Sage HD != good WAF lately

[hemicuda]

sorry for the rant, but I need to get this out of my system.

I'm beginning to think I jumped into the HD market too soon. My expectations are not all that high I think...

Pay good $$ for equipment,
Said equipment should be capable of performing near-flawless ( ) most of the time,
Sit back and enjoy.

I don't know if it's my hardware or the software, but lately I haven't had a single HD recording that didn't have some kind of digital funkiness happen to it. Whether it be pixelation or signal loss or the 5min bug. The HDHR is reporting 90% or better signal strength and near 100% on the other bars. There are also the annoying HDMI green flashes. SD is at least meeting my expectations for analog. Troubleshooting and research are taking too much out of my limited family time. As much as I like the freedom Sage provides for home theater I'm afraid I may soon have to make the switch to either TiVo cablecard or "Crapcastic" DVR. I'm not all that sure either of them will perform any better, but with them the monkey isn't on my back to make things work. I might even come out ahead on the power bill before the end of the year. I haven't made any concrete decisions yet, but I'm looking at alternatives. This isn't hating on Sage in any way. The arrangement I have just isn't "ready for primetime" as they say.

again, sorry for venting. if the mods feel this is out of bounds for the board I'll understand if the post is deleted.

[Mitch G]

You might want to consider updating to SageTV 6.3.9 or 6.3.10 since I believe they addressed some HD100 issues.
The HDMI green flash thing sounds to me like a cable problem. Or, if the HDMI is going through a switcher, there could be a problem there.

Just some thoughts,


Mitch

[lobosrul]

I won't comment on the HDMI issues. But you claimed to have "pixelation" issues. Its very rare that I don't notice any pixelation on 1080i channels. 19Mbs Mpeg-2 just isn't really enough for 1080i, especially sports. You won't see an improvement on this by going to a "crapcastic" DVR.

[Brent]

I understand your frustration. Fortunately, my experience has been extremely good and my WAF has actually improved since going with SageTV. Add to that the HD extender and you'd think we actually did own a Tivo with more power....

Are you having trouble with on the recording side of things (recordings themselves are bad) or is it with the playback of HD?

[carlgar]

You should not be seeing any 5 min. issue with the HDHR with the 6.3.10 version of Sage. Is your HDHR software current?
Are you using the 350 for video out? If so, that can cause a lot of grief. I tried for a couple of years to get the 350 to work properly without success. It works fine as a recording device only.
The 6.3.10 version of sage does seem has created a new issue where some files will not play correctly on the the HD100. I have seen 3 files with the problem in the last 5 or 6 days since I installed 6.3.10. You could go back to 6.3.9 if you see that issue.

[hemicuda]

oops, upgraded to rc10 Tuesday and forgot to update my sig.

the green flashes are happening w/ the STX and Xbox with 2 different cables; monoprice and bluejeans offerings. Even did it w/ an $80 monster cable. I'm supposed to be getting the LCD mainboard changed out this week under warranty. Updating it's f/w 2wks ago helped but didn't cure enough.

Brent-

It seems to be a recording issue as best I can tell. Other than the green flashes I haven't had but a couple of nuisance hangs w/ the STX since I got it back. It doesn't seem to be on any particular channel more than another. AFAIK I'm running the latest software and firmware on everything.

lobos-

maybe pixelation was a poor choice of words. it's more like what happens to a dish when storms roll through. This last time I actually got "Loss of Input Signal" in the last 2min of her daytime show. I can tolerate it myself (though not happy about it), but it ruins the whole experience for her.

[hemicuda]

Originally Posted by carlgar

Are you using the 350 for video out? If so, that can cause a lot of grief. I tried for a couple of years to get the 350 to work properly without success. It works fine as a recording device only.

server is in a different room. only time i watch stuff on it is to figure out if a glitch was the STX or the recording. never tried the 350 s-vid and from what i've read I doubt I will.

Right now one of the biggest issues is fixing things w/o throwing more $$$ at it. My original persuasion to her about it being cheaper/better than TiVo in the long run has gone out the window. HDHR + HD100 + extra storage + tech issues did me in.

