# How does a mini pick a tuner?



## philt56 (Aug 22, 2008)

Suppose someone is watching live tv on the Roamio in one room and someone else is watching with live tv in another room. Suppose the person on the Roamio cycles thru the tuners on the Roamio by hitting "Live TV" button multiple times. Would the mini get disconnected when the tuner it was using is accessed by the Roamio?

I was expecting that there would be something that says have the mini always use tuner 6 so that another room is less likely to conflict? But it looks like this isn't always true.

I sometimes will hit pause while watching live tv, then hit live tv switch to another tuner to check on another channel and then go back to the previous tuner. But it seems like doing that can affect the person watching on the mini. Sounds like using the Info button to see whats on all the tuner and selecting the one to go back to is better than hitting live TV button 6 times?

I just got a Roamio pro and mini so I'm just getting used to having all these tuners. I was used to a 2 tuner Premiere so hitting live tv was just a swap of the 2 tuners. So I'm trying to understand how 2 people can keep from interfering with each other. Of course if the Mini is just streaming to watch a recorded show, no problem.


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

If the Mini is watching live TV the Roamio cannot access that tuner. Hit the Live TV button to your hearts content.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Yeah it's simply removed from the pool of tuners the Roamio can access, so there is no way for it to hit the tuner the Mini is using. Min's grab exclusive access to the tuner they get when watching live TV. If the Roamio needs the tuner back to record it prompts them, but if the user refuses then the recording is simply canceled. The only other way a Mini loses a tuner is if it hits the 4 hour timeout. (4 hours of inactivity)


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## philt56 (Aug 22, 2008)

Thanks all!


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## philt56 (Aug 22, 2008)

Oh one more thing. How does the Mini choose a tuner? Just any one not recording or does any kind of access time come into play. Like oldest one not selected for recording or viewing live tv?


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## just4fn44 (Dec 28, 2006)

It does an electronic equivalent of rock, paper scissors. The tuner that is selected lost


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## lgnad (Feb 14, 2013)

just4fn44 said:


> It does an electronic equivalent of rock, paper scissors. The tuner that is selected lost


Dang, I thought there was a tiny little dart board in there!


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

philt56 said:


> Oh one more thing. How does the Mini choose a tuner? Just any one not recording or does any kind of access time come into play. Like oldest one not selected for recording or viewing live tv?


I've noticed that if the last tuner the Mini used is still available, it usually takes that same one back. If not, then it appears to just be random.


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## igirl (Feb 5, 2011)

I was expecting dynamic allocation of tuners, BUT was also expecting that if the mothership Tivo wanted a (4th or 6th) tuner for a pre-programmed recording schedule on it's last available tuner - it would be taken away from someone using Live TV. (with a small warning of course).

IMO - A recording always gets priority - it *should *be taken away from someone using Live TV... (assuming no other tuners are available - also being recorded on)

So everyone is saying the Mini take what it wants and the main Tivo is left wanting? Might have to rethink this - if this is indeed the case. We have a P4 but maybe need to move to a 6 tuner model if the Mini auto-eats tuners and co-opts recordings with no way to control it.



> "If the Roamio needs the tuner back to record it prompts them, but if the user refuses then the recording is simply canceled. "


If there is no answer to the prompt (someone fell asleep) which box gets the tuner?
Is there any way to turn OFF the ability to refuse allowing the Main Tivo/tuner to record?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

The Mini is prompted and if the user does not answer then the default is to release the tuner back to the TiVo. The only way the recording is canceled is if the Mini user specifically answer "no" to the prompt and keeps the tuner.

This is basically the same thing it does if you're watching live TV on the TiVo itself and it needs the tuner for recording.


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## igirl (Feb 5, 2011)

OK thanks Dan - that's what I had hoped. I've seen it ask on the Tivo before but just wasn't sure how the Mini would behave... not bad!


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

Hey Dan203,

Question about this, and I've just gotten off the phone from Tivo a minute ago so I'm really confused at this point. Here is the situation that hopefully you can clear up.

I currently have 2 Roamio Pros, 2 Minis, a Premier, and a Verizon DVR. All of my units are currently on lifetime (including the Verizon which is free for lifetime) except the Premier, which frankly I've waited too long to deal with. It's on month to month.

