Haven't got a clue where to start with digital TV.

[frumbert]

Hi.

First and foremost:

When it comes to SageTV, I am dumb, so please ask your questions, post your flames or reply using lots and lots of small words. Assume I can perform menial tasks like launching and quitting SageTV, but that's about it.

Now. I'm trying to get my head around why my digital tv tuners don't work sensibly in SageTV. Yes, I have checked the requirements page, and yes, it is listed.

I have the following PC:

Windows XP. A Hauphage PVR 150 analog tuner hooked up an antenna and configured using IceTV's xmltv feed. That's all working great. I also have a thing which device manager identifies as a DVICO FusionHDTV USB, AVStream capture (DVBT-DUAL). It's a dual pci card tuner thing inside my pc. I have SageTV. The .exe file says its version is "6, 0, 13, 1"

I know the dual tuner card is working because:

1. The bodgy software that came with it works and TV plays and records just fine.
2. The channel scan software that came with it identified some high strength signals (90% +).
3. My Samsung HD set top box gets all the right channels at superb signal quality, and it's in series with the ariel cable (it's got a boosted RF out), so I know I can get digital tv.

In SageTV I went to Setup Sources and chose "Add a source", then picked "Bluebird, WDM TsCapture1", which seemed like the only obvious choice. My other choicess were ATI Rage Theatre Video Capture, Hauppauge WinTV PVR PCI II Capture, and Bluebird, WDM TsCapture2.

I then selected the tuner (there was only one option on this screen: Digital TV tuner". Sage told me it was waiting for a preview to load, but eventually came up with some itty bitty text that I can't read - no preview. There was a red line around "Digital TV Tuner" so I clicked that.

On the next screen I clicked "Use Tuner on Capture Card to tune Antenna/Broadcast".

On the next screen I chose "Do Not Use Program Guide Data with this Source". I really would have liked to choose XMLTV since I pay for that, but I left this for a future headache - I just wanted to see something to begin with.

The next screen that came up was one that asked if I'd like to scan channels. From reading around on the forums I thought I should be seeing a screen that let me specify where I live (which is Coffs Harbour). But I haven't seen this screen. So I chose "Yes - scan for all channels now"

A channel scan thing appeared and counted from number 0 through to number 50. Ten minutes later it said it found 19 channels (which I think is rather high).

Right: It has found some channels. So I'll whizz back to the main menu and thumb through to the program guide, scroll down to ABC2 (Woo! These channel names came from somwhere - I didn't type them in) so I know it's not picking it up from the analog tuner. And hey presto: Prime TV.

I tried NBN and yes, that's Channel 10's retarded HDTV test channel. It *thinks* it is the right channel - NBN HDTV tells me CSI is on, and yet the picture I am seeing is the ABC. I thought it might be something wierd in the setup data, so I checked out what channels were enabled. Sure enough, it's only the ones that were "found" on this tuner, plus the normal analog 5 (which is receiving my xmltv guide data).

So right now I am seeing 3 channels all with Numb3rs apparently running. The channel labels are:

• 14 SC10 Coffs Harbour
• 16 SC10 HD
• 15 SC10 HD

I thought it might be working these names out from my existing lineup - but I haven't configured that yet, and I don't know if SageTV is smart enough to know that the channel names are the same and just use the data. I don't think so.

I then switched back to my actual set top box to compare the program information. Word for word, the program guide data is the same, so I know it's getting the guide data details from the digital tv stream (because my set top box doesn't have xmltv or internet feed capability). Hang on though: the description is repeated 3 times in the same space, and is the same for each of the 3 instances of channel 10 that it has found.

Incidentally , all three of these channels actually play these channels:

• 14 SC10 Coffs Harbour - MyTalk channel
• 16 SC10 HD - SBS
• 15 SC10 HD - MyTalk again

They're just a few. some NBN's map to ABC while other NBN's map to Prime or even Channel 10.

So: I am thoroughly lost now. The things I don't know are:

• Where my TV signal comes from (there are 2 broadcast towers in my area each on different frequencies - according to the digital tv australia website - and they are both line of sight to my TV aerial). Is my signal coming from one or both?
• Why doesn't my set top box see so many channels? It's hooked to the same antenna?
• Why the channel numbers all mix and match with each other
• How to stop the guide data from repeating over and over
• How to hook up xmltv guide data so I can have more than just the next program schedulled to record (I use icetv's service).
• Am I going to run into twice as many fudged up channels if I go through the setup source tool again and enable the second tuner?

To summarise:

Aaaaarrrrggghhh!

Can someone who has some idea of how this program works please help?

