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Scenario

I have been using Vista Media Center as my "set top box" for my LCD TV for a few years now, and on the whole it has done an excellent job. Here in Australia, the commercial TV stations have started using their additional digital broadcast bandwidth to run multiple channels with different content. I have found that having 2 tuners in my machine is just not cutting it anymore, sometimes I need 3 or more tuners to watch and record the shows I want.

Out of the box, Vista supports 2 tuners; If you add more tuners, it cannot work out the ordering of each tuner properly and does not utilise each tuner.

Solution

Hosted on the xpmediacenter.com.au servers is a utility called MCE tuner config. This handy program will allow you to run 4 tuners, and set the watch order / record order of the tuners.

The steps I followed to get it all working:

Get Vista Media Center working normally with 2 tuners, eg scan for channels, setup the guide and confirm that you can watch and record one show at the same time. In my case I started with a Nova-T 500 dual tuner card.

Power down the machine and install the additional tuners. Install the drivers for the new tuner(s) but do not run Media Center yet.

Download and run MCE tuner config Set the priorities for watch preferred & record preferred - make sure no tuner is preferred for both. Use the screenshot below as a guide. Once you have chosen a watch and record preference, click save. Then reboot the machine.

After the reboot, Open media center. If you receive a message about discovering a new tuner, cancel the message (do not run setup on the new tuner).

Check that you can now record from all the tuners. IE open the guide, choose a channel & press record, choose another channel & press record, choose another channel,& press record. You should find that you can now record 4 channels at once.

I have a single SATA attached Western Digital drive, and it seem to be able to keep up with 4 shows at once, however your mileage may vary :)