HdHomeRun - Our Answer to QAM?!

[Goodspike]

Originally Posted by malbec

Got my HD Homerun yesterday. I was salivating at getting this setup and installed. And ... every freak'n channel is encrypted. (Mediacom - Des Moines).

So, any of you with better service than I, PM me as I have an HD Homerun to unload to the highest bidder. It has been used less than ten minutes.

Have you found the thread in the local reception forum over at AVSFORUM.com? Don't start a new thread, but find the thread for Mediacom in Des Moines and ask if they are encrypted.

[Ted@TNT]

I had the HD Homerun working before, when it was by itself in the channel lineup, but now I'm having problems.

From my sage pc, I can use the HDHomeRun gui to view all of the channels. Whether I'm hooked up to cable or OTA, it doesn't matter. Once I add the source to the EPG, where I have an existing Cable lineup, I get nothing. Let me be more clear...

When using the hdhomerun_gui application, I can see the light come on on the HD Homerun unit. Whenever I select a HDHR channel in SageTV, whether OTA or QAM, those lights do NOT come on. Sage acts like it's going to the channel, but just sits there with a black screen (doesn't say "No Signal"). I have upgraded to the lasted firmware/software but it hasn't helped.

Any thoughts about this?

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by Ted@TNT

I had the HD Homerun working before, when it was by itself in the channel lineup, but now I'm having problems.

From my sage pc, I can use the HDHomeRun gui to view all of the channels. Whether I'm hooked up to cable or OTA, it doesn't matter. Once I add the source to the EPG, where I have an existing Cable lineup, I get nothing. Let me be more clear...

When using the hdhomerun_gui application, I can see the light come on on the HD Homerun unit. Whenever I select a HDHR channel in SageTV, whether OTA or QAM, those lights do NOT come on. Sage acts like it's going to the channel, but just sits there with a black screen (doesn't say "No Signal"). I have upgraded to the lasted firmware/software but it hasn't helped.

Any thoughts about this?

I know you had it working before. So it sounds like you added a tuner. Did you use a different channel lineup? My tuners use the basic analog lineup of my cable co. and the HD Homerun uses the digital lineup and the channels that are the same are disabled on the HD Homerun. Make sure you didn't lose your physical channel remaps on the HD Homerun lineup.

Gerry

[Ted@TNT]

I was rebuilding my SageTV box, and tested the HDHR beforhand. This time, after the PVR-500 was set up, I have been trying to get the HDHR to work.

I did not set up the 500 with the basic lineup, because they are digital cable boxes and I needed to get some digital channels from them - so I used the digital cable lineup.

I had planned to pick up three HD channels (605, 608, 610) with the HDHR, so I disabled them from the Digital Cable lineup.

Then, I found a nearby area that uses a very similar lineup - including those channels, and remapped my HDHR channels (106-605, 106-608, 106-610) to the nearby areas corresponding channels (605, 608, 610).

So, now I had two lineups - one local. for the digital cable boxes, with all channels active EXCEPT 605, 608, and 610. The other was for digital cable in a nearby area with only 605, 608, and 610 active.

After all this, SageTV doesn't call for the HDHR to change the channel.

Next, I deleted the lineup for the HDHR, hooked it up to my antenna, chose the OTA lineup, let it search, it found about 15 channels, and added those. They were all different, of course, so in this setup I turned 605, 608, and 610 back on for the regular cable box lineup.

Same results - Sage doesn't even grab the stream from the HDHR - the indicator lights for the 2 channels never light up. Once again, though, With the hdhomerun_gui I can hit any of the channels, VLC plays it, and the indicator lights are lit on the HDHR.

I'm wondering if it would help to select a lineup from a city a long ways away that is still in my time zone as this programming is just network programming. As I am Tampa, I could select anything from Boston to Atlanta, for example. Should this give me any better results? Is SageTV going to continue to ignor any requests for streams via ethernet from the HDHR?

[Polypro]

Originally Posted by Ted@TNT

I was rebuilding my SageTV box, and tested the HDHR beforhand. This time, after the PVR-500 was set up, I have been trying to get the HDHR to work....

Are you positive on those sub channel #'s? Can you post a screenshot of the HDHR_GUI or paste the HDHR CLI scan?

When you tried OTA, did you use the HDHR's "Clear" settings option, or did you just remove it from Sage? When switching from QAM to OTA, if you don't clear the settings from sage.properites, they stay at what you first set up. This will also clear your PVR500 settings. If you want, you can shut down Sage and it's service (if used), open up sage.properties, and delete the mmc/encoder lines for the HDHR (pay attention to the numbers for the HDHR and only delete those)...this will save the PVR500 settings.

P

[Ted@TNT]

Ahhh, something new to try!

I'm sure the numbers are right, as I used them before when testing (I didn't get them right on the first try, either - took a few tries till I understood exactly what they were looking for). I did NOT clear since the first time as I had the other channel lineup already configured - they may be the problem and I'll test shortly. In my effort to no lose the lineup info, I just ignored that instruction as I assumed (yeah, I know) that it wasn't important and quickly forgot about it.