All units are connected vie ethernet. Each Roamio Pro has one Mini attached to it. It is currently rare at this point for more than one mini to be used at a time.

I'm wanting to eliminate the Premier - either in favor of another mini since it's cheap and it's not an important room, plus potentially a mini in a different room (again, not an important room). But the house is big, and for the money, I wouldn't mind it as a one time expense. Question is about tuner "release". 

I posed this question to Tivo: Assume 1 of the Roamios has 4 programs scheduled to record at 8pm. At 7:45pm somebody walks into 2 of the rooms with minis, turns the TV on and checks the weather with weather channel. Then 5 minutes later they turn the TVs off (for the minis). According to Tivo, the minis will "understand that they are not in use because of the loss of HDMI connection to the display" and release the tuner. If the display is on, Tivo said that they will provide a msg to the Mini about a recording conflict, and if nothing is done, the lowest priority recording will not occur. 

I think this is incorrect. I think but am not sure that the mini could care less that it lost the HDMI connection to the display, and will not automatically release the tuner on the Roamio. I also thought (as you described) that a lack of action will result in the recording taking priority, so if nobody does anything, the scheduled recording will happen.

I'm thinking about running a few tests but thought I'd ask for clarification. Sorry for the novella. I'm not terribly crazy about the minis - particularly the lack of a better audio out - but it's better than the Premier at this point and cheaper. I just don't want to add another failure mode by accident, where bumping a tivo remote in another room could result in a failed recording.


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

OK, have not gotten an answer yet, however here is what I'm doing now. 

I've set a Roamio Pro to record six (6) shows all starting at 1pm eastern. I then turned on a mini which is attached to that Roamio Pro, and went to "Live TV" at 12:45pm. 

Both displays are left on.

No recording conflicts in the "To Do list".

At 12:54pm, no messages on either display. 

At 12:58pm no messages on either display.

I have not touched either remote since 12:45pm.

At 12:59pm no messages on either display.

30 seconds before 1pm, bot a message on the mini that the Roamio need a tuner to record a show, and gives me a choice to either "Record this show and stop watching live TV" or "not record this show". It does not specify what "show" will or will not be recorded.

If I don't touch anything, the mini released the tuner, the mini display goes to Tivo central, and all six programs record.

So, even after having spent a great deal of time on the phone with Tivo, they still managed to provide a completely inaccurate answer. I would say that the conflict message really ought to come on more than 30 seconds before the recordings are supposed to start, but I'm very happy that the "default" is to protect scheduled recordings.

I'm now going to plan on a couple more tests. I'd like to understand how it will deal with conflicts in the event that I tell the mini not to release the tuner. I'll schedule 6 recordings, set the priorities, but have the one with highest priority start 1 minute after the other 5. I'm curious to see what happens there. 

Obviously the whole "know the tuner is not needed because of a lack of HDMI connection if the display is off" is irrelevant.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

wmhjr said:


> I'd like to understand how it will deal with conflicts in the event that I tell the mini not to release the tuner. I'll schedule 6 recordings, set the priorities, but have the one with highest priority start 1 minute after the other 5. I'm curious to see what happens there.


If the scheduled recordings were part of season passes (which all of my recordings usually are), I think priority would be given to shows based on how you have them arranged in your season pass manager list. For manually scheduled recordings, I'm not sure what the priority would be.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I'm not sure about the HDMI thing, they may have added that in a recent update. I tested it once a long time ago and it didn't release the tuner, but like I said they may have added it in a recent software update.

The default action on the prompt is to release the tuner, so if there is no one there to take action then it will release the tuner and allow the recording. The recording will only get canceled if the user specifically selects the option to keep the tuner and cancel the recording.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> I'm not sure about the HDMI thing, they may have added that in a recent update. I tested it once a long time ago and it didn't release the tuner, but like I said they may have added it in a recent software update.
> 
> ........


None of my Minis release the tuner with the TV and equipment off. The release in my use has always been based on the timer.


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

Yeah, see my other thread I started just to walk through the testing to confirm stuff...

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=524548

Here's how this started.... My remaining Premier is starting to act flak(ier). Was on the phone with Tivo about something it started doing yesterday. Then the bad behavior just stopped - with neither of us doing anything. Started me thinking if it wasn't time to get rid of it. It's the only Tivo I have not on lifetime. Room isn't used all that much, so thought maybe another mini given the lack of importance in that room. But then started wondering about how that might effect tuner allocation with respect to scheduled recordings.

