Digital OTA Broadcast Sub-Channels

[Humanzee]

Running Sage Beta 4.1.5.74 HDTVFusion 5 Gold USB

Ok so here is a problem. HDTV channels broadcast over the air sometimes have sub-channels. (If thats what they are called) Ie. 9-1, 9-2, 9-3.

So the PBS station here in Seattle has 4 sub-channels. KCTSDT, KCTSDT2, KCTSDT3 and KCTSDT5 and they all show up on channel 41 after downloading the line up for my area. That would be fine except that the wrong program info shows up for at least two of these channels. That would also be fine because you are supposed to be able to use the remap button to

Originally Posted by Sage Manual

"remap a channel to its actual location, in case the lineup is incorrect."

But how do you do that when they are all broadcast on what shows up as the same channel. I tried 41-3 and it gave me a "no signal" error, I tried 41.3 and it seems to just ignore the ".3" and gives me the same channel as before with the incorrect EPG info.

Interestingly enough, when I put in 41.4 or 41.6-41.9 I get the no signal error again, as if it knew that the 4 channels were on 41.1, 41.2, 41.3 and 41.5 but changing them around doesn't fix the problem.

This seems like a fundamental feature with OTA digital broadcasts. I would think the scan for available channels would come up with the sub channels and be able to keep them distinct from each other with some sort of naming convention.

Also, maybe not related but when I ran that "scan for available channels" it took a long time to scan 2-13 and then went right past the area where the HD channels were listed. I have the broadcast type set to Digital TV so I wouldn't think it should really be looking there. Incidently it didn't detect all of the channels, and I had to go back and re-activate them. HDTV OTA needs some work in sage. I havn't even been able to figure out what the broadcast quality is through sage. I have to use the encoder card manufacturer's software to see if it is 1080i or 720p etc.

Anybody have any ideas about how to fix this?

[Motofreak75]

Well After getting package from UPS yesterday, my A180 OTA hdtv tuner is here and I am getting the same results, have you forward your info to sage ?

Lets not get me going of the scanning process with sage, I have had it with trying to scan OTA with sage its painful, I found it easier to find DTV broadcasts with other software.

[Humanzee]

Originally Posted by Motofreak75

have you forward your info to sage ?

I thought I'd ping the group first, but after sitting in bed staring at the ceiling last night I figured I should just put in a bug report. Will do today.

At least now I know that it is not an issue with the particular encoder I am using. Otherwise, I was hoping that somebody had a sollution already.

On the channels that you can tune how do you like your A180? I'm borrowing the Fusion 5 Gold USB and I get some wierd pixels on the top of the screen and a green stripe on the left watching NBC. I havn't yet looked to see if I can adjust the overscan settings for this tuner.

[Motofreak75]

I guess the A180 is alright, Im tried using the Non mce2005 drivers since I have XP pro sp2, and I get this all the time in event viewer

"A device driver is leaking locked I/O pages causing system degradation. The system has automatically enabled tracking code in order to try and catch the culprit." and then get a blue screen of death last night. (its been a long time since I 've seen one of thoses) So then, I just forced the installed the dual MCE2005 drivers and so far its fine. I get a good signal for most of channels and have about 20 OTA and 5 weak one to watch. and I"m using a small terk42 sat antenna.


its just a matter of time, when the fixes for these OTA cards get done, belive me they have a lot of work on the go from the bugs I sent in.

Scott

[jbuszkie]

I have the same issue. My PBS station has two sub channels and Sage selects the wrong one with my Fusion 5 lite.

Jim

[jptaz]

So it not just me.

SageTV only seems to do this with ABC in detroit since it has 3 sub channels. It has a bad habbit of recording the sub channel with the view of the tower. It does it on my USB2 VBOX HD Tuner.

John

[Humanzee]

I sent in a bug report on this issue, re: the current beta release. Hopefully, the Sage folks are watching this thread too. I'd encourage everyone to submit a report, that way it will be known that it isn't an issolated issue.

My guess is that they released beta support for OTA digital tuners in a rudamentary fasion to placate us with some capability. I have faith that it will get figured out eventually. Its hard to be patient though as I feel like Im missing out on some good HDTV programming.

