[mythtv-users] PVR-500 Dual Tuner

Bruce Markey bjm at lvcm.com
Thu Dec 2 21:15:52 UTC 2004


Brad Templeton wrote:
...
> Of course, I have lived happily on a 1 tuner Tivo before trying to build
> my mythbox which will have two tuners, a pcHDTV and a wintv-150.  I
> sort of feel that a scheduling conflict is god's way of telling me I
> watch too much TV.

God probably didn't tell networks to pit shows that appeal to
the same demographic against each other in order to undermine
the Nielsen ratings of their competitors =).

We tend to get complacent after adapting to resources. In the
early '80s "Compute's Gazette" questioned the need for 64k in
new computers from Commodore and Atari because people wouldn't
type in BASIC programs that large. Having watched TV all our
lives, and even with one VCR or one DVR, we're accustomed to
the idea that we have to decide which one of the things that is
on at 8:00pm Tuesday we most want to watch. However, there may
be four things on at 8pm Tue that I'd prefer over almost anything
else on at any other time of the week. So the advantage of
multiple tuners isn't so you can watch twice as much TV ;-) but
so that you can choose all the titles that you would like to
see regardless of when they are scheduled. The result should be
that during the time you spend looking at the tube, you're more
likely to watch things you'd really like to see and less time on
secondary filler.

Back when I had a single tuner DVR I thought that a second tuner
would solve most of the problems and that's pretty much true. I
now normally have three tuners on-line for myth and can add two
more slaves when needed for up to five recordings at a time. I'm
surprised how often things come in clusters. Take a couple networks
competing for an audience like me, add a baseball playoff game
and an early season basketball game and I'm full. I can watch
the sports that night and the other shows over the course of the
next few days. Looking at my current schedule, I have nothing from
10am Sat until 3pm Sun but ten shows in primetime Tue with three
more postponed to record a later showing. I have plenty of things
I still want to see this weekend even though I'm not recording
anything new. I wouldn't have as many good choices if I'd only
had one tuner.

So even though multiple tuners sound like overkill, the result
can be a better use of your TV time rather than just more wasted
time. No need to feel guilty =).

--  bjm


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