# tuners available question



## bigguy126 (Sep 4, 2007)

Setup is a Roamio pro and a mini. 
Last night the roamio was recording 5 things at the same time. I went to the mini and was unable to watch live tv. - No tuners available. 

Question: Does the roamio always reserve 1 tuner? So, only 5 tuners are available to the mini? Or was this a problem on my end?


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## UCLABB (May 29, 2012)

bigguy126 said:


> Setup is a Roamio pro and a mini.
> Last night the roamio was recording 5 things at the same time. I went to the mini and was unable to watch live tv. - No tuners available.
> 
> Question: Does the roamio always reserve 1 tuner? So, only 5 tuners are available to the mini? Or was this a problem on my end?


The Roamio is using five tuners for the recordings AND a tuner for the channel you left it on live. Thus no tuners available for the Mini. A work around is to change the live channel on the Roamio to a channel that is recording. On my XL4 when I turn it off I usually remember to turn it to a channel that will be recording so as to minimize the tuners it is utilizing.


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## tivoboy (Jan 14, 2002)

This is a good trick, I'll have to try it. Ran into this issue last night. 

Question: Can one affect the tuner selection to a recording channel on the roamio/premier with one of the apps?


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

tivoboy said:


> This is a good trick, I'll have to try it. Ran into this issue last night.
> 
> Question: Can one affect the tuner selection to a recording channel on the roamio/premier with one of the apps?


TiVo app->remote->Live TV should change the foreground tuner.


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## tivoboy (Jan 14, 2002)

lpwcomp said:


> TiVo app->remote->Live TV should change the foreground tuner.


so, no matter what I do with the primary premier XL that servers as the core for the mini, I can't figure out a way to get the Mini to display a live signal, when the premier is recording three tuners. Even if I start a RECORDING on the premier, I can't get it to release the last tuner for the mini.

am I banging my head in the wall trying to get it to do something it shouldn't? Is there some other workaround?


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

tivoboy said:


> so, no matter what I do with the primary premier XL that servers as the core for the mini, I can't figure out a way to get the Mini to display a live signal, when the premier is recording three tuners. Even if I start a RECORDING on the premier, I can't get it to release the last tuner for the mini.
> 
> am I banging my head in the wall trying to get it to do something it shouldn't? Is there some other workaround?


If you change the live TV channel on the premiere to one of the channels it is actively recording, will it still not release the unused tuner to the mini?


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## eboydog (Mar 24, 2006)

Not sure how the Premiere works if it the same as the Roamio but the Roamio will always reserve one tuner to have available for use on it before it allocates a tuner to the Mini. Unlike the Mini, the Premiere and Roamio doesn't know if you are not using that last tuner which isn't being used to record a channel.

I have noticed that the tuner allocated is always the one least used by the roamio including what ever channel it tuned to, if I'm watching a channel and want to watch that same channel in another room and not lose the 30 minute buffer, I cycle though the other 3 channels on my Roamio basic 4 tuner before I go to that other room to watch that 4th channel on the Mini. Then when than 4th least used tuner is allocated to the Mini in the other room, it picks up were I left it including it's buffer. With the same logic I the Premiere xl4, if you are recording on 3 tuners, that 4th will be available only to the Premiere and not to the Mini, this was the manner such as established when they implented dynamic tuners, when the Mini first came out and had static tuner allocation, what you describe would work and you only have 3 tuners available on the Premiere. 

Only way around it is get a Roamio Plus or PRO and have 6 tuners instead of 4. This is one reason why I bought a second Roamio so I can have a collective of 8 tuners since I didn't buy the 6 tuner Roamio first. 

While I have two 4 tuner Roamios, I'm considering selling them and get a plus to have more tuners and the built in stream as I also added a external Stream after I bought my first Roamio. . At the time I considered having 4 tuners more than enough which proved wrong, it would have been cheaper had I just broke down and bought a plus in the first place since it has the Stream built in.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

eboydog said:


> Only way around it is get a Roamio Plus or PRO and have 6 tuners instead of 4. This is one reason why I bought a second Roamio so I can have a collective of 8 tuners since I didn't buy the 6 tuner Roamio first.


There is an option, stop watching live TV!


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## eboydog (Mar 24, 2006)

jrtroo said:


> There is an option, stop watching live TV!


Yes, I rarely myself watch live TV, when I do I take advantage of the 30 buffer to skip the commercials and will start recording something after it has started just so I can watch it on my terms. The tuner allocation to the Mini does present a problem when you start running out of tuners.....

It defeats the purpose of having a mini if there isn't a host tuner available when you want to use it.


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