EyeTV with Multiple Tuners

I don't know about the 250+, but my setup is a Hybrid and an HDHR, all connected to the same source (clearQAM cable feed). I haven't had any issues, I've had this setup for about 18 months now. Sometimes if I'm watching Live TV while recording I'll get an error about not being able to change the channel, and I have to open a new TV window to activate the next tuner. Not a big deal though.

I'm running 2 dual HDHomerun tuners recording up to 4 OTA TV programs at a time with no problems. EyeTV will just find them.
You can put an ethernet switch next to the Mac so you can connect the Mac and the tuners to that with only 1 connection to the router. The router will see the tuners and Mac and assign IP addresses to them through the switch.

No, just plug them in..
Yes, Silicon Dust.
No software needed.

Its been a long time since I originally set it up, so I don't recall if I had to redo Setup assistant, but i don't think I did. I think EyeTV is smart enough to auto-detect all the tuners on launch. I only get the error when I'm trying to change the channel on a tuner that is currently recording, it gives no errors when recording on multiple tuners.

The HDHR software is not needed.

I have everything hard wired. I once tried to setup EyeTV on a wifi machine a couple rooms over and it didn't behave very well with the HDHR (It failed to pull down a strong enough signal to stream the video).

If you already have one 250+ your best bet for success is getting a second of that same model...so another 250+...the only thing I'd worry about is using 2 tuners on the same USB bus. USB on Macs can be finicky, without the EyeTV forum archive to peruse you won't know if there are any other users who have verified two 250+ will work well together. Many (most?) of us around here dislike USB tuners...I was given a 250+ by El Gato to play with, that's the only reason I have one. It worked fine with my 500s but that's mainly because they were all recording the same shows, all clearQAM HD.


No. That's what EyeTV is for.


Asking this question might mean you don't understand how the HD Homerun works...like Russ One said you don't wire the Homerun to your Mac. It's a networked tuner, you just plug it into a open ethernet port on your router, Airport Extreme, a gigabit switch, whatever.

I recommend you get an HD Homerun instead of a second 250+ because it is a better value for the money. You already have EyeTV software which means you can buy the tuner anywhere.

Hi All,

Hopefully somebody will find this thread. I recently started using EyeTV3 and a pair of HDHomeruns. I know that Elgato doesn't really support multiple HDHomeruns, but the 1st level support guy said that it was a question of bandwidth. At the time the entire setup was hanging off a 100 Mbps switch and I could record using all four tuners.

I bought an 8-port Gigabit switch moved everything to it. EyeTV3 still sees both HDHomeruns, but will now only record using 3 tuners. It seems counterintuitive that more bandwidth would not work as well.

I've done a couple of reboots of everything involved, but don't see any difference. Before I put the 100 Mbps switch back into the picture, does anyone have any ideas?

TIA.

-Bob

Not exactly your configuration, but here is my experience anyway, for what it is worth.
I connected 2 EyeTV Diversity (each in dual tuner mode) through 2 separate USB cables to my 2009 Mac Mini, for a total of 4 independent tuners.
4 parallel recordings work fine, viewing in addition a 5th NON-HD recording works fine, but viewing in parallel a HD recording saturates the CPU and generates some image skips into the ongoing recordings.

I'm having the exact same problem with two HD Homeruns on an entirely gigabit network. Three tuners works fine, but then the fourth kicks in I get a 0 second recording. Have you had any luck figuring this out?

Is the switch and the tuners right at the computer so no other traffic is going thru the switch?
My switch with the tuners are one foot away from my mini so there is no other traffic between the mini and them. Even at that the data/recordings are being sent back thru the switch to the next switch and then to my unRaid server.
Is the switch hard wired to the computer or is it wireless?
How about the wiring? Is it up to gigabit traffic?
And it could be the switch, there have been problems with certain switches not performing well when hot.
Is it always the same tuner section? Are the tuners the ones with 2 antenna inputs instead of 1?
Maybe when you disturbed them the center pin/wire on antenna connection got bent or is just not making a good connection?
Lots of things to check..
I run 5 HD streams thru 2 switches to my unraid server, 4 recording and one playback, the only problem I see is in the playback. While doing this the playback will pause for a second once in a while, Not sure if it is EyeTv, my Mini or the server, but if I play back the same recording alone or with one being recorded it's fine so not a big deal and I'm probably asking my 09 Mini to do a lot and I'm sure EyeTV and or the Mac OS is giving priority to the data being saved.
Also those tuners are not as good as the built in TV tuner, at least for OTA, and they sometimes will not lock to the signal for a few seconds if the signal isn't good enough, causing a station not available message and no recording.

i have a hybrid & hdhr, and altho eyetv usually works w/3 simultaneous recordings, occasionally i get 0 len recordings:-(

on a related issue, is there any way of querying eyetv via applescript to determine how many tuners are available?