ThomasB

Using T2 Lite together with Diversity

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Dear EyeTV staff reading this,

I have been using EyeTV Diversity for several years and recently bought an EyeTV T2 Lite as well, in order to be able to record HD programmes on the UK DVB network. I read somewhere in this forum that it should be possible to use both devices at the same time, and that made it really interesting.

And yes, it is possible with the EyeTV 3 software, but in practice only as long as one doesn't book any HD programmes.

The presence of an T2 lite makes the HD channels appear in the schedule and makes them bookable - and the software also recognises that there are now three tuners (two in the Diversity and one in the T2), so it allows the booking of three programmes at the same time.

However, the software isn't smart enough to realise that it shouldn't attempt to use the Diversity stick when recording a HD programme. At the start time for a booked programme the software picks at random any of the three tuners to do the recording, but if it picks a Diversity tuner and it's a HD programme, the tuner doesn't get any signal so it immediately stops recording. Very irritating, as one ends up with "empty" recordings.

After this had happened several times, I realised that I had either to stop booking HD programmes altogether and simply use all three tuners for SD recordings, or disconnect the Diversity stick. I chose to don the latter. However, it means that I have two tuners I can't use - at least not on the same Mac. And being used to the Diversity, I'm now find that having one available tuner is rather frustrating.

So how to solve the problem? The ideal solution would be to make the software smart enough to link HD bookings to the T2 and prioritise Diversity for SD recordings. That would solve the problem, but I realise that this could be rather complicated.

So I have two other ideas:

1) The software obviously knows that there are two pieces of eyeTV hardware attached, so it should be possible to make the software switch to the second unit if it doesn't get a signal when starting a recording with the first. It's not perfect, as the software could pick the T2 for a SD programme that starts before the HD programme, in which case there would be no available HD tuner for the software to switch to if the HD programme begins before the SD programme is finished, but it's better than the current situation.

2) The other idea, which would definitely solve the problem - and would perhaps be the easiest solution - would be the ability to run duplicate versions of the software: one for the Diversity and one for the T2 (or any other devices). If, for instance, there was a tick box next to the field where one selects the hardware in the EyeTV Preferences tab for Devices, saying "Create software linked to this device" or something similar, which if ticked would create a copy of the the EyeTV 3 application renamed "EyeTV_T2.app", "EyeTV_Diversity.app" or whatever, and would also get a unique signature so the macOS would regard each copy as a separate piece of software, one could have two versions of EyeTV 3 running at the same time, one for each device. The original EyeTV 3 app would remain untouched. Obviously, such copies would have to have their TV schedules updated separately, but that's no big problem, especially if both can share the same Gracenote subscription. It should also be possible to still update such copies when new versions of EyeTV 3 are released.

Could that possibly be done or are there any other solutions? Currently it isn't even possible to run the regular EyeTV 3 and the simplified EyeTV Lite app (that came with the device) at the same time.

Best regards

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