[mythtv-users] limit channels on different tuners?

[Michael T. Dean]

On 03/12/2012 09:52 AM, jason wrote:
>
> Greetings,
>
> I have two PVR500's and one PVR150 in my system.  I hooked each of 
> these up to three different cable boxes (using A/V cables) and I use 
> the commandir to change the channels.  Works like a champ and gives me 
> three tuners.  I know the PVR500 has 2 tuners each but with the 
> conversion over to cable boxes I'm stuck with just 1 usable tuner on each.
>
> In testing the tuners I found that the PVR500's can handle going above 
> channel 125 with no problems. When I try the PVR150 it just drops me 
> back to the main screen in MythTV.  I would think since the cable box 
> is really doing the work it wouldn't care but I guess not.
>
> Is there a way to correct that?
>

Sounds like you've either configured the PVR-150 to use the Tuner or 
Television or whatever it's called input rather than S-Video or Composite

or

you have a broken channel change script in use by the PVR-150.

For either of these, see the last paragraph, below.

>   Or am I better off just pulling the card and getting another PVR500 
> (or 250) to get those extra channels?
>

IMHO, rather than getting a new card, you'd be better off just getting 
one or more A/V cable sets to allow you to use the 2nd encoder on your 
PVR-500s.

http://store.hauppauge.com/accessories2.asp?product=av_cable
http://store.hauppauge.com/images/pvr500_av_cable.jpg

(unless you can get new PVR-150's or 500's for cheaper).

> Or is it possible to just limit 1 tuner to the number of channels it 
> can record?
>

Only through defining a new Video Source in MythTV.  However, as you 
said, there is absolutely no reason that the PVR-150 would care what the 
channel number is when using Composite or S-Video input, so the breakage 
is somewhere in your MythTV configuration.

If you want to set up, again, using a clean slate, go into mythtv-setup 
and "Delete all capture cards" (not "Delete all capture cards on 
<hostname>"), then re-create capture cards, re-connect inputs (and set 
up channel change script command lines), then enjoy.  You won't lose 
your Video Sources or channels in the process, so it should only take a 
few minutes to do.  And, if you do a database backup ( 
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Database_Backup_and_Restore ), first, you 
have nothing to lose--you can always restore the backup and be right 
back where you were.

Mike