Live HD TV on HD100

[MacDaddy]

Not sure if this is the right forum, but wanted to ask for help on a problem. I'm using the Sage beta 6.4.6.180 with HDHR (latest firmware) feeding clear QAM HD streams. I'm using the HD100 extender with beta 20080730 firmware. I have an existing Hauppage analog capture card also on the server.

When I try to select a program from the guide on the HD100, I can play back a station that is on the analog card. However I am not able to play back a HD station. I have HD recordings that have completed that I can play back with no problems. If I try to start a recording on an HD channel and then pick it up midstream there is still no output.

The symptoms are that I can see the progress bar, but the video and audio are blank. It also appears that the link light on the HD100 shows that something is streaming (or at least its very active until I hit stop).

Any ideas, suggestions or workarounds?

[Conejo]

Live-TV playback blackouts are usually due to a clock time differential between your extender and the server, or with your version with Java. Check your Time/Date setting your version of Java.

Are you running any special STV? If so, try the default.

[Mitch G]

Try turning off windows firewall on your server and see if works.
I've had times when I had to disable the firewall to allow the HDHR traffic in from the network.


Mitch

[MacDaddy]

Thanks for the suggestions. I made sure I was using the default STV. The HD100 is set to use the server time/date. I also updated the server to Java 1.6.0_07 (from system info). The HD100 shows the same, but it looks like it just echos the server version. I have the firewall completely turned off.

Same results. Selecting a HD program from the guide results in blank video/audio. The progress bar advances, the HD100 link light blinks, the info screen shows its a HDHR stream (TS stream), but all is blank. If I select an analog channel, it tunes with the Hauppage and plays on the HD100, only problem is its SD.

Server plays all streams fine. Any other thoughts?

[Conejo]

beta firmware "20080804 0" was posted today and you can try it but it doesn't look to address this issue.

Are you running the default STV on the HD100?

So ODD that the HD100 will:
1. Play HD or SD recordings fine.
2. Play analog SD Live TV
3. Will NOT play HD Live TV or Timeshifted while recording

Do you have any digital QAM channels that are SD, like any PBS Digital SD additional programming, and does it do the same with this channel?

You may find a quicker answer through official tech support by filling out a Support Request. They will give you instructions for enabling and sending diagnostic logs.

[gplasky]

Check and make sure you chose the default STV from the HD100. You'll have to reimport any plugins you want to use after choosing the default STV from the HD100.


Gerry

[MacDaddy]

Thanks again for the suggestions. When you say that I should use the

default STV from the HD100

, does that mean to select it from the Detailed Setup in the HD100 itself? So far, when I change the STV on the server, it seems that the HD100 echos the changes. I'm at the office now, but I'll try your suggestion when I get home.

Some more interesting data points. The problem (blank video/audio) occurs with both HD and SD/digital (480i QAM in 4:3 aspect) streams. Seems that the HDHR is the common thread. Also if I select a live stream from the guide and have the video preview pane enabled, when I press the stop key there will be a screen snap of the correct program in the preview pane. This happens for both HD and SD/digital streams.

Thanks again for the collective wisdom.

[wazkaren]

I had a similar problem with my HD100 and an HDHR. I could not view any live tv. Also, about half of my recorded tv would not play on the HD100 (but would play on a PC with SageClient). I solved my problem by doing a clean install of the Sage Server.

I suspect my problem was a corrupted Wiz.bin file. As a test I copied my old wiz.bin over to the working Sage Server directory and the problem began again.

Greg

[MacDaddy]

Ouch! I would hate to start over with my wiz.bin again. It's taken a long time to train it I could completely wipe the properties files and start over again. It just seems kind of odd that I can see the recorded streams, but not the live streams. Given that Sage "records even live" TV, it should be identical. My only theory is that there is something network related to the HDHR speaking to the server and then the server trying to speak to my HD100 at the same time. I have a ticket in to support. If there are any more suggestions, please send them my way.

[Taddeusz]

You say you're recording from the HDHR as a transport stream? I think ever since they changed to the BDA drivers it's been the preference to save as a program stream (mpg) rather than a ts. I don't recall the option because I got my HDHR after the change to the BDA driver but I remember reading about an option in the properties to force recording to a ts. Try disabling that option and see if it will work.

