Any watchouts for adding HDHR to Sage/WHS/HD-PVR setup?

[Chriscic]

I currently am running Sage off of WHS, with one HD-PVR (actually I have a second but haven't used it lately because I've been too lazy to pick up a second cable box and also get the USB-UIRT... will get to it eventually).

I just picked up a HDHR for getting the locals over-the-air (no desire for QAM). Any watch-outs for integrating into the system? I'm not quite sure how this is going to work, since both the HD-PVR and the HDHR will both be effectively getting HD locals.

Thanks,
-Chris C.

[appelm]

The only thing I can think of that is often a stumbling block for people is that you have to use a different lineup from your cable company for each type of tuner. So for instance you have selected a particular lineup from your cable company already for your HD-PVR. For the two tuners on your HDHR, you can select a lineup from a neighboring town that is functionally identical. That way, that set of channels can be customized for the HDHR. Both the HDHR and HD-PVR can record the same channels.. you'll just have the ability to record 3 channels. You can set the priority so that the HDHR is preferred for your HD locals. I prefer that since comskip runs faster on mpgs produced by the HDHR.

[Opus4]

See: HDHR setup for Windows

You don't need to choose a different lineup from some other town. If the HDHR is to use a subset of a lineup already in use, you can either tell it to use a copy of the lineup or, even better, don't use any lineup and let it remap to stations already in use on another tuner's lineup, in which case the HDHR's lineup will end up containing only the channels the HDHR can tune.

- Andy

[appelm]

Originally Posted by Opus4

See: HDHR setup for Windows

You don't need to choose a different lineup from some other town. If the HDHR is to use a subset of a lineup already in use, you can either tell it to use a copy of the lineup or, even better, don't use any lineup and let it remap to stations already in use on another tuner's lineup, in which case the HDHR's lineup will end up containing only the channels the HDHR can tune.

- Andy

oh is that new? I never saw an option to copy a lineup before.

[Chriscic]

Originally Posted by Opus4

See: HDHR setup for Windows

You don't need to choose a different lineup from some other town. If the HDHR is to use a subset of a lineup already in use, you can either tell it to use a copy of the lineup or, even better, don't use any lineup and let it remap to stations already in use on another tuner's lineup, in which case the HDHR's lineup will end up containing only the channels the HDHR can tune.

- Andy

Thanks Andy! I'm unclear how that would work (will it really do that for over-the-air channels... how would it know they are the same? By callsign?) but I expect it will start to make sense to me once I read the instructions and give it a shot.

[Chriscic]

Ok, I've read through the instructions now, and have but one question.

Per the instructions:

"Run the HDHR setup program, as directed in the SiliconDust instructions, step 4. After scanning for channels, click on the "Zap2it website" button & check its channel listings for your lineup. You will need to at least enter the Guide Name exactly as shown on the Zap2it site in order for the channels to get mapped correctly for EPG data in SageTV; for best results also enter the Guide Number -- you can enter channel numbers like x.y (example: 2.1) or x (ex: 34)."

The Zap2it guide lists many HD channels twice, with and without the ".1" added. For example, it lists both 5 as well as 5.1 (ignoring 5.2 and 5.3 for the moment). I didn't even think 5 without the .1 was even a proper designation for a digital channel... assume I go ahead and put in 5.1 and not the 5?

Thanks,
-Chris

[Opus4]

You've got the same HD channel listed as both 5 & 5.1? What zip code & lineup is this? Maybe they've shut off the analog channels for your area? If not, double check that the station names really are the same for those channel numbers. 5.2 & 5.3 would usually be some other subchannel the station broadcasts.

Anyway, the key is: use unique station names and channel numbers for each channel.

- Andy

[AJ Bertelson]

I recently upgrade to WHS on my sage server and I am having difficulty in getting my hdhome run to work with it.

I have followed the silicon dust and sage instrcutions and I get the channels listed but there no data or the ability to navigate to the channel is listed through the guide. When I scan through the channel setup and I select one of the HD channels I get codec errors. I have set all the codecs to default and defaulted to the video rendered(overlay, vmr9, evr).

