Comcast Mcard works dual tuner w/Series 3

[Tommy_D]

Comcast installed one Mcard in my series 3. I asked for two to utilize dual tuner capability but was told that I only needed one. While the technician was in my home I tested the series 3 and the installer was right!! I am able to record two HD channels with only 1 Mcard.

[captkirk685]

Comcast installed one Mcard in my series 3. I asked for two to utilize dual tuner capability but was told that I only needed one. While the technician was in my home I tested the series 3 and the installer was right!! I am able to record two HD channels with only 1 Mcard.

Do you have a tivo HD or a series 3? Tivo Hd receivers work with only 1 m card. I know the tivo hd is considered a series 3 but we refer to them around here as tivo hd to avoid confusion.

[Bierboy]

Do you have a tivo HD or a series 3? Tivo Hd receivers work with only 1 m card. I know the tivo hd is considered a series 3 but we refer to them around here as tivo hd to avoid confusion.

He posted this in another thread, too, and I asked a similar question. I think he's cornfused...:D

[mathwhiz]

Another point to check is what type of HD channels is he recording. If they are broadcast channels, those channels aren't encrypted so it doesn't need a cable card resource to record.

[Gregor]

Comcast installed one Mcard in my series 3. I asked for two to utilize dual tuner capability but was told that I only needed one. While the technician was in my home I tested the series 3 and the installer was right!! I am able to record two HD channels with only 1 Mcard.


Up until the beginning of this month, I was on Comcast, and one of my S3s required 2 M-cards to utilize both tuners. As others have said, maybe the OP is confused?

[Tommy_D]

I'm not confused at all, I have a Series 3 Tivo. I was, past tense, able to record two programs at the same time-- but TIVO sent a message for me to go through Guided Setup again. Now for some reason I can only record one program. What's up with that? I'm going to reset the TIVO and start over. I have only one Comcast M-card.

[Saxion]

You are not the first to be able to do this; there have been multiple reports going back some time now about people getting their original S3 into a mode where it successfully used an M-Card in multi-stream mode. Running Guided Setup always "fixes" this back to single-stream mode. This partial support for multi-stream mode led many to speculate that Tivo would eventually enable this feature "officially", but so far they have indicated this is a risky development path (for some reason) that they are hesitant to go down.

[wmcbrine]

This partial support for multi-stream mode led many to speculate that Tivo would eventually enable this feature "officially",Actually, the reason people thought they would enable it is because they said they would (before they said they wouldn't). It even indicates it right on the machine:

http://www.megazone.org/Photos/CES2006/TiVo/SMALL/Series3-back-closeup-2.JPG

The Series 3 was always planned to support multi-stream cards.

[Tommy_D]

Is there no computer whiz that knows a fix for this? It surprises me that no one has fixed it on their own since the S3 is capable of multi-stream.

I was using the S3 with basic cable and guided setup was complete. A few weeks later the cablecards were installed and I was immediately able to records to programs simultaneously. A message to repeat Guided setup would pop up probably once a day, but it never forced me to go through with the Guided Setup. Also my TV guide was correct for all channels.

After Guided setup was completed is when I lost ability to record to channels simultaneously; also my TV Guide listing is screwed up now. I only see programs in the 800 channels.

I think I will try removing cablecard, resetting the TIVO and going through Guided Setup. Then re-install the cablecards and see if I'm back to dual stream functionality.

[jmr50]

You're probably not actually getting dual-stream. What you're getting is the benefit of the mapping data across both tuners, which helps your second tuner get analog and clear QAM signals. To test this out, see if you can record two Premium channels (i.e., HBOHD and SHOWHD) at the same time.

[ajwees41]

You're probably not actually getting dual-stream. What you're getting is the benefit of the mapping data across both tuners, which helps your second tuner get analog and clear QAM signals. To test this out, see if you can record two Premium channels (i.e., HBOHD and SHOWHD) at the same time.

make sure you are authorized for the channels.

[cramer]

Tivo has not officially stated they won't make m-cards work on the S3. It's "on the list", but it's fairly obvious they aren't going to put the engineering resources behind it to actually fix it unless something significantly changes. Tivo knows it can be done (or they think it can) but it's not a trivial fix. The fact that it works sometimes makes me think there's something unstable with the CC interface on the S3 at high data rates, which would not be surprising given the age of that hardware. (remember when the S3 was designed.)