Same boat here.  I have twelve tuners in multiple computers.  I now have to schedule show A on Channel 1 to record on computer X and show B (right after show A) on Channel 1 to record on computer Y just so I don't get the overlap...doh. Always fun to work out the scheduling, thank goodness I have Win7Pro on these machines so I can RDP from one system.

On a side, homegroups and WHS PP3 really makes the end result bearable by letting all of the shows appear in the same recorded TV space.

walkabt

I now have to schedule show A on Channel 1 to record on computer X and show B (right after show A) on Channel 1 to record on computer Y

Before moving to Vista Media Center, I used two Humax PVRs.  Each PVR had two tuners, so four tuners in total.  Two points about this set-up:

(1)  I did what you do, but eventually I got fed up constantly switching back and forth between the two PVRs when distributing the recording schedule between the two units in order to get full pre-padding and post-padding on all recordings.  Life is too short to mess around like this.  This is what computers are for -- to make our lives easier.

With Vista Media Center I can schedule all programmes on one system, and (using the technique described in my earlier post) get pre-padding and post-padding on all recordings.  It is a shame that this technique does not work on Windows 7.

(2)  For me, four tuners were not enough to cope with programme clashes, even though the PVRs remained idle 99% of the time (yes, I do actually do other things with my life, apart from watching TV).  Hence the need for more than four tuners.  It is a shame that Windows 7 does not support more than four tuners of one type.

 So, no Windows 7 for me.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

I have to "Bump" this because I am getting ticked off because of this..... Now, so everyone knows....4 QAM tuners and 3 Analog, Channels being recorded are HD (QAM) only. 2 Shows back to back on Monday night on Fox. House and 24. Nothing else is scheduled in these time slots for at least an hour before or after (so, no other recordings can cause issues with this problem)

24 is a show I do not watch till the end of the season (I've done this in the past), I will record all 24+ episodes then plan to watch the whole season over a few days (it's much better this way). but, because of this problem, I can not keep all the episodes, making me think on why I even use a PC for a DVR.

So, House is on 1st, it honors the 5 min past and cuts 5 min into 24. So to keep this episode of 24, I'll have to keep the episode of House and that will just take up too much space to have 2 hours of HD for every hour of TV.

To note, while these shows are recording and having this issue.... 3 tuners are just sitting there doing nothing....What a waste....

Has there been any word on this BUG from anyone at MS?  Virtually everyone suffers from it, there is no fix and it should never have happened in the first place.  It's yet another example of Media Center failing at even the most basic of functions... which is a shame!  MS, what are you doing to media center??!!

Rich

Well, after reading this whole thread, I'll have to say I can understand why MS hasn't implemented this yet; although I don't agree with it.

It would get pretty complex pretty fast. So far people have only been talking about 2 back to back shows on one channel at a time. We regularly record back to back shows on 3 different channels at a time. That would mean I would need 6 tuners to record each of those shows with the buffer. I guess if you didn't have enough tuner, you'd just have to look at the show priority list, and decide from that.

Basically though, you'd need twice as many tuners, so I can understand how this would get confusing to people (ie. not users of this forum), and why MS left this out.

As others have said, being able to use the buffer from one tuner for two different recording is the best solution. It would be nice though to have a registry key or something that could enable using two tuners though for those of us that want it.

Hi Foxer.

I understand what you are saying BUT why doesnt it (at least) stop the first on time and start the second immediately instead of stopping with the, eg, 4 minutes padding which then cuts off the first 4 minutes of the following programme?

It is purely fundamentally flawed surely?!

Rich

StumpyBloke

Hi Foxer.

I understand what you are saying BUT why doesnt it (at least) stop the first on time and start the second immediately instead of stopping with the, eg, 4 minutes padding which then cuts off the first 4 minutes of the following programme?

It is purely fundamentally flawed surely?!

Rich

I think it does that already. I have four minutes pre and post padding. If I record two showsback to back, the first show only has pre padding, and the second show only has post padding. Maybe your clock is off?

Hi.  No, clock is fine.  I am sure I am not the only one with this problem.

Rich

StumpyBloke

Hi.  No, clock is fine.  I am sure I am not the only one with this problem.

Rich

I have the same problem. It's usually only 1-2 minutes though.

