# Two Tuners....One Cable



## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

When I put in my HR20 aside my HR10, I had limited lines into the home entertainmer center, so I eventually switched one line off my HR10 to run as a single tuner. I thought, no big deal. I have two tuners on the HR20 (via SWM that I am testing) and one on the HR10. That gives me three tuners. Not bad.

Well, I started to get blank recordings on the HR10 and what I thought was a machine that went bonkers (making more and more stations go blank until I rebooted). I was wrong...sort of.

What was happening was that the HR10 was using the second tuner even though I ran guided setup to tell it there was only one line. In fact, if I hit the down arrow to try to go to a second tuner, it would give me an error tone.

But, when *it* decided to record something, it may use the one tuner or it may "activate" the second tuner. And get a blank signal.

After that happens, it appears that it thinks it has two tuners. One works on both OTA and satellite and the other works on OTA. Dual live buffers and all! I could even record on one tuner and use the other to watch live TV (with limits that Tuner 1 could see OTA and satellite and Tuner 2 could only see OTA). I could easily buffer two OTA stations, for example. 

But, when I tried to record two OTA stations, it got mad at me.

It seems this second psuedo-tuner exists until I reboot. And then will crop up again when the HR10 decides that it wants to go to the second tuner on satellite for recording. Then it is back.

So, I decided to activate both tuners, use the HR10 for OTA programmed recording only (I can still manipulate the tuners live so I can push the record button if I want to record, say, HBO, but I have to be there to do so). I did this because it was behaving hit or miss anyway, so why not have the ability to record two OTAs?

Anybody else running with one line into the HR10 and seeing this or not? Is this specific to 6.3d? (I never noticed it on my old SD Tivo which is now deactivated.)

I can live with it as it gives me 1.5 tuners (kind of) on the HR10 with the two on the HR20. If I plan it right, I wind up with four tuners active at once.


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## Matt L (Aug 13, 2000)

Interesting. I have a similar situation, mainly because I'm lazy and it the summer, but my HR10 is set up for dual cables and at the moment only one is connected -- no problems yet. I would guess because it's not recoding that much.

I moved my TV about 8 ft. from where it was due to the glare from the evening sun and only the OTA and one SAT feed line was long enough. I have the cable just too lazy to crimp on some ends. Anyway I have yet to run into a problem after about a month. BTW I'm still using ver. 3.6.


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## JimSpence (Sep 19, 2001)

In order for the HR10 to record two OTA signals you have to have both sat tuners activated.



TonyD79 said:


> ...
> What was happening was that the HR10 was using the second tuner even though I ran guided setup to tell it there was only one line....


You did connect the sat line to Sat In 1 when you re-ran setup, right? Your statement implies that you had the second tuner connected.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

JimSpence said:


> In order for the HR10 to record two OTA signals you have to have both sat tuners activated.
> 
> You did connect the sat line to Sat In 1 when you re-ran setup, right? Your statement implies that you had the second tuner connected.


Yes, I connected to Sat In 1. It works fine until it tries to record. I can watch any channel and it doesn't act like it has two tuners (try to switch tuners and you get the bong error tone and the second tuner doesn't show up in the info banner).

Sometimes it records on tuner 1 and all stays well. Sometimes it tries to record on tuner 2 even though it doesn't think there is one and suddenly, it acts like I have two tuners with the exception of trying to record two things...it tells me it can't.

When I reran guided setup to enable the second tuner anyway, it is most definitely telling me that there is no signal on SAT In 2, so that confirms it.


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## mwl001 (Dec 5, 2002)

What does it say in your system info? For example, mine tells me how many Satellite/ATSC tuners are enabled. Just curious.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

It says only one tuner is enabled. For both satellite and OTA.

And when I go into the satellite meter, only one tuner shows up.

The only thing that triggers this is when the box decides to try to use Tuner 2 even though it "knows" Tuner 2 is not there.


