Two problems on New Extender

[voicu_n]

Hello everybody,
I am new to Sage, just got my extender this week. I was playing with Sage on my HTPC for a while and now I decided to get an extender as well.
Ok first here is my setup:
SageTv Server- Custom made HTPC, Quad core Q660, 4 Gb of ram, GeForce 9600GT video running Vista 64 bit ultimate, Hauppauge HVR 2250 tuner, two Ethernet cards one for internet going to modem with cat5, other one for local LAN Going to WRT54GL Linksys with DD-WRT firmware. My HTPC is connected to my router through a using 85 Mbps SlingLink powerline networking devices.
I have latest drivers for my Hauppauge 22xx_7.6.1.27023.prerelease, SageTV v. 6.5.9 and Using EventGhost with a Harmony ONE and Caption_Playback_130 stvi.
I have scanned and I am using digital channels only, with both tuners of the HVR 2250.
On my HTCP SageTV works well, no problems, and I love it! That is what made me buy the extender for my bedroom.

Problem:

The extender that I just got on another hand doesn't works as well. The standard definition channels work well, also standard definition movies of my HTPC. When I change the channel to an HD one, problems begin.
Problem 1:
The 1080i stations get intermittent video and sound, very short, but annoying pause like every 10-15 sec.
The 720p stations work good but is hard to get a hold of them.

Problem 2:

Here is what I mean: when I change to 192 for ex., which is WGN DT on my guide, sometimes I get ABCDT or WTTWDT. So IS a difference between the channel I am on and the channel that Sage "thinks" I am on.

I have used Vista's Network Utilization Monitor to see the network usage for the extender. Here are the results:
Standard def channel - 2-4 Mbps used by sageTVservice.exe
720p - 9-14Mbps used by sageTVservice.exe
1080i - 13-16 Mbps used by sageTVservice.exe

I have tried latest firmware, and then the latest beta firmware, still the problem is there.

Any advice on my two problems?
Thanks a lot in advance,
Voicu Chirtes.

[HelenWeathers]

I would think network, which you probably don't want to hear. Can you move the HD-200 close to the HTPC and use Cat 5/6 cable to attach? Maybe hook it up to an alternate source input of the TV the HTPC is hooked up to.

[voicu_n]

Smart, will get to it right now and I will let you know.
Thanks for the fast reply.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by voicu_n

Problem 1:
The 1080i stations get intermittent video and sound, very short, but annoying pause like every 10-15 sec.
The 720p stations work good but is hard to get a hold of them.

Could this be caused by powerline networking problems? I'm not sure those devices can consistently supply enough bandwidth to stream HD video.

Here is what I mean: when I change to 192 for ex., which is WGN DT on my guide, sometimes I get ABCDT or WTTWDT. So IS a difference between the channel I am on and the channel that Sage "thinks" I am on.

This seems a bit odd. I've had problems with Comcast before where they've been sending the wrong station on a particular channel. Could that be going on with you? I assume you have an HDTV. Does it have a QAM tuner? You should try tuning the channel on the TV, if you can.

[HelenWeathers]

reggie14, my thinking is that if network transmissions are garbled, the channel change command from the HD-200 to the HTCP may get garbled as well.

[voicu_n]

Originally Posted by HelenWeathers

I would think network, which you probably don't want to hear. Can you move the HD-200 close to the HTPC and use Cat 5/6 cable to attach? Maybe hook it up to an alternate source input of the TV the HTPC is hooked up to.

Moved it into my Livingroom, next to the HTPC, same problems.
Both HTPC and Extender connected to common hub, so network speed is not an issue here.
Tried a laptop, instead the extender and when i copy a big movie from my HTPC to laptop, i get 50-70 Mbps... So my net is not an issue any more, I think ...
Will try a direct cat5 cable tomorrow from HTPC to Extender.
Do I need a crossover cable or not for that?
Other suggestions are very welcomed.
Thanks guys,
Voicu.

[voicu_n]

Originally Posted by reggie14

Could this be caused by powerline networking problems? I'm not sure those devices can consistently supply enough bandwidth to stream HD video.




This seems a bit odd. I've had problems with Comcast before where they've been sending the wrong station on a particular channel. Could that be going on with you? I assume you have an HDTV. Does it have a QAM tuner? You should try tuning the channel on the TV, if you can.

All my channels work splendid on SageTV server, on my HTPC and on my ant input of my hdtv. They change good and corectly...

[HelenWeathers]

Originally Posted by voicu_n

Moved it into my Livingroom, next to the HTPC, same problems.
Both HTPC and Extender connected to common hub, so network speed is not an issue here.

Hooking directly to the hub is enough. You don't need to hardwire directly from computer card to HD-200 with crossover (unless hub is bad which isn't likely).

Hook the laptop up again in the bedroom in place of the extender and try playing a movie on it. Just browse the network to the HTPC folder where your SageTV recorded videos are, pick one and try playing that way.

[voicu_n]

Originally Posted by HelenWeathers

Hooking directly to the hub is enough. You don't need to hardwire directly from computer card to HD-200 with crossover (unless hub is bad which isn't likely).

Hook the laptop up again in the bedroom in place of the extender and try playing a movie on it. Just browse the network to the HTPC folder where your SageTV recorded videos are, pick one and try playing that way.