Edit: I've read elsewhere on the forum about "frq" files, so I've attached the file that was created after I had finished the source setup. It's all gobbledegook to me.

[infocus13]

Frumbert, I live in Melbourne and had a nightmare in trying to get my channels setup as well. It wasn't Sage so much or Aussie dvb-t, but more the different logic Sage uses to my previous HTPC software (Mediaportal) in channel setup.

Anyway - it seems like you are getting your logical and physical channel numbers mixed up.

Think about channel #s in Sage like this:

* Logical channel number simply determines the order of channels in Sage. I.e. logical channel #14 comes above #15, etc.

* Physical channel numbers are similar to what we had on the old TVs - i.e. channel 20 for me is ABC & will always be ABC. Physical channel 1 for me is Seven and will always be Seven.

So... sounds like you get your guide data from IceTV and when your channel lineup is loaded in Sage & is matched to your physical channels (matching of IceTV lineup to physical channels happens when you do a channel scan) you get a mismatch between your lienup (logical) channels and your physical channels.

The trick is to remap your physical channels to your logical/lineup channels. To do this, scroll down to the physical channel you need to remap (i.e. Hit View in Sage Channel Setup and determine what that channel is - ABC, Nine, Ten, etc.), click Remap, then select Map to diff logical channel and enter the logical channel number as per your IceTV lineup. So for example your ICeTV lienup may list Nine as logical channel #3, so you would find the physical channel Nine (by clicking View) and remap it to logical channel #2 using the above method.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you need further help.

By the way, I use a free EPG source (minnie) in Australia which is community based, but has data for next fortnight and is very detailed. Beats paying for IceTV!

[ozfiles]

frumbert, you can alter your freq file to display only the channels that you would like to see and alter the channel name, to match your xml file that you get from ice.

[hoadie]

but would the folk who are successfully using digital tuners with Sage be able to advise what make and model cards you're using?

[ozfiles]

Hoadie, I'm using the Dvico FusionHDTV DVB-T Dual Digital.

http://www.fusionhdtv.co.kr/ENG/Prod...alDigital.aspx

[hoadie]

Originally Posted by ozfiles

Hoadie, I'm using the Dvico FusionHDTV DVB-T Dual Digital.

http://www.fusionhdtv.co.kr/ENG/Prod...alDigital.aspx

Do you have any problems using in an PC with analogue tuners?

And thanks

[ozfiles]

No problems at all.
I'm also running a pvr 350 and 250.

[hoadie]

Originally Posted by ozfiles

No problems at all.
I'm also running a pvr 350 and 250.

Awesome, and does Sage work with both tuners?

[ozfiles]

Yes, hoadie Sage is running happily with my setup, just make sure you have up to date drivers and all should be well.

[cychou]

Originally Posted by dkatchalov

Frumbert, I live in Melbourne and had a nightmare in trying to get my channels setup as well. It wasn't Sage so much or Aussie dvb-t, but more the different logic Sage uses to my previous HTPC software (Mediaportal) in channel setup.

Anyway - it seems like you are getting your logical and physical channel numbers mixed up.

Think about channel #s in Sage like this:

* Logical channel number simply determines the order of channels in Sage. I.e. logical channel #14 comes above #15, etc.

* Physical channel numbers are similar to what we had on the old TVs - i.e. channel 20 for me is ABC & will always be ABC. Physical channel 1 for me is Seven and will always be Seven.

So... sounds like you get your guide data from IceTV and when your channel lineup is loaded in Sage & is matched to your physical channels (matching of IceTV lineup to physical channels happens when you do a channel scan) you get a mismatch between your lienup (logical) channels and your physical channels.

The trick is to remap your physical channels to your logical/lineup channels. To do this, scroll down to the physical channel you need to remap (i.e. Hit View in Sage Channel Setup and determine what that channel is - ABC, Nine, Ten, etc.), click Remap, then select Map to diff logical channel and enter the logical channel number as per your IceTV lineup. So for example your ICeTV lienup may list Nine as logical channel #3, so you would find the physical channel Nine (by clicking View) and remap it to logical channel #2 using the above method.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you need further help.

By the way, I use a free EPG source (minnie) in Australia which is community based, but has data for next fortnight and is very detailed. Beats paying for IceTV!

dkatchalov,


Could you tell us how do you configure SageTV to import EPG from Minnie?

I am currently using their data through http://www.jrobbo.com/ozxmltv,
just curious how you get it to work.


As for tuners, I have both Analog (YUAN) and digital tuners (Winfast) working properly in my HTPC (see my signature).