Anyway, I'll close sageTV and delete the HDHR sections from the properties file.

I'll post again with results - Thanks!

[Polypro]

Roger that. I've just never seen sub-channels that high...my QAM music stations just go up to about 70 (117-70). The only other thing I can give is that in Sage, make sure to choose "Physical Channel" when you re-map.

As an aside, (and PM so as to keep this on track), what audio driver are you running for your P5W-DH...and are you getting 5.1 from TV when selecting Dolby Digital Live!?

P

[zoso]

Originally Posted by Polypro

Roger that. I've just never seen sub-channels that high...my QAM music stations just go up to about 70 (117-70). The only other thing I can give is that in Sage, make sure to choose "Physical Channel" when you re-map.

As an aside, (and PM so as to keep this on track), what audio driver are you running for your P5W-DH...and are you getting 5.1 from TV when selecting Dolby Digital Live!?

P

Comcast re-broadcasts local radio stations digitally here with sub channels up into the 400s.

[thomaszoo]

I too had a problem in that I didn't read the instructions carefully enough. I am using the HDHR for OTA and assumed that the channel lineups were fine the way they were. Then I started missing some recordings sporadically and would get no signal sometimes on some channels. Turns out the step I skipped was to map the HDHR channels to the guide channels. Once I did that problem went away permanently!

Wayne

[Ted@TNT]

Originally Posted by Polypro

Roger that. I've just never seen sub-channels that high...my QAM music stations just go up to about 70 (117-70). The only other thing I can give is that in Sage, make sure to choose "Physical Channel" when you re-map.

As an aside, (and PM so as to keep this on track), what audio driver are you running for your P5W-DH...and are you getting 5.1 from TV when selecting Dolby Digital Live!?

P

AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!

Okay, I'm an idiot. A big, stinking, ignorant idiot!

First, let me give credit where credit is due - Polypro, thanks for your help here. You stated that you'd never seen sub-channels that high. This reminded me of my shock at them when I first found them. I decided to show you my channel map by sending you to this thread -

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...829#post199829

When I got there, I found out that my channels weren't 106-605, 608, 610 at all!! They were 106-2605, 2608, 2610!!

Dammit, I already knew this, but they were so high that I ASSUMED (yeah, that's twice) that they were smaller and just used the truncated numbers.

Anyway - it works beautifully!!

Thanks again!!

[thatdude90210]

Had a problem today recording "24" and "Heroes" at the same time. Both shows recorded but both had 5 minutes missing at the beginning.

Searched the forums and found a properties setting mentioned in similar missing minutes cases (seeker/fast_mux_switch=false). Mine already had that setting (plus those other cases were talking about analog recordings). I'm using the latest Sage 6, lastest firmware & software for HDHomeRun. Both of my shows were HD.

Anyone else seen this?

[blade]

Originally Posted by thatdude90210

Had a problem today recording "24" and "Heroes" at the same time. Both shows recorded but both had 5 minutes missing at the beginning.

Searched the forums and found a properties setting mentioned in similar missing minutes cases (seeker/fast_mux_switch=false). Mine already had that setting (plus those other cases were talking about analog recordings). I'm using the latest Sage 6, lastest firmware & software for HDHomeRun. Both of my shows were HD.

Anyone else seen this?

I had a problem with exactly 5 minutes missing from the first recording of the night every night. Mine turned out to be a network problem. My server has a Nforce 4 motherboard and I was getting terrible latency (max 25ms). I upgraded to the latest drivers and now the latency is 0ms and I haven't had a bad recording since.

I remember reading about someone else having the same problem, but they claimed they didn't have any problems with the network. As far as I know they never posted about finding a solution for their problem.

[Ted@TNT]

Originally Posted by Polypro

Roger that. I've just never seen sub-channels that high...my QAM music stations just go up to about 70 (117-70). The only other thing I can give is that in Sage, make sure to choose "Physical Channel" when you re-map.

As an aside, (and PM so as to keep this on track), what audio driver are you running for your P5W-DH...and are you getting 5.1 from TV when selecting Dolby Digital Live!?

P

P

I haven't forgotten you!

I don't know the answers to your questions yet, as I only just got things working. It's now hooked up to my AV receiver via stereo audio and optical and I will disable the stereo connection and test shortly - I'll be in touch soon.

[Polypro]

No worries, found the answer. DTS: NeoPC is what I was thinking of. With DDL!, if it isn't multi-channel to start, it won't be made that way. DTS:NeoPC *will* do that.

Thanks,

P

[RBTConsultants]

Originally Posted by thatdude90210

Had a problem today recording "24" and "Heroes" at the same time. Both shows recorded but both had 5 minutes missing at the beginning.

