HDHR/digital tuning in v6.5 & later

[onlydarksets]

Originally Posted by Opus4

onlydarksets: it was suggested that you reinstall the HDHR drivers, since SageTV is having problems using the HDHR's BDA driver. 20080727 is the latest version & can be found on the HDHR forum.

- Andy

Three reboots fixed it (not 2, not 4, but 3!). I was about to reinstall the 20080727 drivers, but then everything started working after the third reboot (first two were unrelated to Sage, but the third was to turn off debugging). I'm not sure why, but that's what it needed to kick itself into gear. Thanks for the guidance!

[Opus4]

onlydarksets: Glad it is working, though it is strange that it needed a few reboots.

Note to everyone: The first post has been updated to reflect the fact that the v6.4.6 release candidate contains all the SageTV file updates that were required for v6.4.5.

- Andy

[davidk21770]

I tried the new beta/release candidate (6.4.6) with version 20080723 of HDHR. No HDHR when I 1st loaded sage -- I expected it to continue to work with the old settings? But, I went to the 1st post here and followed the instructions and then when sage tuned it locked the HDHR. Not even the HDHR manager can find it. While playing (rebooting, removing and putting my HDHR back in, redoing the HDHR setup, etc.) I often had to kill sage with task manager (the old endless spinning circle and my system was so slow that you'd move the mouse and wait a few minutes to see where it went -- no fun). In the process, I rebooted several times. I finally wiped sage and restored 6.4.4 from backup, redid HDHR's setup and I'm now working again. But when sage locks my HDHR requiring a reboot for the HDHR manager to find it, I'm stuck...

[Opus4]

At this point, if the instructions from the first post of this topic have been followed, including choosing SageTV in the HDHR program, then all I can suggest is saving the debug logs & submit a bug report to SageTV. I'm not aware of any current issues that would make the whole thing fail like that.

Edit: Oh yeah, the HDHR software is up to version 20080727, so try that instead of 20080723. I believe there were some issues with v20080723.

- Andy

[davidk21770]

Originally Posted by Opus4

At this point, if the instructions from the first post of this topic have been followed, including choosing SageTV in the HDHR program, then all I can suggest is saving the debug logs & submit a bug report to SageTV. I'm not aware of any current issues that would make the whole thing fail like that.

Edit: Oh yeah, the HDHR software is up to version 20080727, so try that instead of 20080723. I believe there were some issues with v20080723.

- Andy

I do not remember this option (or seeing it in the instructions). Where did I miss it?

(Edit: And, I thought that I had the latest HDHR software, but I just grabbed 20080727 and will try it tomorrow AM when I have time to play -- and to back out if I have problems).

Thanks

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by davidk21770

I do not remember this option (or seeing it in the instructions). Where did I miss it?

Step 2 of my instructions points you to "the SiliconDust instructions, step 4."

- Andy

[tmiranda]

Will the current Beta work with the old HDHR (BDA driver) software? I do not have the "68 channel limit" (wish I did) and do not want to use the new HDHR driver primarily because it streams the entire 40MB QAM channel instead of just the single subchannel tuned.

Jafa indicated on the SiliconDust forum that it would work. I thought I saw posts here saying it will not work. Anybody try it?

PS. Does Sage now save the entire channel? How big are the recordings from the HDHR?

[davidk21770]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Step 2 of my instructions points you to "the SiliconDust instructions, step 4."

- Andy

I had that set.
I updated to HDHR hdhomerun_windows_20080727.exe
I reloaded hdhomerun_atsc_firmware_20080723.bin
I updated to Sage 6.4.6
I loaded sage, exited, loaded HDHR setup, etc...
Sage saw the tuners, loaded the channel setup, and had the correct channel list.
When I tried to view a channel, I got the endless spinning circle and my system went into super slow motion (move the mouse, wait a few minutes to see where it went). I kill Sage (via a hot key that launches "taskkill /f /im sagetv.exe" so I don't need the mouse -- still takes as long as 5 minutes for this to run).
I did various attempts at uninstalling and reinstalling both sage and HDHR with reboots in between and not in between.
Always had the same problem.
BTW, the tuner light on the HDHR comes on so I think that the tuner is tuning and sage just isn't finding it -- or, what ever task is taking over my system is keeping sage from working also.
I've gone back to 6.4.4 and it's working fine. All I did was to delete the SageTV directory tree and restore my backup, run sage, exit and run HDHR setup -- no reinstall of anything.
I do have debug on and can send the last sagetvclient_0.txt.
(I saved the directory tree from 6.4.6 so I can send any file that you'd like).

