Getting Static

[skateni]

Sorry if this has already been answered but I've looked and couldn't find it anywhere. I am tring sageTV and have it installed, got my EPG using the XMLTV plug-in but for the life of me couldn't get any pictures.

I have the General Instruments cable box and a Hauppauge PVR-350 in my setup. I use Win2K and it tunes to Cable-4 using SnapStream BeyondTV it's channel 14. Tried both on SageTV ( 4 and 14 and all I got was static

Any help for a poor noob like me ??

[stanger89]

First your hardware setup:
You have your cable box set to output on RF channel 4 correct, and the cable box is connected to your 350 with coax. Correct?

I think what you need to do is go through the Source Setup again, pick TV Tuner as the input, "Use external Cable or Satellite to tune channel", then it should ask you what channel to use.

[skateni]

Originally posted by stanger89
First your hardware setup:
You have your cable box set to output on RF channel 4 correct, and the cable box is connected to your 350 with coax. Correct?

Correct

I think what you need to do is go through the Source Setup again, pick TV Tuner as the input, "Use external Cable or Satellite to tune channel", then it should ask you what channel to use.

Done that.. Tried from RF channel 2 to 21 and gave up .. still nothing. Used Hauppauge WinTV2000 to scan and it detects the signal to Cable-4. Used Snapstream BeyondTV as well and there it's channel 14 but SageTV only static . Can you do a scan with SageTV to find the channel ?

[kny3twalker]

sage does not scan for channels
it uses the guide data to tune channels or uses RCA/Svideo/ a static channel like 3 or 4 according to your cable box

sorry forgot the "not" no wonder you are confused

[skateni]

Originally posted by kny3twalker
sage does scan for channels
it uses the guide data to tune channels or uses RCA/Svideo/ a static channel like 3 or 4 according to your cable box

Sorry me no comprende .. scan I mean like what WinTV2000 does to find the channel that has a TV signal.

[kny3twalker]

I understand what you are saying but sage does not do that it simply tunes channels based off the guide info

try hooking up an antenna and tell sage to get guide data for local air broadcast in your area and it will work fine

[stanger89]

Where are you located (roughly)? It could be Sage tuning to channel 4 on a different system.

[kny3twalker]

usually you can only set cable/DSS boxes to channel 3 or 4 just like a VCR

[justme]

The fact that he's can see his cable box's signal with WinTV2000 and BTV means it not a signel issue. As a test, I quickly hooked up a coax cable and setup a new source. I started the setup wizard:

1) Selected "Add New Source"
2) Selected the correct card(I have more than one, but you no mind)
3) Selcted the input that that ended in "Capture TV Tuner"
4) Selected "Don't Configure Tuning"(simplest way for me to test, if you use a serial cable or IR blaster it's different)
5) Entered in "4" in the popup dialog for "Enter the RF Channel..." and pressed "enter",
6) Selected "Do not use Programming guide Data with this source" (again simpler for me test, you could chose to use data and the setup your XMLTV or Sage Service if inside the US)

This leaves me with the new* source(coax wire from cable box) mapped to channel 1 for Sage. You can remap it to another channel like 14, but see if this works first.

7) Select "Done with Channel Setup"
8) Select "Complete Setup"
9) Go to the "Main Menu"(press "Home" key)
10) Select "LiveTV Guide"
11) Navigate the guide to highlight channel 1(or 14 if you remapped it) at current time(it'll say "No Data" if you didn't setup a guide source)
12) Press "enter" and you should see the cable TV signal from you cable box.

Notice I did a simple setup without guide data and any control over the cable box by Sage. This was just to make the directions shorter. If these work then you can remap and add guide data. Or even delete the source and readd it with the proper settings you want.

*You can look at my attach pic to see what it looks like at this point, but it won't really show you much. Just what I've already said about having a new source mapped to SageTV channel 1 and that source is using the TV Tuner capture tuned to channel 4.

