How to Use Dual Set-top Boxes in Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/mce/expert/bowman_dualtuners.mspx' target='_blank'>http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/mce/expert/bowman_dualtuners.mspx</a><br /><br /></div>"Media Center customers have been looking for dual TV tuner support and discussing it in the newsgroups for months. Now it's here—Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 is available and comes pre-installed on computers from a wide range of manufacturers. One of its big new features is support for dual TV tuners. Whether you buy a new Windows XP Media Center with a single TV tuner or upgrade a previous version of Media Center that had a single tuner, you can easily add an additional TV tuner, quickly reconfigure your settings, and immediately increase your TV entertainment options.<br /><br />What can you do with two tuners? You can watch one show on live TV and simultaneously record a different show on another channel. Or you can record two shows at the same time or two that overlap with different starting and/or ending times. Dual tuner support encompasses watching live TV using a Media Center Extender while another family member is watching live TV on the host Media Center PC or while recording a different show on the host Media Center."<br /><br />I haven't heard of any Media Center Edition computers coming with more than one TV tuner, but assuming it has MCE 2005 on it, you can add an extra TV tuner and get the above-mentioned benefits.

[mcsouth]

Didn't realize that setting up two tuners could be such an involved process, although I suppose that it makes sense. Amazing how we just take for granted the ability of your VCR to record one show while you watch another, but never sort of stop to realize that you are utilizing two tuners in that example - one in the VCR, and the other in the TV.

Just kinda points out that when you have a paradigm shift, such as now with the increase in interest in home media servers/PVR, you have to discard the assumptions from the prior technology, and learn the ins and outs of the new. I had just kind of assumed that I could get Snapstream's Beyond TV3 on my PC, and then happily record one show while watching another on my PC - this is obviously not going to be the case - at least not out of the box. Does anyone have any idea what would happen if you tried to mix an ATI AIW graphics card with an Hauppauge card in your PC (running regular WinXP), using Beyond TV3 software?

[that_kid]

Does anyone have any idea what would happen if you tried to mix an ATI AIW graphics card with an Hauppauge card in your PC (running regular WinXP), using Beyond TV3 software?

I've seen success stories on this but it seems that using ATI cards with other cards is a pain to setup. Using multiple hardware cards, PVR250's for instance seem to be very straight forward. I have 4 PVR250 cards in my Beyond TV Machine and the only limiting factor was the number of pci slots I had on the motherboard.

[mcsouth]

4 PVR250 cards? 8O That's like, $600 worth of TV tuner PCI cards! What drove you to install that many cards? Do you record that much tv that you need to be able to simultaneously record 3 shows while watching, or are you simply streaming to 3 other PC's/TV's? I'm curious about what pushed you to that (seemingly) extreme number of cards...

[that_kid]

Actually I have the 4 cards hooked to 4 direct tv boxes in hopes of putting small shuttle pc's in each room and using either beyond tv link or hauppage media centers. This way Everyone in the house can either watch a live show or something already recorded. I'm trying to get a centralized thing going on here. Plus with 4 cards and 3 people in the house, I now I'll have a card left over to record if everyone is watching something. The funny thing is I really don't watch much TV, I record things and then watch them on my ppc or hauppage media centers whenever I have time but for the most part I only watch tv for about an hour or so a day (excluding news).

[mcsouth]

:onfire: Hot setup!!! Here I am sweating over setting up MY PC as a PVR for the family, and you've got this sweet rig happening!

I am sort of hoping that if I get my PC (you know, the one that I built that is mine alone - the kids have the family PC, and my wife has her laptop...) converted to a family media center, then that could be my excuse for building my next PC - I kind of have my eye set on a new mobo with the NVidia nForce4 chipset, PCI-Express and Athlon 64...woo-hoo!

Biggest challenge right now is deciding whether to go with a Hauppauge PVR250 card and Snapstream Beyond TV, or whether I should go with an All-in-Wonder card. I have a Radeon 9500 Pro right now, and would like to upgrade for Half-Life2, so was leaning towards a 9800 Pro AIW (can't afford the dosh for an X800 AIW...), but not sure that is really the best way to go.

[JonnoB]

Is there a native DirecTV tuner card yet? I assume everyone using DTV or other sattelite system is using a serial or IR blaster configuration?

[that_kid]

Is there a native DirecTV tuner card yet? I assume everyone using DTV or other sattelite system is using a serial or IR blaster configuration?

Nothing that i've seen so far and boy would I love to have some. I'm going the serial route right now, I even had to get 2 us to serial converters cause I only had 2 serial on board. Having a direct tv tuner card would also cut out the digital to analog to digital conversion which would give better picture quality and possibly allow dolby digital streams to be recorder(oh this would be so nice)