ExeMultiTuner

[thopkin1]

I am looking for the ExeMultituner download. The link in the downloads section seems to be broken. I am trying to setup custom tuning on a Win10 64-bit box.
Thanks!

[wayner]

I can't find a copy but presumably it would be on your old system somewhere. But I can't find it in the Sage Directory nor in the C:\windows\system32.

But one word of caution - if you are planning to use this for firewire channel changing you can't do that on a 64 bit version of Windows as there are no Windows 64 drivers for firewire.

That is not an issue for Linux which is one of at least a couple of reasons to prefer Linux for SageTV these days.

[EnterNoEscape]

Here's a copy I just happen to have stored away with some of the related documentation.

[thopkin1]

Thank You!

[thopkin1]

I appreciate the Exemultituner file! I am trying to figure out how to do tuning via Command Line on Windows 10 (64-bit). Anyone have any ideas?

I have spent most of the past two days searching the forums and most of the info is for Linux or seems to be outdated. I am currently trying the DirectvMultiChg using a bat file. The system attempts to tune, but no tuning it going on. No Luck.

Does a log file exist that just tracks tuning commands?

Thanks for your help.

[wayner]

The EXEMultiTunerPlugin calls an executable that you define in the Registry key. You should be able to use pretty much any batch or exe file and pass it a couple of parameters like a device name and a channel number. Most of this is explained in that file. I use this on a V7 server to use the firewire program channelw.exe fo in my registry key I have "c:\firewire\channelw.exe -n %DEVICE% %CHANNEL%"

[mangriotis]

Does anyone have channel.exe or channelw.exe (from Timmmoore's package)? I am having real trouble finding this anywhere... I had Sage 7 happily changing channels via firewire on my Pace (Comcast) box for years. I rebuilt the server with new hardware and installed Sage 9, but can't get the Firewire Channel Change to work any longer.

[mangriotis]

Never found Timmmoore's package anywhere... but was able to use SageChanger to figure out which device number was linked to my panel device.

[Oatz]

Originally Posted by mangriotis

Never found Timmmoore's package anywhere... but was able to use SageChanger to figure out which device number was linked to my panel device.

I have all of those channel changer apps.
PM me your email and I'll send you a zip of the lot
Also timmoores package.

I use FWchannelproxy and blast 3 hd boxes via firewire. Works great but was tricky as hell to figure out at first.

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by wayner

The EXEMultiTunerPlugin calls an executable that you define in the Registry key. You should be able to use pretty much any batch or exe file and pass it a couple of parameters like a device name and a channel number. Most of this is explained in that file. I use this on a V7 server to use the firewire program channelw.exe fo in my registry key I have "c:\firewire\channelw.exe -n %DEVICE% %CHANNEL%"

Can you, or someone take a peek at your registry entry for this and verify exactly what it should be. I have the string and variables, just never saw anywhere *what* the entry was supposed to be. I have a bare entry in my registry with an empty entry. Is it supposed to be a key, string, edit of the bare entry (DWORD if I recall), or what.
i have been pouring over all the various threads and instructions I could find (sadly almost all the links to various programs, drivers, and "how to" instructions in the main thread are long dead).
I've got most of the drivers, programs, .ir files all saved from when I did it on my WHS V1 system, but sadly I don't have all the instructions/how tos printed out or saved and am missing key parts.
I'm pretty sure I have all the drivers and programs installed and they seem to be working, I *think* that this registry entry is the missing piece of the puzzle.

[wayner]

I am not at home but I am pretty sure what you see up above is correct for the entry. The key is a string containing the command that is used to tune the channel and you will have to pass in the channel as one parameter and the device as another.

For example, the command that I would issue in a command prompt on this box to change device 2 to channel 513 is "c:\firewire\channelw.exe -n 2 513"

So my key is a string containing c:\firewire\channelw.exe -n %DEVICE% %CHANNEL%

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by wayner

I am not at home but I am pretty sure what you see up above is correct for the entry. The key is a string containing the command that is used to tune the channel and you will have to pass in the channel as one parameter and the device as another.

For example, the command that I would issue in a command prompt on this box to change device 2 to channel 513 is "c:\firewire\channelw.exe -n 2 513"

So my key is a string containing c:\firewire\channelw.exe -n %DEVICE% %CHANNEL%

The actual command/string isn't what I'm questioning. My question is *WHAT* type of entry in the registry is it? I know where that registry entry is, and I have one there which says "Default" Reg_sz, and the data is empty. Do I stick the command string there using modify, or create a whole new key, and if so what kind? On the existing entry if You right-click there is a "New" and expanding that there is "Key", an underline and several entries under that string value, binary value, DWORD, etc.

So here I have my item, and know where the file cabinet is (entry in Regedit), I just need to know which drawer, which file in said drawer, and where in the file to put it, if that makes any sense?

[PulsedPower]

On my system, it is a string, "command".
Although I haven't been able to make it work with V9 (yet!).