[skateni]

Thanks guys ... tried your suggestions and here are the results :

As suggested by justme

Channel 3



Channel 4



Just for the heck of it, I also tried



I get a bunch of channels ( 150+ ) only one has pictures ( channel 3 ) and it's in black and white



and here's a screenshot from BTV



Is it because where I am is using PAL and SageTV defaults to NTSC or something ??

[justme]

Is it because where I am is using PAL

Very possibly considering what you've just found/posted. I'm not very good with non NTSC issues(also I'm sleepy) so I'll let this go back to the PAL experts. I do know there is an app the allows you to edit the registry to finetune channels for nonstandard frequencies. Whether or not you need that, someone else could better tell you. Some info that might help them help you...What country are you in, Japan(I'm guessing from the symbols)? If you start and exit BTV, then run SageTV does Sage still show up in grey?

Best of luck and see you in a while.

[skateni]

Originally posted by justme
Very possibly considering what you've just found/posted. I'm not very good with non NTSC issues(also I'm sleepy) so I'll let this go back to the PAL experts. I do know there is an app the allows you to edit the registry to finetune channels for nonstandard frequencies. Whether or not you need that, someone else could better tell you. Some info that might help them help you...What country are you in, Japan(I'm guessing from the symbols)?

Sunny Singapore here.

If you start and exit BTV, then run SageTV does Sage still show up in grey?

Best of luck and see you in a while.

Yep .. still grey and BTV works like a charm. Once again thanks for your help

[justme]

OK, like I said, I'm no expert with non NTSC systems. But since no pal users have stepped up yet, I'll give it a shot in the dark try...

Looking around the forum, a similiar issue has come up before. It may or may not be the same cause. However one thing to check is your Windows settings for country/region. As the others above posted, SageTV doesn't actually tune channels, it uses the standard frequency tables from windows. These are stored in your registry and should work fine for most countries as long as you set your region correctly.

If for some reason you can't set Windows to the correct region. Or the tables at slightly off for your area then Sage will not be able to tune the channel correctly since the frequency data is wrong. From what you've described this seems likely. Either wrong region or tables slightly off. The grey channel is common for a frequency tuning that is slightly off.

However there is a fix for this. You can use the corrrect frequency settings detected by WinTV2000. You can then edit the registry to place the correct settings in the table. Sage should then tune the channel fine. In your case you should only need to edit channel 3 or 4. A user called eurojojo developed a app for dealing with this issue in Europe. But I'm assuming it should work for other areas as well. Here's the link to his tool FreqCopy. I found this info in this SageTV thread.

So in short, sort of...
First check to make sure Windows is set to the correct region. A search of the SageTV International Forum revealed several users who had issues that were resolved by setting the country/region correctly.

Secondly if #1 is correct or you can't reasonably change it. Then use a tool like eurojojo's FreqCopy. Or you can do it manually using Neilm's method(goes to a snapstream guide but don't worry). I took this link from the SageTV thread I linked to above.

I hope this is what is going on, as I'm at the end of my knowledge in this area. Sorry. If you one of these doesn't work and no one else posts. Don't hesitate to contact the official Frey Support team. If you pay for software you're entitled to it, so use it, is my philosophy.

Best of Luck. I'll keep watching this thread so let me know what happens.

[skateni]

Originally posted by justme
OK, like I said, I'm no expert with non NTSC systems. But since no pal users have stepped up yet, I'll give it a shot in the dark try...

Thank you very much ... if you're not an expert, that then makes me worse than an amoeba

Looking around the forum, a similiar issue has come up before. It may or may not be the same cause. However one thing to check is your Windows settings for country/region. As the others above posted, SageTV doesn't actually tune channels, it uses the standard frequency tables from windows. These are stored in your registry and should work fine for most countries as long as you set your region correctly.

If for some reason you can't set Windows to the correct region. Or the tables at slightly off for your area then Sage will not be able to tune the channel correctly since the frequency data is wrong. From what you've described this seems likely. Either wrong region or tables slightly off. The grey channel is common for a frequency tuning that is slightly off.

