Dual tuners - how not to combine channels

[steelpossum]

Hi
I really like this gbpvr - thanks for making it available. I've been looking around for 2 days before finally registering and asking for this help. You might be able to point the answer.

I have two leadtek usb dongle gold tuners on my acer revo with atom 230, running xp pro. Gbpvr has been running very well. Here is my set up:
Tuner 1: is connected to an antenna pointing to a tv transmitter A (horizontal polarisation).
Tuner 2: is connected to another antenna pointing to tv transmitter B (vertical polarisation).
The two transmitters are about 90 degrees apart from our house.
The reason for using two antennas is that transmitter A is often vandalised, so we use transmitter B which is much further away (>10x) as a backup.

Gbpvr can receive signals from both transmitters. But the final result of the config is that the channels are combined, therefore rendering the second tuner idle all the time when changing channel.
In other words, tuner 1 receives programs: ABC, SBS, Seven, Nine and Ten; and tuner 2 also receives identical programs - because it seems that gbpvr uses the channel name as primary key to match to the broadcast EPG, it simply combines them.
If NPVR solves this problem, I am more than happy to use it.
Can you please help i.e. what are the tricks to make gbpvr not to combine same programs from two tuners. Note that the channel from the two transmitters are not overlap, i.e. Tuner 1 receives channel 56 (ABC), 59 (SBS), 62 (Seven), 64 (Nine), 67 (Ten) while tuner 2 receives channel 34 (ABC), 36 (SBS), 40 (Seven), 41(nine), 43 (ten).

[martint123]

As you have guessed, I think the EPG names have to be different to force different tuners to be used with GBPVR. This is/was intended to make use of the system EPG driven rather than having to specify tuners when recording. The snag being the few situations like yours.

Having different EPG entries would be the easiest way round it to my mind - like ABC-V or ABC-H and set the two tuners to match the different entries. How easy this is depends on where and with what you get your egp data.

At first thoughts, I can't think npvr would make it any easier I'm afraid. Hmmm, Possibly there is, by having two channel names, but pointing to the same EPG entry.

Hopefully, someone in your situation may pop along with an easy answer.

[pBS]

i use mc2xml and it can choose channels and rename them if needed when grabbing...
so you could have ABC and ABC-V like he said, which should solve your problem..
so it all depends on what you use to grab epg....

[johnsonx42]

You could try the new NextPVR (NPVR) application, and set "<AutoCombineChannels>false</AutoCombineChannels>" in Config.xml.

[steelpossum]

Thanks again - for the replies.
I installed NPVR and used the suggestion by johnsonx42. The channels are not combined, that's a good first step; then it was difficult to tell which channel for which tuner. So, I then deleted the channels scanned by the second tuner. Then go to the channel listing again, and rename each scanned channels by tuner1 (click on detail button) by adding a one letter prefix. After that, I rescanned using tuner2 and rename the channels scanned by tuner2 with another prefix. So now, I can tell which channel for which tuner. Now I have re-assigned the number (#) for each tv program so that I can simply press (for tuner1-> 1 for ABC, 2 for SBS, etc ) and (for tuner2->6 for ABC, 7 for SBS, etc). It works now.
Though I still like many aspects of the original gbpvr.

To answer some questions above, in both the GBPVR and NPVR, I use the broadcast EPG by the tv stations, not via internet or xmltv. How do I make it pointing to the same EPG?
Is this in the .db3 file? If it comes to this, I don't mind doing it, via sql, etc.

Just minor thing in my original message, the far transmitter B is horizantal polarisation for long distance, (transmitter A is vertical, not good for long distance). this doesn't have any bearing in this discussion though.