HD PVR and IR tuning?

[Deacon Crusher]

Mine just arrived. Drove to comcast and picked up a tuner to use for setup and when that's all done and working I can return my other two tuners (one of which has DVR) and save 20 or 30 bucks a month. And then all TV viewing will be through Sage. Very exciting.

IR. I saw a note that said if you left the use hauppauge remote checkbox checked during install then getting this working should be easy. I didn't and have never used any kind of IR interface to do tuner channel changing, any tips?

Thanks

[bialio]

There are two steps basically :

1) Configure the IR Blaster. This is done outside of Sage. You will run the IR Blaster program that Hauppauge gives you, and set it up to use your STB. It's pretty self explanitory. Once everything is working there :

2) Add the new Source in Sage. This is the standard process you use for adding a new tuner. The HD-PVR will be capturing video - so it will ask you how you want to tune the channels. You will say that you want to use an IR BLaster, and then select the "Hauppauge IR Blaster" option.

That's more or less it. Assuming step 1 went well, Sage will be able to send digits to the STB and get your channels changed.

btl.

[Deacon Crusher]

Sounds straight forward enough.

thanks very much.

[Brent]

Originally Posted by Deacon Crusher

Sounds straight forward enough.

thanks very much.

Let me know if you get it working Deacon Crusher. I can't get Haupaugge's Blaster config to recognize any blaster hardware.....

[hchucky]

I am currently using 3 SAT tuners (PVR250/350) and I change their channels using a USBUIRT. I plan on swapping out one of the tuners with an HD tuner (HDPVR). Can I use the USBUIRT to control the HD tuner or do I have to use the Hauppauge IR blaster?

HC

[Brent]

Anyone who can help me with this dang IR blaster thing PLEASE HELP! Thanks

[CanadianEh]

Originally Posted by Brent

Anyone who can help me with this dang IR blaster thing PLEASE HELP! Thanks

Brent, what OS is your server? I couldn't get the IR Blaster to work on Windows 2003 Server SP2. Their utility is just saying IR blaster not detected. Using USB-UIRT works.

[Fallen Kell]

I guess everyone is getting their new tuner today (I just got mine as well). I had planned on just continuing to use my USBIRT since I already have SageTV setup to use it to control the cable STB and get my remote control inputs already. Basically, I am just switching out the Plextor tuner I currently have the STB connected to with the new HD-PVR, and hopefully everything will work. That said, I think I need to re-install my system Due to me changing motherboards and CPU (I got all the drivers removed that I needed so that the computer boots fine, but I don't think I will ever get all the Windows Updates that are specific for AMD CPU's, and I think the cause of much of my "slowness" of the system, especially since I had the same CPU in another computer and it ran MUCH faster/snappier there... and I don't think the primary hard drive would make THAT much of a difference, though I know it is a factor in the differences of performance. I just am not going to put a 10000 RPM disk in my HTPC, well, maybe the "new" mini-raptors, or whatever WD is calling it this week...

[Brent]

Originally Posted by CanadianEh

Brent, what OS is your server? I couldn't get the IR Blaster to work on Windows 2003 Server SP2. Their utility is just saying IR blaster not detected. Using USB-UIRT works.

I'm using Windows XP Home on the server (and client for that matter). Never got the Hauppauge IR blaster to work so I switched out to an extra USBUIRT I didn't even realize I had setting around.... And the USBUIRT works perfectly of course. I have a e-mail in to Hauppauge on the blaster issue.

Now that I have the channel lineup set up and the tuners prioritized the way I want them, I've watch some content on the HD100. Man that thing is good. Perfect playback and the video quality is very good.

Moving on to my client HTPC - which will be more of a challenge I'm guessing

[mistergq]

I have never been impressed with the hauppauge IR blaster. I have been using the USB-UIRT for awhile now and am glad I do. Yesterday, I went to Radioshack and picked up a mono/stereo splitter. I set that up last night and by dumb luck, I set it up correctly the first time.

