How to get HDHR QAM working with v6.2

[carlgar]

The correct file name is lineup.xml. In the Vista OS it is in c:->ProgramData->SiliconDust->HDHomeRun

[bialio]

Seems like there are two ways to get it working now in BDA mode. One using a scan from Sage, the other not.

Both methods involve scanning for channels with the HDHR Setup utility. Then,

Scan From Sage Method : 1) Disable all of the channels in the lineup. 2) Scan 3) All the channels that the HDHR Setup found are now found by sage, and Enabled by default in the lineup. 4) Remap the channels to the correct channel in the guide.

Don't Scan From Sage Method : 1) Disable all the channels in the lineup. 2) Find the actual channels that you get on the HDHR in the lineup. 3) Enable each one and map each channel to the right physical channel number as defined by HDHR Setup - which seems to be either the n-n-n format or something else.

btl.

[carlgar]

Originally Posted by bialio

Scan From Sage Method : 1) Disable all of the channels in the lineup. 2) Scan 3) All the channels that the HDHR Setup found are now found by sage, and Enabled by default in the lineup. 4) Remap the channels to the correct channel in the guide.

I played with the above method today because it seemed reasonable, however I did not follow the instructions exactly. (1) I did not disable the channels in the lineup, I don't think Sage knows about the lineup. (2) The scan did find all 36 of my channels. (3) No change seen because they were already enabled. (4) This is where I had problems. I tried to remap the logical number to the correct value. I expected to see it replace the default logical channel 2. Instead I ended up with the normal one and the one found by the scan. At this point I do see any way to use the value found by the scan. Another issue I saw if the logical mapping would have worked as expected is that the lineup.xml file does not show the correct logical channel number that Sage gets. I only have the station call letters from the lineup file, so I have the extra step of finding the default logical channel number.

I then decided to try just mapping the physical number to the n-n-n type value. That appeared to work correctly, I don't know why it did not work correctly the first time I tried it. However, given the choice of manully entering 1 number or 3 three, I choose to only enter 1. Bottom line is that I ended up right back where I started, but I can use the n-n-n method if I wanted too.

Edit: My theory about the interaction between Sage and HDHomeRun
The only real purpose of the the Sage scan is to create a Silicondust HDHomeRun Tuner ...frq file. This file is key to being able to use the n-n-n format of physical channel number. Sage uses the n-n-n format and the *.frq file to get the HDHomeRun trigger number. If a *.frq file does not exist then Sage just passes the physical number to the HDHomeRun. The HDHomeRun only needs the trigger value which is the first n in the n-n-n value. the second and third n's are only for reference, they correspond to the onid and tsid in the *.frq file. The trigger is the channel in the *.frq file. Bottom line is if you want to use the n-n-n format you need to have *.frq files. Can anyone disprove this theory?

[LehighBri]

Originally Posted by carlgar

Edit: My theory about the interaction between Sage and HDHomeRun
The only real purpose of the the Sage scan is to create a Silicondust HDHomeRun Tuner ...frq file. This file is key to being able to use the n-n-n format of physical channel number. Sage uses the n-n-n format and the *.frq file to get the HDHomeRun trigger number. If a *.frq file does not exist then Sage just passes the physical number to the HDHomeRun. The HDHomeRun only needs the trigger value which is the first n in the n-n-n value. the second and third n's are only for reference, they correspond to the onid and tsid in the *.frq file. The trigger is the channel in the *.frq file. Bottom line is if you want to use the n-n-n format you need to have *.frq files. Can anyone disprove this theory?

Is there any way to get the HDHR to work without doing a scan in Sage? I'd rather do the scan in HDR's setup utility and not have to scan again in Sage. Thoughts?

[bialio]

Why do you not want to scan in Sage? The Sage scan is VERY fast in my experience. It finds the channels the HDHR Scan found almost immediately.....

[LehighBri]

I guess the real question is.... do we need to scan in HDHR's setup utility? If not, I'm happy to scan only in Sage. I just wanted to have to scan only once.

