HDHomerun OTA?

[Juncti]

I've been trying for a few days now to get OTA working with the HDHomerun and Sage. I have the latest versions of both running.

The HDHomerun setup finds all my channels and clicking view on each one in the channel editor brings up the correct feed. I then add the tuner to Sage and let it scan for channels and it typically finds the same lineup.

Problem is, Sage seems to be randomly tuning to one of the other available channels rather than tuning to the mapped channel.

This is happening primarily on channels where there is more than one channel on the same number.

For example, in the HDHomerun Config tuner, 8vsb on number 21 turns up 2 channels. Program 3: 20.1 WHNO-DT and Program 5: 6.1 WDSU-DT

Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong? This is driving me insane.

Thanks

[carlgar]

Go into the HDHomeRun Setup, select the lineup. Then select the channel editor, then the Advanced button. The remap column is the numbers you need for sage. Since you already have run the scan in sage which created a silicondust *.frq file, you will probably have to enter all 3 numbers into sage as the physical channel number. If that doesn't work then try just the first number.

I really wish Narflex would jump in and address this issue as to what the intent is or will be from the Sage point of view.

[Juncti]

Thanks, but in the HDhomerun channel editor all the remap column is blank.

I mean it really looks like Sage finds all the channels, sometimes you get lucky and clicking view in the tuner setup shows the correct feed. Then just when you think it's working you pop out to program guide only to find that NBC is replaced with some public access religion show on some obscure channel.

I've only got 13 OTA channels to work with. It seems like I should be able to at the very least do this manually if I can figure out these numbers.

[Yooper]

The remap column is blank for OTA channels for some reason. It has the remap numbers when you select digital cable, but not broadcast.

[Juncti]

So does OTA not work at all in Sage? How can I find these numbers?

[carlgar]

I don't use over the air so I can't test. Did you set the Signal source to digital antenna and then use the Homerun scan?

[Juncti]

Yep, digital antenna, HD Homerun finds all channels properly, Sage appears to find all channels properly, but when viewing the channels they're all mixed up.

I've kept tinkering with it and noticed that about half of the 8 that I want to keep are working right, that leaves 4 that are still mixed up.

I'm not positive, but it looks like channels that are by themselves are the ones working, while the one's that have 2 or more sub channels are the ones acting goofy.

So perhaps Sage is tuning the correct channel, but not switching to the right subchannel to display the appropriate content for that selection.

Is QAM this good everywhere else that no one uses OTA? I only get like 3 or 4 locals on QAM here in New Orleans. NBC and FOX don't have agreements with the cable company so those channels aren't offered and with Saints season having 14 of 16 games on those channels I've been left with no option but OTA.

[carlgar]

Originally Posted by Juncti

Yep, digital antenna, HD Homerun finds all channels properly, Sage appears to find all channels properly, but when viewing the channels they're all mixed up.

I am confused by this statement. You say the Homerun finds all channels properly, but the remap column is empty? Sage does not do any tuning it just passes a physical channel number to the HomeRun to tune too.

Originally Posted by Juncti

I've kept tinkering with it and noticed that about half of the 8 that I want to keep are working right, that leaves 4 that are still mixed up.

I'm not positive, but it looks like channels that are by themselves are the ones working, while the one's that have 2 or more sub channels are the ones acting goofy.

This sounds like you did not run a sage scan on each of the Homerun tuner. I consider this to be a waste of time, but seems to be needed to support the n-n-n format that the Homerun now shows. You should contact Sage support to get the facts about this. I don't do the Sage scan and I delete any Silicon *.frq files I have in the Sage directory. This will then allow you to remap the physical channel number to the first n displayed by the homerun. Of course this is moot if the remap colum is empty.

Originally Posted by Juncti

So perhaps Sage is tuning the correct channel, but not switching to the right subchannel to display the appropriate content for that selection.

