Newbie with add source problems

[CraigD]

I'm new to SageTV and new to this forum (please redirect me if I am posting in the wrong area). I have a HVR-1600 connected directly to Verizon FIOS and am trying to capture the ClearQAM signal. I can successfully view and capture the TV signal using WinTV. I don't like the WinTV interface and want to switch to SageTV since it is more like the MCE-2005 interface that I have been using (MCE-2005 doesn't support ClearQAM). So far I have been unsuccessful in getting the HVR-1600 to work with SageTV and am hoping someone here can help me.

I followed a couple of the examples described in other posts, but am not getting the same results. When I come to the part about adding a capture source, the only option that is displayed is:

"Hauppauge WinTV 418 Capture"

A thread started by FMAX back in August 2007 stated that the displayed capture device should be "WinTV 418 TS Capture" and one of the device inputs should be: "Digital TV Tuner". The only inputs that are displayed for me are a couple composite inputs, S-Video, and "TV Tuner". If I select any of these, I get the rotating wait icon and then the error message

"PlaybackException, -4,0x80040217"

I'm clearly not setting something up correctly, but not sure what. Does anyone have any suggestions that I should try?

Thanks in advance,

Craig

[Djc208]

The first thing I'd recommend is to make sure that your Windows MCE install isn't locking the tuner to itself and preventing Sage from accessing it, the same tuner is used for OTA, which MCE does support.

[CraigD]

The first thing I'd recommend is to make sure that your Windows MCE install isn't locking the tuner to itself and preventing Sage from accessing it, the same tuner is used for OTA, which MCE does support.

That's a good point. However, I did fully exit MCE before trying this, so I think I'm good there.

Thanks for the suggestion,

Craig

[gplasky]

There are MCE services that run that can lock that tuner out. Exiting MCE is not enough. You actually have to stop and disable the services so they don't start up again. Also the ehtray.exe will grab every push of the green button on the remote and other buttons (guide, etc.) will try to fire up MCE. You'll want to stop that process from running also.

Gerry

[shortyjacobs]

Just thought I'd agree with gplasky, with a bit of an addendum.

It took me a while to kill ehtray.exe. Taking it out with msconfig didn't work. Killing it and saying it couldn't start automatically in the services panel didn't work. What DID work was something decidedly simpler....I just renamed the file to ehtray.old. Easy peasy.

[rogermexico]

Not to hijack your thread but I’m getting a similar error message and have not been able to set up my HVR-950 (USB2 device similar to 1600; SageTV installation software doesn’t seem to differentiate between the various Hauppage USB2 devices). However unlike CraigD I do see the “Digital TV Tuner” option during source config, but when I choose this option I get a similar error message:
“playback error: sage.PlaybackException: Error (-4,0x80040217 .. problem rendering the video portion of the content for playback.”
I’m testing the tuner on an XP Pro PC that doesn’t have any Media Center Edition features, so perhaps this problem is not related to MCE locking up the tuner.

If I choose “TV Tuner” (analog not digital) as the source and then select analog channels for my area the setup works and the analog channels come in OK (until Feb 18th). Also WinTV6 works fine for digital and analog channels, so obviously no antenna strength issues.

[gplasky]

Did you go past the error and finish setting up your source. If not, do so and then reboot your machine and test it.

Gerry

[rogermexico]

I uninstalled Sage after 30 day trial expiration and never got the Hauppage HVR-950 to work with digital OTA channels.
I tried to go past the initial error listed above (without preview) by click again on Digital TV tuner after OK’ing error. Then I did channel scan using my local digital over-the-air channels and some channels were found. However the playback errors persisted and the channel never would play even after numerous restarts. I could only get the analog channels to work (which is now of no use). It appears the Sage TV and Hauppage 950 combination on Win XP Pro is not ready for prime time.