Where are HDPVR Installation instructions?

[iammike]

I had my HDPVR working a couple weeks ago, and now like I've seen reported by several other folks, the blaster has decided to stop responding to Sage. It works fine through the blastcfg program though. In setting the darn thing up, I sifted through many posts from others and pieced together enough info to get it working. Since it's not working any longer I'm assuming I must have done something wrong. What I'd like to do is go back to square one and install the thing step by step according to Sage's installation instructions. I just searched the Sage manual for references to HD-PVR and only found one in a section referencing enforcement of recording quality.

Could someone point me to where the official installation instructions are?

Thanks,
Mike

[razrsharpe]

i dont know if there are official instructions... but my $.02... forgo the ir blaster and setup firewire with your stb to change the channels. My channel changes are rocksolid and never miss a beat... i never really found a concise current guide to do this either so it was a couple hours of work but well worth it

[iammike]

Originally Posted by razrsharpe

i dont know if there are official instructions... but my $.02... forgo the ir blaster and setup firewire with your stb to change the channels. My channel changes are rocksolid and never miss a beat... i never really found a concise current guide to do this either so it was a couple hours of work but well worth it

I would if I could, but I have Dish network and there isn't a firewire option to my knowledge. I guess I'm kind of shocked that Sage hasn't published instructions for using the device since they're selling it in their store. It would be one thing if this were a beta device, but these things have been around for a year now. Definitely not the quality of service I've come to expect from these guys.

[Opus4]

There aren't any special instructions because you set it up like just about any other tuner. The SageTV PDF manual covers Source Setup starting on p. 149. Step 5 (p. 152) mentions the tuning plugin, at which point you need to choose the Hauppauge IR blaster & the manual links to a comment in Appendix F that mentions the Hauppauge IR blaster config.

You have mentioned issues using the Hauppauge IR blaster. I'm not sure whether you mean it used to work for you or it never worked for you. Some people have said they their problem was solved by installing & configuring the Hauppauge IR blaster and then installing SageTV afterwards -- just like you should do for the Hauppauge remote to work; blurb on page 13 of the PDF manual.

- Andy

[iammike]

Andy,

The IR blaster was working and then it quit. Sage still recognizes the HD-PVR though. The IR blaster is working through the blastcfg program Hauppauge supplies for configuring it.

When I originally set it up, I went through the steps listed in the manual but I don't think Sage ever gave me a pick for the Hauppauge IR Blaster. I found a post on the forum, where someone had manually updated their Sage.properties and entered the path and file name to the DLL for the blaster to get it to work. This is the entry from my Sage.properties:

mmc/encoders/-431556906/90/0/tuning_plugin=C\:\\Program Files\\SageTV\\Common\\HCWIRBlaster.dll

This was working fine for me but later stopped. I have applied the latest beta, so I don't know if that could have broken it or not. I uninstalled and reinstalled Sage again yesterday before posting and had the same results. When I go into the source setup panel, Sage says I have the IR Blaster but it doesn't let me configure it. I can pick the configuration submenu's but they don't work. For instance when selecting a precode, it doesn't have any picks. On the panel where it lists the maximum number of digits in a channel it says -1, but if I try to change the value Sage doesn't accept the change.

When trying to tune to a channel, the IR blaster never sends the signal to my STB, but Sage will still start recording whatever channel the STB was previous tuned to.

Thanks,
Mike

[iammike]

I thought I'd post a follow-up in case anyone else is having the same problem that I was. I stumbled across this by accident tonight after following the Sage "instructions" for about the 10th time.

When I run Sage, I've always set it up to run under an account defined on additional PC's on my network. When using the Sage Service Control, this is accomplished by changing the id the service runs under from localsystem to something else. I accidentally forgot to change the account tonight after installing and it started to work. I mistakenly thought something in 6.5.17 had fixed it, but after I changed the ID the service runs under to my normal one the IR blaster stopped working. When I changed the account back to localsystem it started working again.

Moral of the story, Sage needs to run under the same account used to install the HDPVR software. If you use a different id, Sage still sort of sees the blaster and will let you select it in source setup, but it won't be able to communicate with it.