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

Will the current Beta work with the old HDHR (BDA driver) software? I do not have the "68 channel limit" (wish I did) and do not want to use the new HDHR driver primarily because it streams the entire 40MB QAM channel instead of just the single subchannel tuned.

Jafa indicated on the SiliconDust forum that it would work. I thought I saw posts here saying it will not work. Anybody try it?

The old drivers are supposed to still work -- you should be able to simply install the SageTV update & keep going as-is; that's what I did before updating the HDHR drivers. If you need to reinstall the tuners, be sure to try the old instructions. I haven't used the old drivers in a while ow, so I can't promise what the results will be.

PS. Does Sage now save the entire channel? How big are the recordings from the HDHR?

The recordings are the same size they were before; they just aren't getting filtered before being sent over the network from the HDHR.

Originally Posted by davidk21770

I had that set.
I updated to HDHR hdhomerun_windows_20080727.exe
I reloaded hdhomerun_atsc_firmware_20080723.bin

The windows installer should include the firmware, so you shouldn't have to update that separately.

When I tried to view a channel, I got the endless spinning circle and my system went into super slow motion (move the mouse, wait a few minutes to see where it went). I kill Sage (via a hot key that launches "taskkill /f /im sagetv.exe" so I don't need the mouse -- still takes as long as 5 minutes for this to run).

See my previous post where I say that I have no idea what such an issue might be & that you should file a bug report for more help. I have no further suggestions at this point.

- Andy

[rajczi]

Originally Posted by davidk21770

I tried the new beta/release candidate (6.4.6) with version 20080723 of HDHR. No HDHR when I 1st loaded sage -- I expected it to continue to work with the old settings? But, I went to the 1st post here and followed the instructions and then when sage tuned it locked the HDHR. Not even the HDHR manager can find it. While playing (rebooting, removing and putting my HDHR back in, redoing the HDHR setup, etc.) I often had to kill sage with task manager (the old endless spinning circle and my system was so slow that you'd move the mouse and wait a few minutes to see where it went -- no fun). In the process, I rebooted several times. I finally wiped sage and restored 6.4.4 from backup, redid HDHR's setup and I'm now working again. But when sage locks my HDHR requiring a reboot for the HDHR manager to find it, I'm stuck...

I had a similar set of behaviors and mine ended up related to a bad power cord for my HDHR. Sounds crazy, but its a know issue at Silicondust and they will send you a replacement. As soon as I installed it, everything was peachy. The weird part was it worked fine for 6 months on the old power cord and one of the firmware updates would not work with that cord anymore. I couldn't even put the HDHR on the old firmware and get it back. I just had to wait for the replacement power cord.

[Taddeusz]

Yea, I got a replacement and recently popped open the original failed one. Turned out it had a bulging capacitor inside it. So even now those screwed up capacitors are still being used. How lame!

[visiontim]

I'm having issues with this too. I installed the latest Sage beta, the new SiliconDust software and bam, no HDHR tuners in Sage. Rebooted twice and the tuners appeared.

I scan for channels in HDHR and no problem. I go to add the channels (scan again) in Sage and it finds them no problem. I can preview all of the QAM channels it finds no problem.

The problem is that when I go to really view the channels I get "No Signal"

I've tried countless times to tweak this up and after spending 5 hours on this last night gave up and am now only using the HD-PVR but want my HDHR back too!

Any ideas why it would work in preview but then "No Signal" elsewhere?

[kevine]

Have you tried making sure the lineup selections in the HDHR setup are correct? Number and call sign? Because between 6.4.5 and 6.4.6 I had to redo them. Any changes I made we wiped. I then readded tuners and rescanned in Sage as well. I have not upgraged to 6.4.7 yet so it may be a different problem.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by visiontim

I'm having issues with this too. I installed the latest Sage beta, the new SiliconDust software and bam, no HDHR tuners in Sage. Rebooted twice and the tuners appeared.

