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[CHaun]

I have Silicondust Homerun Prime tuners and somehow I have lost television on the clients. I think this is because I changed the tuner setup on the server to dms, but I'm not positive.

How should I set up the tuners so that they can share television from the server? I found in searching the forums that I can set up dms tuners directly on the clients, but I like the ability to stream live tv on my laptop when I'm on the road.

Thanks!

[tzr916]

MC Server > Client setup can be confusing because it can depend a lot on what tuning method you are using, BDA (directshow) or DMS (tuner stream)... Generally:

If using BDA (directshow) = ALL the tuner setup and guide download is done on the Server, then you should "disable" all tuner devices on the Client.

If using DMS (tuner stream) = Tuner setup and guide download is done on every machine. This can result in tuner conflicts because the Server cannot see if/when any Client might be using tuners, and vice versa. Also, bitstreaming audio won't work for live tv using DMS method.

Regardless of what method you use in MC, the chance of tuner conflicts gets even greater when you use tuners outside of JRiver MC, like the HDHR app on other devices.

[CHaun]

Can I use BDR on the HDHR Prime? What are the downsides?

I'm using 3 HDHR Prime devices hooked to Spectrum cablecards.

[tzr916]

Yes, you can use BDA. I can't think of any downside. Maybe someone else will chime in.

[avid]

Yes, you can use BDA. I can't think of any downside. Maybe someone else will chime in.

The only downside I am aware of is that BDA is Windows only. I have just moved from Windows to Linux and I now have to use my HDHR as streaming. But that seems to be fine as the only usage (except when testing) is my main MC server. As far as I can tell BDA "gets more love" from MC than does streaming. But both work on Windows.

[JimH]

As far as I can tell BDA "gets more love" from MC than does streaming. But both work on Windows.

I don't think so.

[CHaun]

I found one difference between BDA and Tuner Stream and that is that BDA won't work on any drm channels, while Tuner stream does.

I didn't think this would be an issue since I can set up 2 of the devices as BDA and the 3rd as TS. That would give me 6 channels to share from the server and 3 channels to use for the server for DVR purposes.

The problem that arises is that when I'm on the client, it also tries to share the tuner stream channels so I get 2 channels for each station, one that works and one that doesn't. Is there a way to easily hide the tuner stream channels from the clients, or alternately at least display "type" as a field on the grid so that open channel or tuner stream can easily be identified?

I'm also running into an issue that I haven't pinpointed yet where sometimes when the client is tuning to a channel, a UAC prompt is popping up on the server. I'll work on that once I narrow down the culprit.

[tzr916]

I found one difference between BDA and Tuner Stream and that is that BDA won't work on any drm channels, while Tuner stream does...

Who is your cable company? Give some examples of a few channels that you say are DRM channels? My cable company only had DRM on channels like HBO / Showtime. These type of copy protected channels should not play at all, in any third party application, BDA or DMS. They should only play in the official SiliconDust HDHR App (windows/android/roku/fire/apple/etc), or the old Windows Media Center (WMC).

Here, comcast has removed all DRM'ed HBO/Showtime channels from cable card completely. Now those are all only available via one of their rented boxes. So, I have no way to test your theory that they can be be played.

[CHaun]

I can't tell you why it works either, but I have Spectrum in Tampa and there are a handful of channels that have drm for no apparent reason. One is channel 1357 Turner Classic movies which won't play on the BDA setup on client or server but will play with tuner stream on the server only. Other channels that I don't ever tune into are 631 START and 632 STORY which behave in the same manner.

I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but we are still using those horrible tuning adapters for the cards.

Thanks for all the help!

[Yaobing]

Just to clarify some terminology:

BDA is for the following type of tuners on Windows only (all using DirectShow):

ATSC OTA tuners for North America and a few other places
DVB tuners (all three types, i.e. OTA, Cable, and Satellite), for Europe and Australia, etc.

OpenCable tuners are for cable channels in the USA.  HDHomeRun Prime is an example.  On Windows we use OpenCable protocols to stream channel data from the tuner.  Non-DMR only.

Tuner Stream is for tuners that have network capability, and MC gets stream data from the tuner, without the help of bda. 

Some of the network tuners may operate as bda tuners or as Tuner Stream (DMS) tuners on Windows, for example HDHomeRun FLEX 4K, so you can choose which type to use on Windows.  On non-Windows, you can only use them in streaming mode.

Similarly, OpenCable tuners such as HDHomeRun Prime, can be either "OpenCable" or "Tuner Stream" as both are network protocols.