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## JimSpence (Sep 19, 2001)

If you want two tuners then you need to re-run setup to select two tuner use.


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## annenoe (Oct 19, 2003)

I've had similar anomalies. I have only one sat line connected (the other goes to an SD tivo) and one OTA antenna in. Intermittently, my box acts like a dual tuner (which it's not supposed to do with only one sat line in). I'll be watching say CH 2-1 and at 7 am, I notice the record light is on. It's recording CH 7-1 (in this case, both are OTA channels). I don't get the "Need to change channels message", I don't lose the buffer on the live side. I can go into NP list and start watching the recorded show, then switch back to live tv to the first channel. Very odd. It goes away when I reboot, but eventually shows up again.

Only started happening after 6.x upgrade.


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## Bugkillah (Nov 19, 2005)

I think this is pretty simple. The to do list was populated under the assumption of dual tuners. Just because you re-ran guided setup and switched to single tuner, I don't think that the to do list was repopulated with the single tuner rules, so the tivo is still trying to record under the old rules. I'm guessing that you'd have to delete and add back your sp's to get the to do list to repopulate correctly.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

Bugkillah said:


> I think this is pretty simple. The to do list was populated under the assumption of dual tuners. Just because you re-ran guided setup and switched to single tuner, I don't think that the to do list was repopulated with the single tuner rules, so the tivo is still trying to record under the old rules. I'm guessing that you'd have to delete and add back your sp's to get the to do list to repopulate correctly.


Uh, no.

When I first went from two tuners to one in the guided setup, it told me that I had conflicts.

Not to mention that these shows are new SPs and sometimes not even SPs but selected recordings.

I have moved most of my active stuff to my HR20.

It is just pure and simple a bug in the software (gosh! Tivo has bugs?) that it gets confused.

I am more reporting it than looking for a solution. The only solution invovles a software patch and I doubt that will happen.


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## TyroneShoes (Sep 6, 2004)

I'm confused. I understand that to get two tuners working properly you have to enable them in GS and you must have sat cabling going to each sat input, and I understand that Tivo typically only allows one OTA tuner if you set it up for only one sat input. That's the way its always been, even though it seems weird.

But are you saying that you could hook everything back up and redo GS for two tuners and still not get two tuners consistently? Or have you just not bothered with that and kept your HR20 connections and not hooked it back up?

Regardless, it sure sounds like part of the setup is convinced that there are two (sat) tuners available while another part is convinced that there are not, at least under the current scenario. If anyone other than just one person can confirm this, that sure sounds like a bug. It also sure sounds strange that if you set it up for one sat tuner, that you are able to get two OTA recordings, as the number of tuners track each other (even though there are two distinct hardware sat tuners as well as two distinct hardware OTA tuners).

If you blew out all SPs and WLs (and I'm certainly not suggesting you do that) I'd be interested to see if the problem persists.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

Tyrone,

I thought about clearing everything to see if it fixed the problem but gave up when annenoe seemed to have the same problem (I got a confirmation on another forum, too, but can't find the link). Besides, it is useful to have the two OTA tuners available for recording.

I won't be hooking a second line back up to the HR10 just because of wiring (condo, so I don't have much choice in the matter).

I've posted it here and in other forums in the hopes that when the new update happens in 2008, they fix it (but I would rather them allow two OTA tuners regardless of the number of satellite lines....that is how the HR20 works).


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## TyroneShoes (Sep 6, 2004)

New update in 2008?


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## JimSpence (Sep 19, 2001)

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=360884


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

Thanks, Jim. Didn't have time to get to computer to answer Tyrone.


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## TyroneShoes (Sep 6, 2004)

Oh, THAT update. I got excited for a second. Thanks, guys.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

An update?

So far, I haven't seen the problem on 6.3e. I have recorded about a dozen shows from satellite since I got it and the phantom tuner is not showing up.

Hard to prove that it is fixed but I am feeling better about it now.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

Or not....found fake dual tuners on the box this morning. No planned recordings. Must have been the Tivo service download did it.


