SageTV and MCE 2005 on same computer...

[kingwr]

I would like to do a trial of SageTV on my MCE 2005 computer. I would like to be able to disable ehrec and ehsched; run SageTV service, play with the clients, placeshifter, etc.; shutdown SageTV; and then re-enable ehrec and ehsched. This would allow me to do the trial on the only PC in the house with attached DirecTV tuners without disturbing the existing MCE 2005 system which is in use by my family.

However, when SageTV is installed on the computer (even if not in service mode and not running) ehrec will not start. It continually pops up a "Media Center Receiver Service encountered a problem and stopped working" error. Once I uninstall SageTV, it starts working again just fine.

Any help here would be appreciated.

Thanks,
WRK

[gplasky]

You can't have them both running. To run Sage you need to shut down all the MCE services. To run MCE 2005 you need to shut down the Sage service or quit Sage if not in service mode. (Quit-not sleep to tray). Each application needs exclusive use of the tuner hardware. This is true of just about any PVR application.

Gerry

[kingwr]

Thanks for the reply.

I did shut down Sage TV. I know I had the service mode disabled. I even rebooted the computer. But I could not successfully revive the ehrec service for Media Center until I actually uninstalled Sage TV.

I installed the 6.4.5 Beta.

Any additional help would be appreciated.

[mikejaner]

Do you have Sagetv set up as a service? If so, are you disabling it, then rebooting? What may be happening, is, you shutdown SageTV, and the Service keeps running, or you shut down SageTV, and it doesn't let go of the tuners completely. If so you would need to reboot, but only after making sure it's not set to startup, either in the GUI or Service modes after reboot.

[kingwr]

I had the service mode disabled. I could see the processes running in task manager, and no sageTV processes were running (after boot). The minute I uninstalled SageTV, ehrec started running on its own and stopped throwing errors.

Unfortunately, even with the product uninstalled I am sure my 15 day clock on the trial is running. At this rate, I will never get to try the product. Is there a forum to get support from SageTV developers?

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by kingwr

Unfortunately, even with the product uninstalled I am sure my 15 day clock on the trial is running. At this rate, I will never get to try the product. Is there a forum to get support from SageTV developers?

The trial is actually 21 days & the main forum page (or my sig) contains a link to the tech support request form.

- Andy

[wsbsteven]

I had the same problem even though I have Sage setup on it's own tuner that my VMC doesn't have configured. I checked the event log and found that stvm2ve.ax was causing the crash. Once I removed it from the sagetv folder\common then VMC starting working again. The odd thing is Sagetv still seems to function without that file but I would expect to have a problem in the future when it tries to use it.

I'm also trying out the product and I found that it seems to use more cpu cycles than VMC (50% cpu usage for Sage, 10% cpu usage for VMC watching the same program at the same time) which is unattractive to me but I like the flexibility it gives.

[Brent]

Originally Posted by wsbsteven

and I found that it seems to use more cpu cycles than VMC (50% cpu usage for Sage, 10% cpu usage for VMC watching the same program at the same time) which is unattractive to me but I like the flexibility it gives.

That doesn't seem right - there must be something messing up your setup. Is that CPU usage constant or at certain times?

[wsbsteven]

It's constant when on the same channel but different channels use different amounts. Like a channel that's broadcasting in 480i will use less but 720p will use more. According to process explorer the mpegdemux.ax file is the source of the usage but judging by the name, that is what is splitting the video/audio stream so I can see it.