Asked the CSR very specific questions. He put me on hold several times to "research" the answer. Turns out that pretty much every single thing the CSR said was completely wrong - no huge surprise there, but am still amazed at how poor of a job Tivo does in both employee training and documentation. I'm actually glad to confirm that the CSR was wrong. It's better than Tivo developing a solution as stupid, quite frankly, as he was suggesting. I'd rather have the CSR being unskilled at his job, than Tivo overall being that bad in product design!

Anyway, as soon as I got the tests done to validate what "should" happen, I was comfortable enough to order another mini to replace the failing Premier. I'm not entirely crazy about the spinning blue circle things that have been happening but at least I can save a little money with a mini, free lifetime, and a free slider remote.

Hopefully my other thread will help others understand clearly what the combo will do. I'll play around a little when I get an additional mini attached to a Roamio Pro. Right now I have 1 mini attached to each of my 2 Roamio Pros.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

aaronwt said:


> None of my Minis release the tuner with the TV and equipment off. The release in my use has always been based on the timer.


Just tested. If you turn off the TV no tuner released. If you hit the TiVo button first the tuner is released. TV does not support CEC if that matters.


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

Thanks Joe,

I'll update my other thread that goes through details of use cases and responses.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

wmhjr said:


> Thanks Joe,
> 
> I'll update my other thread that goes through details of use cases and responses.


Add this:
If a Roamio tuner is on the channel it will be used. If the Mini changes to a different channel and that channel is on a different Roamio tuner, it will be used. If a new (non-Roamio) channel is selected, the Roamio gets that channel for the Mini and doesn't change it when the Mini is disconnected. Glad to help, but I like the dart board better.


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

JoeKustra said:


> Add this:
> If a Roamio tuner is on the channel it will be used. If the Mini changes to a different channel and that channel is on a different Roamio tuner, it will be used. If a new (non-Roamio) channel is selected, the Roamio gets that channel for the Mini and doesn't change it when the Mini is disconnected. Glad to help, but I like the dart board better.


Joe, I'm not sure the above is correct..... I think you're saying this as an illustration.

Roamio has a tuner on channel 502.

Mini tunes to 502.

A single tuner is used to display channel 502 to both Roamio and Mini.

I do not believe this is correct - no insult intended - but I really don't think that's how it works. And frankly, I think I've proven it.

If that were correct, assuming the mini was tuned to one of the channels that the Roamio was scheduled to record, I should not have gotten a message telling me I needed to kill Live TV - until I tried to change to a channel not being recorded. However, that is not what happened. In fact, the mini WAS tuned to one of the channels being recorded. 30 seconds prior to the scheduled recording, the mini had a choice of killing live TV or killing the scheduled recording.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

wmhjr said:


> Joe, I'm not sure the above is correct..... I think you're saying this as an illustration.
> 
> Roamio has a tuner on channel 502.
> 
> ...


No problem. I went downstair to my Mini and turned on the TV and selected Live TV. It was on A&E. I moved it (with the guide) to msnbc. I then hit TiVo and turned off TV. Upstairs again and I hit right arrow. It showed msnbc, A&E, TWC and CBS. Nothing reserved.

Then I went downstairs again, turned on TV, selected Live TV and used guide to select CNBC. I then hit TiVo, turned off TV and went back to Roamio. I now had msnbc, A&E, TWC and CNBC. Nothing reserved. I was not doing, nor do I plan to test, the effect of recording. I usually just let it time out, but I was curious too.

I believe the tuner selection process is quite good. It's approaching magic.


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

JoeKustra said:


> No problem. I went downstair to my Mini and turned on the TV and selected Live TV. It was on A&E. I moved it (with the guide) to msnbc. I then hit TiVo and turned off TV. Upstairs again and I hit right arrow. It showed msnbc, A&E, TWC and CBS. *Nothing reserved*.
> 
> Then I went downstairs again, turned on TV, selected Live TV and used guide to select CNBC. I then hit TiVo, turned off TV and went back to Roamio. I now had msnbc, A&E, TWC and CNBC. *Nothing reserved*. I was not doing, nor do I plan to test, the effect of recording. I usually just let it time out, but I was curious too.
> 
> I believe the tuner selection process is quite good. It's approaching magic.


