Freeview and SKY STB on Windows Media Center

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CYaBro

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#21358 24-Apr-2008 00:48

I have been asked by a friend of a friend to upgrade their HTPC.

They currently have Windows XP MCE with a Hauppauge PVR150 with a SKY Digital decoder attached.
They have got a Freeview STB as well and want to connect this to the HTPC as well.

I am thinking that a Hauppauge PVR500MCE will do the job???
Will Windows Media Center be able to control the two STBs? Will need another iR Flasher of cause :D
Will it know which channels are available on which STB so if they set a recording it will use the correct one?
And then if recording on one STB will you be able to watch or record from the other at the same time?

They are also wanting to upgrade to Vista Home Premium so does that have more support for dual tuners?

Anybody???

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CYaBro

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#126432 26-Apr-2008 09:42

Guess I'm on my own with this then...

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Loftus

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#126714 28-Apr-2008 09:58

There is a limitation in MCE that requires all tuner cards of the same "type" (i.e. Analog or Digital) to have the same channel line up.

I tried to do something similar to what you are proposing, using one of the MCE hacks, but it wasn't sucessful. Now looking into Media portal....

CYaBro

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#126723 28-Apr-2008 10:18

Loftus: There is a limitation in MCE that requires all tuner cards of the same "type" (i.e. Analog or Digital) to have the same channel line up.

I tried to do something similar to what you are proposing, using one of the MCE hacks, but it wasn't sucessful. Now looking into Media portal....

OK, what problems did you have?

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Loftus

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#126877 28-Apr-2008 19:40

My biggest problem is simply that MCE cannot distinguish between the different channels available on each STB. It's not a problem for the common FTA channels, but is an issue with the Sky channels.

Here's an example:
You want to record something on TV3 so MCE start using the Sky STB, then you want to record something on Discovery, so MCE tries to tune the Freeview STB to the discovery channel <sigh>

CYaBro

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#131667 18-May-2008 22:22

OK so I have started building this HTPC.
I did a bit more reading and see that people have got a dual-tuner working with one STB and analogue on the other tuner.
So should be possible with two STBs hopefully.
Will let you know how I get on.
If it doesn't work this way then may look at using a PVR150 and a DVB-S card and follow the instructions in one of the threads on here to get them working together.

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Satch

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#131753 19-May-2008 12:40

CYaBro: If it doesn't work this way then may look at using a PVR150 and a DVB-S card and follow the instructions in one of the threads on here to get them working together.

Best of luck with that. I spent hours and hours and hours trying to get this to work with zero luck. And the guy who put together the instructions and was supporting me just fell off the face of this earth, and hasn't been back to Geekzone for months...

Nety

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#131760 19-May-2008 13:19

Satch:
Best of luck with that. I spent hours and hours and hours trying to get this to work with zero luck. And the guy who put together the instructions and was supporting me just fell off the face of this earth, and hasn't been back to Geekzone for months...

He did somewhat.. ah well never mind. I am just living with Freeview only on the Media centre.

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CYaBro

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#133096 25-May-2008 11:42

Well that idea has been canned.
The friend of the friend has decided that the Freeview decoder will be going in the bedroom so no need to connect it to the HTPC.
So its back to the PVR150 for the SKY decoder.
Just set up the EPG using Bladerunner and the Sky guide data from http://epg.pvr.geek.nz/epg/ - Works great!

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.