Ok, tried direct cat5 from PC to Extender.. Problem is still here.
I did noticed since i moved the extender in teh livingroom, next to the HTPC the problem no 1 dissapeared.
Problem 2 is still here. The interesting fact is that the problem 2 applies only to certain channels, i noticed 2 in particular 192 WGNDT and another one. Some times Sage changes good to them too, but most of the times it is displayed the info of WGNDT, but i see ABC instead.
Strange...
Ok, Tried the laptop in the bedroom... takes about 9-12 Mbps, but the hdtv movies and recordings do not play well at all... interrupt every few sec, a lot worse than the extender even.
Regular avi's play perfect as well as regular definition TV.
I think there is bandwith, but is not very reliable, packets get dropped, and that is very important in video playback.... Ok, that would explain problem 1, how about problem no 2???
What do you guys think?
Thanks,
Voicu.

[HelenWeathers]

Originally Posted by voicu_n

How about problem no 2???
What do you guys think?
Thanks,
Voicu.

My thinking was that the channel change command from the HD-200 to the HTCP might get garbled because of a bad network connection. Don't forget that the actual channel change is done by the HTPC. The HD-200 isn't controling the channel change, it is just telling the HTPC that it needs to change the channel.

Maybe someone else will have an idea on the channel change problem.

[HelenWeathers]

One other thing then I'm off to bed. (I'm on the east coast so it's late here already)

If you request a channel change on the extender and the HTPC reports the proper info for the channel you requested then the problem is not the extender. It sent the request and the HTPC received it properly. After all, it's displaying the program info for the channel you requested. The problem is with the HTPC changing the channel or the 2250 tuning the channel.

EDIT: Check out reggie14's post #4 above.

[voicu_n]

Originally Posted by HelenWeathers

One other thing then I'm off to bed. (I'm on the east coast so it's late here already)

If you request a channel change on the extender and the HTPC reports the proper info for the channel you requested then the problem is not the extender. It sent the request and the HTPC received it properly. After all, it's displaying the program info for the channel you requested. The problem is with the HTPC changing the channel or the 2250 tuning the channel.

Agree, you are right on the spot with that one.
But then Why i do not have the similar problem when i use my HTPC's SageTv Media Center ?
And also I do not have this problem on a regular Qam Tv , so is not a comcast problem... Hmmmm....

[reggie14]

I'd guess that the channel problem is a bug in the drivers for the HVR-2250. You say you're running beta drivers. Have you tried falling back to the current official version?

[voicu_n]

Nope, I just tried latest beta. Will try latest official too and report back. I doubt is that though , since they work good on my SageTvMedia server on HTPC, don't you think ?

[Clift]

Did you remap the channel numbers for QAM to "friendly" channels? I wonder if the sage.properties and sageclient.properties may not be different? If the mappings are different that would cause the wrong channel to show up would it not? I'm not even sure if that would cause the behavior you're seeing but just thought I'd lend my two cents to help your troubleshooting.

[voicu_n]

Yes,
I did do some remapping... How do i check if the remapping in those two files that you mentioned are the same? I suppose the two files do have different things in them, beside the remap informations ....
Still did not got back to latest official drivers, will do that later on today.
Thanks all,
Voicu.

[reggie14]

I didn't think channel mappings were stored in the sage.properties file. And, I really don't think you can have different channel mappings on the client and server.

[Clift]

Originally Posted by reggie14

I didn't think channel mappings were stored in the sage.properties file. And, I really don't think you can have different channel mappings on the client and server.

I'm not sure either, that's why I brought it up and mentioned that. I thought they might be on account of the channels enabled for a particular tuner are listed in that file. When I get home or later tonight I will check to see if the files are the same or not.

[voicu_n]

So I have tried the latest official Hauppauge driver (7/16/2008,7.3.0.26198), included on CD 4.7 but no luck. Same problem.
Interesting the first time i went back to latest official , all worked well, BUT then i switched back to latest BETA to check, and things went bad again, problem 2 was back.
So, I said "aha , it is the tuner drivers", BUT when I put back the latest official again.... the problem was there....
Getting so frustrating....
Any other ideeas guys please ...?

EDIT: Also, the latest beta give me other problems too now, on the server's Sage the problem 2 that I had before on Extender only appears too AND on randoms channels get a black bar on top and left side, like the image is not centered with the screen. But that is just for the video channel, the sage display is good.
So obviously i think theese older official drivers are worse than latest beta.

Oh and Yes, i did use the driver cleaner and reboot my PC after each driver removal.

EDIT2: After I returned to latest beta I have now the uncentered image and problem 2 for my htpc servver also... Nothing works well anymore Extener or PC...Dammit... Advices?
Thanks,
Voicu.

[reggie14]

That sounds pretty strange.

The problem is, right now we don't know what's related to the Sage software and what's related to the Hauppauge drivers. Try using WinTV, Hauppuage's TV software, and see what kind of results you get.

And, particularly if your computer has undergone lots of driver/application/codec changes, you should start considering a hard drive reformat and a clean install of everything. You'll probably want to start support tickets with Sage and Hauppauge. The Hauppauge guys should be able to tell you which drivers you should be using.