However there is a fix for this. You can use the corrrect frequency settings detected by WinTV2000. You can then edit the registry to place the correct settings in the table. Sage should then tune the channel fine. In your case you should only need to edit channel 3 or 4. A user called eurojojo developed a app for dealing with this issue in Europe. But I'm assuming it should work for other areas as well. Here's the link to his tool FreqCopy. I found this info in this SageTV thread.

So in short, sort of...
First check to make sure Windows is set to the correct region. A search of the SageTV International Forum revealed several users who had issues that were resolved by setting the country/region correctly.

I'll give this a shot though I'm surprised that I would have to muck around in the registry so a software that looks professional ( not that I'm nitpicking but if a "semi-professional" software like WinTV2000 can do it ( and also BTV ), I'm sure Sage can do much better

Secondly if #1 is correct or you can't reasonably change it. Then use a tool like eurojojo's FreqCopy. Or you can do it manually using Neilm's method(goes to a snapstream guide but don't worry). I took this link from the SageTV thread I linked to above.

I hope this is what is going on, as I'm at the end of my knowledge in this area. Sorry. If you one of these doesn't work and no one else posts. Don't hesitate to contact the official Frey Support team. If you pay for software you're entitled to it, so use it, is my philosophy.

I'll muck around in the registry and see if that helps and I'm on the 15 day trial to see what Sage have to offer before I plunked down my precious dollars I am in the midst of setting up a HTPC business for the local market and trying to built up my expertise on what's available out there and would like to offer SageTV as part of my portfolio ( different users will have different preferences and needs ).

Best of Luck. I'll keep watching this thread so let me know what happens.

Will do and thanks again and I do appreciate your valuable assistance and will revert to my success ( or failure ).

[skateni]

Whew .... Thanks man after mucking around with it ( eurojojo's tool don't work ), scratching my head, pulling out my hair and almost giving up on SageTV on how to get the frequency and a lot of trial and errors, finally managed to get pictures ( now I have a bald spot )



Thanks again .. I'll write up some docs so if you have others from sunny singapore shows up with the same dumb questions, you can point them my way

Next steps is to hide the overscan, load the XMLTV and make my PC IR linc to work ( I understand I need HERemote for that ). Though my 2 cents, it's just too damn hard to expect a user to hack into the registry to make it work

Once again .. appreciate your time to assist me ... great service amigo

[justme]

Very very glad to hear it.

So it was the frequency tables being off then, huh?
Anyway can't wait to see your docs with some help for future users. Don't be afraid to let Frey know your opinion, in some official manner*. At the very least fire off an email with your concerns. Even if you(or any of your clients) don't buy the software feedback is always good. IMO Besides maybe I'm an idiot and missed a simple solution that they already know about.

*Should be some link on their home website. I'd have to look but it's bedtime for me again. I've got a weird sleep schedule.

Enjoy sunny Singapore.

/justme

[stanger89]

skateni,

Be sure to submit a bug report. Most Sage users are in the US/Europe so there proabaly hasn't been a lot of testing done in Singapore (you're the first I've noticed). If you can tell them the exact problem and solution that would probably be a big help.

Glad to hear you have it working.

[skateni]

Originally posted by stanger89
skateni,

Be sure to submit a bug report. Most Sage users are in the US/Europe so there proabaly hasn't been a lot of testing done in Singapore (you're the first I've noticed). If you can tell them the exact problem and solution that would probably be a big help.

Glad to hear you have it working.

I'm not sure it's a bug per se. It's cause SageTV is designed to use Windows TV tuning and that's not correct, at least for where I am and it's affecting Europe users too. Maybe it's a "design flaw" rather than a bug ? and do i get a prize for being the first ??

[kny3twalker]

you should submit though because they can put a fix in for regions they know of having issues

[skateni]

As promised, here are the docs I created for your users that coming from where I come from. Any comments, criticisms or small dollar bills are welcome

SageTV Setup For Singapore

And I will submit a bug report didn't realise they need so much info ( like how's the weather when I was born etc etc ).