[frumbert]

In the spirit of "try, try again" here's what I've done today.

1. Gone through to the sources setup and deleted all the tuners.
2. Quit sagetv and the service
3. Gone to the sagetv folder and deleted the frq files that say "bluebird" on them (and left the other files, which look like defaults or something)
4. Gone into the 3rdPartyGuideData folder and trashed all the files in there
5. Started up sage again. It throws up the wizard.
6. Repeat the normal steps (as described in my initial post)
7. The channel scan has pulled back a bunch of channel names. Some of them have the channel name (e.g SBS WORLD NEWS). some just say "digital channel 15" or whatever.
8. Tried to use the "view" on most of the channels. It says "No signal".
9. Thinking I had a problem, I quit sage and the service again and fired up the DVICO tv program to see if I have signal. It works a treat, all channels, no problems.
10. Thinking it might be one of the two tuners on the card that was playing up, I used DVICO's picture in picture which uses both tuners at the same time. And still it works flawlessly. Same deal. Signal quality is reported at between 95 and 98% all the time I had the software running.

So let me be clear here:

• There is no XMLTV stuff configured anymore. I removed it all so it's not confusing the issue.
• There is no xmltv imported data left in the system (unless it's stored somewhere other than the 3rdPartyGuideData folder)
• There is only one tuner installed and known to be working elsewhere on the system. Everything else has been removed, afaik.
• SageTV scans the channels and pulls up the channel names (I presume there are hard coded into the software somewhere).
• The channels don't work. TV doesn't work. Nothing works.
• I don't know what to do now.

ozfiles
frumbert, you can alter your freq file to display only the channels that you would like to see and alter the channel name, to match your xml file that you get from ice

I downloaded your file and tried it out (copied it's text and put it over my bluebird frq file). Is that what I'm supposed to do? What does this file do anyway? It's all just letters and numbers. Am I supposed to be able to read it? Do I have to care about this?

dkatchalov
Anyway - it seems like you are getting your logical and physical channel numbers mixed up... snip!

But I hadn't associated xmltv guide to that tuner yet. Is sagetv getting all mixed up because it sees channels with the same names? They're not the same names. In xmltv channel 7 is called SEVEN, but on digital it's SEVEN HD or SEVEN VIEW 3 etc.

Anyway, tonight exercise of pulling it all out and starting again seems to have proven that there is some major thing I'm missing here.

To summarise:

Still aaaaarrrrggghhh!

[hoadie]

One thing - if it's assigning channel names, then it's picked up some of the old channel data. Backup and delete your wiz.bin file and the wiz.bak files.

[mickp]

Hey Frumbert,

I live in Coffs and have made a few observations that might help...

It's best to switch to the default stv when you're setting up reception.

The tv guy came around to check out my tv reception last week advised me that I should be getting my best signals from Bruxner. The list of frequencies are here. NBN doesn't broadcast from Bruxner (yet) though so I need to get it from Mt Moombil listed here. From your .frq file it looks like you're picking up the Mt Moombil transmissions.

For some reason Sage only scans the frequencies that it's identified should be in your area. Why this is done I'm not sure. It doesn't seem a very sustainable approach to me and also doesn't allow for reception from multiple transmitter sites. You can see the frequencies that will be scanned for each location by opening the PredefinedScan.frq file from your sagetv directory.

"Australia-Mid North Coast@Coffs Harbour" 	=[ (760625,7),(725500,7),(802500,7),(781625,7),(809500,7) {tune=1,pat=6,sdt=16} ];
"Australia-Mid North Coast@Grafton/Kempsey/Coffs Harbour" 	=[ (585500,7),(543500,7),(564500,7),(599500,7),(606500,7) {tune=1,pat=6,sdt=16} ];

I've created my own entry that includes just what I want to receive. If you add entries to the PredefinedScan.frq file they become available for selection in Sage (shut down sage & the sage service before editing any of these files or they'll get blatted).

"Australia-Mid North Coast@Nile St v2" =[ ,(760500,7),(725500,7),(564500,7),(802500,7),(781500,7),(809500,7) {tune=1,pat=6,sdt=16} ];

Once you've done a scan in Sage it appears to maintain a memory of this and subsequent scans can get confused by sage doing remapping (like the ones that you see with the wrong station id's). The name comes from the dvb broadcast btw. To reset this you can delete the source and add it again or select each of the channels in turn and select reset logical channel number then reset physical channel number. After doing this you should be back to something that looks sensible.

