NICE AND EASY: How many tuners does a Genie client (or Gemini) use?

Thanks to Signal Pro Rachel for the idea for this article!

Sometimes, you can train people a little too well. For years, I’ve been talking about tuner math. I’ve recently updated this article which talks about the idea. It’s a simple one, and I’ll summarize it here.

Tuner math is the idea that it’s not the number of boxes you have, it’s what those boxes do. When you’re planning a larger DIRECTV system, you need to be aware of how many receivers, DVRs, and clients you have. The math is pretty simple:

There’s one more table you need to be aware of, and that’s how many tuners you can use with each different multiswitch.

My previous article goes into all the stuff that’s covered by the asterisks, so I won’t dive too deep into it here.

Zero? How can the number for clients and Geminis be zero?

That’s right, it’s not a typo. Neither traditional Genie clients nor Geminis use any tuners at all. Yet they do display live TV. What kind of weird magic is this?

Remember that the client boxes look like DIRECTV receivers but they aren’t. That’s sort of the whole point of them. All the hard work is done by the Genie DVR. It has all the tuners and all the extra equipment needed to do recording and playback.

The client boxes function as very simple adapters, really. If they were shaped more like a Chromecast or even a DIRECTV DECA, it might make more sense. But I’ll try to explain it.

In a DIRECTV Genie system, all the video and audio is created at the Genie DVR. It’s then sent over a coax line to the client. Essentially all the client does is convert that coax to HDMI. It doesn’t do anything else. Going the other direction, the client box listens for commands from the remote and sends them back to the Genie.

So if you think of it, the client boxes (and the Geminis) are like coax-to-HDMI adapters with a passthrough for the remote signals.

How in the (bleep) can this make any sense?

It makes sense because it was designed to make sense. In the past, DIRECTV supplied expensive, noisy, power-hungry DVRs to every room. Customers didn’t like that, especially in bedrooms where the hard drive noise was very easy to hear. The idea of the client box is to take everything possible and move it to the Genie DVR. What’s left can be small, quiet, and sips energy.

The bottom line here is that when you’re planning your DIRECTV system, you don’t have to count the number of clients when you’re determining how many tuners you need. There is another minor limitation as to how many actual devices can be on one line, but really I urge you to read the earlier article to find out more about that.

What about Geminis?

DIRECTV’s Gemini is another whole level of misdirection, when you think about it. Really, it’s a streaming box pretending to be a client box, pretending to be a receiver. To which I’m guessing you just said, “huh?”

The Gemini is much more like your average Roku or Apple TV than it is a DIRECTV client box. It’s a full-featured streaming device. In this case it runs the Android TV operating system rather than Roku OS or Apple TvOS. But the result is the same. The only change from a stock Android box is that when powered up, it runs an app called “Gemini.” This app is a perfect imitation of a DIRECTV receiver experience. It gets the same kind of video and audio that the client boxes get, and listens for remote commands to send back to the Genie.

Bottom line here is that you don’t need to worry about tuners on the Gemini either.

Still confused? Ask the experts

If you need tech support or any help at all with your DIRECTV system, you have a friend in the business! Call the folks at Solid Signal during East Coast business hours. We’ll be happy to help you plan your system, answer any questions about your DIRECTV account, or even recommend other products or services you might need.

Call us at 888-233-7563 during East Coast business hours. If it’s after hours, just fill out the form below and we’ll get right back to you!