HDHomeRun (HDHR) Prime + SageDCT

[grauchy]

Originally Posted by babgvant

AFAIK you're the first to have non-Copy Freely FiOS. I'd say it's worth a couple phone calls (you might have to try a few times to get someone who will understand what you're talking about). I got Cox to change the flags on a HD channel that way.

I'm on the phone with FiOS now. I tried to explain the CCI flags to the tech but I don't think he gets it. He keeps trying to activate the card unsubscribe/subscribe...

Any guidance on what keywords to say to the next tech when I try again?

[aedgington]

Windows XP + SageDCT 2.18 + Sage 7.1.9 + Prime

Prime is working fine; in the Prime setup I can tune channels to preview just fine.I put the info in Sage.properties, and configure the tuners, but get a black screen and No Signal when trying to use them. I've also noticed that the Prime doesn't light up any tuner lights, either.

[phelme]

Originally Posted by aedgington

Windows XP + SageDCT 2.18 + Sage 7.1.9 + Prime

Prime is working fine; in the Prime setup I can tune channels to preview just fine.I put the info in Sage.properties, and configure the tuners, but get a black screen and No Signal when trying to use them. I've also noticed that the Prime doesn't light up any tuner lights, either.

Do you have the Windows XP firewall enabled?

[Rob]

Are there any secrets to using a prime with a regular HD Home Run? I had a regular HDHR working fine, introduced the prime and now the prime works nearly flawlessy, but everytime the regular HD Homerun starts to record something it gives a HALT error.

[aedgington]

Originally Posted by phelme

Do you have the Windows XP firewall enabled?

It was not, but now it is -- and now I can see a tuner light come on the Prime -- but I still get "No Signal" and a black screen.

When I installed DCT it told me that XP was unsupported and that I'd have to make the firewall rules myself -- but I haven't seen any detail on what rules need to be made. Could that be the problem?

[aedgington]

Update:

That was the problem. I added an exception for SageDCT and everything works flawlessly. I'm pretty amazed. This blows away the DTA boxes and USB-UIRT config I had, and channel changes are near instant.

Windows XP:
1. Install HDHomerun Prime
2. Install SageDCT
2a. Copy config to sage.properties
2b. Ensure firewall is running and add exception for SageDCT.exe
3. Add EPG to sources
4. Done

All the posts and information seems so daunting when this is actually a three to five minute process. Awesome!

[phelme]

Originally Posted by aedgington

It was not, but now it is -- and now I can see a tuner light come on the Prime -- but I still get "No Signal" and a black screen.

When I installed DCT it told me that XP was unsupported and that I'd have to make the firewall rules myself -- but I haven't seen any detail on what rules need to be made. Could that be the problem?

You should add the ports that SageDCT assigns to the tuners to your firewall (UDP).

Have you tried using the "test" tab of ConfigureSageDCT to see if it can write out a file?

[hb4]

I'm trying to set up my new HDHR Prime, and having troubles - no signal for any channels in the Sage 'preview' screens for the tuner. I'm hoping for some help here. I'm pretty sure it's something simple (that would be my MO).

If I do a 'seek' in HDHR Config, I find about four channels that can be viewed.

The main problem seems to be that sage.properties won't keep the SageDCT info. When I paste the encoder information from SageDCT into Sage.properties and then start the SageTV service, the encoder section for the Prime tuners in Sage.properties file gets re-written, losing all of the SageDCT information and substituting its own information. In Sage, the description for the Prime indicates 'False' for 'Network Encoder'.

I mistakenly did a couple aborted scans in Sage when I added the tuners and I'm wondering in this caused the problem.

I am on W7, have the firewall on with settings per the writeup on this thread. HDHomerun version is 20111025 and SageDCT is 2.18.

The HDHR Prime is directly connected to a new NIC card and the MB network port is connected to my home network, if that makes a difference.

Also, I have an HDHR Dual connected and operating via the home network and it seems to be working fine.

[gplasky]

Number 1-I would put the prime on the home network and not directly attach it to a NIC. I have the Prime and two HDHRs attached to the home network switch.
Number 2-You need to stop the Sage service. If this isn't working double check and make sure another SageTV process isn't running. Use Task Manager to check. Once you are sure all is stopped then open the .properties file and paste and save.

Gerry

[hb4]

Thanks, Gerry

I switched to a network port, and made sure all of Sage was shut down and then added the file to sage.properties. I can now select an HDHR Prime tuner that installs as a network encoder.

Still no preview video in Sage.

In HDHR Config, when I set the channel to #15, five channels show up in the 'Program' box and these will show video when I select 'View'. Same for all three tuners.

The Prime tuners are duplicated in the list of possible sources and these appear to be the non-encoder tuners that I was seeing before and which Sage has reestablished in sage.properties. I now have two of each of the three tuners showing up in sage.properties even though I started with just the three. When the Sage service starts it adds the non-encoder tuners to the file. Is this typical?

I am seeing this repeated several times a second in SageDCT.log:

\

SageDCTHDHomeRunPrimeTuner131125542on1270016972DigitalTVTuner-0.mpgbuf
2011/12/02 16:10:53.54 : SageDCTTuner 6972 Send: ERROR The path is not of a legal form.
2011/12/02 16:10:53.54 : Before Accept: 6972
2011/12/02 16:10:53.54 : After Accept: 6972
2011/12/02 16:10:53.54 : 6972 Bytes Received: 105
2011/12/02 16:10:53.54 : ProcessMessage 6972: GET_FILE_SIZE I:\SAGE\Recordings

[sflamm]

The answer is in front of you:

The path is not of a legal form.