When sage remaps it appears to add an additional phantom channel entry that either displaces the original or sits alonside it with the same logical number. I've found the best thing is to go with the logical numbers that are a product of the order of the predefinedscan.frq (see below).

Something to be aware of is that the logical channel numbers allocated by sage appear to be affected by the order of the frequencies listed in your location entry in the predefinedScan.frq file. When altering mine recently I found that I had to pop the frequency for nbn into the middle of the "...Nile St v2" line so that it would not take the logical channel numbers that I'd previously been using for ABC and throw out the lcn's for all of the subsequent stations.

Here's the relevant portion of my Nova-DT DVB-T Capture (Dev1 Path0) -0.frq file btw.

#DVBT channel setup table ver 2.1, country:Australia-Mid North Coast@Nile St v2



loaded predefined freq table: 7 channel freq

total_channel:300

#ch:index onid tsid program_id freq band 0 ctrl_bits(1:enable; 0:disable)

ch:1 4112 547 672 760500 7 0 5	#ABC HDTV
ch:2 4112 547 673 760500 7 0 5	#ABC TV NSW
ch:3 4112 547 674 760500 7 0 5	#ABC2
ch:4 4112 547 675 760500 7 0 5	#ABC TV
ch:5 12930 2469 2363 725500 7 0 5	#PRIME Coffs Harbour
ch:6 12930 2469 2430 725500 7 0 5	#PRIME HD
ch:7 12930 2469 2431 725500 7 0 5	#PRIME View 1
ch:8 12930 2469 2432 725500 7 0 5	#PRIME View 2
ch:9 12930 2469 2433 725500 7 0 5	#PRIME View 3
ch:10 4121 1794 103 564500 7 0 5	#NBN Digital
ch:11 4121 1794 107 564500 7 0 5	#NBN HD
ch:12 4121 1794 110 564500 7 0 5	#NBN Digital 2
ch:13 12812 2061 2061 781500 7 0 5	#SC10 Coffs Harbour
ch:14 12812 2061 2125 781500 7 0 5	#MyTalk
ch:15 12812 2061 2093 781500 7 0 5	#SC10 HD
ch:16 12802 848 848 809500 7 0 5	#SBS HD
ch:17 12802 848 849 809500 7 0 5	#SBS
ch:18 12802 848 850 809500 7 0 5	#SBS NEWS
ch:19 12802 848 851 809500 7 0 5	#SBS 2
ch:20 0 0 0 0 0 0 0	#
ch:21 0 0 0 0 0 0 0	#
ch:22 0 0 0 0 0 0 0	#
ch:23 0 0 0 0 0 0 0	#
ch:24 0 0 0 0 0 0 0	#
ch:25 0 0 0 0 0 0 0	#
ch:26 0 0 0 0 0 0 0	#

ch:1 4112 547 672 760500 7 0 5 #ABC HDTV

In this entry the 760500 part matches(ish) the frequency stated on the dba page;

UHF 61 Hor 760.625 MHz Ten TV Site Bruxner East Point COFFS HARBOUR

I tried changing the frq entry to be 760625 but that doesn't seem to be necessary (or to work). I'm not sure why this is teh case.

Re: the second tuner; The lineup that you're using determines what logical channels are mapped to which frequencies. Once you've got it sorted for the first tuner on the card you can add the second using this lineup without a problem.

As mentioned above, I've found it best not to use sage's remapping for my digital card and to use Stephane's importer to do the mapping. Once you've sorted which channels you want to use without a lineup, jot these numbers down and go into the xmltvimporter thingo to map the stations to their respective logical numbers. Once that's done you can change your source(s) to use the new lineup, rescan the channels and all should work okay.

I have a second lineup defined in the xml importer that I use to drive two sd dvb stb's via analog in to 2x pvr150 with a usbuirt. Because these have different physical channel mappings I've found it necessary to have a second lineup. You may want to do something similar to continue using the pvr150 in your system. If you configure multiple lineups with the importer sage will see the different channels with different physical numbers as being the same. Sage will then not show multiple instances of the same channel in the guide etc.

Here are some pics that may help...


I use the other lineup to allocate the extra channels from the icetv feed that I'm not planning to use at the moment. The "Coffs Harbour" lineup is used for the digital card and "Coffs 2" for the analog stb thingers.



Here's where you map logical numbers to each channel that you want to use. Make these the logical numbers that you want to use in Sage.



If you're using a second lineup then it can be populated from the "Additional channels" tab. This is necessary for me so that I can remap these to different physical numbers in Sage without affecting those used by my digital lineup. Remember to use the same ID for the additional channels so that sage can work out that they are the same thing. If you are planning on dumping the pvr150 once the fusion is going then you need not bother with this (probably a good option).