[Brent]

Originally Posted by mistergq

I have never been impressed with the hauppauge IR blaster. I have been using the USB-UIRT for awhile now and am glad I do. Yesterday, I went to Radioshack and picked up a mono/stereo splitter. I set that up last night and by dumb luck, I set it up correctly the first time.

Sometime when you have some time, let me know how to do that - I guess in another thread so I'm not further thread-jacking this puppy.... At the moment, I'm just pointing the USBUIRT at the cable box without any cable plugged into the back of it.

[deria]

Hi,

Has anyone been able to make SageTV change channels using the Hauppauge IR Blaster?

I ran BlastCfg and setup my set-top box (Motorola 6200). I used the test button to send a channel string to the box and the channel changed appropriately. That tells me that the IR Blaster itself is working as expected.

When I setup the HD-PVR in SageTV, I told it to use the Hauppuage IR Blaster as the tuner.

If I go to the guide and select a show, however, SageTV doesn't change the channel.

I feel like I'm missing something, but I can't think what that might be. Is there some software I have to run that actually lets SageTV use the IR Blaster? Some setup i don't know about?

Very confused.

EDIT: The OS is Windows Vista (SP1). The SageTV version is 6.4.3.

EDIT #2: It looks like SageTV is -trying- to tune. Here is my log -- it doesn't contain any errors that I can see, but it also doesn't actually change the channel.

Tue 6/3 10:45:17.359 Seeker channel string=218
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.360 Playing IR tune command of 218
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.360 setEncodingProperties0 77319776 Fair-H.264
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.360 Set encoding property audiooutputmode to 0
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.360 Set encoding property audiocrc to 0
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.360 Set encoding property gopsize to 15
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.360 Set encoding property videobitrate to 3400000
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.360 Set encoding property inversetelecine to 0
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.361 Set encoding property closedgop to 0
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.361 Set encoding property vbr to 0
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.361 Set encoding property outputstreamtype to 1
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.361 Set encoding property width to 720
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.361 Set encoding property height to 480
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.361 Set encoding property audiobitrate to 384
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.361 Set encoding property audiosampling to 48000
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.361 Set encoding property disablefilter to 1
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.361 Set encoding property medianfilter to 3
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.361 Set encoding property fps to 30
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.361 Set encoding property ipb to 0
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.361 Set encoding property deinterlace to 0
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.361 Set encoding property aspectratio to 1
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.362 setupEncoding0 called for 77319776 'Hauppauge HD PVR Capture Device-0' (ver 1.0)
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.362 setupEncoding0 Trace1
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.363 setupEncoding0 Trace2
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.363 setupEncoding0 Trace3
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.374 Using encoder filter
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.374 setupEncoding0 Trace4
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.375 setupEncoding0 Trace5
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.377 setupEncoding0 Trace6
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.377 is not ATI encoder.
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.378 setupEncoding0 Trace6-1
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.378 setupEncoding0 Trace7
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.378 Got VideoEncoder interface
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.413 Signal detected!
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.448 Detected capture input resolution lines=1080
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.500 setupEncoding0 Trace7-2
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.500 setupEncoding0 Trace7-3
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.500 setupEncoding0 Trace8
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.501 setupEncoding0 Trace9
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.502 setupEncoding0 Trace10
Tue 6/3 10:45:17.502 Encoding to file D:\sage\NakedScience-PlutoRediscovered-2926141-0.ts

* merged *

[Deacon Crusher]

Brent

i'd never used an IR blaster before and so had a few newbie mistakes along the way, but ended up with mine working fine.

Had to install the software a second time (first time was choose your options and got errors at the end of install, second time did full install and all worked well.)

Then had to figure out how the blaster config works (my power button never ungreys?)

Then had to get the IR eye in the right place, my cable box has a spot labeled for IR, but it's actually at the other end of the interface from the label.

Once I got all that worked out, I'm changing channels just fine.

What isn't working (errors, or just no channel changing) on your setup? I'm XP pro with SP3.