If you are trying to use the view from the channel setup area in sage, I have found that to be very unreliable. I now do my testing by leaving the channel setup properly then going into the EPG and selecting a currently playing show to watch now. Make sure you are you are watching as close to live TV as possible to verify the correct channel is playing. Again, Sage does not know about sub channels, it only knows about the trigger value (physical channel number) that it passes to the Homerun.

Originally Posted by Juncti

Is QAM this good everywhere else that no one uses OTA? I only get like 3 or 4 locals on QAM here in New Orleans. NBC and FOX don't have agreements with the cable company so those channels aren't offered and with Saints season having 14 of 16 games on those channels I've been left with no option but OTA.

I do get more channels with clear QAM than I do over the air. I get all of the over the air channels and the music channels using clear QAM. For me the problem with over the air is that I need to point the antenna in different directions to get different stations. I recently got a new HDTV and I use clear QAM with it also but it seems to pick up some additions channels that the Homerun can't seem to find. The HDTV shows them as 1-1, 1-2,1-3, etc. These appear to be duplicates of the over the air channels but the HDTV displays the station IDs for these like it would for over the air stations. I believe the cable company may be transmitting the over the air stations with all of station ID data using their cable.

Anyway back to your problem. If the remap column is empty you are probably dead in the water. If it shows the n-n-n numbers then it is just a matter of getting Sage to pass the correct trigger to the HomeRun.
Good Luck.

[Yooper]

Another interesting thing...

When I first did the HDHR scan, I had the digital cable connected, but I accidently selected broadcast for the scan. It found all the channels! Perhaps you can select digital cable for OTA and get a working result.

[Juncti]

Yes I've run the channel scan in Sage and it appears to find the same stations that the HD Homerun finds, but when tuning to them most are not the right station.

Apparently OTA on the HD Homerun doesn't use the n-n-n format according to the people on the HD Homerun forums. So I'm not sure what the hell to do. There obviously needs to be some way to tell sage which sub channel to tune to since multiple stations use the same main number.

[carlgar]

since Jafa says OTA does not use remapping you should probably try the same values that the old network encoders use. The following calculations work for me but I don't know what you would do for channels below 79. Get the major tune fequency - subtract 555, divide by 6 and add 79 for the channel. Then append the same sub frequency. So a Tune value of 591MHz - 14, would be 591 - 555 = 36 divide by 6 = 6 plus 79 = 85. The final value to use 85-14.

Edit:
The above fails for channel numbers over 100. Probably best just to a Sage scan and look at the Silicondust *.frq file. See if the onid value is reasonable for the major channel value.

[Juncti]

I'll take look at that when I get home. One of the few pieces of info I do have with the OTA is frequency. Here is the data on one of the channels from the lineup.xml file that the HD Homerun makes.

<Program>
<Name>WDSU-HD</Name>
<Enabled>true</Enabled>
<Modulation>8vsb</Modulation>
<Frequency>515000000</Frequency>
<ProgramNumber>5</ProgramNumber>
<RemapTrigger>4</RemapTrigger>
<VirtualChannel>80.3</VirtualChannel>

So I guess I would use 515 for the calculation. Seems like the easiest thing would be if I could import the lineup.xml right into Sage, but I don't think that's a possibility.

We'll see what happens, I need to at least get WDSU HD working for a few hours tonight. Saints opener in HD

[carlgar]

Actually, the remap trigger shown above is what you should need. I would try that first. Hopefully, Java will respond with the actual intent for how OTA is suppose to work. It so illogical to me that the OTA would be so different than clear QAM from the Sage point of view. The Remap trigger is what clear Qam uses. From your example the remap value for clear QAM would be 4-80-3.

[Polypro]

Originally Posted by Juncti

Yes I've run the channel scan in Sage and it appears to find the same stations that the HD Homerun finds, but when tuning to them most are not the right station.

Apparently OTA on the HD Homerun doesn't use the n-n-n format according to the people on the HD Homerun forums. So I'm not sure what the hell to do. There obviously needs to be some way to tell sage which sub channel to tune to since multiple stations use the same main number.