[bialio]

Think of it this way - the scan in HDHR is the real scan. It finds the channels. The scan in SageTV is just an easy way to import the channels that HDHR found.

[jkohn]

I finally made the move to 6.2 RC and the latest drivers in BDA mode. I've been putting this off because I can get over 80 channels in clear QAM and was dreading having to go through the channel mapping process again. Hopefully this will improve the timeline issues I was having, as well as some dropouts and occasional audio sync errors I was getting only in SD recordings.

As far as I can tell, the n-n-n channel numbers are totally meaningless. The second number has no correlation to anything. Personally I don't know why they couldn't stick with the same channel format as the network encoder, that at least made some sense.

I have to say the whole setup process with the HDHR is a pathetic joke. It took me probably about two hours to do the setup do to having to manually identify and map all the channels. This product needs a whole hell of a lot of usability improvements before it could ever appeal to the general consumer. At the very least, they need to make it so that if I go to the trouble of assigning callsigns to the channels in HDHR's channel scan that Sage can pick those up and automatically map the channels to the correct logical channel number.

And what's up with the 69 channel limit? These aren't analog tuners, such a limit is arbitrary and bogus.

[jkohn]

Originally Posted by bialio

Why do you not want to scan in Sage? The Sage scan is VERY fast in my experience. It finds the channels the HDHR Scan found almost immediately.....

If you're going to have to do manual channel remapping in Sage anyway, I just don't see the point in doing a second scan.

[carlgar]

Originally Posted by LehighBri

Is there any way to get the HDHR to work without doing a scan in Sage? I'd rather do the scan in HDR's setup utility and not have to scan again in Sage. Thoughts?

Just remap the physical channel to the trigger value. That is the way I am currently doing it.

I also agree that the scan done with the HDHomerun is the important one.

I believe the 69 channel limit comes from MCE.

[jlindborg]

gotta say, though, I'm awfully tired of my tuners all getting wiped out whenever I do a scan in HDHR or make any change there (i.e. changing to local connect). Really, really annoying. I did a full scan in HDHR today just to make sure I got all the chanels I wanted. Tedious, yes, but not a huge deal. However the fact that my Hauppage tuners get taken out and have to be manually added back in after this is deeply frustrating. I sent a message to the Silicon Dust folks since this seems to be their issue - hopefully they'll fix that little bit of ugliness real soon.

[kevine]

Originally Posted by jlindborg

gotta say, though, I'm awfully tired of my tuners all getting wiped out whenever I do a scan in HDHR or make any change there (i.e. changing to local connect). Really, really annoying. I did a full scan in HDHR today just to make sure I got all the chanels I wanted. Tedious, yes, but not a huge deal. However the fact that my Hauppage tuners get taken out and have to be manually added back in after this is deeply frustrating. I sent a message to the Silicon Dust folks since this seems to be their issue - hopefully they'll fix that little bit of ugliness real soon.

I have done this several times. I did this while Sage is running and I am watching TV. It did not wipe out my tuners. Maybe this is a workaround to prevent the wipe out. Just in case someone wants to rescan.

It did wipe them when I installed the SD software. Then, Sage was not running on purpose.

The reason I did this while Sage was running is I did not believe I would break anything. You see, I have not been able to get mine to work except with network encoders and that isn't even an option anymore.

[Conejo]

I'm wondering if we should create a new thread since we've moved into Sage 6.27 and HDHR 20070830 territory with all new (unwritten) instructions?

I just want to second what 'egeller' said on page 2 of this thread about the Windows FIREWALL, while testing IT NEEDS TO BE OFF.

I run SageTV as a headless server in Service Mode and use Clients to play the files. Running the HDHomeRun_Setup program gave me different results on the server and the client when I scanned for channels. Since I can only view video on the client I saved the 'lineup.xml' file there and copied it to the server.

So far Comcast only has 18 clear QAM channels on my network, half are not labeled. I used the sequence pattern from the sub-channel list I created from the Network Encoder version to narrow down which channels were likely candidates to view and renamed those.

