What can I change to help speed up channel change

[Hunter69]

I have always thought the channel change using my setup seemed slow but through reading as I understood it 5-6 seconds for channel change is the norm. Well I changed my setup to include a second hdpvr and a second cable box. I setup a multizone channel change using a usb uirt. This has seemed to increase the time required to change the channel (9-10 seconds).

What settings affect the speed of the channel change?

So is there anything I can change or do to speed up the channel change time?

[Tiki]

I am not using the HD-PVR, but I do use the USB-UIRT in multi-zone mode to change channels on my Comcast Cable boxes. For each cable box I have an IR file located in "C:\Program Files\SageTV\Common\RemoteCodes\USB-UIRT Transceiver\". Inside these files you can change the delay between digits and the repeat count to get the best performance. You should be able to do this from within Sage also, but I found that with multi-zone control enabled, sometimes the changes don't get saved in the right place, so it is better to edit the file directly and then re-start the Sage Service to make sure it takes effect.

For my second cable box, I have an IR file in this directory called "MotorolaDCT2000-2.ir". Here are the first 3 lines from that file:

MotorolaDCT2000-2 37616 411 1 350 2000
RepeatCount 3
1 Z20000 006c 0012 0002 0157 00ac 0013 00ac 0013 0056 0013 0056 0013 0056 0013 0056 0013 0056 0013 0056 0013 0056 0013 0056 0013 0056 0013 0056 0013 0056 0013 00ac 0013 00ac 0013 00ac 0013 00ac 0013 04a6 0157 0057 0013 0d3c

On the first line, the first item is the name of the file: "MotorolaDCT2000-2.
This is followed by "37616" and "411" - I don't know what those two items do.
This is followed by "1" - this is the minimum number of digits per channel. If you set this to "3" the blaster will add 0's to the front of 1 or 2 digit channels, so if you want to watch channel 2, it will send "002". I found that with my cable box "1" works better - it is faster and less likely to mistakenly tune to channel "0" (Tuning to Channel 0 or 1 takes you to On Demand with Comcast).
The next item on the first line is "350". This is the delay in milliseconds between digits. If this is too small, your STB will not see the next digit. If it is too large, your STB will time out and only see one of the digits.
The last item, "2000", is the delay between successive channel changes in milliseconds. Since it usually takes a couple of seconds for the STB to finish changing the channel, it will normally ignore any other requests while it is in the middle of changing the channel - this delay gives it time to finish its change before trying to send a new channel.
On the second line is the Repeat Count. This is equivalent to how long you hold down a button on your remote control. With most remotes, if you hold down a button, it will keep sending the same code over and over very quickly. If you hold the button too long, it will time out before you get to press the next button. If you release it too quickly, it may not register. For fast channel changes, it is best to set this as low as possible (I found a repeat count of 3 works best for me).

The 3rd line is the remote code for the "1" button. The 3rd and 4th character on this line is "Z2". This is where you have to manually add the zone number (the default file will not have those two characters inserted).
The remaining lines that I didn't show are for each of the other buttons on the remote. The zone number must be inserted on each of those lines as well.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Hunter69

I have always thought the channel change using my setup seemed slow but through reading as I understood it 5-6 seconds for channel change is the norm. Well I changed my setup to include a second hdpvr and a second cable box. I setup a multizone channel change using a usb uirt. This has seemed to increase the time required to change the channel (9-10 seconds).

What settings affect the speed of the channel change?

So is there anything I can change or do to speed up the channel change time?

Check the delay_to_wait_after_tuning settings. By default now it's 4 seconds for the HD PVR. If you installed your first HD PVR before that change that would explain the difference.

But be aware they changed that because it fixed reliability issues for many of us. But if you're not having issues it should be OK to change it back.