Success Verizon Fios, QIP2500-3 STB, PVR-150

[marcusjohn]

I would like to post my success here so that it may help others get to the same place. I don't think this procedure is documented anywhere else.

I have done this a couple of times, so it works reliably for me.

I have verizon FIOS, which is fiber optic service with almost unlimited bandwidth and no video compression artifacts, and very fast internet, and phone service too. The FIOS video quality seems to be studio quality good.

I am using the Motorola QIP2500-3 set top box, and blasting the infrared through a PVR-150 IR blaster. There are several workarounds necessary because this set top box is not in the database of set top boxes in Sage.

I am using Ubuntu intrepid 32 bits desktop. I can confirm that this works for intrepid server 32 bits, hardy heron 32 bits desktop and server as well. I never got it working for 64 bits.

First, I started with a clean install of intrepid.

Then, I installed the .deb package from the the SageTV website (click "free download" to find the .deb installer) and I let the package manager do the installation. This is the point where you need to enter the SageTV key, and in order to enter the key you need to open the details window of the package manager.

Then, I installed the SageTV client using the .deb package as well.

Then, I right clicked on the SageTV Client 6.4.8 icon on my desktop and select properties menu item | permissions tab. Then click "allow executing file as a program". Then close up the Client icons properties window.

Then I double click the SageTV Client icon to get a "SageTV Placeshifters Servers Manager" window. From there I believe you have to click add, select the option "Connect to this server directly by its hostname or IP address". Then type 127.0.0.1 into the Address field. There are other ways to make this connection but this is what I did. Then click OK.

Then double click the "My Sage TV" icon in the "SageTV Placeshifters Servers Manager" window.

Then, hopefully, you will open up SageTV for the first time and start to go through the whole setup process.

(As an aside here for those who might care, here is where I got hung up on the "setup video sources" page. In order to get past this hangup I needed to ultimately install "sun-java5-bin" via the synaptic package manager. To figure this out there was a bunch of broken dependencies involving LibTSnative.so, Libjawt.so, libCg.so, LibCgGL.so, Libjvm.so, all determined by using the "ldd *.so" command in various directories. Since I couldn't seem to fix these dependencies I tried the "sun-java5-bin" package and all these errors evaporated)

Then I continued to the Setup Video Sources page in SageTV.

You will, at this point, get hung up on the IRBlaster. SageTV will not find the blasters port. You will likely get six options, none of which will work. I don't know how to make the UIRT option work, and that may be another method for some, but I only wanted to use the PVR-150 blaster. So here is how to fix it so SageTV can see the blaster.

First, identify the port for your blaster by doing this, which shows your ivtv blaster on port 2:

sudo modprobe i2c_dev 
sudo apt-get install lm-sensors
i2cdetect -l

This will show something like:

i2c-5 unknown NVIDIA i2c adapter 2 at 1:00.0 Algorithm unavailable
i2c-4 unknown NVIDIA i2c adapter 1 at 1:00.0 Algorithm unavailable
i2c-3 unknown NVIDIA i2c adapter 0 at 1:00.0 Algorithm unavailable
i2c-2 unknown ivtv i2c driver #0 Algorithm unavailable
i2c-1 unknown bt878 #0 [sw] Algorithm unavailable
i2c-0 unknown SMBus ALi 1563 Adapter @ 0400 Algorithm unavailable

I have the above from http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...t=%2Fdev%2Fi2c.

The following assumes your blaster is on port 2. If another port, change the code appropriately.

execute this "gksudo gedit /etc/rc.local/". This will let you edit the startup script file rc.local that automatically executes as root on every boot.

In there, above the last line of "exit 0" put these lines. Of note, the last line here starts your SageTV server on every boot, something the default install does not do:

modprobe i2c_dev
mkdir /dev/i2c
ln -s /dev/i2c-2 /dev/i2c/2
/opt/sagetv/server/startsage

Save these changes and exit.

I think you should reboot here. Then check to see if you have a /dev/i2c/ directory. If you do, then the above technique worked and you have connected to your IRBlaster.

Now you have to restart your SageTV setup by opening the SageTV icon and clicking to connect to your server. You should be able to complete the setup process now and have a good install. Here is how you finish and get the unlisted Set top box to work with SageTV:

I determined, through lucky trial and error, that the proper Set top box to pick for the QIP2500-3 from FIOS, is the Motorola DCT2500-82. Others may work. At least I knew to try a Motorola. After you pick this Set top box you can finish the SageTV setup completely, but the Set top box behaves badly at this point until you fix a couple of options.

Now stop the sagetv server. If you don't stop it the next step will not work. So execute "sudo /opt/sagetv/server/stopsage".

Then you have to execute "gksudo gedit /opt/sagetv/server/Sage.properties". In there, change the "irtune_repeat_factor=2" to "irtune_repeat_factor=1". Save it, and exit out. If you don't do this you get repeated digits when tuning the settop box and it really messes up your tuning.

Then you may restart the server with "sudo /opt/sagetv/server/startsage".

I think you can now click into and enjoy SageTV.

Hope this helps someone. It's been a long road for me. I am still learning what some of the above commands do.

John.

[bcjenkins]

John,

Nice post! A couple of comments.

You shouldn't make your symbolic link in rc.local. A udev rule is a much safer approach.
I have 3 FiOS DCT-700 boxes and a QIP6200. One of the issues I ran across was dealing with one of the numbers. I solved it by creating a remote profile I learned from the remote, curious to know if you see any oddities with SageTV such as changing a channel up after a number sequence.

B