Joe, I'm trying to understand what you mean by what I highlighted above. How can you tell that "nothing is reserved". I don't think you could know until you got into a situation where you're short tuners, right?

Trying to drill in this a little more, here's what I did.

Turned Mini to channel 620 (discovery). Went to Roamio, and tuned to 620 (discovery).

Now, got to DVR Diagnostics on the Roamio, and look at tuners 0 through 5. Tuner 0 is set to 620. Tuner 1 is set to 620. Tuner 2 is on 507. Tuner 3 is on 503. Tuner 4 is on 504. Tuner 5 is on 510. So, even though Mini and Roamio are on same channel (620) and nothing (other than buffer) is being recorded, two different tuners (tuner 0 and tuner 1) are being used to watch 620. So that seems to indicate that no matter what, on live TV, the mini consumes a tuner.

But....

Now, I'll go back to the Mini and tune to channel 504. In theory, nothing should change since the Roamio is already tuned on one channel to 504, right? Well, not tuner 0 is 620. Tuner 1 is 620. Hmmm.... 2 is 507, 3 is 503, 4 is 504, and 5 is 510. So in that case, the mini is using the content coming from the tuner already on that channel.

But, then I read your post again. You mentioned that you "hit Tivo" just before turning off the TV in both instances on the Roamio. Hitting Tivo releases the tuner no matter what channel it's on I thought.... Or does it?


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

OK, a little more. It seems as though for live TV, "sometimes" if the Roamio is on a channel and then the Mini is tuned to that channel, the Mini will not consume another tuner.

However.....

With respect to recording.....

I used the exact channels as listed in my last post. 502, 503, 504, 507, 511, and 620. That's what the Roamio was already tuned to, and the Mini was tuned to 504. 

Then on the Roamio I used the bounced from tuner to tuner, and hit "record" for each channel - never changing a channel. When I did that for the last channel (620), I got an alert on the Mini telling me that either I had to stop using Live TV, or give up the recording. When I did nothing, it killed live TV on the mini and started the final recording.

So, if we're talking about recordings, we must assume that no matter what the channel, Live TV on a mini consumes a tuner even if the mini is trying to tune to (or is already on) a channel that is being recorded.

Whew!


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

wmhjr said:


> Joe, I'm trying to understand what you mean by what I highlighted above. How can you tell that "nothing is reserved". I don't think you could know until you got into a situation where you're short tuners, right?
> 
> But, then I read your post again. You mentioned that you "hit Tivo" just before turning off the TV in both instances on the Roamio. Hitting Tivo releases the tuner no matter what channel it's on I thought.... Or does it?


As for reserved, I'm referring to the display of active tuners. When my Mini is using one the Roamio says "reserved for MiniKitchen" and the channel number, and it's darkly shaded and can not be selected.

I believe going to TiVo Central (hitting TiVo) releases the tuner by the Mini. If not you have to wait for the time-out.

Errr, you do know that when watching live TV, you hit right then down and all your tuners display, right? You can then move to one, hit select and you go to that tuner. What you can't do from the remote is set all your tuners to the same channel. To do that you need to power cycle or do a staggered recording of the same channel to tie up all the tuners on one channel. You can select four (on basic Roamio) different channels with a little effort.

Yes, you can run the DVR diags to see the tuners, but my method is way quicker. I learned it somewhere on the Roamio forum I think. Or from AVS. I forget. Getting old. And I'm not going to do any recording.


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

JoeKustra said:


> As for reserved, I'm referring to the display of active tuners. When my Mini is using one the Roamio says "reserved for MiniKitchen" and the channel number, and it's darkly shaded and can not be selected.
> 
> I believe going to TiVo Central (hitting TiVo) releases the tuner by the Mini. If not you have to wait for the time-out.
> 
> ...


Hmmm... So the short answer to start with is no, I never noticed anything saying "reserved for "mini whatever" when hitting right and down. To be honest, given how many minis and tuners I've got (two Roamio Pros each with a mini) it was never an issue before. So I just never noticed. Thanks! That is helpful.