Re: your most recent post; The preview is broken. Sometimes it will work, other times you get a no signal message for no reason. Unfortunately the only way that I've found is to save the current selections and go check them out in live tv mode. This is extremely disconcerting and I wish that the Sage people would fix it. I know that I'm not the only one who has noticed this behavior. I've been lazy and not bothered to log it as a problem with Sage tho.

Hope this helps. Let us know how you get on.

Mick.

[mickp]

Originally Posted by hoadie

One thing - if it's assigning channel names, then it's picked up some of the old channel data. Backup and delete your wiz.bin file and the wiz.bak files.

AAAAAAAArrrrrrrrrrrgh...

Don't do that.

Mick.

[hoadie]

Originally Posted by mickp

AAAAAAAArrrrrrrrrrrgh...

Don't do that.

Mick.

Why not? he's wanting to wipe out all his info, and he's not actually had it running successfully yet.

[mickp]

Originally Posted by hoadie

Why not? he's wanting to wipe out all his info, and he's not actually had it running successfully yet.

I think Frumbert has been using an existing pvr150 and is trying to get the dvico card running. Deleting the wiz.bin etc files would trash all recording history, favourites etc. Not necessarily a good thing if this is the case.

Mick.

[infocus13]

Originally Posted by cychou

dkatchalov,


Could you tell us how do you configure SageTV to import EPG from Minnie?

I am currently using their data through http://www.jrobbo.com/ozxmltv,
just curious how you get it to work.


As for tuners, I have both Analog (YUAN) and digital tuners (Winfast) working properly in my HTPC (see my signature).

I use oztivoextreme (google) to grab the epg data from minnie. then I use the xmltv importer tool (search these forums) to parse it into sage and create my lineup. the xmltv importer tool is fantastic - its a nice gui which has settings to schedule it and it will also call your minnie grabber automatically to download the data before parsing it. its really good. you have to donate to get the full version, but its worth it.

hope this helps.

[frumbert]

Thanks mickp for the great info. That all should be stickied atop this thread. I did have numerous problems, but I was able to actually view tv after performing these steps:

• DELETING the whole SaveTV folder.
• Downloading the latest version and installing it fresh
• Adding only the first digital tuner and using a custom lineup as you suggested (I copied your file and modified it a bit because I only want to use Moombil)
• Doing a channel scan (the preview now works for me)

Interestingly enough, ABC seems to know about tv shows. I figured the xmltv importer must have run while I was still setting everything up. And I can see that Prime will show the next tv show name, so it's obviously pulling that of the broadcast.

You lost me when you started talking about channel numbers and logical this and number that.

In my setup there are some numbers beside the channels that I have a green dot on. I wrote these numbers down.



They were:

• 1 - ABC HD
• 3 - ABC 2
• 6 - Prime HD
• 11 - NBN HD
• 13 - Channel 10
• 16 - SBS HD
• 19 - SBS 2

These numbers seem to line up with the numbers I see in the TV guide screen. I have *no idea* where that guide data is coming from, or how to clear it out - there doesn't seem to be an option for "trash everything in the guide data" anywhere.



I went into the xmltv importer program and set up a new lineup called "digital lineup":



I then went into the Channels tab and typed in the numbers that I saw in the first screen inside sage (first screenshot) against the same channel names in here, and changed their lineup to the "digital lineup" I had just made. I changed everything else so it was blank and pointing at a different lineup.



I don't know what you mean about "logical" numbers as opposed to - well, some other sort I suppose. I didn't do anything in the "Additional channels" tab because I have 1 xmltv file and 1 tuner so I don't think I need anything else "additional".

I pressed the xmltv import button and then launched SageTV again and went to the guide, but there was no extra info (apart from that phantom ABC data that was there before).

Where to from here?

[mickp]

Hey Frumbert,

Glad you managed to get it going. The import config looks like it's correct. You don't appear to have the sbs news channel mapped but that's probably not a biggie .

You should only need to change your source to use the new lineup now. Here are some pics...









hth

Mick.

[frumbert]

Hmm, that's what I thought, but here's what I see now:



As you can see, a frankly bizarre error.

I thought thr STV XML Importer program might have been playing up so I downloaded the latest version and ran the installer again (with Sage closed, of course). I ran though the whole setup process again and set up the channels again, and finally ran an import. I saw that files got created in the "3rdPartyGuideData" folder and thought that should be enough.

It's a bizarre error to me. I don't run placeshifter or a web server (nor do I want to). Something is still broken somewhere ...