[Solved] Restrict tuner to certain channels

[rk4n3]

Hi all,

Is there a way to specify a restriction on a particular tuner so that it will only be used to watch a specific channel ?
Similarly, is there a way to prevent certain tuners from being used for a specific channel ?

I've read the documentation and played around with the settings, but haven't been able to discern if this is possible or not.

Many thanks in advance

[MikeB2013]

It is possible.

I am assuming that when you say watching, it includes recording the channel.

You need to create a separate video source for each tuner, rather than sharing a video source across a number of tuners of the same type in mythtv-setup>Input Connections. A channel scan in each of the Input Connections will be needed (normally you only need to channel scan once where you are sharing the video source across Input Connections). Use the mythtv-setup>Channel Editor to uncheck the Visible option for each channel in each video source that you don't want used.

Depending on how many channels and/or tuners you want to restrict, using the Channel Editor in mythtv-setup could take a while.

Mike

[rk4n3]

Beautiful ! That's exactly what I was hoping for ... I just never ran across the Channel Editor - I'll give that a whirl.

FYI, the use-case I have for this: I have a single physical tuner with a completely separate VHF directional antenna on it, dedicated to picking up one OTA station ... even though that antenna happens to pick up some other stuff, its the only tuner the "troublemaker" OTA station is available on, and so I need that tuner to always remain available for that station. Similarly, I can't have any of the other tuners "trying" to be used for that station, as they can never reach it (antenna on those is not sufficient).

[rk4n3]

Update - works like a charm ... the reason I missed the channel editor previously is because the menu item for it was off-screen and had to be scrolled down to in order to see it.

[wmorrison]

I have a single physical tuner with a completely separate VHF directional antenna on it, dedicated to picking up one OTA station ...

That's great. Completely separate antenna/coax/tuner optimized for one "weak" station, and another antenna/coax/multi-tuner (maybe) for the rest.

I almost had to do something like that, as the only ABC available was a far south VHF-HI channel (RF 10,) and the rest of the channels are close by UHF about NNW.

Luckily, with my antenna on the south side of the house, it picks them all up. It's a Mohu Striker hidden under vinyl siding above the highest window.

Not sure this antenna was meant for VHF (the site and documentation don't even say,) but it works fine, at least down to RF 10. But not with the little amplifier that came with it, which seems to filter out VHF and only amplify UHF.

[rk4n3]

Ah, interesting ... I guess it goes to show how antenna + amplifier combinations can yield diverse results.

The antenna I tried first is an ANTOP AT-415B, which is advertised as a "720-degree" antenna with its own amplifier. It certainly picks up all the area UHF channels in all directions, and the amplifier it comes with makes a huge difference (the antenna won't pick up anything without it, and receives every UHF station around perfectly with it).

The one VHF channel (in our area, its channel 10 and the only one that carries NBC) wouldn't even show up at all on that ANTOP. After some research, I selected the Antennas Direct ClearStream 5 directional antenna, and a much stronger amplifier (Antennas Direct ClearStream JUICE) ... that did the trick for the VHF channel 10, after finding the precise angle to aim the antenna ... the actual station is 54 miles away (as the crow flies).

Before buying the JUICE, I did try the ANTOP amplifier on the ClearStream 5 antenna, and it wouldn't seem to work at all - perhaps it does that kind of filtering that you mentioned.

One thing I haven't tried is the JUICE amp with the ANTOP antenna ... I'm guessing that the "720-degree" aspect of the antenna probably won't reproduce the directional antenna's reception of the "troublemaker" channel ? If I find time and inclination, I may try that out and report the difference ... for now though, I'm happy with a solution that works