Searched the forums and found a properties setting mentioned in similar missing minutes cases (seeker/fast_mux_switch=false). Mine already had that setting (plus those other cases were talking about analog recordings). I'm using the latest Sage 6, lastest firmware & software for HDHomeRun. Both of my shows were HD.

Anyone else seen this?

I've seen this behavior a couple times. It is a very small percentage of the time but I have seen it and I have the fast_mux_switch set to false also. I think it's a bad signal on QAM, or maybe a lan problem, my dlink router seems to reboot itself every once in a while. I need to get around to upgrading the latest firmware on the HDHomerun since it claims to fix some issues with QAM tuning that sound like what I am experiencing sometimes. I sometimes see a good signal strength, but 0 symbol quality.

Anyway, when you get a 0 byte file that ends in -0, and then a regular length file that ends in -1 and starts five minutes into the show.

I read in another post somewhere that Sage checks after 5 minutes and if the file length of a recording show is 0, it reinitializes some stuff and tries again.

My question is: Is the 5 minutes configurable? 5 minutes seems like a bad, arbitrary time to pick. How about keep trying every 30 seconds? Why miss 5 minutes if the tuner didn't initilaize for whatever reason?

Other than this minor issue though, the HDHomerun is pure rock and roll. I get all the network HD plus UHD on qam. I am accumulating shows faster than I can watch them. I think I need to seek help.

Bob

[Ted@TNT]

Originally Posted by RBTConsultants

I've seen this behavior a couple times. It is a very small percentage of the time but I have seen it and I have the fast_mux_switch set to false also. I think it's a bad signal on QAM, or maybe a lan problem, my dlink router seems to reboot itself every once in a while. I need to get around to upgrading the latest firmware on the HDHomerun since it claims to fix some issues with QAM tuning that sound like what I am experiencing sometimes. I sometimes see a good signal strength, but 0 symbol quality.

Anyway, when you get a 0 byte file that ends in -0, and then a regular length file that ends in -1 and starts five minutes into the show.

I read in another post somewhere that Sage checks after 5 minutes and if the file length of a recording show is 0, it reinitializes some stuff and tries again.

My question is: Is the 5 minutes configurable? 5 minutes seems like a bad, arbitrary time to pick. How about keep trying every 30 seconds? Why miss 5 minutes if the tuner didn't initilaize for whatever reason?

Other than this minor issue though, the HDHomerun is pure rock and roll. I get all the network HD plus UHD on qam. I am accumulating shows faster than I can watch them. I think I need to seek help.

Bob

Bob,

Great observations, here.

I've seen this a couple of times myself, and I know that I have a couple of HD stations that are borderline. Perhaps they were the culprit. On the other hand, my network is due for some upgrades (next week) to go full gigabit everywhere - maybe that will solve it.

Either way, if Sage does in fact poll at five minutes - I would be interested in adjusting that as well. I would prefer that it would check within a few (5 or 10) seconds of new recordings, and once it confirmed, then it wouldn't need to check anymore.

Does anyone know more about this?

[malbec]

Okay, this is going to sound goofy, but here it is...

I got this hoping my area did not have encrypted QAM channels like so many others. I lost on that account. I then went to sell/return it. On the way to doing so, my son knocked it off the kitchen counter. Long story short, I am stuck with it now with only one of the two tuners working.

So, trying to make lemonade out of lemons. I tried hooking this up for OTA. I have gone through all of the steps and it works great if I use the VLC application that comes with it to view shows. However, in Sage all I get is the audio. The video is just a mess. I am thinking this is a Sage issue since everything is perfectly fine with VLC. Every once in a while Sage will work okay, but it is a rather rare event.

Thoughts? Recommendations? Decoder issue? Any other ideas? Thanks!

EDIT:
Yeah, it might be the unit, but I don't think so. Some additional information for you to chew on...
When playing it via my Sage Server (an AMD 2100XP, an old Geforce MX400, 4 HDs usin ATA100) I get the audio, but very crappy video (flashing ugly screens). When playing a non-HD show via the MVPs, it is about 50/50 of a) working fine and b) working, but pausing every 2-3 seconds. I am guessing my Sage Server PC simply can't handle it. I haven't had it setup long enough to know if a recording works okay. Thoughts on this line of thinking? Do you know if Sage has to transcode the recording to the MVP it gets from the HdHomerun, or does it record the streams off the HdHomerun in native Mpeg2?

[gplasky]

Other people have this working fine in Sage with OTA and with both tuners. Other users also have it working with GB-PVR, MediaPortal and MCE to a certain degree. If you feel that this is a Sgae issue you could try it wth either GB-PVR or MediaPortal. Both of those are free. But I think it may be an issue with your unit. Can you try sending it back for repair?

Gerry

[thatdude90210]

There is new software released, for those of us who were experiencing the 5-minute-missing error.

[rfutscher]

Originally Posted by thatdude90210

There is new software released, for those of us who were experiencing the 5-minute-missing error.

There have been three releases on Feb 11. The third is 20070211 Beta 3.