Check to make sure this is a legitimate path and you have the proper write permissoin for the identity that SageDCT is running under...

[hb4]

Thanks for the help; I think the last log excerpt was a red herring.

I did a little more testing and it seems that after the first tune command in Preview, further commands report a new channel but the original channel is still playing. Here is a log file where I started Sage and SageDCT service, went to 'Channel Setup/Preview', tuned and previewed video from channel 4, and then previewed channel 9. Channel 4 content played when Channel 9 was tuned. I then stopped the SageDCT service, shut down Sage and captured the log file.

In this file, I seem to have the correct write permission for the 'identity that SageDCT is running under', since it no longer reports the error. Before I ran this log I uninstalled and reinstalled the Homerun and SageDCT software, re-booted and power cycled the PC and tuner, and re-copied the tuner info into sage.properties.

[hb4]

I am happy to report that my HDHomerum Prime is up and running! I did nothing except try to watch and change watched channels after the Preview fail above.

The problem with the Preview operation where it only tunes the first preview channel correctly and the rest of preview channels show the first channel still remains, but watching or recording TV changes channels correctly. I can live with that. Now hoping that it stays working.

[mistergq]

Originally Posted by babgvant

Setup process is the same as the Ceton DCT.

1) Make sure you're running 7.1.9
2) Install SageDCT
3) Shut down the SageTV Service
4) Run the SageDCT config tool, scan for devices and generate the encoder properties when all tuners are found
5) copy the results from the txt file into the sage.properties file
6) Start SageTV Service
7) Configure the capture sources to use the right lineup - you do not need to do a channel scan
8) Enjoy (I think)

Received my Prime from the Newegg Blackfriday deal.

Obtained a cable card from Verizon FIOS store. They said it was activated, but still needed additional information to finish activation.

These are my install instructions for Verizon FIOS:

1) Install or make sure the HD Homerun Software is up to date.
2) Scan to find Prime in the HD Homerun Setup software
3) Click on Prime turner hyperlink in the HD Homerun Setup software to bring up the local web page of HD Homerun Prime
4) Goto Verizon FIOS Website, entered activation code.
5) Enter ID codes for Prime. You will probably need to wait about 30 minutes for the card to be activated. You can keep refreshing the web browser of HD Prime waiting for it to say Prime is activated.
6) Make sure you're running SageTV 7.1.9
7) Install SageDCT
8) Shut down the SageTV Service
9) Run the SageDCT config tool, scan for devices and generate the encoder properties when all tuners are found
5) copy the results from the txt file into the sage.properties file
6) Start SageTV Service
7) Configure the capture sources to use the right lineup - you do not need to do a channel scan
8) Shut SageTV down
9) Restart Windows
10) When everything reboots, it should work.

The reason I added in the restart is because SageTV would not be able to tune until I did a full restart of the computer. I did try a restart of SageTV before I did a restart of Windows. I am not sure why.

Also, my HD Homerun that is set up with QAM for FIOS required to be deleted, reboot windows, and then reset up. I am not sure what happened there. maybe it was a fluke, but it did happen. The HD Homerun that uses OTA was fine.

I have not found a FIOS channel that I do not have (except VOD which we knew). I even have all the premium channels including HBO, Showtime, etc.

[Ericft]

Thanks babgvant for creating sagedct to use with the prime...after many calls to comcast cust service I finally got the hdhomerun prime working flawlessly!! now i can send one of the cableboxes back and keep one hdpvr for hbo and showtime...
am I the only one that is going to be billed $9-10/month for the cablecard? when I told them that the first cable card has to be free, they argued with me saying that the money per month was for HD access on the cablecard...my understanding was that the point of the cable card was to get cheaper service with a $1-2 rental of the CC per month not the high cost of the STB...am I mistaken?

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by Ericft

Thanks babgvant for creating sagedct to use with the prime...after many calls to comcast cust service I finally got the hdhomerun prime working flawlessly!! now i can send one of the cableboxes back and keep one hdpvr for hbo and showtime...
am I the only one that is going to be billed $9-10/month for the cablecard? when I told them that the first cable card has to be free, they argued with me saying that the money per month was for HD access on the cablecard...my understanding was that the point of the cable card was to get cheaper service with a $1-2 rental of the CC per month not the high cost of the STB...am I mistaken?

This is not correct. The cablecard is like $1.50 per month. The $10 HD fee is not suppose to be a per device charge. Now that being said I also have a cable box. It should a $10 HD fee for the household address regardless of the number of boxes or cablecards you have, If you only have a cablecard in your house and no other box then yes-you would be charged the HD fee.

Gerry

[flavius]

I put a Windows 7 VM together with a separate Sage (Trial) server. There are still cable card activation problems (surprise, surprise), but I'm already getting most of my channels, and after I assigned a dedicated USB drive for the recordings things started to go smoothly.

Currently I'm testing three parallel HD recordings while attempting to watch those from my extenders.


This is Sage 7.1.9, HDHomerun 11-25, SageDCT 2.18 and Comcast.

[tfiskaa]

Can HDHR prime be used on winXP including cable card activation? I currently use XP and would like to avoid an install of win 7 if possible. Any thoughts on this is appreciated.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by tfiskaa

Can HDHR prime be used on winXP including cable card activation? I currently use XP and would like to avoid an install of win 7 if possible. Any thoughts on this is appreciated.

I run it on WHS v1 which is Windows 2003 server. For comparison purposes it would be the same as running XP.

Gerry

[Jkimmell]

Got a Prime last week and activated the cable card with Comcast. I can view stations in WMC 7 but I am unable to view any stations but locals with Quickview or VLC. Does this mean that I won't be able to view anything but locals in Sage?