Is it possible to force a show in the Series Pass to use a specific tuner?
And/Or:
Set each channel to use a specific tuner?
I would say if you move that tuner source higher than the other tuner source. Then heart the channel in the higher source and un-heart that channel in the lower source. Do all this in the dvr web ui. Based on how channels prioritizes how it picks channels to record this should force it to record from the good source. Also if the channel is so bad on a certain source why not just x the channel out so it can’t be used. Perhaps I’m misunderstanding your reasoning for this.
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Would help if you said why you want to do that and what you mean by a specific tuner.
Is it tuner0, tuner1, tuner2, tuner3 on a 4 tuner HDHR.
Or do you mean device, like which HDHR to use.
Agreeing with the replies above: more info regarding your intentions would help more accurately answer this question.
However, generally,
No, not really. However, if you limit a pass to particular channel, then you can.
If you disable the channel from every tuner except the one you want to use, then the DVR will only use that single tuner for that channel. Paired with limiting a pass to only use a particular channel, and this will achieve your goals. (At least as far as I understand them.)
Also, be sure to set a server-side setting to force tuner sharing, otherwise clients may communicate directly to the tuners, circumventing your settings on the DVR.
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This is in conjunction with my question in General regarding being able to analyze show info. Though now that I look closer at the JSON file, I can see the device the show used, but not the tuner on the device - unless I'm missing it somewhere
For the past 3 weekends NFL Today (CBS 2.1) has recorded on the same device and has had anywhere from 95% to 100% signal failure. The WAF is at an all time low because of this. That channel on other devices records fine.
Rather than having to keep shuffling the device priority, I'd like to force that show to a different device/tuner. Or if I know that Ch 2.1 on device X, tuner1 records fine, then I could use that method.
You can determine the tuner inside the HDHR that was used by looking at the HDHR system log, times are UTC.
Channels DVR tells the HDHR to use auto tuning, leaving it up to the HDHR which internal tuner is used.
EDIT: Forgot the Channels DVR log tells you which tuner was used. Thanks @racameron
If you look at the logs when the recording occurs, it will indicate which device and tuner are used (ie, DEADBEEF/0 for tuner0 on the HDHR with DeviceID of DEADBEEF).
You can only disable a channel to a particular device, not a specific tuner on that device.
If you are having issues with a specific tuner and/or device, you may have some RF interference issues (such as certain types of lights or electronics in the vicinity). Another possibility is a failing power adapter. (Failing power adapters are probably the number 1 issue when dealing with HDHR devices ... that, and too-strong signals.)
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There is one way to manually force Channels to see/use single tuners from a device:
- Do not assign (or remove) the guide data to the tuner in the DVR.
- Create a M3U playlist for each tuner of the device. (The URL for each channel would be something like
http://192.168.1.25:5400/tuner0/v2.1; that would be for OTA channel 2.1, using tuner0 on the HDHR at 192.158.1.25. This would be a pain, as you would have to do this 4 times for a device with 4 tuners. Also, you'd need to ensure that when adding the playlist to Channels you specify that it only allows a single stream.)
This is quite a convoluted/hacky way to achieve your ask, but it is possible. I think you're better off tracking down the real root issue of the problem, though.
4x HDHomeRun CONNECT (2 tuners each) - these were finally migrated to Channels from my BTV server
2x HDHomeRun QUATRO (4 tuners each) - original tuners for Channels
so, yeah, 16 tuners for recording from basically 6 local channels (CBS, NBC, ABC, WB, FOX, KCAL9)
There were always 8 tuners being used (in either BeyondTV or Channels). Since I have a 5min padding before and after shows, this allowed having tuners available when shows started.
That's a split of 6 coax cables. I've been running this way for years now. This signal degradation is fairly recent in the past 3 weeks.
I've moved the "problematic" device down another slot in priority. I'll have to see what happens next Sunday I suppose when NFL Today records.