I scan for channels in HDHR and no problem. I go to add the channels (scan again) in Sage and it finds them no problem. I can preview all of the QAM channels it finds no problem.

The problem is that when I go to really view the channels I get "No Signal"

If SageTV can't see the tuners and/or if the source is configured OK & Channel Setup is correct, but it can't tune after that, then try re-installing the HDHR software or contact SageTV support. There have been a few issues where the drivers weren't working correctly & needed to be re-installed.

Also check the mmc/ignore_encoders property for tuners that are missing but were there previously.

- Andy

[visiontim]

When I say preview, you all understand that is the preview in Sage right? Everything works at that point but trying to view a channel from the guide does not. Weird right? How can the Channel Lineup preview see the channel if the setup is wrong?

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by visiontim

How can the Channel Lineup preview see the channel if the setup is wrong?

That's why I said to re-install the HDHR software and contact support.

This topic is about getting the tuner configured. If it isn't working after that, then it is probably beyond the scope of this thread.

- Andy

[Conejo]

Originally Posted by visiontim

I can preview all of the QAM channels it finds no problem.

The problem is that when I go to really view the channels I get "No Signal"

Do all of your channels look like phy-1008-pgm (ie: 98-1008-2), or do they look like something else? If they don't contain the -1008- could you post your QAM.scn file into a code window?

[gjvrieze]

I installed 6.4.7 over the top of 6.4.4, restarted Sage after it and everything seems great, HDHR seems to work, not sure on the HD-PVR or the firewire yet, will check those at home... A little harder to test over Logmein or using the Placeshifter at work

BTW, it feels faster then 6.4.4, both on the server and the Placeshifter....

[Crunch]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Yes: you have to scan all tuners in the HDHR software (long time to scan) and you have to scan all tuners in SageTV (fast scan).

The HDHR scan creates the .scn files with the info for the channels that were found during its actual scan. SageTV reads the .scn files during its own pseudo-scan & creates the .frq files. If the .scn files do not exist, then SageTV will try to do its own actual scan and may not/probably won't be able to find the correct channels.

The only way to skip some of the scans are to know how to copy & rename the .scn & .frq files... but you have to know how to do that and it is not a topic for this thread. If you want to know more about that, post a question in the hardware forum, proabbly in the HDHR setup instruction thread.

Andy,
This may be taking this topic off subject if so feel free to move my posts. If I start a new topic elsewhere it might be confusing.

I did a scan in the HDHR setup for each tuner and the only thing that seemed to happen is the file 'Digital Cable' in ApplicationData/Silicondust/HDHomerun/ was changed each time. Where did the individual HDHR tuner scans create a new file for each of my 4 HDHR tuners?
When I did a scan in Sagetv after only doing one tunner in HDHR, Sagetv always did a 'quick' scan. Is it not using the above file for the Sagetv scan when 'adding a new tuner' or is Sagetv scanning some other file created by doing a HDHR scan on each tuner?

Or am I when adding a new tunner in Sagetv to have sagetv scan for channels (above file) each time?

Bit Lost as to whats happening/I am doing.

Kevin

* moved *

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by Crunch

I did a scan in the HDHR setup for each tuner and the only thing that seemed to happen is the file 'Digital Cable' in ApplicationData/Silicondust/HDHomerun/ was changed each time. Where did the individual HDHR tuner scans create a new file for each of my 4 HDHR tuners?

That's the PC where SageTV is installed, right?

There should be .scn files created in the SageTV directory for each tuner scanned in the HDHR software. (Might be in the VirtualStore if using Vista.)

When I did a scan in Sagetv after only doing one tunner in HDHR, Sagetv always did a 'quick' scan. Is it not using the above file for the Sagetv scan when 'adding a new tuner' or is Sagetv scanning some other file created by doing a HDHR scan on each tuner?

Or am I when adding a new tunner in Sagetv to have sagetv scan for channels (above file) each time?

When the .scn file is seen for a tuner, the SageTV scan goes very quickly. You have to scan in the HDHR software first, then scan in SageTV; do this for each tuner. Scan all tuners in the HDHR software, then you should see 4 .scn files in the SageTV directory. After scanning all 4 tuners in SageTV, you should see 4 .frq files, with one corresponding to each .scn file.

- Andy