OpenDCT: An open source digital cable tuner.

[KryptoNyte]

mlcarson, are you able to watch a clear video stream using HDhomerun's own software (without any SageTV involvement)? And channel changes ...

[mlcarson]

Yes. In fact, the stream that SageTV saves while trying to analyze it on trouble channels is perfectly playable via VLC and looks fine in Videoredo too. The Channels App which uses the HDHOMERUN app for its source has 1-2 sec channel changes which I'd love to see in SageTV. There's no sign of video corruption in any of the streams in SageTV or HdHomerun. If there's strangeness I suspect its a Comcast thing.

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

mlcarson, are you able to watch a clear video stream using HDhomerun's own software (without any SageTV involvement)? And channel changes ...

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by mlcarson

Yes. In fact, the stream that SageTV saves while trying to analyze it on trouble channels is perfectly playable via VLC and looks fine in Videoredo too. The Channels App which uses the HDHOMERUN app for its source has 1-2 sec channel changes which I'd love to see in SageTV. There's no sign of video corruption in any of the streams in SageTV or HdHomerun. If there's strangeness I suspect its a Comcast thing.

Like I said, it must be missing some key packets that would indicate what programs are available in the stream. Video players have it easier since they can just find the first video stream and audio stream, then play. When you're remuxing, you want to make sure you get everything, so when the PMT table for example is missing or corrupt, that makes things very uncertain and it's a lot harder to tell when to just go for it anyway.

[ChrisNH]

Troubleshooting question: If I have DCT installed would it cause the native stream tuner in Sage to stop working?

I ask because I am trying to troubleshoot not tuning any channels. I have a PrimeHD set up with no card, just QAM at this point. I am trying to use it with DCT because I will be getting a card and my channels encrypted by the end of the month. I am copying over the channel lineup from my internal tuners.

In example, one channel shows what I expect for signal strength in the sage stream tuner, around 95%, but no image. Before I bang my head against the wall I want to make sure this isn't related to having DCT installed.

Thanks

[tmiranda]

My cable company has remapped some of the digital channels and my DCT tuners have not automatically picked up the changes. Do I need to do something special (like a scan) to get the changes?

I'm thinking I need to call the cable company and tell them to send a "refresh" signal to my CableCard.

[EnterNoEscape]

You can try a scan on the HDHomeRun itself to see if it will tune the new channels. I would also try just power-cycling the device since from what I've observed, it will get the latest channel map on reboot. It will also update periodically, but I don't know what the frequency is.

If OpenDCT can't find the requested virtual channel on the channel list returned from the HDHomeRun Prime (HTTP), it will try to tune in the channel via the native method (UDP) directly by requesting the virtual channel number similar to how you would do it using their command line utility. Technically that means that if you can't tune the channel in either there's DRM or the CableCARD doesn't know the virtual mapping which is the responsibility of the cable company.

[sic0048]

Originally Posted by ChrisNH

Troubleshooting question: If I have DCT installed would it cause the native stream tuner in Sage to stop working?

I ask because I am trying to troubleshoot not tuning any channels. I have a PrimeHD set up with no card, just QAM at this point. I am trying to use it with DCT because I will be getting a card and my channels encrypted by the end of the month. I am copying over the channel lineup from my internal tuners.

In example, one channel shows what I expect for signal strength in the sage stream tuner, around 95%, but no image. Before I bang my head against the wall I want to make sure this isn't related to having DCT installed.

Thanks

Make sure you only have one version of Java installed on your computer. I had the exact same symptoms when I was trying to get my tuner to work. Everything appears to work fine, but I couldn't get anything to actually record. It turned out I had two versions of Java installed somehow. I reduced that to one version and everything worked fine.

[ChrisNH]

Originally Posted by sic0048

Make sure you only have one version of Java installed on your computer.

I have a 32 bit version for sage and a 64 bit version for dct. I will check that out if I keep having trouble. There may also be an older version installed. Thanks..