I'm going to look into Rice's suggestion about favoriting the station in a hire priority device and defavoriting in a lower one.
The failing power adapter as racameron suggested may be another issue.
Probably best to replace it but in the mean time just move it to the bottom of the tuner list.
I think I need to start a new topic, but not sure where to put it or what to title it.
Preface: My DVR is in a remote location from me.
Clients:
Apple TV 4k (orig)
iPhone 12 Pro Max
iPhone 15 Pro Max
On the server side, I removed Tuner Sharing
On each client I limited the source to just the "problem" device. This was one of the CONNECT devices, which only has 2 tuners.
I then started going through the channels (2.1,4.1,5.1,7.1,9.1,11.1), on the Apple TV and the 15Pro, each tuned to a different channel. When I pulled up the stats for the show, it showed it was using the correct device. I was trying to troubleshoot the device to see if it had problems tuning into a channel. Each channel played fine.
I then pulled up a third channel on the 12Pro expecting a "source not available" or any type of error. Yet it did bring in a channel. Its stats showed the same device as the other two.
What the?
So I exited all devices.
NFL is now recording and it's using the "problem" device. - I favorited ABC on that device. So this makes sense. This device only had issues with CBS.
I now start up Channels on the 15Pro, it should be limited to just the "problem" device. The stats on the recording shows that device. So in effect both turners of the device should be in use.
I pull up the webpage for that tuner (I'm using TeamViewer to get my DVR locally and pull up the HDHR webpages). It shows only one tuner in use for the NFL.
I find that the 15Pro is using the first tuner in the priority list - not the device it shows in the Stats.
I look at the log file, sure enough, the log file shows it's using the first device.
So this solves the reason why it appears I can pull up 3 different channels on the same device - at least according to the Stats screen. In reality a different device(s) was being used. My troubleshooting above was for naught as I probably wasn't on the same device.
So what's the use of the device in Stats, if in the background the source is different?
I'm guessing if I want to do the troubleshooting I was attempting, I would need to remove all the other sources and then test each one individually to see if I really do have a faulty device.
When you are remote, tuner sharing is automatically used. The DVR is the delegate for all remote clients.
I did discover that.
I'm wondering if I watch one channel here and remote into another computer and watch another channel, I can force it to use all tuners from a device. I'm not sure if tuner sharing would kick in if it's from two different locations.
I did some more troubleshooting last night watching the log file as I ran my test.
On a Fire Cube, I isolated each device by favoriting/hiding channels.
What I encountered:
3 Devices aren't tuning in any channels -1 Connect and both Quatros - so there's 10 tuners not responding. I can't find anywhere in the HDHR config/setup programs that allows them to do a power cycle. So I'm going to try doing so this weekend and see if I can get any response from them.
I discovered that CBS is pretty much rubbish on all the remaining devices. It is watchable on one device, though it gets choppy about every 5 - 10 minutes.
Using their commandline hdhomerun_config tool:
hdhomerun_config <DeviceID> set /sys/restart self
or
hdhomerun_config <IPAddress> set /sys/restart self
I don't think you understand how tuner sharing works. By default, when you are viewing live from a HDHR tuner, the client app talks directly to the device, completely bypassing the DVR server. In this situation, the DVR server has absolutely no clue what that client app is doing. When tuner sharing is enabled, the client app will ask the DVR server to tune the device, and the live feed will go from the tuner to the server to the client.
When you are accessing the DVR remotely, your client app is only talking to the DVR server. It cannot directly access the tuners on your home network. In this manner, every remote connection uses tuner sharing.
I'm pulling my hair out here.
OK, so the reason I'm remote to the server is that my mother-in-law is in hospice and we've been taking care of her at her house for 2+ years. The DVR is at my own home.
