Ceton or Prime?

[impro]

So what would you recommend Ceton or Prime?
WHat concerns me most is the boot up time.
My server goes to sleep 1 minute after I shut all my HD300s.
A friend told me that it takes 40 seconds for the CC adapters to start.
Is that true?

[PLUCKYHD]

It is true for ceton but not hd prime ad it is network and stays on. The ceton loses power with the computer and has to resynch. That being said judging by reviews the ceton is the most reliable.

[mikejaner]

Originally Posted by impro

So what would you recommend Ceton or Prime?
WHat concerns me most is the boot up time.
My server goes to sleep 1 minute after I shut all my HD300s.
A friend told me that it takes 40 seconds for the CC adapters to start.
Is that true?

My HDHR Prime is booted from a cold start (plugged in power) in about five seconds. I haven't needed to do this in three weeks.
During tuning while it is running it takes about two seconds to tune. This is with the beta drivers and firmware from last month. More recent firmware and software is being touted as even faster from what I read.

[jm9843]

Originally Posted by impro

So what would you recommend Ceton or Prime?

If the logistics (pci-e, usb, ethernet) isn't a concern for your tuner, then you might consider the advanced tuner sharing feature of the Prime. If you'd ever consider using WMC7 then that feature alone would make the Prime a better choice.

[Spartan]

What about Hauppauge?

http://www.hauppauge.com/site/produc...a_dcr2650.html

"WinTV-DCR-2650
a dual tuner CableCARD receiver for your Windows 7 PC!"

[gplasky]

So the Hauppauge is a spin off of the SilconDust Prime development. I'm considering the Prime knowing how well SilconDust track record is for developing the network tuner technology and how far they have come and how much work they put into their first and second generation HDHR and what they have done so far with the Prime. I have a HD-PVR and never got a Colossus because of the driver issues that seem to occur with their later devices. Not to say I have issues with the HD-PVR-I don't. But I also don't want to have to rely on luck to have a good experience either.

Gerry

[Naylia]

I've been using an HD PVR as primary recording device until now. Ceton should arrive in two weeks. When it arrives I'll share how it works out, especially regarding your questions about boot time.

[impro]

Please,
I hope this day never comes....
I wish microsoft got sagetv instead of google (:

Originally Posted by jm9843

If the logistics (pci-e, usb, ethernet) isn't a concern for your tuner, then you might consider the advanced tuner sharing feature of the Prime. If you'd ever consider using WMC7 then that feature alone would make the Prime a better choice.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by impro

I wish microsoft got sagetv instead of google (:

Personally I think that would be worse. Then there would be NO hope of a SageTV V8 being released instead of just slim to none.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by jm9843

If the logistics (pci-e, usb, ethernet) isn't a concern for your tuner, then you might consider the advanced tuner sharing feature of the Prime. If you'd ever consider using WMC7 then that feature alone would make the Prime a better choice.

You can network share the Ceton as well. They are all seen as network tuners. Granted with the Ceton the server computer must always be on.

[impro]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

You can network share the Ceton as well. They are all seen as network tuners. Granted with the Ceton the server computer must always be on.

I have the ceton and the prime in my possetion.
I used the ceton for a few days and It has been good but recorded all black no sound a few times.
Now will try the Prime.

[jptheripper]

The all black no sound is for a channel that is not copy freely. It is not an error.

[impro]

This is so far what my experience is:
CETON ROCK SOLID!!!
PRIME KEEPS RESTING sometimes in 2 minutes sometimes in 2 hours.
I am very disappointed with Silicon Dust

[Naylia]

Following up: Ceton is rock solid!! for a few weeks now not a single missed recording. Family is loving all the simultaneous tuners, quick channels changes, and easy accurate Comskip when combining CableCARD's MPEG-2 recordings with Commercial Detector plugin.

[bnh]

thought i'd post my success as well ...after three days, rock solid, no shutdowns/reboots/halts. i think i've finally hit my ideal setup, per the FAF (family acceptance factor).

three lessons learned:

1. duh! be sure to insist on a M-Card, not simply CableCard when picking up from the cable company. i knew that, but forgot to mention it. i got a single-stream card and of course the Ceton failed to work with it. had to go back the next day...last one in stock!

2. ensure you have adequate cabling. I had an old channelmaster analog booster on the line, which apparently was either faulty, or messed with the attenuation of several channels. after removing that, signal level went from 26 dbmv down to 2dbmv and signal-to-noise ratio went from 25 to 36. it caught me because initially lots of channels did indeed tune in, but a few went all pixelly(sp?) and at times no signal at all...intermittently. i also had capped my own end points in several splits and redid those.

3. i had to run the Digital Cable Advisor in MCE. Maybe it was just coincidence, but when i finally did run it, the tuner (not the ceton card) became available in MCE, and was finally able to tune via SageDCT. Prior to that, the tuners were showing as "not functioning" within Sage even though SageDCT saw them.

Sooo...this will be my final config (woot!)...at least until the EPG stops, and/or Comcast flips the copy-once flag, and/or something entirely new comes along.

[bnh]

i'm still happy with my ceton/sagedct setup, but i have noted many recordings are not compliant .ts files in some way. They seem to play just fine in sage and Media player classic, but they cannot be transcoded by any of the usual programs i've been used to: sagetvtranscoder, ffmpeg, handbrake, nor mencoder. in addition, the tsmuxer CLI will just bomb ungracefully, and it's GUI throws up an empty dialog box error .

most (but definitely not all) of these are coming from disney channel variants: abc, abcfam, disney, and disneyxd. i suspect it's in the stream that the provider is sending and nothing to do with ceton or sagedct or signal quality.

to resolve it, i'm trying out TS-Doctor. It so far as "fixed" two recordings successfully that i'm hoping sagetvtranscoder or any of the other transcoders can actually complete. if it works, it will be another step to get the mpeg2 compressed, but i can live with that considering how well the ceton/sagedct operates within sage. if anyone is interested in the results, i'll post when/if they complete.

[sflamm]

Happily using my Ceton in a dedicated 'network tuning' SFF PC for the last couple months...

Been monitoring the progress of the Prime - as my HDHRs were always very reliable and it is much lower cost to run than a dedicated SFF server as a network tuner ("Ceton in a box")

Can anyone tell me where the reliability/performance now stands with the latest Prime firmware / SageDCT versions?

[Telecore]

I've been running HDHR Prime under Win7 Pro x64/SageTV 7.1.9 for some time now error free. Also have two regular HDHR's. Just upgraded from SageDCT 1.9 to 2.1.8. Using latest Silicondust software 111025. Had some problems at first, but updates to SageDCT and/or Siicondust software seemed to fix over 1 month ago. Removed comskip during course of debugging and have not turned it on since. HDHR Prime/SageDCT may increase CPU usage vs HD-PVR or HDHomerun dual ATSC tuners (my previous setup).

[dertb]

Originally Posted by Naylia

Following up: Ceton is rock solid!! for a few weeks now not a single missed recording. Family is loving all the simultaneous tuners, quick channels changes, and easy accurate Comskip when combining CableCARD's MPEG-2 recordings with Commercial Detector plugin.

What are you settings for the commercial detection. I just got my Centon card all set up and doing some tests with Comskip i am getting no commercials found. Had to switch back to Dirmon as I kept getting an error when trying to set up Commonitor (service could not start 1607) really would prefer to get com-monitor working but at least with Dirmon it is scanning the files but not finding any commecials.

[sflamm]

i believe you need the contributor version of Comskip or buy SAV to get H264 detection.