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

If OpenDCT can't find the requested virtual channel on the channel list returned from the HDHomeRun Prime (HTTP), it will try to tune in the channel via the native method (UDP) directly by requesting the virtual channel number similar to how you would do it using their command line utility. Technically that means that if you can't tune the channel in either there's DRM or the CableCARD doesn't know the virtual mapping which is the responsibility of the cable company.

I'm pretty sure my cable company is to blame. When I did a rescan on the TVs the channel numbers have changed but not the channel descriptions.

Thanks for the help.

[Zogg]

Hi, I'm a long time BTV user testing out Sage, and while things are working, I have a couple of questions with regard to OpenDCT.

I have 2 original HDHomeRun's for clear QAM recording and 2 HDHR Primes with CableCards for other channels. I've freed up one HDHR tuner and one Prime tuner for testing with Sage. The HDHR tuner was set up under Sage itself, and the Prime tuner under OpenDCT.

OpenDCT sees all four HDHR units, but for now I've only enabled the one Prime tuner. The Prime tuners can tune the same channels as the HDHR's but not vice versa, although as set up the original HDHR sees my CBS channel as 72-3111 where the Prime would just tune 511. I currently don't have any EPG set up and have done no channel mapping.

Question: Should I set up the original HDHR under OpenDCT also, even though it's recording clear QAM? Is there an advantage for channel mapping in doing so, or some other reason?

Another question: Daweeze's instructions mention deleting references to mmc/encoder entries, but I guess I don't understand what is going on here unless it's to make Sage only use OpenDCT for tuning? Can someone explain what is going on?

I appreciate any help that is offered to help me understand how this works.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by Zogg

Hi, I'm a long time BTV user testing out Sage, and while things are working, I have a couple of questions with regard to OpenDCT.

I have 2 original HDHomeRun's for clear QAM recording and 2 HDHR Primes with CableCards for other channels. I've freed up one HDHR tuner and one Prime tuner for testing with Sage. The HDHR tuner was set up under Sage itself, and the Prime tuner under OpenDCT.

OpenDCT sees all four HDHR units, but for now I've only enabled the one Prime tuner. The Prime tuners can tune the same channels as the HDHR's but not vice versa, although as set up the original HDHR sees my CBS channel as 72-3111 where the Prime would just tune 511. I currently don't have any EPG set up and have done no channel mapping.

Question: Should I set up the original HDHR under OpenDCT also, even though it's recording clear QAM? Is there an advantage for channel mapping in doing so, or some other reason?

The advantage to using OpenDCT with a CableCARD tuner and the original HDHomeRun in ClearQAM is that OpenDCT will use the virtual channel mappings from your HDHomeRun Prime to tune your original HDHomeRun which means you don't need to do any channel mapping for the original HDHomeRun. The process works like this: SageTV tunes a virtual channel number on the ClearQAM device. If OpenDCT doesn't already know the mapping, it will look it up using the HDHomeRun Prime. It then tunes in the channel by frequency and program (which is what 72-3111 actually represents). The only notable downsides are it can't look up a mapping if all of your HDHomeRun Primes are in use which is why the values are cached when discovered and the caching means that if your provider changes things around a lot, you'll be deleting the cached lineups a lot.

[mechling-burgh]

All the sudden today Windows defender said my Sage Server had a virus. It was called Repjexi it automatically deleted the file it seems that it thinks OpenDCT has the virus because as soon as it deleted the file OpenDCT stopped working. I reinstalled OpenDCT and as soon as I run OpenDCT Scan it blocks it and deletes certain files so java crashes. Anyone else having this problem.

[mechling-burgh]

Here is what the scan found

containerfile:C:\Users\mark\Downloads\OpenDCT_0.4.49_x86.msi
containerfile:C:\Users\mark\Downloads\OpenDCT_0.5.8_x86.msi
containerfile:C:\Windows\Installer\248ffc.msi
file:C:\Users\mark\Downloads\OpenDCT_0.4.49_x86.msi->media1.cab->filC14AB54D25FF89D88EB988824D24CE63->org/bytedeco/javacpp/windows-x86/postproc-53.dll
file:C:\Users\mark\Downloads\OpenDCT_0.5.8_x86.msi->media1.cab->filC14AB54D25FF89D88EB988824D24CE63->org/bytedeco/javacpp/windows-x86/postproc-53.dll
file:C:\Windows\Installer\248ffc.msi->media1.cab->filC14AB54D25FF89D88EB988824D24CE63->org/bytedeco/javacpp/windows-x86/postproc-53.dll