So, today I drive there and start swapping the devices around. I get all the devices to find the same 168 channels. I call up the wife and have her check the channels on the Fire Cube TV. She's getting all the network channels (ABC,CBS,NBC,WB,FOX). I myself in the HDHomerun Setup program can open the channels in VLC.This was around 1pm today. Great! I'm back in business. Thinking that maybe physically powering down the devices may have helped.
I get back to my MIL's house, but we don't watch any TV, just some pre-recorded stuff.
However, it's now 9pm I decide to check that Live TV is working. Suddenly, I'm not getting any signal again. I start turning off sources and enabling them one by one in the Setting on the FireTV Cube and try to watch Live TV. Nada. Nothing is coming up. I look at the log files and I see errors such as this:
A bunch of lines like this:
2023/11/10 21:24:34.354929 [HLS] ffmpeg: ch9.1-d10416A54-ae376a979b95-remux: [mpegts @ 000000000120bf40] Packet corrupt (stream = 0, dts = 2161346120), dropping it.
And entries like this:
2023/11/10 21:25:26.528546 [ERR] Failed to start stream for ch7.1: HDHomeRun: 807 No Video Data
2023/11/10 21:25:26.674983 [HLS] Couldn't generate stream playlist for ch7.1-d107043D9-ae376a979b95: HDHomeRun: 807 No Video Data
2023/11/10 21:25:26.674983 [HLS] Stopping transcoder session ch7.1-d107043D9-ae376a979b95
2023/11/10 21:25:36.860201 [ERR] Failed to start stream for ch7.1: HDHomeRun: 807 No Video Data
2023/11/10 21:25:37.015076 [HLS] Couldn't generate stream playlist for ch7.1-d10704653-ae376a979b95: HDHomeRun: 807 No Video Data
2023/11/10 21:25:37.015076 [HLS] Stopping transcoder session ch7.1-d10704653-ae376a979b95
I remote into the server, run HDHometun Setup and scan channels, and they're sporatic at best.
Nothing on the Quatros, they're back to finding 0 channels, even though they're on a different coax.
I already have an open ticket with SiliconDust. They've confirmed that the devices I have are not prone to the power plug issue that earlier devices had.
When I thought I had everything working I did let them know. But I just sent them an update that I'm back to square one again for why these devices keep losing their signals.
To reiterate, this issue actually started about 3 weeks ago. Since I'm not there, I can guarantee nothing has changed with the wiring/setup in the past couple of years.
So what the heck is going on?
Is there anything else I can check?
Thank you for your service. Does it seem like these issues crop up around the same time of day? 3 weeks ago did you happen to change any thing that uses electricity at your house? New light bulb, furnace, cameras, motion light, ect. Do you have neighbors that are fairly close that may have done the same? EMI has been known to trash signals on hdhr
Thank you for your support!
No nothing new at the house, and this is fairly new issue. No noticeable pattern.
Can't say what the neighbors have done though.
I have an indoor antennae I'm going to test tomorrow to at least see if I can get those quatros to work. Will reply again then.
The antenna I have is a Mohu Sky I had won many years ago. It’s actually an attic/outdoor multidirectional antenna. I have a shake (aluminum) roof so I don’t think it would work in the attic. Because of that I never got around to installing it.
So I propped it up in a window facing the direction of the signal tower.
I already had a Monster Cable 3-way splitter, so I put the two Quatros and one Connect to it.
I terminated the prior connections from the original aerial antenna.
Now that I’m back at my mother-in-law’s house, I enabled/disabled each tuner one by one to check the channels. The new antenna and the original antenna signals are all coming in strong and healthy.
The only thing I can think of for the oringinal antenna is that even though it’s still being split up 6-ways, only 3 devices are actuall taxing it. Don’t know why this is suddenly new for it though.
The Mohu is not ideally set up correctly being just in the window, but since no one is there daily, it’s not much of an issue.
Hopefully I won’t have any signal issues from now on.
Signal loss is calculated by the splits and not which device is active. Get yourself a good 3 way splitter and you will save a few dB