All works great through the extender. Seem to be having some issues when using tuner on the server or via a placeshifter.

[Brent]

Originally Posted by Deacon Crusher

What isn't working (errors, or just no channel changing) on your setup? I'm XP pro with SP3.

I'm using XP Home. Here's a excerpt from the e-mail I sent to Hauppauge:

I've installed my new HD-PVR and am having trouble with the IR Blaster. When I run Blast Config, it says "No IR Blaster HWFound". I have the HD-PVR powered on and running, IR blaster plugged in and IRBlaster Config installed.

Hauppauge is checking into it and wants me to check to verify what ir blaster is installed. They're also curious if there is some other Hauppauge HW that is interfering with the blaster on the HD-PVR. I'll report back as I know more.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by Brent

They're also curious if there is some other Hauppauge HW that is interfering with the blaster on the HD-PVR.

This would be a standard issue -- if you have other Hauppauge tuners, then the IR software may decide to use a different tuner, even one w/o an IR blaster or an IR port at all.

There are some registry settings to tell it what tuner type to prefer. I don't know if the HD PVR can use a different setting, but there is one to say to prefer a USB2 tuner.

These are the registry settings from a while back -- check "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\hauppauge\ir" for a DWORD "I2CType" entry. So far, I know of these decimal values:

1. 19: prefer 250/350
2. 18: prefer 150
3. 23: prefer PVR-USB2

No guarantees... the 18 & 19 values don't really distinguish between 150/250/350/500, but 23 did work to prefer my PVR-USB2. Might be something to try.

- Andy

[Brent]

Excellent. Thanks for the tip Andy! I'll check it out tonight and report back.

[CyRex]

Originally Posted by deria

Has anyone been able to make SageTV change channels using the Hauppauge IR Blaster?

I think there are at least a few of us successfully changing channels with the HDPVR blaster, myself included.

Do you have any other Hauppauge tuners in your PC with blaster capability?

Have you restarted since installing the IR blaster software?

-Dan

[deria]

Originally Posted by CyRex

I think there are at least a few of us successfully changing channels with the HDPVR blaster, myself included.

Do you have any other Hauppauge tuners in your PC with blaster capability?

Have you restarted since installing the IR blaster software?

-Dan

The other two tuners in that system don't have IR capability, but I tried disabling them (through device manager) and when that didn't work I physically removed them from the machine and it still didn't work.

I'm wondering if its an issue with running under Windows Vista, but I don't have any systems without Windows Vista so its not something I can really check.

EDIT: I forgot to answer your other question -- yes, I've rebooted many times since configuring the IR blaster. The blaster configuration program (and its test where you can tell it to change to a specific channel) all work just fine. I haven't tried the ArcSoft software (didn't really want to install it) -- maybe I'll have to give that a try and see if it can change channels. I'd really rather avoid that if possible though.

[CyRex]

Hmm, that is strange. I was guessing that you could be having conflicts with another Hauppauge device, but it doesn't sound like that is the case. What version of the HD PVR drivers did you install?

-Dan

[deria]

Originally Posted by CyRex

Hmm, that is strange. I was guessing that you could be having conflicts with another Hauppauge device, but it doesn't sound like that is the case. What version of the HD PVR drivers did you install?

-Dan

Originally the one from the website, then subsequently (after running hwclear after removing the other tuners) the ones from the CD.

I had a conversation with Narflex and he suggested that I try running in NON-SERVICE mode, which I did -- it changes channel now. I'm guessing its a Windows Vista security model issue.

I can live with running SageTV in non-service mode. I think the only reason I previously was using service mode was simply because I wanted it to startup nicely after a reboot without me having to login.

Anyway, that works now so I'm happy about that.

Hopefully after I get things reconstructed tonight I can find some time to do a write-up about the ins and outs of my experiences with this device.

I haven't been able to get sound using my optical connector, but maybe my Motorola 6200 operates in Bitstream mode instead of PCM mode. I couldn't find a configuration setting in the menus, but Bitsream is probably the most likely default.