[mythtv-users] Mapping OTA channels to HDHomerun tuners

[Craig Treleaven]

At 11:02 PM -0500 2/20/13, Gill Stan wrote:
>In the last couple of weeks, I have just set up my first MythTV 
>installation and I am very impressed with this application. It's a 
>great program but there is one aspect that I just can't figure out.
>
>I installed mythtv on a dedicated MacPro running Mountain Lion OS-X. 
>I'm using Schedules Direct as my source of tv program listings.
>
>My setup consists of two UHF antennas pointing in different 
>directions to get a collection of over-the-air (OTA) channels from 
>Buffalo NY and Toronto ON respectively (about 10 channels per 
>antenna). Each antenna is connected to its own HDHomerun Dual tuner 
>box. This is the best way of ensuring good reception on all the 
>channels, but it introduces the complexity of tuner selection 
>according to channel.
>
>Here is the problem I cannot solve... I want the mythtv backend to 
>select automatically the appropriate source/tuner according to the 
>TV channel that I want to view live or to record. It appears that 
>this cannot be done with the master backend by itself. The backend 
>just chooses the next available tuner based on a fixed priority 
>list, with no regard for channel mapping.
>
>Correct me if I'm wrong... It seems that the solution is to have one 
>slave backend connected to the Buffalo tuner, and another slave 
>backend connected to the Toronto tuner. Then it would be possible to 
>set up the master backend to always choose the appropriate tuner 
>automatically. Is this correct, and is this the only way of doing 
>it? If so, do the slave backends each need to run on separate 
>computers, or is there any way that they can run concurrently with 
>the master backend, all on the same computer?
>
>Or is there some other practical solution?
>
>To sum up, how can mythtv map the OTA channels to the tuners?
>
>Does anyone have experience or a solution to share? Specific 
>instructions would be extremely appreciated.
At 11:11 PM -0500 2/20/13, Raymond Wagner wrote:
>I think the misunderstanding here is what a "video source" actually 
>is. A video source is a list of channels. Every tuner tied to that 
>video source must be able to access every channel defined in that 
>video source. You will want to set up two video sources, one for 
>Toronto channels and one for Buffalo channels, and tie your four 
>tuners to which ever of those two sources is appropriate.

Adding slightly to Raymond's response, you have to do a scan with 
each tuner to inform Myth as to the channels that it can receive.  I, 
too, am in the GTA and I found that my UHF antenna picks up channels 
from _both_ Toronto and Buffalo even though it is aimed at Toronto. 
So you may find that your "Toronto" tuner is actually also receiving 
Buffalo stations and vice versa.  If certain signals are somewhat 
weak, you may want to delete those channels from that tuner.  (NBC 
broadcasts from the furthest-south site and isn't reliable for me.) 
OTOH, you may find that either antenna is perfectly capable of 
receiving certain channels (PBS, for example).

And, just for interest, are you using the Myth package from MacPorts 
[1] or the pre-compiled .app bundle?

Craig

[1] http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/MacPorts