Side note:
What's with the tower cam's? I think its KomoDT2 here has a shot from the space needle of down town Seattle. How exciting is that? Usually you can't see anything but rain drops on the lens.

[jptaz]

I have sent a bg report to Sage along with a log file. According to george they are working on it.

John

[jptaz]

I sent a RAW TS file that was generated by debug binaries sent by SageTV Support and they are analyzing them now. They claim to only see 2 sub channels in the stream I sent and neither of the streams they see are of the tower that SageTV itself actually records...and in fact displays. Not surprisingly Windows Media Player plays the correct video from the TS file, but SageTV does not.

I Hope they fix this soon.

John

[Humanzee]

Interesting,
I didn't realize that all of the sub channel streams were contained into one transport stream from the tower. In WM player can you select which sub channel to view in the TS file as if you were changing channels on a an OTA broadcast? Is it like a multitrack audio recording?

Regardless, if the Sage folks can see that some features are viewable through media player and not through Sage, I'm sure they'll be able to figure out whats going on.

My HDTV tuner is borrowed so I hope they get this sorted soon so that I can
either buy it or return it.

[jptaz]

I looked into trying to switch channels on the ts file, but I found no way to do it. Apparently which video progam is played is entirely up to the TS parser. According to SageTV Support only the Nvidia Codec was able to play the correct channel...he apparently tried with a whole bunch of codecs.

He believes that he can resolve the issue, but basically it sounds like the channels that have this issue are not sending a correct stream and SageTV just needs to adapt their software to handle these bad streams of data.

I need to send him a larger sample file so he can analyze it with a tool.

John

[jptaz]

Another Update.

I received an email with new capture dlls that they believe will resolve the problem. The fixes are not in the .16 Beta release. I will test out the changes this weekend since I can so easily replicate the problem and report back.

Hope this helps you decide if you are going to buy the HD Tuner.

John

[jptaz]

New update!!!

I have tested the update with the latest beta and my ABC Tuning issue appears to be resolved. I will see how a bunch of my test recordings go over the next 2 days. They are also looking into a play back issue related to HD Files...but it is looking good.

John

[Humanzee]

jptaz,
4.1.6 didn't fix things for me, how much luck are you having with the new dll files? How might a person in Seattle get a hold of them to test with?

Maybe somebody could forward me some sort of email containing some sort of dll files or something.
As you know, being from Detroit, I have an interest in getting these things figured out before Sunday afternoon.

[jbuszkie]

I got the files from jptaz and they didn't work for me.. My WGBHDT and WGBHDT2 are still switched.. but
from tech support about remapping channels..

and for temporary solution, you could remap PBS channel WGBHDT 53-53-2, WGBHDT2 53-53-1 ( I assume your local PBS digital channel is 53 ) , STV parses string channel-channel-subchanel to get sub channel).

I have not tried this but this is the first time I've seen the syntax required for subchannels.. so it might work..

Jim

[Humanzee]

Originally Posted by jbuszkie

this is the first time I've seen the syntax required for subchannels.. so it might work..
Jim

Sweet, At least that is something to go off of. I'll try it tonight.

[Motofreak75]

Has anyone got these dll to try, I want to see if this solves a few issues, I'm having other then mapping. Scanning channels dont work and if I use S3 command and suspend my htpc , once I resume my A180 stops working with sage. I have to reboot to get it to work again with sage.




thanks

Scott

[Humanzee]

Yes - Yes - Yes
the channel-channel-subchannel (41-41-1 etc) worked for me. I guess I need to buy this tuner now. Just a little stuttering on some channels, I might need to put the antenna somewhere other than on the shelf behind the tv.

[jbuszkie]

Originally Posted by Humanzee

Yes - Yes - Yes
the channel-channel-subchannel (41-41-1 etc) worked for me. I guess I need to buy this tuner now. Just a little stuttering on some channels, I might need to put the antenna somewhere other than on the shelf behind the tv.

Cool.. I guess I'll have to try it now!

Jim

[Polypro]

Same here. Added 10-10-2 and got my HD weather radar channel. Thanks for the info.

P