Yeah its really really frustrating and I have copied channels over created new channels and gotten nothing.

[Chriscic]

Originally Posted by Opus4

You've got the same HD channel listed as both 5 & 5.1? What zip code & lineup is this? Maybe they've shut off the analog channels for your area? If not, double check that the station names really are the same for those channel numbers. 5.2 & 5.3 would usually be some other subchannel the station broadcasts.

Anyway, the key is: use unique station names and channel numbers for each channel.

- Andy

Zipcode 60563, Local Broadcast (Antenna). The ".1" channels don't have the DT on them, so they must be the analog. Did I miss something to show only digital channels. Nonetheless, I see now what to do. Thanks Andy.

[Chriscic]

"I also just realized that their channel editor no longer creates .scn files when the HDHR is used as an OTA tuners (it does when used for QAM tuning). So, when used as an OTA tuner connected to an antenna, all scanning is now done in SageTV."

I just caught this from the other thread.

So does this mean I don't need to bother to rename channels in the HD Homerun setup anymore?

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by Chriscic

I just caught this from the other thread.

So does this mean I don't need to bother to rename channels in the HD Homerun setup anymore?

Also in that other thread, I posted:
... since OTA tuning setup has changed for the HDHR, I've updated the instructions:
HDHR setup for Windows

Please see the updated instructions. You shouldn't need to use the HDHR channel editor at all any more for an OTA HDHR tuner because w/o it creating a scn file, the work would be fairly pointless, other than creating a list for you to refer to while configuring SageTV.

- Andy

[Chriscic]

I installed the HDHR on my server machine, added the tuners in Sage, and did the channel scan (once for each tuner). Now I have each channel listed twice, one for each HDHR tuner. This isn't supposed to happen, is it?

Also, I wasn't sure if I was supposed to select a program guide source. I didn't for either tuner. Looks like it fills in the programming guide sporadically... embedded in the digital signal I guess? Was I supposed to select yes to the program guide?

Thanks,
-Chris

Edit: I think I should have selected the first programming guide option for tuner 1, and then used existing lineup for tuner 2.

[PLUCKYHD]

If you have them twice you didn't chose to copy guide from other tuner when setting up your second tuner.

[Chriscic]

Ok, so I went back and deleted both HDHR tuners and readded.

This time, I selected the first option for program guide. I then scanned for channels (don't think it actually added anything that wasn't already there), and for the second tuner copied the channel list from the first tuner per the menu selection.

Now almost all of the HDHR digital channels (5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 7.1, 7.2, etc etc.) aren't showing up at all in the program guide. Stragenly, only a few are shown here or there... for example, 9.2 is there, but nothing else under 10.

This certainly seems to be a bug, as cannot think of anything I could be doing wrong.

Note I also went back, deleted the two HDHR tuners again, and this time just added the first tuner without a channel scan (still selected the first program guide option). Same outcome.

I'm switching over to Dish from Comcast and therefore re-setting up all tuners this coming weekend, so it's not critical I get this resolved at the moment, but if someone doesn't point out some mistake on my end I'll go ahead and submit as a bug for the good of the Sage community.

[Opus4]

There's a PDF manual installed with SageTV -- what you are describing sounds exactly like what is explained on p. 47 (Program Guide) of the v6.5 manual and on p. 149 (Source Setup). If the stations are enabled in Channel setup, they should be in the Program Guide somewhere, unless you have a customization filtering them out.

- Andy

[Chriscic]

I'll check out those pages... I had looked at 149, but not 47. Will see if I can fix with "RTFM"ing

I never intentionally set up any filters, and all the channels showed the very first time I added the HDHR tuners (they were just listed twice since I didn't copy the program guide to the second tuner).

Thanks I'll report back.

Edit:Ok, I see the channels are there, it's just that they were merged with the existing list (based on station name presumably). Since I won't be getting locals with Dish, there will be no overlap of channels which should avoid this issue (if one even considers it an issue).