Need some help getting started with an HDHomeRun Prime & QAM

[TheraEdge]

OK, well, this was my only concern with getting an HDHomeRun Prime. I don't seem to be smart enough to get this thing setup and running with QAM. :P

Does anyone know a good place to help me get my HD HomeRun Prime setup and work without a cable card? I don't seem to be doing something right.

I was working through the PrimeNetEncoder directions, made sure I had the latest JRE 6 running (not sure if Sage or the Encoder will work with only the newer installed), but then I get stuck on the Preq #2 of getting the Prime installed and working with channels being tunable using the HDHomeRun software. Apparently SiliconDust feel this must be easy and straightforward, because I don't seem to be able to find detailed instructions on setting the tuner up for QAM without a cable card.

About as far as I get is running the HDHomeRun Setup and it finds the Prime, then I scan for channels, and it comes up with some odd channel numbers, but then if I click any of them it tries to open Windows Media Player like it is streaming, but nothing every plays back. It also isn't clear to me what the HDHomeRun Config or VIEW programs are either.

Feels like I'm missing something obvious, but could sure use some help to get me going in the right direction.

Thanks.

[stanger89]

You don't need PrimeNetEncoder or anything else, you can just use it like a normal HDHR directly in Sage. Without a CableCard a Prime is just a normal HDHR (though it lacks the ability to tune OTA/ATSC/Broadcast).

There's some old instructions here:
https://www.silicondust.com/hdhomeru...un_install.pdf

But now you have to do the remapping in Sage, not the HDHR setup app.

...if I click any of them it tries to open Windows Media Player like it is streaming, but nothing every plays back.

Are you sure your QAM is unencrypted?

[SageWizdom]

Originally Posted by stanger89

You don't need PrimeNetEncoder or anything else, you can just use it like a normal HDHR directly in Sage. Without a CableCard a Prime is just a normal HDHR (though it lacks the ability to tune OTA/ATSC/Broadcast).

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but why does the HDHR work directly in Sage, but not the HDHR Prime? What is the difference?

[stanger89]

It's got something to do with how they tune. Cablecard is tuned different and came out too late for Sage to implement native CableCard tuning.

[Monedeath]

Originally Posted by stanger89

It's got something to do with how they tune. Cablecard is tuned different and came out too late for Sage to implement native CableCard tuning.

^^^

This, Google bought out SageTV around the same time that Cable Card tuners were starting to initially hit the market. The commercial version of SageTV never had enough time to implement anything in this regard before operations stopped and shifted towards STV8 for Google Fiber.

[TheraEdge]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Are you sure your QAM is unencrypted?

Yep, I'm running a Hauppauge internal digital tuner right now, and for the time being, we still get ClearQAM of 70+ digital channels... So I'm hoping to be able to pull over the same channel listing that I already set up now that you say I can configure that directly within Sage.

Thanks for the link, I'll follow up and report back.

[TheraEdge]

I did find out when I was first looking into the Prime that my cable company does encrypt all the Cable Card digital channels except the ones you can get over the air, so I wasn't going to go that route originally. Then someone mentioned I can use the Prime for ClearQAM without a card and have a future upgrade path too. Unfortunately that upgrade path would end up being away from Sage to something that can do encrypted content.

[TheraEdge]

Well, that got me going. I still couldn't get previews in HDHomeRun Setup, but was able to get HDHomeRun View to preview channels. Did the channel scan again, and had some weird channels listed as Unknown for the Guide Name, their Guide Numbers we like 5011, 5012, and so on, instead of 7.1. The Tune column had numbers like CH75-1, and Ch75-2 though, those kind of line up with the Physical #'s listed in SageTV, of [75-0-1] and [75-0-2]. Man, just trying to make sense of this, but not sure I can.

So far, just adding the tuners with the guide I already had set up on the HVR-1600 digital tuner seems like everything works. It did look like there might be a few more channels from the HDHR Prime though, might have to split the guides, but didn't want to for usability.

Thanks again for getting me going, Stanger.