[mythtv-users] HVR-2250 mythtv only supports single tuner

[Neil Cooper]

Hi all,

I have a Hauppauge HVR-2250 dual tuner card in my MythTV box (combined BE/FE).

Thanks to Stephen Toth's magnificent efforts to write and release Linux drivers for it, the HVR-2250 has now taken over from my PCHDTV-5500 as tuner of choice in my mythbox.

The HVR-2250 has two tuners. Each tuner can be in either digital or analog mode. Consequently I should be able to record 2 channels (not counting virtual) of any mix of digital or analog signals concurrently. 

Under MythTV if I try and record more than one channel concurrently, at least one of the recordings is empty/corrupted. I have successfully tested concurrent reception/playback of 2 (analog) streams by running 2 instances of mplayer, so it appears to be a wierd mythtv bug/limitation rather than hardware or driver issue.

Actually the effect appears very similar to what happens when I once tried recording both analog and digital TV at the same time on my PCHDTV-5500 card (which is not actually supported by that card's hardware).

I read posts from others on the interweb experiencing the same issue with the HVR-2250 under Mythtv so its not just me. One post mentioned a workaround of configuring one tuner as analog only and the other as digital only. This is how I'm running now and it seems to provide a mostly but not always working solution. I still occasionally get an empty recording, haven't quite figured out any common factors yet. It is also obviously a less than optimal setup as I can only use half the card's tuner capabilities.

Is there a solution to getting the HVR-2250 fully working under MythTV? Are the myth devs at least aware of this problem?

Thanks,
Neil Cooper.