# two tuners? recordings?



## shy007 (Apr 11, 2003)

My sister has a tivo and was asking me if I can pause one show and watch something else and go back to the show being paused and continue on... I can't do this but my question is do we have 2 tuners working at the same time? and why would I have conflicts with recording a show on cbs at 9pm til 10:15 pm and a second recording at 10pm til 11:15 pm but the 2nd doesn't start til 10:15? why is this happening?


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## carl6 (Nov 16, 2005)

What your sister is describing is the function of dual live buffers - different than two tuners. The R15 does have two tuners, but only one live buffer.

With regard to your other issue, can you provide a bit more detail on how you are setting the recordings up? Maybe with that, we can help answer your question and resolve your problem.

Carl


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## shy007 (Apr 11, 2003)

Okay.... I had Survivor set for 8pm til 9:15pm and then I had CSI set for 9pm til 10:15pm.... Well CSI recording started at 9:15 instead of of 9pm.... I deleted Survivor after I watched and missed the first 15 minutes of CSI...... 

I am confused with 2 tuners why it would mess up either recording..... Just so you know, my TV was not on for these recordings......


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## ApK (Mar 6, 2006)

I'm very confused. You're saying to set two recording to overlap and you don't understand why there was a conflcit? You set them to overlap.

You also didn't make it clear if if you are talking about a dual-tuner Tivo or not.

What Tivo do you have? What cables are hooked up into it?

Are you saying that you KNOW you have two tuners so you are wondering why the two programs didn't just record on different tuners and avoid the overlap?

Are you saying that you believe you SHOULD have two tuners and you think one is not working?


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## carl6 (Nov 16, 2005)

shy007 said:


> Okay.... I had Survivor set for 8pm til 9:15pm and then I had CSI set for 9pm til 10:15pm....


When I asked for more detail, what I meant was HOW did you set them up:
(a) did you set them up as series links?
(b) did you set either or both as manual records?
(c) what, if anything, else were you doing at the time?
(d) was the R15 on or in standby?
(e) etc.

If you will provide the specifics (what buttons you pushed, etc.) on how you set the two shows to record, maybe we can provide suggestions.

Carl


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## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

shy007 said:


> Okay.... I had Survivor set for 8pm til 9:15pm and then I had CSI set for 9pm til 10:15pm.... Well CSI recording started at 9:15 instead of of 9pm.... I deleted Survivor after I watched and missed the first 15 minutes of CSI......
> 
> I am confused with 2 tuners why it would mess up either recording..... Just so you know, my TV was not on for these recordings......


The reason is because both shows are on the same channel. For the 15 minute overlap, you would be recording the same thing on both tuners. I'm not sure (maybe one of the Techsperts here can elaborate) if it is a functional limitation of the HW or a design implimentation in the SW, but the individual tuners of the DVR cannot be tuned to the same 'channel' at the same time.

Do you need to pad an extra 15 minutes? I find that padding 2 minutes is usually sufficient to get everything, even the 'scenes from the next episode'...


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## ApK (Mar 6, 2006)

If what battlescott is describing is really the case, and Survivor has the higher priority, then the survivor recording would have the first fifteen minutes of CSI at the end.


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## shy007 (Apr 11, 2003)

Okay, I see what you guys are talking about.... So there is no problem with my DVR just having a recording at the same time on one channel is not possible..... I can understand that now....


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## qwerty (Feb 19, 2006)

shy007 said:


> Okay, I see what you guys are talking about.... So there is no problem with my DVR just having a recording at the same time on one channel is not possible..... I can understand that now....


That's what I was thinking the problem was. However, you would think that with two tuners it _should_ be able to do that. All I can figure is that on a programming level it's to complicated to have both tuners on the same channel at the same time. The box gets confused enough as it is! :grin:


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## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

qwerty said:


> That's what I was thinking the problem was. However, you would think that with two tuners it _should_ be able to do that. All I can figure is that on a programming level it's to complicated to have both tuners on the same channel at the same time. The box gets confused enough as it is! :grin:


I don't think the R15 really has a true 'dual tuner' architecture like the TiVos do. I think they just patched a 2nd 'record only' input to an existing single tuner design to provide the same 'Record 2 shows at once' functionality needed to replace the DTiVo boxes. I think that's why we don't have a 'live buffer' on the 2nd tuner and it occasionally seems to be unavailable when it should be. Just my thoughts...

Also, I don't think the 'Prioritizer' has any effect unless it perceives a conflict between 2 scheduled recordings. I've tried this same scenario with the prioritizer set both ways and always had the overlap at the end of the first recording.

Very similar thread a few weeks back:
http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=65708


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## wohlfie (Dec 28, 2005)

shy007 said:


> Okay.... I had Survivor set for 8pm til 9:15pm and then I had CSI set for 9pm til 10:15pm.... Well CSI recording started at 9:15 instead of of 9pm.... I deleted Survivor after I watched and missed the first 15 minutes of CSI......
> 
> I am confused with 2 tuners why it would mess up either recording..... Just so you know, my TV was not on for these recordings......


If you look at the thread BattleScott referenced, you will see Wolfpack 'discovered' this during one of his 'tests'. I (sort of) defeneded it as the R15 trying to be advanced and keep the second tuner available for another task.....but I guess the implementation left something to be desired.

I appluad the thought that it knows it is recording a channel already and it doesn't need to tie up the second tuner. BUT, one would think that a computer could be programmed to recognize the situation and deal with it in an user-friendly fashion.

If I record two shows that I set to overlap on a single channel (10-10:45 and 10:30 to 11:00), couldn't the box use the recorded data and make two 'files' with the requested recordings? Both showing up individually and 'complete', regardless of HOW it decided to record them? I mean they are just computer files of a data stream, right? It would seem pretty simple to have it take the 10-10:45 data and save it as one file and the 10:30-11:00 data and make a second file (please forgive bad 'techie' language....I am no computer expert).

Anyhow, I does appear that it both tuners can't be on the same channel at once, and you will have mixed results if you ask it to do so. I seems like everything you WANT will be there as part of a one recording or another, but only the R-15 knows the logic it used to decidde what 'file' it is part of.... (maybe something for you FAQ 2.0 guys?  ).

edit: drunken typos and poor writing


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## cabanaboy1977 (Nov 16, 2005)

qwerty said:


> That's what I was thinking the problem was. However, you would think that with two tuners it _should_ be able to do that. All I can figure is that on a programming level it's to complicated to have both tuners on the same channel at the same time. The box gets confused enough as it is! :grin:


:lol:

I don't know why it doesn't do this. Tivo and UTV did this and I assume other DVR's do this too. This is probably why there is no auto padding at the end of the show like the UTV did.

I bet you it's something as simple as "if tuner 1 = (channel X) then tuner 2 can not = (channel X)". It's got to be a software issue since there are two tuners and there would be no reason both tuners can not be on the same channel.


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