Fios TV and Sage

[bcjenkins]

Can anyone comment on the SageTV integration of FIOS tv? Do the boxes they use support the serial connections for tuning? Has anyone tried a QAM tuner with fios? HD Homerun preferred.

TIA

B

[mattdcknsn]

I have been using FIOS TV for about 3 months now (I think). From all my knowledge the serial port on the STB is disabled and wont be turned on anytime soon. I am using a UIRT. So far so good. No major problems. I've never tried QAM with it. I use OTA for HD. Any other info you need let me know.

[bcjenkins]

How many set top boxes do you run? I am thinking I might need 4. Can Sage handle that?

B

[mattdcknsn]

I am currently only running 1 STB and I split the signal so that I have another card capturing analog. Only the locals are rebroadcasted in analog, so I dont have all the extra channels. I am planning on adding more boxes in the future but I cant think there would be a problem with sage using 4. The only issue I would see is getting the uirt to control all of them.

There is one aspect that I havent seen anybody touch yet. All of the STBs are networked together using your coax. This is bridged to your network through your router. (This is required to get your EPG data) They all get IPs from your router starting at 192.168.0.50 through 100. I've tried a couple of port scans but couldnt see anything open. I am not sure if there is a way to change the channels via network, I am not a networking person and I dont have the time to experiment. But it might work. Let me know what other questions you have.

[reboot_this]

about using 4 stbs with sagetv...

It is possible, sagetv can control more than one usb-uirt. Each usb-uirt has three ir "zones"... zones 1 and 2 are accessed via a headphone style jack on the back of the device, and zone 3 "shoots" signals out the front of the device.

For a setup with 4 stbs I recommend getting two usb-uirts that way you can run wired ir transmitters from zones 1 and 2 from each uirt giving you the ability to control four seperate devices... keep in mind the reason I keep saying to use zones 1 and 2 for stb control and not zone 3 is because zone 3 is usually pointed toward the viewers and if you tried to send signals to one stb from the 3rd zone it would effectively make channel changes on all the stbs in the room (unless your room is HUGE)

If you need help setting up zone specific remote code files I can post mine so you can see how they differentiate between zones.

hope this helps...

[bcjenkins]

Thanks for the info. I am not too sure what I will be doing yet. I was hoping the serial connection was good on the FiOS box. Lord knows how much trouble I would be in if IR blasters screwed up the wife's shows.

B

[mattdcknsn]

no problem for the info. So far I am more than happy with FIOS TV. I switched from DirectTV and haven't had any problems. I will hopefully be getting another STB for more channels but so far haven't needed it. So I'll figure that multi zone IR Blaster thing later.

I did have some problems programing the IR Blaster for the STB, its a Motorola one and I cant remember the version. But after some tinkering finally got it to work. Initially (for some reason) it wouldn't take some codes. So when trying to goto channel 160 it would drop the 0 and I'd get 16. It appeared to be only the lower digits like 0, 1, 2. The higher digits worked fine. Eventually I got it to work though. So if you go to FIOS and are having some problems let me know and I can give you my IR codes.

[Naylia]

Does your Moto box have firewire on the back? If so you could try using firewire to change channels. I did a writeup here...

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14413

Shouldn't be any issue controlling multiple boxes...each box will have it's own unique ID on the firewire bus.

[mattdcknsn]

If I remember correctly it does have Firewire on the STB. I am not planning on setting it up to record via FW anytime soon. I finally got everything working and I just want the WAF to go a little higher before I change things up again.

I'm also waiting until V6 comes out fully, it is supposed to be able to play HD recorded content to the MVP. So once that happens I'll start thinking about changing things up. But definitely will work on getting that up once I get more time.

[bcjenkins]

Originally Posted by Naylia

Does your Moto box have firewire on the back? If so you could try using firewire to change channels. I did a writeup here...

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14413

Shouldn't be any issue controlling multiple boxes...each box will have it's own unique ID on the firewire bus.

So use firewire to change channels, but record over s-video?

TIA

B

[mattdcknsn]

From what I remember you record from the STB via FW and change the channels using the same connection. Again I have not tried this in quite awhile but it does use alot of resources from what I recall. I dont remember exactly how much but somebody who uses it should be able to tell you.

[bcjenkins]

I think I am not going with FiOS for TV. I spoke with one of their techs yesterday who told me that all STBs are disabled for firewires and serial. Since I would be stacking these in the basement, I think the IR would be too problematic. Now to look into satellite.

Good news is, my internet will be 30dn5up for 55/mo much better for place shifting.

B

[mattdcknsn]

I am surprised the FW could be disabled. I thought it was FCC mandate that they had to be active. But the bandwidth is very awesome. Its amazing how great the picture is streaming. Good luck though.

[briands]

Originally Posted by mattdcknsn

I am surprised the FW could be disabled. I thought it was FCC mandate that they had to be active. But the bandwidth is very awesome. Its amazing how great the picture is streaming. Good luck though.

Does this techology fall under FCC jurisdiction??? It is not Broadcast or Cable TV after all...

[Naylia]

Sorry for the slow response...

You can channel change via firewire without actually recording via firewire. If your firewire ports are active it is much more reliable then channel changing via IR.

[mattdcknsn]

I didnt know about the ability to change channels via FW independent of recording. I might try and connect it up now and see. When I last played with it you were still unable to do that. I got to find the time to read more threads.

Also, when I get the chance to test this out I'll let you know if the Verizon boxes have FW enabled on them.

[bcjenkins]

Originally Posted by mattdcknsn

I didnt know about the ability to change channels via FW independent of recording. I might try and connect it up now and see. When I last played with it you were still unable to do that. I got to find the time to read more threads.

Also, when I get the chance to test this out I'll let you know if the Verizon boxes have FW enabled on them.

please do, I have one more month before my cable goes away. I am not in a hurry to jump in to something just yet.

B

[bcjenkins]

Matt,

I have been doing further research that Verizon may have recently enabled serial control. Can you test?

http://forums.tivo.com/pe/action/for...ostID=10276960

TIA

B

[belleboyd]

This sounds interesting ... I am having a lousy time with IR...

I can hook up the FW port on my HTPC to the FIOS box? I have the 6200.
What settings would I use in Sage for control?

[Kev]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

Matt,

I have been doing further research that Verizon may have recently enabled serial control. Can you test?

http://forums.tivo.com/pe/action/for...ostID=10276960

TIA

B

bcjenkins,
I have Fios with a Motorola QIP 2500 STB in which I would be interested in changing channels through the serial port. If you could share directions on how to test it, I will let you know how/if it works.
I don't currently have a box for my computer as all I normally record are the basic channels and never needed one when I was with Comcast. However after going with FIOS and discovering all the non-local channels are encrypted and digital I am ordering a box to go with my computer (only 3.95/mos for each additional box). Since it is just one box the IR option will probably be fine for me, but the serial option seems much more reliable and would like to give it a try first.