The simple solution is for each recording to share the 'overlap' buffer. What I did to remove this "BUG" (which only happens on ABC actually) is that I split ABC into two different channels for each of my tuners and set my recording preferences to only record show "A" on channel 18.1 and show "B" on 18.2

So I wonder if splitting the channels in the guide is really worth it.... I think I would only need to do it for the ClearQAM networks, as I only seem to have this problem there. I have a couple HDHR and 2 ATI OCUR, and am thinking of splitting all the networks into dual groups "A" and "B", with one HDHR in each, and one OCUR n each, allowing for up to 3 tuners available per group. Now I have channels 2,4,6,8,12, etc. all with 6 tuners as valid sources If I split them I would have a group that looked like 2A, 4A, 6A, 8A, 12A, with 3 tuners as a source, and another group of 2B, 4B, 6B, 8B, 12B, with 3 other tuners as source. Then I pre and post pad all the series recordings I have, and set them all to "HD Preferred" for the allowed channels. Theoretically this should work, right??

This pains me greatly also.... I'm not sure I'm fond of breaking up the channels though....

 So bump!

zebibyte

So I wonder if splitting the channels in the guide is really worth it.... I think I would only need to do it for the ClearQAM networks, as I only seem to have this problem there. I have a couple HDHR and 2 ATI OCUR, and am thinking of splitting all the networks into dual groups "A" and "B", with one HDHR in each, and one OCUR n each, allowing for up to 3 tuners available per group. Now I have channels 2,4,6,8,12, etc. all with 6 tuners as valid sources If I split them I would have a group that looked like 2A, 4A, 6A, 8A, 12A, with 3 tuners as a source, and another group of 2B, 4B, 6B, 8B, 12B, with 3 other tuners as source. Then I pre and post pad all the series recordings I have, and set them all to "HD Preferred" for the allowed channels. Theoretically this should work, right??

Theoretically, yes, but practically, I don't know. I have two HD HomeRuns and thus 4 tuners, yet when MC recorded "Chuck" last night, it ended at 8 PM, and when it recorded "24", it began at 8 PM. So even though there were several free tuners and the programs were on different channels, MC did not respect the "when possible" post-padding for "Chuck" or the pre-padding for "24". (It did get the "vice versa padding" right.) This is something I've been observing for months for this sort of scenario. Maybe your splitting idea would work if all the tuners weren't assigned to each channel, but who knows? There have been a couple of times that 7MC has disregarded program settings like "Record only on channel 703" and gone off and series-recorded the program on channel 3.

Personally, I would not do what you're suggesting, as it creates a hard-to-maintain mess, and since there's no way to back it up, you'll have to redo it all whenever you have to redo TV setup, such as after installing a new tuner or even moving a tuner card from one slot to another.

It sounds like you have your post buffer recordings set to '4 minutes' instead of '4 minutes if possible'. The if possible option tells MC to not do the buffer if another show needs to record. By setting it without the if possible you're forcing MC to make the choice of which show to pad based off its series priority.

Foxer

Well, after reading this whole thread, I'll have to say I can understand why MS hasn't implemented this yet; although I don't agree with it.

It would get pretty complex pretty fast. So far people have only been talking about 2 back to back shows on one channel at a time. We regularly record back to back shows on 3 different channels at a time. That would mean I would need 6 tuners to record each of those shows with the buffer. I guess if you didn't have enough tuner, you'd just have to look at the show priority list, and decide from that.

So are you saying, you are recording 6 shows on 2 different channels all at the same time ? You don't get the full point, If you have all your pre-post settings 5 min, you would never be using 6 tuners in this case.

Show 1 is recording (say 8:pm), show 2 comes(9:pm) on..both recording now using 2 tuners, show 1 ends at 9:05, the tuner is released and is free, and it repeats the process on each recording. So the 2nd tuner for the back to back recording is only in use for 5 or 10 min (to cover pre-post on both recordings).

So, in this case, on the worse case, 4 shows, 2 back to back on one channel, 2 back to back on another channel, all recording at the same time window....at the max point, you would need 4 tuners but, only for a 5 min window but, I would still say to always attempt leave a tuner free, so show priority would take over here....

BUT !!!!!!!!!

If there was a way for Microsoft to SHARE the recordings, you would never need more than 1 tuner to record on one channel, because it could just keep recording, cut the shows out for what it needs honoring pre and post padding and share what is needed for each show....This would ROCK...and is a dream of mine...

Maybe if we buffer recording any time soon, this must be possable with that...