HVR 2200 Hybrid setup & Sky

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thesystemera

6 posts

Wannabe Geek

# 31454 18-Mar-2009 11:25

Hey thought you guys might be able to help me out with this one...

Running a HVR 2200 setup with Freeview HD and Sky STB with Scart to S-video output, using my Sky box for all the additional channels and have it IR Blasting and all that lot...

Problem is that MediaPortal treats my S-VHS input as a variable analog input.. Basically, the system does not realize when on a Sky channel, it can not change to another Sky channel...

So if I'm recording CNN for example, the system will let me record Fox News (just an example) but what that will do is change the channel....

I could disable one of the Analog cards but this would limit me to either being able to or not able to record a channel off the sky box while recording Freeview HD...

I have my Hybrids set up correctly, as far as I can tell this is just MP not gettting the fact that the S-VHS input is only one phisical port and not an Antenna that can do Muxing... Thanks Guys..

nzkc

701 posts

Ultimate Geek

# 201921 18-Mar-2009 15:29

OK...couple of things I should point out before I dive into this....
1. I'm running a HVR2200 too - but only use it for Freeview HD
2. I do have a Sky STB set up through MediaPortal but I have this hooked up to a PVR 150.

My best guess is that you have set up the Sky channels on both the Hybrid cards. This would make some sense in that you're saying to MediaPortal use either of the tuners to do the decoding of the S-Video input. Unfortunately I think that MediaPortal is interpreting this as both tuners can be used for the S-Video input at the same time. And that is why when you record one Sky channel but then select another Sky channel to watch that MediaPortal changes channel. It's thinking that you can do this: Record on one tuner and watch on another.

In reality you can only allow one of the tuners to access the S-Video at any point in time. I realise that you dont really care which one it is...but so long as it's just one of them at any point in time.

I think the only way to ensure this would be to set up all the Sky channels to only have access to one of the Hybrid cards. You can still leave Freeview to access both the hybrid cards. I would suggest setting the Sky channels to your second hybrid card - or more accurately to the hybrid card with the lowest priority inputs. That way I would expect (hope?) MediaPortal would use the "first" tuner for Freeview channels first and then give you the option of the second tuner for either a second Freeview channel or Sky channel.

This setup will only allow you to watch and record Sky on one channel. That makes perfect sense as your STP can only output one channel at a time.

So to summarise:
1. Set your Sky channels to the second hybrid tuner only
2. Leave your Freeview channels to both hybrid cards

I'd just like to reiterate that I'm not sure this will work...but it's certainly something I'd try if I were in your situation.

bernardgbailey

150 posts

Master Geek

# 202131 19-Mar-2009 11:00

thesystemera: Hey thought you guys might be able to help me out with this one...

Running a HVR 2200 setup with Freeview HD and Sky STB with Scart to S-video output, using my Sky box for all the additional channels and have it IR Blasting and all that lot...

Hi,

I'm trying to get my HTPC doing what you are suggesting here.

I've managed to get the SkyStar PCI card and MP to record FTA shows, I have a Hauppage PVR 150 to record Sky STB output from the analogue output.

I recently purchased an MCE wireless keyboard and I'm able to partly control MP with the remote that came with it.

As always with technology we find the limits of what we want to really do in about 15 minutes after we have spent weeks implementing the new function :-(

I would like the ability to record two FTA channels at the same time, so I can get past the conflicting channels issue I have when I see two different programmes on across the same time boundaries.

I have however covered part of this by recording one channel on FTA and a second channel off the Sky STB.

This is manually executed and a bit of a pain; and only works if Sky has the same channel as FTA and no-one comes along and changes the sky channel while it is recording :-(.

I want to get better output from the STB into my PVR 150 card. What connections are you using for this?

I also want to control the recording from MP for the PVR-150, (I use WinTV Scheduler for this). How did you do this?

Does your 2200 allow you to record two FTA at the same time for the satellite?

All these questions ...

Anything you can assist with would be great.

Thanks Bernard