It's a hack, but you could remap a different guide channel, to that physical channel. Ie. You scan and have ABC-HD listed...you watch it but find it's actually CBS-HD...remap the CBS-HD guide channel to that physical channel.

P

[mickp]

<disclaimer>I use dvb and have never seen an hdhr used atsc or qam. I'm also not runing the beta/rc atm.</disclaimer>

There's a setting "Major-Minor Channels for DTV tuning in the detailed setup/Advanced screen. I've previously wondered what this is for but haven't needed to find out. Mine is set to "Disabled" btw.

The Sage manual says;

Originally Posted by Sage Manual

Remapping Channels for Digital Tuners

When configuring a digital tuner source, Channel Setup will first perform a channel scan.
The scan results will be saved as a table in a .FRQ file in the SageTV installation directory, such as "FusionHDTV Transport Stream Capture-0.frq". The information found in this table is what SageTV uses for digital channel tuning and can be used as a refeerence when remapping digital channels.

When remapping a digital channel, in many cases the physical channel remapping can simply be set to the channel index number for the desired channel. This number matches the "ch:index" field, or the first number on a line in the .frq file, and is valid for ATSC, QAM, DVB-C, DVB-S and DVB-T.

ATSC and QAM physical channels can alternatively be specified by entering a channel number in the "major-minor" format. The major number is the call sign number of the station in the USA and the minor number is the sub channel. The two numbers are entered with a dash between them, such as "58-2".

The above two cases are the usual methods of remapping digital channels. More advanced remapping methods are listed below. If further help is needed for such remappings, contact SageTV technical support (www.sagetv.com/support.html) or talk to other users on the SageTV online forums (forums.sagetv.com/forums).

For ATSC or QAM, 3 numbers separated by dashes: "physical channel number-major number-minor number". Tuning using this method is independent of the channel scan table file listed above...

Maybe this is related in some way.

Mick.

[Juncti]

Interesting ideas, I'll have to tinker with those some more and see what happens. As to rearranging the channels to the correct listings, I had thought of that and tried it originally, but not all channels are appearing. Of the 8 I want to get to work, 4 always show the wrong item and never appear correctly in any other position.

Thanks again

[carlgar]

The most recent comments from Jafa in the Silicondust forum is

Hi,

You should not need to use the HDHomeRun Setup channel editor if using OTA.

Run a channel scan in SageTV - SageTV should detect and map your channels automatically.

Nick

I don't care for the word "should" but that may be because he does not have control over the Sage side. I am very concerned about whether Silicondust and Sage really are working together. I just recommended the HomeRun to a friend of mine a few days ago. If I do not see conformation the Homerun works properly using OTA with Sage soon, I will have to warn him to avoid the Homerun.

[dadams]

I currently use the HDHR for OTA. Jafa is correct. I did nothing different when adding my HDHR tuners from when I added my VBox 164e OTA tuners. I added it , scanned, and it worked. I did have a problem once where my frequency file was hosed with the VBox and I had to delete it, get rid of the tuners within Sage, and then re-add everything. I am using the BDA driver for the HDHR with the current release candidate. What other tuners do you have in your box?

[ToxMox]

I also use 2 HDHRs for OTA and have no issues. Didn't have to use the silicon dust config app at all for scanning. Just did a scan in Sage and it found all my channels. I then remapped the logical channels to numbers that made more sense to me in the guide. For example the major networks via analog for me are channels 2,4,5,7,9, and 11 so I remapped the digital/HD versions of those to logical 102,104,105,107,109, and 111. Then I closed Sage and stopped the service. Then I copied the "Silicondust HDHomeRun Tuner xxxxxxxx-0-0-ATSC.frq" file that was created in the Sage folder for the one I did the scan on to 3 other frq files for the other 3 HDHR tuners.
In your case you would just copy it to one other frq file called "Silicondust HDHomeRun Tuner xxxxxxxx-1-0-ATSC.frq"

Then start Sage back up and add the other Silicondust tuner in Sage and use the same lineup then you are done.