Vista Setup Problems

[viaccess]

Greetings to all fellow UK Sage Users

Having suffered so many problems with Vista MCE that I have lost count, I decided to look for an alternative and have found Sage. I am on the second day of a 21 day trial period - but provided I can iron out a few snags, I will definitely buy the licence at the end of the trial.

I am using a Hauppauge Nova-DT dual VB-T tuner on a Vista Ultimate platform (SP1). Try as I might, I never managed to get the Hauppauge WinTV software to recognise its own card.

I also have a Technotrend USB2 S2 satellite receiver, but more of that later.

Having downloaded the software, Sage recognised the Hauppauge PC card and downloaded some channels. Here is my first problem - I am in a poor reception area between two transmitters (Rowridge and Crystal Palace), and although Rowridge is by far the stronger of the two - I can't get Film 4 from it. MCE scanned the entire frequency for channels - but Sage only appears to scan the frequency for a selected transmitter. So, if I choose Crystal Palace, I get Film 4 - but a weak signal for BBC1 etc .. an if I choose Rowridge, I get strong reception on most, but no Film 4. Is there any way to force Sage to scan the entire available frequency?

My second problem is the Guide. I foolishly elected to subscribe to the tvtv service (I wish I had read the reviews here first) and then tried to rescan. This time, Sage couldn't find any channels. I tried several times, with the same result, before eventually (having reinstalled the programme and cleared the contents of the Prog Files/Sage directory) I had some success. However, the were no listings for any of the main channels! ITV2 and ITV 3 were there OK, but nothing for BBC1 or BBC 2. Has anyone managed to use the tvtv service successfully and if so, is there any way to force tvtv to provide listings for the missing channels (or have I just wasted a subscription)?

I have a few other niggles. I have managed to get the Satellite receiver to work, but the (1000+) channels it has found are mixed up with the terrestrial ones. It would be nice to have these available entirely separately. The tvtv guide doesn't seem to work with this at all.

Finally, I have an intermittent problem when I change channels, and the screen just freezes (with a continuous small circle revolving in the middle as if it's searching for something). It seems that the only way out of this is to force a close of the programme (using task manager) and starting again.

Are any of these problems typical, or is it just me? Any suggestions would be most welcome.

James

[pukka]

Hi james,

i can answer a few questions for you because i have just been doing the same thing as you...

the freeview scanning frequencies are stored in a file ending .frq in the sagetv directory. open it in notepad and then you should be able to amend the settings needed ie copy the part from Crystal Palace to Rowridge then do the scan again selecting Rowridge. hope that makes sense.

the guide part is a little more technical and required a little bit of reading about.

this thread should help.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33320

if you look at my last post i have created a file with the freesat only channels in it.

and the final on i can only think this is a codec problem.

hope this is some help

Paul

[rickgillyon]

Originally Posted by viaccess

the screen just freezes (with a continuous small circle revolving in the middle as if it's searching for something).

Turn on debug logging (close everything down and add debug_logging=TRUE line to sage.properties) and check if Sage is doing anything at the time. Also, when it's had this problem, go into System Information (Setup, Help) and check the three figures for Java Heap Size - it may be that Sage is running out of memory.

[viaccess]

Thanks for the help guys. Pukka's advice was very helpful - I have now managed to do a full scan of all the frequencies available in my area and the missing channels have popped up.

I may have another go today at trying to set up the Satellite box - but may just leave this and use DVBViewer for satellite TV. I can't use Sage TV and DVB at the same time: If the Satellite Box is in use by Sage, then it isn't available in any other application.

Anyway, I am now happy enough with Sage, and duly sent my payment off yesterday to avoid the 21 day trial 'nag' screen. I hope I have done the right thing!

[nielm]

Originally Posted by viaccess

I have managed to get the Satellite receiver to work, but the (1000+) channels it has found are mixed up with the terrestrial ones. It would be nice to have these available entirely separately. The tvtv guide doesn't seem to work with this at all.

It is (possibly) more complicated to set up, but you may be better off using an XMLTV importer and the Radio Times XMLTV data (the price cannot be beaten!)...

Re satellite+terrestrial: Sage merges all of it's sources into a single unified program guide, so you will not see a separate guide for terrestrial and satellite. There is however a plugin (Favourite Channel Lists) which allows you to group channels you like into blocks (Sports, News, Movies, etc)...

I am still in the process of setting up my satellite, but ideally, when I have finished, Sage will know that BBC1 on terrestrial is the same channel as BBC1 on satellite, so it will merge the listings and use the 2 tuners to avoid schedule conflicts, and not record everything twice!

[rickgillyon]

That's exactly how it works on my DVB-T + Cable setup.

[logsvp]

Originally Posted by viaccess

I can't use Sage TV and DVB at the same time: If the Satellite Box is in use by Sage, then it isn't available in any other application.

I can recommend this Network Encoder - see http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30442
This uses DVBViewer in the background and connects with SageTV so that you can view satellite from within SageTV. I am using it to view BBC HD in sageTV

The free version supports 1 tuner and the paid for version supports multiple tuners.

Also as you have DVBViewer you could use it to scan your DVB-T channels to give you a very detailed view of the channels available which you could then use to adjust your .frq file settings.