The real issue I had was in SageTV. Turned out to be the FIREWALL that blocks the stream to the BDA driver. Turning off the Firewall allowed me to finish the setup.

I only needed to use the first of the n-n-n numbers when remapping the physical channel. I was getting miss-channeled video (702 was tuning 709 video) but after getting a 'good' channel scan in the HDHomeRun_Setup application and copying it to the server everything now works.

All I need is to find out what Firewall Ports the HDHR needs open under BDA so I can turn it back on. My ZyXEL is good but I get visitors plugging their precious laptops into my physical network all the time. I'd rather be safe than need to re-image the Sage Server after every visit.

So, what's the HDHR port then?

[carlgar]

If you think it is a firewall issue, you should be able to determine the problem port using the firewall log. First make sure the firewall log is turned on. Then attempt the access. If it fails look at the log and see what ports were denied access.

[Conejo]

Thanks, carlgar.

I thought the XP MSFirewall was too stupid to keep logs. Not so.
Needed to open up UDP 55561.

This was a strange issue. When in Service Mode, I could live tune my Hauppauge PVR 500 but not the HDHR BDA QAM channels. Leaving the Firewall OFF, or opening up 55561 lets it work.

EDIT:
'Egeller' in post 138 notes that this port changes on each restart of Service Mode. He suggests adding an EXCEPTION using the ADD PROGRAM option and using the Browse button to find the SageTVService.exe application in the Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\ folder.

[jlindborg]

Originally Posted by Conejo

Thanks, carlgar.

I thought the XP MSFirewall was too stupid to keep logs. Not so.
Needed to open up UDP 55561.

This was a strange issue. When in Service Mode, I could live tune my Hauppauge PVR 500 but not the HDHR BDA QAM channels. Leaving the Firewall OFF, or opening up 55561 lets it work.

sweet! I had been running Sage server in interactive mode for weeks now because of this very issue - just opened the port and now I'm back in Service mode again... very nice!

[Yooper]

I am so confused at this point.....!

I see posts on ports, remapping, scanning, and a lot of other suggestions. Some report that these things work, and others have no luck.

All I know is that my HDHR does not work, neither does the QAM on my 1600 - although I can see video on both boards using the vender software, not Sage.

These things worked in previous versions.... Not in 6.2.7 and the latest HDHR software.

I think I will wait for the next release....

[egeller]

Originally Posted by jlindborg

sweet! I had been running Sage server in interactive mode for weeks now because of this very issue - just opened the port and now I'm back in Service mode again... very nice!

I wrestled with opening ports. Every time I restarted the service, SageTVService was selecting a different set of UDP ports for the two HDHR tuners.

I finally discovered an operator error. I had put an exception in the firewall for SageTV and SageTVServiceControl, but not the SageTVService (not sure what I was thinking when I created THAT exception, I must have been looking at it cross-eyed).

I added the SageTVService to the exception list and was able to restart SageTV and SageTVService without having to open up any UDP ports. I'm cautiously optimistic that I won't need to address any more port issues.

[Keenan]

Originally Posted by carlgar

The correct file name is lineup.xml. In the Vista OS it is in c:->ProgramData->SiliconDust->HDHomeRun

I found it, still doesn't seem to make any sense, it appears to start numbering channels from 1,2,3 etc per how they are found during the scan. The only relevant number appears to be the program stream number...where that "80" comes from I have no idea.

But it's working so I've got no complaints, at least for now.

[carlgar]

Originally Posted by Keenan

I found it, still doesn't seem to make any sense, it appears to start numbering channels from 1,2,3 etc per how they are found during the scan. The only relevant number appears to be the program stream number...where that "80" comes from I have no idea.

But it's working so I've got no complaints, at least for now.

The 1-69 is just a logical channel number from the HDHomeRun point of view and the physical channel from the Sage point of view. I suspect the 80-1,80-2... numbers are a psuedo freqency numbers to satisfy MCE requirements. I don't believe MCE supports clear QAM so it thinks it is getting over-the air channels.