2x HD HomeRun Prime setup and exclusion settings

[BonzaiDuck]

Ah . . . the nuisance factor in the HDHR Prime .. . every so often, one must power-cycle the tuner adapter with my provider.

Even so, I got a second HDHR Prime unit for a "price," and decided to add the $2 cableCARD charge to my bundled-service account with Charter.

I just went through the monthly thing with the old unit, and it seems to be working perfectly. I've made note of the SN, the MAC address and the IP address, which I recall as having been given a "reservation" under my LAN DHCP.

I added a $25 signal amplifier to the mix between the wall and the splitter -- latter already in use to provide for a set-top box, which I may or may not renew after the free 12-mo promo expires. The signal amplifier seems to have worked wonders for signal quality of both the STB and HDHR Prme #1. I can dump the STB at whim, since I've got "On Demand" everywhere else in the house via additional STBs, while MC offers Netflix, Hulu and other wonderfulness.

I'm going to power up the second tuner adapter and the HDHR Prime #2 sometime in the next 24 hours.

I'm trying to remember where the choices are made to exclude or include HDHR Prime devices, so I can continue access to the first on its current computer, and access to the second exclusively on a second second computer.

Does anyone remember? Is that done in Media Center? Perhaps by MAC address?

 

[tential]

It's in Windows Media Center.

There is an option to "reserve" tuners specifically for the computer. So you wouldn't be able to "reserve" tuners for the second computer, but you could tell the first computer to only use certain "tuners" and leave the rest open.

I've never had to do this with my InfiniTV4 though. All of the "tuners" are available on the network. I just shared the tuner to my network (using a network bridge setting on my PC) and they're available for anyone who wants to add/use them assuming they're available/open.

I should "reserve" a tuner for the main PC (that the InfiniTV4 is installed on so that that TV can always watch but I never bothered with that many open tuners I never am watching/recording up to 4 things ay once.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

It's in Windows Media Center.

There is an option to "reserve" tuners specifically for the computer. So you wouldn't be able to "reserve" tuners for the second computer, but you could tell the first computer to only use certain "tuners" and leave the rest open.

I've never had to do this with my InfiniTV4 though. All of the "tuners" are available on the network. I just shared the tuner to my network (using a network bridge setting on my PC) and they're available for anyone who wants to add/use them assuming they're available/open.

I should "reserve" a tuner for the main PC (that the InfiniTV4 is installed on so that that TV can always watch but I never bothered with that many open tuners I never am watching/recording up to 4 things ay once.

Oh, hey -- listen! Thank you very much! I posted this thread today, thinking it was in the "HTPC" forum. Went back there to look for it -- WTF?!?

It was my mistake to have posted it here in Vid . . Graphics. But since I did, I'll leave to a moderator if they want to move it, link it or leave it.

I'm guessing from vague recollection that WMC provides a list of tuner devices and asks you to choose one or more. That's the way I remember it. Don't like to fiddle with this stuff much once I have it working, so I avoid plowing through the menus unless I'm clear as to what will happen.

I wanted more control over how each HDHomeRun "Pie" gets divvied up among computers. I could be wrong, but my experience thus far is that a computer connected via LAN to the same Silly-dust device can have TV, but that's one less tuner of the three for the original computer or others.

I had the single device allocated between two machines, and I couldn't record on two other channels (watching the first) if the second computer was configured for the device, even if nobody on that machine was accessing WMC at the time. That is, I'd have one fewer channel for recording.

Otherwise, I'm quite sure that all the computers on the network will see both devices. Maybe the InfiniTV devices are better than the Silly-dusts. There's a 6-tuner silly-dust model that requires filling two cablecard slots, so it wouldn't make much difference if I just bought another of the lesser model. Which . . . . I did.

=== JUST AN UPDATE, without raising the currency of this thread (should be on "HTPC" forum)=====

There may be a way to selectively block (HDHRPrime device) A from being accessible on PC X, but I'm thinking it would be at the network level. Running the Silly-dust software on PC Y automatically recognizes all properly connected devices (A and B). One then may have the option to selectively pick tuners for inclusion in a WMC setup for "signal," "cable-card digital advisor" and other relevant features, without "making new choices," a running instance of WMC auto-recognizes the second device B and gives you an option to start reconfiguring tuner sources. So the remaining question is -- whether discrete WMC tuner choices on X and Y allows more control in the allocation of "tuner units" as with A = {1, 2, 3} and B = {4,5,6}.

You're always going to make a call to the cable-TV provider, whether you need to reinitialize a tuner-adapter (if provider-required), and/or the cableCARD itself installed on either device A or B. Since we have a big subscription but the card-rentals with tuner-adapters only cost $2 per month, I can see how my most recent phone contacts with the provider tech-support ended with " . . . please don't hesitate to reach out to us online through Charter.net or Charter.com." We die-hard HTPC cable-CARD enthusiasts are probably a pain in their tech-support neck. . . .