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by PulsedPower

On my system, it is a string, "command".
Although I haven't been able to make it work with V9 (yet!).

Thanks, I'll give that a try. Hopefully that will be the missing piece.

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by PulsedPower

On my system, it is a string, "command".
Although I haven't been able to make it work with V9 (yet!).

I definitely have it working via command line, but still no luck as of yet in SageTV. I tried a couple different variations that didn't work.

So I shut down the machine, unplugged all the drives, and hooked up my old WHS V1 Sys and Data drives. Booted up and looked at the registry entry I was using there.
The entry was:

command Reg_SZ "program path" with no quotes and single \ characters in the path.

So I entered that manually in the Win7 registry and still no go.

Still searching for an answer.

[waynedunham]

It is working now!!

There were 2 things I did, and stupidly I did both before trying to tune again.

One was I found the MeinMaui instructions on one of my old backups. I used the .reg file from there to make sure I had the "correct" entry into my registry file. Naturally his path to channelw.exe was different than mine, so I changed that to where it was on my system. The entry in the registry is in the location we've seen and both been using.

Name (left column) is command, Type (center column) is REG_SZ, and Data (right column) is the path and commands for channelw.exe. No quotes, and standard path, i.e. no double \'s in the path.

So mine was:

command REG_SZ C:\Program Files\Timmmoore\MCE 2005 STB Controller\channelw.exe -f -n %DEVICE% %CHANNEL%

Note, I use the device name as opposed to the panel # so there are no issues if either some FW device gets hooked in, or if one or the other of my STB's lose connection. I had that happen once, where STB panel #1 dropped out, and so what was normally panel #2 became panel #1 and needless to say I wasn't getting any channel changes on STB#1 until I reset everything.

Note2: I use -f -n in the channelw.ese command string because that is was works for my Pace RNG-110 boxes. If I try to add any of the a4 or a6 commands it will BSOD my Win7 machine.


The other thing I did, and to be honest, I think this is the one that did it, was I found this set of Firewire Drivers for Windows 7 and installed it.

Anyway, It is working for me now. Besides getting the drivers sorted out I think one of the biggest things is to make sure you can change channels with channel.exe in a command window. Once you get that working you will know for sure what the string is that has to go in the registry (subbing channelw.exe).

[PulsedPower]

waynedunham,
Are you still on 7 or did you get this to work on sage 9?

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by PulsedPower

waynedunham,
Are you still on 7 or did you get this to work on sage 9?

Latest Windows version of SageTV V9.1.2.662. I know that the update to V9 isn't why I lost it. I was previously running V9 as an upgrade to V7 on this same machine, only under Windows Home Server 2003 (i.e. WHS V1) and the FW tuning was working fine before and after the V7-V9 upgrade.

My basic problem was trying to find all the tools and documentation on how to install FW tuning for SageTV under Windows since it had been so long since I'd set it up.
I finally located a copy of the MeinMaui instructions on an old HD backup. There really wasn't much in there. Just a Doc and HTML with the instructions, all of the important stuff can be found within messages on this thread. The only other thing was a .reg file that put the proper entry into the Windows registry. The string containing the path and commands was different than mine, so I had to edit that to point to the proper directory on my machine and also change a few of the commands passed to work with my Pace RNG-110 Comcast STBs.

I really think the thing that made it work was those Windows FW drivers I pointed to in the last message. I am 95% sure that the registry entry I ended up with was one that I had previously tried without success the other day.

If that hadn't worked I was going to try the FWProxy route for passing the commands to the STB. It still requires the Timmmoore files, but does replace the EXEMULTITUNER stuff. It also requires manual editing of the Sage.properties file.

I did notice that channel changes are pretty slow compared to what I was seeing in WHS so I think I have to massage the tuner settings for each HD-PVR tuner to speed them up, but not go so fast that it blasts the #s for the channels too fast for the STB.
I'll have to do a search here for a message from me. I'm pretty sure I documented the settings I ended up with in a message years ago.

[wayner]

Did you try the ex deus drivers? https://exdeusweb.github.io/stbfirewire/

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by wayner

Did you try the ex deus drivers? https://exdeusweb.github.io/stbfirewire/

Yes, I needed ex deus drivers to get the proper driver for my PACE RNG-110 STB's. The FW drivers I pointed to a couple messages back appeared to be for Win7's FW stack, not for the STB's/EXEMultituner. There wasn't much for documentation with those FW drivers I pointed to, so that is just my best guess.

At least that is what I think, because I already had the ex deus drivers installed for the STB's and it still didn't work. The only 2 things I did before trying to tune again was install the MeinMaui .reg file and then edit for the proper path and commands for my STBs. Then install those Win7 drivers.

After doing those two things I tried tuning through SageTV again and it was working on both of my HD-PVRs/STBs. I then shut down SageTV and rebooted the computer and checked and tuning was still working.