hope this helps

[Zogg]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

The advantage to using OpenDCT with a CableCARD tuner and the original HDHomeRun in ClearQAM is that OpenDCT will use the virtual channel mappings from your HDHomeRun Prime to tune your original HDHomeRun which means you don't need to do any channel mapping for the original HDHomeRun. The process works like this: SageTV tunes a virtual channel number on the ClearQAM device. If OpenDCT doesn't already know the mapping, it will look it up using the HDHomeRun Prime. It then tunes in the channel by frequency and program (which is what 72-3111 actually represents). The only notable downsides are it can't look up a mapping if all of your HDHomeRun Primes are in use which is why the values are cached when discovered and the caching means that if your provider changes things around a lot, you'll be deleting the cached lineups a lot.

Thanks, I had read something to that effect but wasn't sure I totally understood, but your explanation was more clear.

Unfortunately my provider does tend to move channels around. I've actually had to write a script to look for changes in the major/minor numbers and email me if it found changes. I'll have to look into adding the capability to delete the cached lineups.

Another question, how do you set the preference order of the tuners? For example I'd like it to favor the original HDHRs over the Primes.

Do I need to delete the mmc/encoder settings as in the example?

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by mechling-burgh

Here is what the scan found

containerfile:C:\Users\mark\Downloads\OpenDCT_0.4.49_x86.msi
containerfile:C:\Users\mark\Downloads\OpenDCT_0.5.8_x86.msi
containerfile:C:\Windows\Installer\248ffc.msi
file:C:\Users\mark\Downloads\OpenDCT_0.4.49_x86.msi->media1.cab->filC14AB54D25FF89D88EB988824D24CE63->org/bytedeco/javacpp/windows-x86/postproc-53.dll
file:C:\Users\mark\Downloads\OpenDCT_0.5.8_x86.msi->media1.cab->filC14AB54D25FF89D88EB988824D24CE63->org/bytedeco/javacpp/windows-x86/postproc-53.dll
file:C:\Windows\Installer\248ffc.msi->media1.cab->filC14AB54D25FF89D88EB988824D24CE63->org/bytedeco/javacpp/windows-x86/postproc-53.dll

hope this helps

It's fairly common for the FFmpeg libraries to be flagged as viruses (or in this case malware). Apparently they have a tendency to look suspicious. The best you can do is submit that file to Microsoft and create an exception for now. I've had to do this in the past with various FFmpeg builds.

[mechling-burgh]

Thanks was planning on doing that but wanted to double check first. Ticks me off because its been running rock solid for the last 3 months

[KeithAbbott]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

The best you can do is submit that file to Microsoft and create an exception for now.

Or maybe switch to a different antivirus solution...

[realcap]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

It's fairly common for the FFmpeg libraries to be flagged as viruses (or in this case malware). Apparently they have a tendency to look suspicious. The best you can do is submit that file to Microsoft and create an exception for now. I've had to do this in the past with various FFmpeg builds.

I had the same problem. MS Security Essentials, flagged the file yesterday for the first time as being a "severe" threat. I submitted file to MS and have created the exception.

[tmiranda]

I have an HDHR Prime (using OpenDCT to tune) and and old original HDHR. I was using native tuning for the old HDHR but want to use OpenDCT. I removed the old HDHR as an input source but when I try to add it there is no option to do so as an OpenDCT tuner.

What do I need to do to have OpenDCT see the old HDHR?

[EnterNoEscape]

That's odd. The latest stable or beta should have that kind of discovery already enabled. Set the following properties are to these values in opendct.properties:

hdhr.discoverer_enabled=true
hdhr.ignore_device_ids=
hdhr.ignore_models=
sagetv.device.global.ignore_devices_csv=
sagetv.device.global.only_devices_csv=

You should also see the old HDHomeRun listed in opendct.properties.