HDHomeRun 68 channel remap limit / Native QAM tuning?

[taylork]

I posted this same question (here) on the Silicondust forum and their response suggests that this would be a better place to find a solution or workaround.

Is there any planned fix for the 68 channel remap limitation? My cable provider has a ton of channels available and I have to dump a bunch to get under the 68 channel limit.

Also, I've got 2 HDHomeRun devices -- is it possible to map a group of the channels to the 2 tuners in one HDHomeRun device and another group of channels to the other 2 tuners in the second HDHomeRun device?

ie., Map channels 1 thru 68 to HDHomeRun-A and...
Map channels 69 thru 136 to HDHomeRun-B?

Thanks

[Todd3835]

While I don't have a HDHomeRun (Hell, I don't even know what it is!), I know you can use different listings for different sources (IE: Tuner Cards). When your setting up the source, I believe there's an option to use a current lineup, or a new one. If the HDHR is a "source", then yes, you should be able to do it. It would be the same listings provider, but you could tell it which channels to use, as a new lineup for the 2nd source. I would recommend against 1-68, 69-136 as most of the "new" shows appear on 1-13 for regular cable. I'd alternate those between the 2, so that you can avoid the conflicts. Just a thought.....

-Todd

PS: Others have done something similar to force recording of some shows in HD, and some in SD, by using seperate lineups for SD and HD tuners.

[taylork]

Originally Posted by Todd3835

While I don't have a HDHomeRun (Hell, I don't even know what it is!), I know you can use different listings for different sources (IE: Tuner Cards). When your setting up the source, I believe there's an option to use a current lineup, or a new one. If the HDHR is a "source", then yes, you should be able to do it. It would be the same listings provider, but you could tell it which channels to use, as a new lineup for the 2nd source. I would recommend against 1-68, 69-136 as most of the "new" shows appear on 1-13 for regular cable. I'd alternate those between the 2, so that you can avoid the conflicts. Just a thought.....

-Todd

PS: Others have done something similar to force recording of some shows in HD, and some in SD, by using seperate lineups for SD and HD tuners.

Thanks for the response Todd. (Un)fortunately the HDHomeRun works a bit differently than standard tuners.

The HDHomeRun is a dual tuner network device that essentially allows you to easily tap into unencrypted QAM channels (which my provider has a TON of -- basically everything but the movie channels are unencrypted QAM)... but for SageTV to interact with it correctly, it uses an xml file to be able to see the various channels -- and the xml file is used no matter how many HDHomeRuns you have.

Further, there is a limitation that forces you have to pick 68 channels... which is about 50 channels short of what my provider has available.

I should probably address the SageTV folks directly with this...

[carlgar]

Originally Posted by taylork

I should probably address the SageTV folks directly with this...

I believe this is strictly a silicondust limitation. There was some discussion about a new silicondust product that would not have that limitation.

see this thread for the reason of the 68 channel limit http://www.silicondust.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5152

[jakep_82]

Originally Posted by carlgar

I believe this is strictly a silicondust limitation. There was some discussion about a new silicondust product that would not have that limitation.

see this thread for the reason of the 68 channel limit http://www.silicondust.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5152

My reading of that thread is just the opposite. It's strictly a limitation of SageTV. The HDHomeRun is essentially emulating ATSC to make it compatible with Sage. ATSC only has 68 available channels. If Sage had native support for QAM, the limit would not exist.

[taylork]

Originally Posted by jakep_82

My reading of that thread is just the opposite. It's strictly a limitation of SageTV. The HDHomeRun is essentially emulating ATSC to make it compatible with Sage. ATSC only has 68 available channels. If Sage had native support for QAM, the limit would not exist.

Yes, the various discussions of this problem strongly suggest it is a SageTV issue -- SageTV doesn't have native support for QAM. And thanks for the link to that thread, carlgar, lots of good info there.

[Conejo]

This isn't a SageTV issue, it is a tuner DRIVER issue.

When SiliconDust first implemented their HDHomeRun to work with SageTV it was set up to work as a Network Encoder, allowing access to all clear-QAM channels tunable by the device.

Then SiliconDust implemented a Microsoft BDA-driver scheme. While this driver may add stability to the tuner product unfortunately it limits the device to 68 active channels. ( I'm unsure WHY they can't remap to Major and Sub Channels [pid], but that's another issue)

Although SageTV might assist in the development of tuner-driver interfaces, it's really up to the device developer to come up with and deliver a DEVICE DRIVER that will allow software to interface with the device.

Then, there's the lack of support issue with Microsoft...

[Deacon Crusher]

Seems like resolving this issue becomes a bigger deal if more of us (sorry taylork you are in a very lucky minority) have more then 68 QAM channels which might happen depending on how you interpret issues raised in this thread.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...626#post288626

Seems like Sage should get to work on this.

Thanks

[gplasky]

The 68 channel remap limit is also in Windows Media Center and Vista Media Center. It is not a SageTV issue. It's a Windows/BDA driver issue.

Gerry

[jafa]

Hi guys,

QAM is new on the scene for windows BDA drivers and BDA applications.

The latest beta HDHomeRun drivers support full native QAM operation without a channel limit for DVR applications that have native QAM support.