That being said, it looks like once you introduce recording, that "sharing" evaporates and the mini is forced to use a dedicated tuner regardless of channel in order to watch live TV. What you could do (and I think it's been covered here before in another thread) is go to "My shows" and watch the recording in progress. However, it's kind of strange that it would make you do that when so long as recordings are not in process it allows the tuner to just be "shared" apparently.

I still like using the DVR diagnostics to review tuner assignments simply because you can see not only what "channels" are being tuned, but what tuners are tuned to what channels. Good stuff, though.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

wmhjr said:


> OK, a little more. It seems as though for live TV, "sometimes" if the Roamio is on a channel and then the Mini is tuned to that channel, the Mini will not consume another tuner.


Not true. The Mini and the TiVo can never display the same tuner simultaneously. The tuner grabbed by the Mini is removed from the pool the TiVo has access to so if you cycle through the tuners on the TiVo it will not display any that are actively assigned to Minis.

It could be that you simply have two tuners set to the same channel so it appeared that they were using the same tuner.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

Dan203 said:


> Not true. The Mini and the TiVo can never display the same tuner simultaneously. The tuner grabbed by the Mini is removed from the pool the TiVo has access to so if you cycle through the tuners on the TiVo it will not display any that are actively assigned to Minis.
> 
> It could be that you simply have two tuners set to the same channel so it appeared that they were using the same tuner.


You are correct and I slightly mis-spoke earlier. The tuner used by the Mini is not shared. In fact, the sound will be delayed too. The channel used by the Mini is not displayed on the Roamio, only the "Currently in use by xxxxx". But it is grayed out.


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

Nope, Dan. 

That is definitely not what at least "seemed to have" happened. I even went so far as to explicitly note the channel that each individual tuner was tuned to.

That being said, what I did not do is try to then view that channel back on the Roamio. So, I'll give it a try!

Roamio was tuned to 502,503,504,507,510. 
Mini was on 618.

So, went to Mini and tuned to 507.

Hmm... then I go back to Roamio. 

Dan is right. 507 is no longer "available" to Roamio. Instead, Roamio tuners are tuned to 502,503,504,510,618.

So, I'm not entirely sure what Joe is seeing at this point. The only thing I can assume is that Joe is hitting the Tivo button releasing the tuner, before looking to see if a tuner is being used by the mini?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

wmhjr said:


> Roamio was tuned to 502,503,504,507,510.
> Mini was on 618.
> 
> So, went to Mini and tuned to 507.
> ...


I ran these same tests early on when dynamic tuner allocation came out and found the same thing. The tuner just disappears from the Roamio when the Mini grabs it. I've never seen the message Joe mentioned either.


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

Well, I have another 2 Minis on the way. I wanted to eliminate a buggy Premier and it's CableCard, as well as the monthly Tivo fee (it's the only non-Lifetime unit I have. Meant to get rid of it a long time ago, but never got around to it). 

In this house, not including the Verizon DVR, I'll then have 2 Roamio Pros and 4 Minis. I'll be installing one of the Minis immediately, which will give me the ability to play around with some other "multi-Mini" tests and document them. As I've said before, I think the Minis are "OK". At the $150 with a slider pro remote and lifetime, I could justify it. Given the elimination of the Premier monthly fee and the CableCard fee, it will pay for itself. However, their are audio glitches, a lack of digital audio, and some funky network things that require reboots from time to time (including rebooting the host Roamio). For the rooms I'll put them in, it'll be good enough. 

When I get it setup, in a week or so, I'll do some more testing so that I can see what happens with multiple Minis in some situations. The more people understand, the better choices they can make. I know it helps me to understand which unit is best suited for what, and what the limitations are.


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

Dan203 said:


> I ran these same tests early on when dynamic tuner allocation came out and found the same thing. The tuner just disappears from the Roamio when the Mini grabs it. I've never seen the message Joe mentioned either.


Oh, BTW - I did see the message in the "right/down" sub-menu showing a greyed out box for that tuner/channel. I had never seen it before. Learn something new every day!


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## wscottcross (Dec 24, 2014)

wmhjr said:


> Oh, BTW - I did see the message in the "right/down" sub-menu showing a greyed out box for that tuner/channel. I had never seen it before. Learn something new every day!


