How many tuners for DirecTV and BTV?

[jsaylor]

Long story short - I've got BTV working aok on my cable. My cable is dirt simple - no set-top box or anything, just a cable coming in from the wall.

I'm thinking about changing to DirecTV and am faced with the question of how many tuners should I order (it's 4.99/mo for each additional tuner above #1). Hmmm - do I need a tuner for the TV and one for the BTV box, or would they share the same tuner?

Appreciation in advance - cheers,

Jeff

[nanook105]

Well - they can share a single box, but it will truly be a "share" Whatever you watch on TV is what is available for BTV to record. Whatever BTV is recording, is what you have to watch on TV. Not sure there is any advantage to this type of arrangement - get a second box

[jsaylor]

Just what I needed to know - thanks!

[Deuce911]

The answer is do you want to watch liveTV and record at the same time? If you want to do both then you need 2 Computer Tuners, 1 for DirectTV and one for LiveTV.

Now if you are talking about DirectTV Recievers then you will need 2 also, one for LiveTV and one for Recording. You will also need something to change the channels on the recievers and that would be 2 USB IRT. They are USB Infra-Red Transmitters that would change the channels on DirectTV when you change the channel in BTV, or depending on the Model of the reciever some of them use a Serial port to change the channels and in that case you would need 2 Serial Ports.

Do a Forum search on Direct TV and you should find some more information.


Mike

[walts81]

You can use 1 USB-UIRT to control 3 sat receivers. I currently have Dish Network and I have 3 receivers and 3 tuner cards for the PC. Each one is connected via S-video. 1 USB-UIRT with 2 external IR emitters controls the receivers.