InfiniTV4 Firmware Update Fails

[KarylFStein]

I'm trying to update the firmware on my InfiniTV4 card as I understand I need to for the latest OpenDCT version. However I keep getting this error:

Failed to update Ceton InfiniTV PCIe (00-80-73-21). Saving new firmware to device failed.

It seems like I had this problem before, but don't remember the solution, (or maybe I just gave up). Anyone see this before?

[KarylFStein]

I asked Ceton about this and they gave me a good price on a refurbished InfiniTV 6, so went with that.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by KarylFStein

I asked Ceton about this and they gave me a good price on a refurbished InfiniTV 6, so went with that.

It sounds like they probably told you it was an issue with the flash chip. I got a fairly cheap refurb from them too over a situation with my InfiniTV 4. My only regret was not asking if they could make it the InfiniTV 6 Eth. It would be nice to not need to install it in a computer. I think you'll be happy with the additional two tuners.

[KarylFStein]

Well, I got the InfiniTV 6 installed and after an hour of chatting with Comcast support it seems to be working now. The Ceton Diagnostics screen says that the CableCARD has not received a validation signal and to have the cable company send a 'CCV' signal. Comcast did something and now while I still see that error it also now goes on to say that CableCARD entitlement is OK for channel xxx (just put some channels in for testing). Set up the tuners in SageTV and they tune fine. So I guess I can ignore that error...

Now off to try the latest OpenDCT and figure out how to clear the old tuners out of my config, (guessing just remove some lines from the opendct.properties file--will probably just wipe it to make sure I have all the latest "best practices" defaults anyway). Looks like I may need to delete some stuff from the Sage.properties file too if that's not automatic.

[KarylFStein]

Well, everything is working great. I have 8 live TV streams going on right now (6 CableCard and 2 OTA). Music channels still take a bit to tune, (sits there for a bit on the tuning message then gives No Signal for a little, but then starts up). This is how it has always been even when using SageDCT, so no biggie. I just thought the latest beta of OpenDCT had some things in there to address this.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by KarylFStein

Well, everything is working great. I have 8 live TV streams going on right now (6 CableCard and 2 OTA). Music channels still take a bit to tune, (sits there for a bit on the tuning message then gives No Signal for a little, but then starts up). This is how it has always been even when using SageDCT, so no biggie. I just thought the latest beta of OpenDCT had some things in there to address this.

If you're using 0.5.x, there is an option to use raw for a specific channel range if you're using the dynamic consumer which is the default and likely what you're using since you wiped your configuration. If you don't see any issues, raw will always be a lot faster than FFmpeg.

The key notes from the 0.5.0 release are:
*Added opendct.consumer.DynamicConsumerImpl as the new default consumer. To change over to the new consumer from a previous installation, change the values of sagetv.device.<unique_id>.consumer to opendct.consumer.DynamicConsumerImpl.

Dynamic Consumer Options:

• Channel Range Notation

  Channel ranges are defined by a number then a hyphen followed by another number (8-10). Multiple ranges are separated by a comma (13-15,8-10). ATSC channels are defined by a number (frequency channel) then a hyphen followed by a the channel number then a hyphen followed by the sub-channel number (50-8-1). The use of two hyphens automatically makes it literally a channel instead of a range.

  Ex. 8-10,50-8-1,13-16 will match the following channels: 8, 9, 10, 50-8-1, 13, 14, 15, 16

• consumer.dynamic.channels.ffmpeg=

  These are the channels that will always be assigned to the transcoding FFmpeg consumer.

• consumer.dynamic.channels.raw=

  These are the channels that will always be assigned to the raw consumer.

• consumer.dynamic.default=opendct.consumer.FFmpegTransSageTVConsumerImpl

  This is the consumer always used if the channel currently tuned doesn't match the channels under consumer.dynamic.channels.ffmpeg or consumer.dynamic.channels.raw.

[KryptoNyte]

Okay, just uninstalled the older OpenDCT and clean installed 0.5.2 and about to get RAW running.