[rlvogel322]

Originally Posted by hemicuda

maybe pixelation was a poor choice of words. it's more like what happens to a dish when storms roll through. This last time I actually got "Loss of Input Signal" in the last 2min of her daytime show. I can tolerate it myself (though not happy about it), but it ruins the whole experience for her.

I'm not sure what type of service you have but our Charter has been TERRIBLE the last four weeks. We are seeing this on TVs that aren't fed by Sage. Just regular built-in analog tuners. The blocking and loss of signal/audio is frustrating to say the least.

A lot of people I work with are seeing the same type of issues. Just a thought that maybe it might be on your providers end. I know that's where my problems are. I have some recordings that are fine while others are crap. With a freinds help who has a DVR from Charter, I have traced the issue back to the provider.

[lobosrul]

Originally Posted by hemicuda

lobos-

maybe pixelation was a poor choice of words. it's more like what happens to a dish when storms roll through. This last time I actually got "Loss of Input Signal" in the last 2min of her daytime show. I can tolerate it myself (though not happy about it), but it ruins the whole experience for her.

Oh ok, it sounds to me like your not getting a strong enough signal. 90% isn't really good enough IMO, I had dropouts frequently in the low 90%'s. You might want to look into an outdoor ant. I have 98%+ on all the major networks now, but even then I occasionally have problems (those are usually tracked down to the transmitter).

[Brent]

Originally Posted by lobosrul

Oh ok, it sounds to me like your not getting a strong enough signal. 90% isn't really good enough IMO, I had dropouts frequently in the low 90%'s. You might want to look into an outdoor ant. I have 98%+ on all the major networks now, but even then I occasionally have problems (those are usually tracked down to the transmitter).

I'd agree that you need to be seeing about 96% signal or better to get solid, consistent HD. I had that problem initially with the HDHR and then added a good, signal booster which instantly solved the problem. I do have a weaker 90-94% signal on one channel and it still has problems, but we don't watch that channel so I've never gone any further with it.

[hemicuda]

Originally Posted by lobosrul

Oh ok, it sounds to me like your not getting a strong enough signal. 90% isn't really good enough IMO,

I was thinking (IF i got time) about reworking the splitters on that circuit, but I vaguely remember putting the HDHR on the first one. I have an 8-drop amp w/ cablemodem unity return and quad-shield cable already on the house. Maybe if I tapped it straight off the modem's dedicated line from the amp?


Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I just hope I can get things ironed out before long.

[Brent]

Before messing with anything else, here's what I'd do. temporary move the HDHR to connect to the incoming cable feed - as close as possible without any other splits. This will mean removing anything else currently connected to the cable but it's only a very temporary thing. Now see if you're getting a higher signal through that one tuner on the HDHR - hopefully something up around 98% or so. If so, now, watch some live HD TV to see if it improved your situation.

If it improves after increasing the signal, you know that's your problem. If not then we can move to the next few possibilities. Hopefully its just a signal problem as that can be fixed without messing any more with your HTPC setup.

[hemicuda]

I must be a moron. I've got the whole house wired for cat5 so I can drop it in any other room and see what the signal is. Each room has its own feed from the amp. Thanks for jogging my memory. I should be able to try that tonight if there's no HD scheduled.

[hemicuda]

ok, took it off the 4-way splitter left over from the first cable install and put it on a cable straight to the amp. I can't tell a difference in signal strength. on that particular channel (qam:79-12.1, wdef-dt) right now I have a solid 94% strength, 87-93% signal quality, and 100% symbol quality. the only channel below 92% is a group of scrambled, but the highest doesn't break 97%. I think my amp is a 7dB gain and there's a splitter for the dual input.

one thing i did note when I took the HDHR off the shelf was the F connectors were almost too hot to hold onto. the rest of the unit was just above warm.

[carlgar]

Have you tried watching a show directly from the HDHR using the VLC program?

I don't feel any heat from my connectors that are exposed. Most of my connections are covered with a boot. You might want to contact Silicondust support about that.

SiliconDust just (yesterday) released new software for the HDHR and it also includes a updated version of VLC.