For applications that do not have native QAM support the HDHomeRun driver remaps QAM channels into ATSC channels. The advantage is that you get to watch QAM channels without needing native QAM support. The disadvantage is the 68-channel limit.

Nick

[Deacon Crusher]

So, do we think Microsoft can/will fix the BDA drivers to go over (hopefully way over) the 68 channel limit or does Sage need to do QAM natively?

I would never want to wait on MS so I vote for Sage dealing with this.

Thanks

[MattHelm]

Originally Posted by jafa

... The latest beta HDHomeRun drivers support full native QAM operation without a channel limit for DVR applications that have native QAM support. ...
Nick

Nick,
Can you explain how much work SageTV is looking at to use the new Natice QAM support?

[Opus4]

I asked about this, but I don't have the time right now to try what was mentioned to me & offer more details, so in case any of you have time for testing this:

To try using the HDHR using native QAM tuning, choose 'Cable' instead of 'Antenna' when configuring the HDHR tuner source.

I'm not sure if you should have the HDHR software scan for channels first -- you may need to skip the scan in the HDHR software & let SageTV do the scan instead, then remap the found channels like you would when using the HDHR in OTA/antenna mode.

If you do the scan in SageTV, you may want to try removing the HDHR's "Digital Cable.xml" file in a folder somewhere around C:\Documents and Settings\xxxx\Application Data\Silicondust\xxxx.

As usual for such testing, I would make backup copies of all important files before proceeding.

- Andy

[carlgar]

Originally Posted by Opus4

To try using the HDHR using native QAM tuning, choose 'Cable' instead of 'Antenna' when configuring the HDHR tuner source.

I doubt if it is that simple. I have always selected 'Cable'. I encounter the limit when I use the HDHR channel scan. I would think that Sage would have to do its own scan and then pass the HDHR required information when tuning a channel.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by carlgar

I would think that Sage would have to do its own scan and then pass the HDHR required information when tuning a channel.

I also said:

Originally Posted by Opus4

you may need to skip the scan in the HDHR software & let SageTV do the scan instead
...
If you do the scan in SageTV, you may want to try removing the HDHR's "Digital Cable.xml" file in a folder somewhere around C:\Documents and Settings\xxxx\Application Data\Silicondust\xxxx.

- Andy

[taylork]

Originally Posted by carlgar

I doubt if it is that simple. I have always selected 'Cable'. I encounter the limit when I use the HDHR channel scan. I would think that Sage would have to do its own scan and then pass the HDHR required information when tuning a channel.

I'm swapping emails w/ the Sage folks... their latest reply suggests that the developers weren't aware of a 68 channel limit. Needless to say, I don't think I poised my question correctly because I can't believe that they aren't aware of this issue.

I responded w/ more info (including links to the various threads that are discussing this issue, this thread included)... so we'll see what they say.

[hemicuda]

Still messing with this, but first scan in Sage yielded only 12-1 (WDEF). It stopped at 200 while scanning. I'll try a couple of other things and report back.

Edit:

If you do the scan in SageTV, you may want to try removing the HDHR's "Digital Cable.xml" file in a folder somewhere around C:\Documents and Settings\xxxx\Application Data\Silicondust\xxxx.

nothing gets put there on mine, but there were .scn and .frq files generated in the Sagetv folder after the HDHR s/w did its scan. I hit the 68 channel limit w/ SD's software every way I tried so far.

[hemicuda]

ok, looks like it's a no go on that method Andy. at least I can't make it work here.

[Conejo]

Originally Posted by Opus4

To try using the HDHR using native QAM tuning, choose 'Cable' instead of 'Antenna' when configuring the HDHR tuner source.

[...]you may need to skip the scan in the HDHR software & let SageTV do the scan instead, then remap the found channels like you would when using the HDHR in OTA/antenna mode.

If you do the scan in SageTV, you may want to try removing the HDHR's "Digital Cable.xml" file in a folder somewhere around C:\Documents and Settings\xxxx\Application Data\Silicondust\xxxx.

As usual for such testing, I would make backup copies of all important files before proceeding.

- Andy

Thanks for the suggestion Andy

I just tried this with SageTV v6.3.10.166 and didn't get anywhere.
For testing, I closed Sage; stopped the service; duplicated the Program Files/SageTV directory to a backup; renamed the 'Digital Cable.xml' file to a backup; deleted the Silicon Dust HDHR .scn files*; launched SageTV and removed the two HDHR tuners; exited and restarted SageTV and installed an HDHR Tuner, selected CableTV and a Digital Lineup, and allowed it to Scan for Channels.

0 of 200 channels found.

Maybe this requires 6.4.x for testing?


* SiliconDust, for a brief time, utilized SageTV's .scn files (Virtual Channel Scan) in their setup process by populating them with results from their HDHR Setup scan thus allowing a SageTV 'Scan for Channels' routine to pull in the Station and x-y-z remap information. These files are still created by the HDHR Setup application but the created data in the files are utilizing the QAM to ATSC user-determined 68-channel remap. If these .scn files exist in the SageTV directory then Sage will use them to do a 'Virtual Channel Scan', never doing an actual scan for new channel discovery.

[hemicuda]

I tried it on a test bench w/ 6.4.x in my previous post. no joy