Recording More Than One Show On A Digital Tuner

[skycyclepilot]

A couple of times, I've noticed GBPVR recording two shows at the same time on my HVR2250, but the program says it is using only one tuner, and the other tuner is asleep. My source is digital cable.

Is it possible for a QAM digital tuner to do that???

[sub]

Is it possible for a QAM digital tuner to do that???

Some times it can, but only if those channels are on the same frequency. Same story for all other digital tuners too, ATSC, DVB-C/T/S.

[skycyclepilot]

Excellent. Thank you...

[gonzo90017]

So let me get this straight. If i'm recording back to back shows on the same channel GBPVR will only use on tuner?

[sub]

If i'm recording back to back shows on the same channel GBPVR will only use on tuner?

It'll try to. Thats not what the thread was about though. In the digital TV world, multiple channels are transmitted on the same frequency, sometimes up to eight channels on the one frequency. Using that as an example, GBPVR's multi-record feature will let you record all eight of those channels at the same time with only one tuner.

[gonzo90017]

WOW! I had no idea GBPVR could do that! The reason I was asking was because back in my MC7 days this was one of the biggest complaints. People were wondering why Media Center didn't do this when recording back to back shows on the same channel.

The problem is that there is a bug in MC7 when recording back to back shows on the same channel with post padding. If you set the post padding to 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 minutes it wouldn't work. For example Univision here in the US is notorious for letting their shows run around 5 minutes past the hour. So if you set your post padding to 5 minutes past the hour. The show would get cut off at exactly at the 60 minute mark and start recording the next show (of the back to back). So this means you would miss the end of the show. This would happen even if you had another "not in use" tuner. The only fix was to set a "hard padding" of 10 minutes.

[pcostanza]

While testing W7 Media Center for Microsoft I asked some of the guys why they didn't offer muli-record. 1 said he didn't know what I was talking about and after I explained it in detail, he suddenly stopped talking. Another just said it might be something they'd look into in the future and that they were aware of it but it wasn't a priority.