In my OpenDCT properties file there is a set of the following for each of 4 tuners;

sagetv.device.-789048618.always_force_external_unlock=false
sagetv.device.-789048618.consumer=opendct.consumer.DynamicConsumerImpl
sagetv.device.-789048618.delay_to_wait_after_tuning=0
sagetv.device.-789048618.device_name=DCT-Ceton InfiniTV PCIe (00-80-35-09) Tuner 4
sagetv.device.-789048618.encoder_level=3.0
sagetv.device.-789048618.encoder_listen_port=9000
sagetv.device.-789048618.encoder_merit=0
sagetv.device.-789048618.encoder_pool=dct
sagetv.device.-789048618.exclusive_server_address=
sagetv.device.-789048618.fast_network_encoder_switch=true
sagetv.device.-789048618.last_channel=-1
sagetv.device.-789048618.transcode_profile=
sagetv.device.-789048619.always_force_external_unlock=false
sagetv.device.-789048619.consumer=opendct.consumer.DynamicConsumerImpl
sagetv.device.-789048619.delay_to_wait_after_tuning=0
sagetv.device.-789048619.device_name=DCT-Ceton InfiniTV PCIe (00-80-35-09) Tuner 3
sagetv.device.-789048619.encoder_level=3.0
sagetv.device.-789048619.encoder_listen_port=9000
sagetv.device.-789048619.encoder_merit=0
sagetv.device.-789048619.encoder_pool=dct
sagetv.device.-789048619.exclusive_server_address=
sagetv.device.-789048619.fast_network_encoder_switch=true
sagetv.device.-789048619.last_channel=1006
sagetv.device.-789048619.transcode_profile=

The bold value was set like that by default on the install of 0.5.2, so do I still need to add;

consumer.dynamic.channels.raw=950-1024

To get the RAW output and eliminate the use of ffmpeg?

[KarylFStein]

Yep. The line probably already exists near the top of the properties file.

[KryptoNyte]

Thanks, Karyl. I should have studied the properties file more. Sorry.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

Thanks, Karyl. I should have studied the properties file more. Sorry.

When that file is saved, it's alphabetically sorted first. I hope that helps you find what you're looking for in the future.

[KryptoNyte]

I guess I've always figured it was optimal to grab the raw stream from the cable company, which eliminates virtually any form of processing of ffmpeg. Is it really just better to let ffmpeg handle/cleanup these recordings? I'm not sure I can see any difference in performance.

What details in MediaInfo would I be looking for, or any other detail, that would verify that I'm getting the raw stream?

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

I guess I've always figured it was optimal to grab the raw stream from the cable company, which eliminates virtually any form of processing of ffmpeg. Is it really just better to let ffmpeg handle/cleanup these recordings? I'm not sure I can see any difference in performance.

What details in MediaInfo would I be looking for, or any other detail, that would verify that I'm getting the raw stream?

You generally won't know you have a problem until you have a problem. One of the issues that FFmpeg cleans up is discontinuity errors. It's a little ironic that I'm saying this since I basically had to do all of that myself in OpenDCT. The discontinuity fixing functionality doesn't exist in the libraries. You are however less likely to have these issues with local broadcasts since the cable provider generally isn't going to insert local ads like they are still using analog.

The other thing it does for you is it pulls the program out of a stream that says it has many programs and writes a file that only has one program. One of the things OpenDCT will do for you in this regard is perform a specialized search and continue that search until it is told to stop or it finds a program with a video and all associated audio streams. I believe this is the part that can sometimes trip up SageTV. Sometimes it doesn't find what it's looking for soon enough and just gives up or it focuses on something irrelevant in the stream. It really has no guidance on what you actually want it to focus on, so I can see how it might get it wrong sometimes.

I'll also add that SageTV remuxes to PS. I won't act like I know the reasons, but one of them I'm sure is simplicity and another is space efficiency. I don't know this for fact, but they seem to be more compatible with players in general and they seem to seek a little smoother.

Edit: You won't be able to tell the difference generally via MediaInfo, other than you'll see that it's actually MPEG-TS instead of MPEG-PS as you would expect since you're using the program stream setting on the SageTV side of things. You might be able to tell the difference with ffprobe since it will list all of the other programs that were also a part of that stream.

[KryptoNyte]

Good stuff. Thank you.

... and yes, I do see the PS to TS difference now. I didn't notice that on first comparison. I guess we'll see how it goes with the raw format for a while.

It looks like Charter is going to purchase Time Warner, so let's hope that "New Charter" adopts Charter's current system of copy-freely on all but premiums, which would sure make this cable card system a whole lot more Sage friendly! I could basically retire the HDPVR for now.