HDHR - Problem recording 3 channels

[jrockow]

I recently added a second HDHR to my system.

I did a quick test recording and sucessfully recorded 4 different channels simutaneously without any problem.
I'm working with Comcast clear QAM channels.
At this point I was running SAGE 6.4.3 with HDHR firmware version 20080427.

I then decided to upgrade to firmware 20080723 and SAGE 6.4.8.
That's when the problem started.

I can record 2 channels at the same time without problems.
However, if I try to record a 3rd, or even just watch it live, all 3 signals become badly pixelated with choppy audio.

I don't think it's a PC problem. I'm running an AMD64 4200+ dual-core with 2 GB RAM.
I even tried assigning different drives to the tuners but it made no difference.

I tried other versions of SAGE; 6.4.7, 6.4.6, 6.4.5 all with the same results.
At one point I even did a fresh install of 6.4.8, not using any of the old sage.prop or wiz files.

In frustration I went back to 6.4.3 and it worked OK.
Obviously that's not the solution. I don't want to be left behind on newer versions.

Is there anyone else out there recording 4 QAM channels simultaneously without problems, using the latest software?

Please HELP!

P.S. Running WINXP Pro SP3

[gplasky]

Double check the new instructions for using the latest Sage with the latest HDHR software and firmware. You will need to make sure you go through and scan the channels with all four tuners. I'm guessing you only scanned the one and used the lineup for all of them.

Gerry

[hemicuda]

It could also be that the newer HDHR f/w doesn't filter the stream like the older ones did. that's adding a lot of unnecessary data to the mix. of course this doesn't explain why backing up to the older Sage fixes it.

[jrockow]

Thanx for your quick response.

I was really hoping your suggestion would help, but it didn't.
I deleted all 4 sources and redid as you suggested, scanning for each as I added them. Same results.

You do understand that I have no problems with how the channels appear in the guide, or even selecting and playing them, as long as I don't try 3 or more at the same time.

Are you using 4 channels from 2 HDHR's sucessfully?

[mikehaney]

I'm having a similar problem with just a single HDHR - on one of the tuners it is badly pixelated when watching SD. When watching an HD channel, it actually crashed my Sage server 3 times the other night. This is all since upgrading the firmware/drivers for the HDHR and upgrading to the 6.4.8 version of Sage.

[CarlR]

Hmmm, perhaps I'll hold off on upgrading to the new software/firmware. I was having the same symptoms a while back (on the then current versions), even when recording to different drives as you said.

I ended up doing 2 things that seemed to help :
1) Defraging the recording drives and maximizing the size of contiguous blocks in the free space
2) Moving the HDHRs to their own Gbit switch and running them through the 2nd NIC on my motherboard. I know that a Gbit switch should have plenty of bandwidth for 4 HDHR channels, plus whatever else is going on, but I suspect that this was the change that really made a difference.

But again, this was on the "old" software/firmware. I have no idea what will happen if I upgrade (I've been waiting for the end of the Olympics to upgrade because Sage is recording pretty much 24/7 right now.)

[hemicuda]

here's another thing to consider....

before I upgraded my switch to gigabit, 2 streams from my HDHR would push about 40-45% of the 100mbps bandwidth. There are probably people on here that would beg to differ, but I've never been able to get more than about 50% usage out of a 100mbps link. How you managed to get 4 to record w/o issues is beyond me.

good luck resolving your problems though. I'm out of ideas/suggestions on this one.

[jrockow]

I appreciate everyone's response, but as i said, I don't believe this to be a hardware issue.

Currently I am running 6.4.3, with the latest HDHR firmware (20080723), and I have no problems recording 4 channels at the same time.

I'm looking for someone, anyone, to verify they are running 6.4.8 with 20080723, and recording 3 or more channels via HDHR.

I'm sorry to see this topic was moved to the hardware thread.

[QueOnda]

I currently having an issue with one HDHR with sometimes live tv comes in and sometimes does not. If I goto VLC it's fine. Not a powersupply issue because I changed it out with my new HDHR (which I didn't connect yet).

Sounds like a similar problem but don't know if it's related.

Mine worked fine in 6.3 but when I switched to 6.4 and upgraded the HDHR firmware that's when this were different. I currently working with sage support to see if they can see what the issue is in my logs.

Funny thing, lastnight when trying to recreate the problem, all my HDHR channels were coming in but all the colors were washed. I opened up vlc and the colors were fine. Something funky is happening. I just hope things are fixed when the season starts (that next week? or the following week?).

[jrockow]

Got this response at the Silicon site:

Hi,

The latest release of SageTV adds native QAM support but does not yet include PID filtering support.

This means you need a gigabit switch and a gigabit network interface on the PC to run multiple HDHR units with this version of SageTV.

We are pushing SageTV to address the issue.

Nick

[hemicuda]

so that explains it. I thought it was the HDHR s/w not filtering.