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## RandCfilm (Dec 20, 2005)

TonyD79 if I understand what you are wanting to do correctly which is
1) one sat feed into tuner 1
2) have capability to record 2 OTA channels at any time
3) record 1 satellite input which you stated you know you will start yourself
This can be done as follows:
Rerun guided setup selecting two tuners and OTA
you must have sat feed into BOTH tuner 1 and tuner 2
finish guided setup
remove sat feed from tuner 2, if you remove from tuner 1 you will keep getting reacquire information screens that will keep the unit from recording.
I have one unit like this that I record OTA only and sat feed into tuner 1 only, for well over an year with no problems (except sat feed into tuner 2 problem listed)
This setup is on my 6.3e unit also.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

Thanks, I have already done that. Actually, you can keep SAT 2 unconnected when you run setup. There is an option to "correct" the satellite feed later.

What I really want is for it to act like what I tell it it is...a single tuner setup. That way I can use it to record satellite, too. If I cannot get it to do that, I will use it as a 2 OTA tuner as your method does. That is what I have been doing for the past month since I figured out what was happening. And, I guess, with the HR10 eventually losing satellite HD (or at least not getting the same amount as the HR20), I can live with that.

I was just hoping that I saw a fix in 6.3e, which, I guess I do not.


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## KSbugeater (Jan 26, 2006)

Tony, you've got your setup backwards. I have an HR10 and HR20 side-by-side as well. Until OTA was enabled on the HR20, I had 2 SAT lines to it and only one SAT line to the HR10. I used the 10 for OTA recording, primarily, and went thru GS under the 2 tuner process. As long as I turned Suggestions off and made sure my To Do list had no SAT conflicts, it worked pretty well... 

But the HR20 is much better at handling only one SAT line in. (maybe something to do with its lack of dual buffers?) It can handle 2 OTA recordings at the same time, and will warn you (and prevent scheduling) if you have more than one SAT recording scheduled at the same time. My HR10 is back to 2 SAT lines, and it pulls in Suggestions. Best of both worlds!


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

I have nothing backwards. I have an SWM so both tuners are fully capable on my HR20. I have only two lines to my living room and do not want to add a third, so I have an SWM enabled line on the HR20 and a legacy line on the HR10.

Tivo has it messed up. This is a bug. A bad one.

So now, I only use the HR10 for OTA recording and live watching of satellite. And the HR20 is for all kinds of stuff.


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## TurboVR4 (Jul 17, 2003)

Tony, you are NOT crazy! I am plagued with the "exact" same BUG! After moving the HR10 to the bedroom with only a single satellite input and OTA connected, I now get the blank recordings as well when the TIVO seems to think there is a phantom TUNER 2. This is frustrating as I do a mix of OTA and SAT recordings and TIVO will randomly pick Tuner 2. Let me know if you figure out a work around for this and I will do the same.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

TurboVR4 said:


> Tony, you are NOT crazy! I am plagued with the "exact" same BUG! After moving the HR10 to the bedroom with only a single satellite input and OTA connected, I now get the blank recordings as well when the TIVO seems to think there is a phantom TUNER 2. This is frustrating as I do a mix of OTA and SAT recordings and TIVO will randomly pick Tuner 2. Let me know if you figure out a work around for this and I will do the same.


I've done a few things.

1. I mostly use the HR10 for OTA stuff. It keeps it busy and useful. (I told it there were two lines so I could do two OTA recordings at once.)

2. I use it as a tuner. That will be less and less as the new HD continues to grow cause I prefer HD but for now I can use it for PIP on SD and HD and HD OTA.

3. One trick is to program both tuners. One via the guide and the other manually. This doesn't really work for Season Passes but it does work well for movies, etc. I just delete the blank recording.

I may run another line but then again, I may not. I have the HR10 in the same cabinet with my main HR20 so using it for OTA is very viable for a long while.


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