Using USB TV tuner with different ports

lhamil64

In Runtime
Messages
398
Hello,

I haven't really asked a question here in a while, but now I have this really annoying problem that I can't seem to fix.

I purchased a USB TV tuner off Amazon (Amazon.com: Avertv Hybrid Volar Max TV Tuner Kit for Windows MTVHVMXSK: Electronics) and it works great, until I switch it to a different USB port.

To watch TV with the tuner, I use Windows Media Center. When it first recognizes the tuner, I have to go through the whole setup (selecting my area, scanning for channels, etc) which takes about 15 minutes. If I then move it to a different port, WMC thinks it's a new tuner and forces me to go through the setup again. This wouldn't be a huge issue because I could just leave it plugged into the same port, but I'm on a laptop and the tuner's plugged into a docking station. From what I've experienced so far, when I undock the laptop, it seems to loose the port location data (or something) so when I redock, I have to set it up as a new tuner again (and since I don't leave WMC open all the time, it's only when I want to watch TV, so by the time it's done scanning for channels again, the show is probably almost over anyway).
From some searching, it looks like the reason is because the manufacturer didn't assign a serial number, so Windows doesn't know that it's actually the same device.
I read a suggestion to find it's location in the registry and possibly create a batch file to quickly re-import those values into the registry every time I plug the tuner in. I found where the information is stored, but there are multiple keys, one for every port I've plugged it in to, so I don't think I could re-import anything to fix this because the information is basically already there.

I posted this in software because there really isn't anything wrong with the hardware, it's mostly an issue of the software recognizing the device as a new device.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Lee
 
Back
Top Bottom