[wazkaren]

Originally Posted by MacDaddy

Ouch! I would hate to start over with my wiz.bin again. It's taken a long time to train it

Yeah, I know what you mean. I've been running for several years on the same wiz.bin. I hope you find a better solution that maybe would solve my issue too.

Originally Posted by MacDaddy

Ouch! I would hate to start over with my wiz.bin again. It's taken a long time to train it
It just seems kind of odd that I can see the recorded streams, but not the live streams.

On my system I had two episodes of CSI recorded and both were on the same hard drive. One worked and the other didn't. Another recording would not play until I cleared the watched flag and started over. Very strange.

Greg

[MacDaddy]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

You say you're recording from the HDHR as a transport stream? I think ever since they changed to the BDA drivers it's been the preference to save as a program stream (mpg) rather than a ts. I don't recall the option because I got my HDHR after the change to the BDA driver but I remember reading about an option in the properties to force recording to a ts. Try disabling that option and see if it will work.

I'm not a technical expert, but I think one of the intents of this latest RC code (V6.4.6.180) was to remove the 68 channel limit of the BDA architecture. As I am using the latest HDHR firmware, drivers and Sage RC code it would seem that I would not want to go back to the BDA drivers. I think the issue with transport stream encoding was the breaking up of the files and issues resulting from recombining at playback. Perhaps I'm lucky, but it seems that so far I have avoided that issue. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Conejo]

The easiest/quickest test is the one given by wazkaren,

1. Stop SageTV (SageTV Service if you use that)
2. Rename your current wiz.bin to wiz.bin.temp
3. Restart SageTV. It will build a new wiz.bin
4. Try viewing a Live TV on the HDHR with the HD100

To revert to your original wiz.bin
1. Stop SageTV (SageTV Service if you use that)
2. Rename the current wiz.bin to wiz.bin.trash
3. Then rename wiz.bin.temp back to wiz.bin
4. Restart SageTV. Your recordings, favorites, etc will be back as before.

IF you found this test corrected the issue and the wiz.bin file is the culprit then you could contact SageTV Support and see if there's anything they can do to fix the file.

[wazkaren]

I also found that I had to delete all the win.bin backups, as well as wiz.bak or Sage would use one of those to create the new wiz.bin

Greg

[MacDaddy]

Good idea. That way I can get it completely back to plain vanilla. Just to be <paranoid> safe, I think I'm going to make a complete backup copy of the install subdirectory. Space is cheap, fired brain cells spent on recovery is not. Plus - gotta keep the better half happy......

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by MacDaddy

I'm not a technical expert, but I think one of the intents of this latest RC code (V6.4.6.180) was to remove the 68 channel limit of the BDA architecture. As I am using the latest HDHR firmware, drivers and Sage RC code it would seem that I would not want to go back to the BDA drivers. I think the issue with transport stream encoding was the breaking up of the files and issues resulting from recombining at playback. Perhaps I'm lucky, but it seems that so far I have avoided that issue. Thanks for the suggestion.

Ok, well. I realize new BDA drivers are out now that are able to circumvent the channel limit. What I was saying though is that prior to those drivers it was the preferred method to record to TS. Now the preferred method is to record to an MPG. If it's working that's fine but for completeness if you were wanting to test it out what you want to search for is:

encode_digital_tv_as_program_stream

and make sure the global value is set to true and that each tuner that you want to make changes to is also set to true. From what I understand SageTV works better with program streams so you may want to give it a try anyway and see if the situation improves any.

[MacDaddy]

Thanks for the clarification. I'll give that a try as well.

[MacDaddy]

Didn't get a chance to reset wiz.bin or or enable the PS property. Was late getting home from work and the recordings were stacked up until midnight tonight. I'll give it another shot tomorrow.

[MacDaddy]

A-quick update: I've been working with support on this issue and wanted to share the final resolution for those that will (hopefully) search for this in the future. After a few rounds of firmware updates, log files Xmits and recording samples the one thing that seemed to fix the problem was [queue "I told you so" from Taddeusz] changing the following setting:

encode_digital_tv_as_program_stream=true

While I followed Taddeusz's instructions in each of the encoder sections, I overlooked the one setting at the top of the properties file. That one was still set to false and (I guess) trumping everything else. Thanks again for all the suggestions and hopefully this will be able to help the next person.

Now - time to upset the apple cart and get the latest RC.