I also learned something new today. I can say that pretty much every day since I'm new to Tivo.


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## JPA2825 (May 15, 2000)

Not to complicate the discussion, but I am interested in "buffer management" as well. When a Mini "grabs" a previously tuned channel on the Roamio, I think it grabs any buffer that was already there, right?

If Roamio tunes to the same channel now "grabbed" by the Mini, it will go to LiveTV (no buffer) and occupy a 2nd tuner with the same channel, right?

If Mini went to TiVo Central (thereby releasing the tuner & buffer), would the buffer still be there for the Roamio? I presume yes.

As I think was mentioned elsewhere, another way of avoiding same channel taking up 2 tuners on Roamio is to record the program. That will allow a person to watch the same show on a Mini and the Roamio at different points in the playback without occupying 2 tuners, right?


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

That's a very good question. I'll add it to some things I'll play around with and test....


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

Good story for you. I was using the right-down procedure to check frequencies of various tuner of some channels. After a few were documented, I did the right-down and saw the "tuner is use by MiniKitchen" and I was nowhere near it. My Roamio is on a different floor. I couldn't have turned it on and I live alone. I was going downstairs where the Mini lives, so I left it alone for about 15 minutes. Before I went down, I checked again and the message had changed to "tuner in use by another TiVo box". I never saw that before. So I went to the Mini and turned on the TV. There it was, on live TV, playing the channel I was watching when I hit the TiVo button. So I made it go back to TiVo central, went upstairs, and everything was normal. Put that on your Mini-Tuner checklist.


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

Joe, coincidentally I observed a very similar issue last night. I wasn't sure I didn't cause it to begin with but now that you've mentioned this I'm going to keep my eye on it.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

JPA2825 said:


> Not to complicate the discussion, but I am interested in "buffer management" as well. When a Mini "grabs" a previously tuned channel on the Roamio, I think it grabs any buffer that was already there, right?
> .............


Yes. the buffer is still there.


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## JPA2825 (May 15, 2000)

Another interesting "tidbit." We were watching Patriots v. Ravens yesterday on the Roamio. I went to the TiVo Mini in the Kitchen to make dinner and watched it there as well. Paused it on the TiVo Mini right before halftime.

Throughout the 2d half and after, we tried to go back to the Patriots game and when checking the Resume Playing, it always went back to right before halftime. Once I saw the issue, I tried to get it to a later paused position a bunch of different ways. No dice. Always went back to the same spot before halftime.

When I turned on the TiVo Mini in the Kitchen this AM, it was paused at the point it kept going back to. This was even after I had deleted the game on the Roamio. Not sure what would have happened if I tried to play it. Apparently you can only have 1 paused point to Resume Playing from.

Interesting.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I've deleted a show from my Roamio Pro while it was being watched on a Mini. And it could continue being watched on the Mini until the end.


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

Something odd happened this morning. Nobody else in the house, no TVs even turned on since around midnight last night. Turned TV on that is attached to Mini - it was already on live TV - meaning the mini still had a tuner, and was tuned to a live channel, with buffer. 

It should have timed out at least 6 hours prior. I have never seen this happen before and do not have an explanation. No TVs anywhere in the home had been touched since midnight. No remotes anywhere in the house had been touched. Yet, when I turned the flat panel on, it was immediately giving my Live TV rather than Tivo Central.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

wmhjr said:


> Something odd happened this morning. Nobody else in the house, no TVs even turned on since around midnight last night. Turned TV on that is attached to Mini - it was already on live TV - meaning the mini still had a tuner, and was tuned to a live channel, with buffer.
> 
> It should have timed out at least 6 hours prior. I have never seen this happen before and do not have an explanation. No TVs anywhere in the home had been touched since midnight. No remotes anywhere in the house had been touched. Yet, when I turned the flat panel on, it was immediately giving my Live TV rather than Tivo Central.


Seen that too. Perhaps it was an EMS test.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

Last week I mentioned that my Mini seemed to grab a tuner without my help. It happened again today. But today I was here to see the EMS test. So, for lack of a better explanation the message "Tuner is in use by another TiVo box" is caused by an EMS test. The test does switch to one of my Info channels when it runs on my cable feed. A second after it's done the channel switches back.

My previous post was before I saw the tuner in use issue.


