadcasts (like news). And we don’t watch/record enough of those to have caused a conflict yet (in the 5 months I have been in this setup).

So I prioritized my tuners, where the south city (a bit closer) is priority 4 and 3, and the north city is 2 and 1. And every show that I set up as a favorite that is on a “major” network (and available on both cities' affiliates) is set up to be able to record on both affiliate stations – that has been the key.

My concern when doing that was that the tuner priority, and show “favorites” priority, would cause a conflict – but Sage is smart enough to figure that out. For example, say I have three shows set to record at the same time. One, my #1 favorite, is available in both cities (NBC, for example), but would prioritize to the south city affiliate by tuner priority. The other two are only available on the south city PBS station. Even though Sage has the south city tuners (two of them) prioritized first, and the “#1 favorite” prioritized over the PBS shows, if it sees that the two PBS shows can only be recorded on the two south city tuners, but that the #1” show could be on either city antenna, it will bump that “#1” show (on NBC) to the other city’s affiliate.

Hope that answers a few questions, or at least makes your decision a little easier.