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## martint (Oct 22, 2014)

I have a similar but slightly different question to ask. New to the forum (have a Roamio Plus and 2 Mini's). Loving TiVo (after dumping my two old Motorola Comcast DVR's, this is so much better). I agree with all the summaries made regarding how the Mini uses tuners. The Mini grabs a tuner plus the buffer if the chosen channel was one that was tuned to on the Roamio (as long as that channel was not the one being viewed by the Roamio, if it is the channel the Roamio is viewing the Mini will grab another tuner and tune to that channel thus you do not get the buffer and have 2 of your 6 tuners on the same channel). 

The issue I have seen is if you are watching on the Mini and see something you want to record. If you hit record it displays a notice that it is sending a request to the Roamio to record the channel (which is understandable since the Mini is a slave and does not have storage), and then it will confirm the recording has started. The recording on the Roamio though grabs a new tuner and you do not record the buffer that is on the Mini. I guess this makes sense since the Mini has taken the tuner from the Roamio, but it is usually not what I want (since it that case I usually want to record what is in the buffer I just saw). What I have to do is hit the TiVo button to release the tuner, and then go to the Roamio to view that channel and then hit record (thus you record the data in the buffer too since it came along when the Mini released the tuner). Not a real issue but a slight pain to do. It does cause some problems for me in that I use my slingbox on a Mini, so if I am not home I cannot record what is in the buffer. Has anyone else seen this same behavior? Again it seems consistent with the method the Mini uses to grab tuners, so I doubt it is an item that will change. 

P.S. thanks for all the help this forum has provided to me. It was very useful when I first setup the Roamio. I was able to get the cablecard to pair very rapidly and the Comcast on-demand and pay channels started working right away. The info in the forum helped me help the cablecard line CSR to get this working for me 1st shot.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

I didn't make this up. I decided to move a movie from the Roamio to my PC with Desktop. I wanted to watch the transfer so I also ran Windows 7 task manager with the network showing. I have a 433 Mbps link speed. So I start the transfer of about 18Gb from AMC. While watching live TV (msnbc HD) the *%^& EMS test began. It took about a minute and I saw two things. The Mini got its tuner and stayed on ABC. Then the transfer rate dropped from 20% to 15%. The Mini was slowing down the Roamio. After 15 minutes with no change in tuners I went downstairs and released the tuner. The transfer went back up in speed and the tuner went back to ABC. No wonder those with a TA have problems.


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

That is very very interesting, and frankly disturbing. A test that needs repeated, I think.


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

BTW, I also have to say that while it "is what it is" I am also VERY frequently irritated by what martint is mentioning. If you're watching content on a mini, maybe pause it a bit, and frankly mostly when you get to a point where you're out of buffer - and then hit "record", it just grabs a fresh tuner on the host and starts the recording from that "live" point. So, you lose the 30 minute buffer.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

wmhjr said:


> That is very very interesting, and frankly disturbing. A test that needs repeated, I think.


??? Which part?


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

The part with the mini slowing down the Roamio. Since they're not apparently consuming anywhere near what the interface capacity is, the fact that the Roamio was slowed down doesn't make me real happy.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

wmhjr said:


> The part with the mini slowing down the Roamio. Since they're not apparently consuming anywhere near what the interface capacity is, the fact that the Roamio was slowed down doesn't make me real happy.


I never saw it until watching the file transfer with Task Manager. I doubt it was a network issue since I both devices are 802.11ac. I can duplicate it at will, but since my Premiere is a basic model I can't test there. It didn't affect the Mini either which is 802.11n with the AN0100 adapter. I checked and the transfer rate was 70 Mbps. It is usually 80 under similar conditions. But understand, I don't expect a free lunch either. It seems to take more work to send data out as opposed to just putting it into the Roamio buffer.

OT: Ever wonder why there is a 30 minute buffer when the bit rate for digital content affects the storage needed. Something to ponder on a snowy night.


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## wmhjr (Dec 2, 2007)

I'm not sure I expected a free lunch, but given the "whole home" aspect that Tivo markets the Roamio series, I didn't expect that a single "download" would slow down other activities that much. Remembering that you're using WiFi makes me a little less concerned, due to the half duplex aspect of some activity. It is interesting, and thanks for the info.


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