SageMCTuner - anyone have this working with cablecard?

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by SuiDog

I had the exact same problem. I am running 64bit btw. I also saw a huge amount of disk activity.

If you have a verbose log I can take a look at what the problem was.

[nebulink]

I have Charter and was wondering what exactly will I gain by having the Ceton Cable Card?

- Will I be able to receive on-demand programming?
- could I order PPV events?
- Can the Tuner pick up Analog/Digital/HD just like a cable box?
- Are there any known premium channels that are blocked on Charter if I have a subscription?
- Is this stable enough to replace my 3 2250 cards?

Thanks!

I find the cable card option intriguing.

[AlphaCrew]

Originally Posted by nebulink

I have Charter and was wondering what exactly will I gain by having the Ceton Cable Card?

- Will I be able to receive on-demand programming?
- could I order PPV events?
- Can the Tuner pick up Analog/Digital/HD just like a cable box?
- Are there any known premium channels that are blocked on Charter if I have a subscription?
- Is this stable enough to replace my 3 2250 cards?

Thanks!

I find the cable card option intriguing.

Q1) No
Q2) Not through the Ceton
Q3) Pick up all you subscribed, copy free channels.
Q4) ---
Q5) Depends on your application of the Ceton. (Read prev. posts)

[nebulink]

Thanks for the info Alpha. Too bad On-Demand wasn't available.

Has anyone used a Ceton with a 2250?

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by babgvant

1.2 is slower. I hope to make it slightly faster in 1.3, but I may not be able to depending on what the root cause is.

I think the slowness (or at least the extreme slowness) has been fixed. I also exposed the size of the RTP buffer size, which may help with packet loss (try doubling it?).

If you have issues please send me a verbose log.

[Mythikal]

Originally Posted by babgvant

I think the slowness (or at least the extreme slowness) has been fixed.

Much faster than 1.2. Maybe just a touch slower than 1.1, but not slow enough to revert to 1.1. Good job!

[zoso]

Anything in particular I should tell Ceton when opening a ticket to get on the BETA list? Or are the pretty open about putting people in BETA? Ceton card is installed, going to the Comcast store to pick up an m-card tomorrow and was hoping to get this up and running in SageTV as soon as possible, but it looks like SageDCT is still requiring the most recent BETA firmware.

Or is that statement on the description page incorrect as it states 51+ (assuming 1.0.1.51) and the current firmware I was able to load on the Ceton card is 1.0.3.2.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by zoso

Anything in particular I should tell Ceton when opening a ticket to get on the BETA list? Or are the pretty open about putting people in BETA? Ceton card is installed, going to the Comcast store to pick up an m-card tomorrow and was hoping to get this up and running in SageTV as soon as possible, but it looks like SageDCT is still requiring the most recent BETA firmware.

Or is that statement on the description page incorrect as it states 51+ (assuming 1.0.1.51) and the current firmware I was able to load on the Ceton card is 1.0.3.2.

It doesn't require the more recent firmware just one greater than 1.0.1.51. I've seen some issues with some of the firmware revs b/w 1.0.1.51 and 1.0.3.2 (what I'm running now) so I still recommend getting the latest.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by babgvant

I think the slowness (or at least the extreme slowness) has been fixed. I also exposed the size of the RTP buffer size, which may help with packet loss (try doubling it?).

If you have issues please send me a verbose log.

If you've installed 1.3, you'll want to replace SageDCTLib.dll with this one.

[Endymion]

Originally Posted by babgvant

If you've installed 1.3, you'll want to replace SageDCTLib.dll with this one.

Hey Andy, I figured out (I think) why my original upgrade didn't work. The RTP port was still at 5000 (persisted from previous version?) So I changed it to 5010, and now I can record fine!

New issue though: SageTV can only see 3 of the 4 tuners as working. The first tuner on the card (Tuner 1, port 6970) shows as "Functioning: false". I can thus only tune 3 shows at a time, and the mobile web gui only shows the 3 tuners. The others show up and work fine. I see the following twice in the SageDCT log (attached):

2011/04/06 16:11:58.08 : Couldn't fine the UPnP Device: Ceton InfiniTV PCIe (00-80-1a-e9) Tuner 1
2011/04/06 16:11:58.08 : Could not find device: Ceton InfiniTV PCIe (00-80-1a-e9) Tuner 1
2011/04/06 16:11:58.08 : Done ExecuteAction: GetParameter
2011/04/06 16:11:58.08 : Execute Error: System.ArgumentNullException: Value cannot be null.
Parameter name: device
   at babgvant.SageDCT.Lib.FoundUPnPDevice.ExecuteAction(List`1 actionValues, String actionName, String serviceName, Boolean refresh)
   at babgvant.SageDCT.Lib.FoundUPnPDevice.ExecuteAction(List`1 actionValues, String actionName, String serviceName)
2011/04/06 16:11:58.08 : ExecuteAction - Device: Ceton InfiniTV PCIe (00-80-1a-e9) Tuner 1 Service: urn:opencable-com:serviceId:urn:schemas-opencable-com:service:Diag Action: GetParameter Refresh: True

I originally had the starting port as 6971 and tuner 3 was using that port, and tuner 3 showed "Functioning: false" I changed it to start at 6970, did the detect in SageDCT and edited the tuner entries into the sage.properties (with service stopped), and now tuner 1 is at 6970 (starting port) and doesn't work. I also replaced the SageDCTLib.dll with the one above after having the problem the first time, and no change.


Any ideas?

[zoso]

I went through the WMC setup. Then installed SageDCT. Brought up SageDCT->Discovery and generated encoder. Pasted the result into the sage properties file. Went into sage to configure. Added my cable as the programming guide. Did a channel scan. It detected a bunch of channels, but did not map them to the logical chanels. Rather, what I get is all the logical channels not activated and then a bunch of channels that show up as:

OK - OK
OK

With check marks. And descriptions as:
Logical (Guide) Chan # OK
Station: OK, ID:423
Desc: OK

Tried to tune a few of these and got No Signal.

Any suggestion?

[Endymion]

Originally Posted by Endymion

...
New issue though: SageTV can only see 3 of the 4 tuners as working. The first tuner on the card (Tuner 1, port 6970) shows as "Functioning: false". I can thus only tune 3 shows at a time, and the mobile web gui only shows the 3 tuners. The others show up and work fine. ...

Huh... I looked this morning and now only TWO of the Ceton tuners show working.... Let me reboot and see if that changes.

[zoso]

Originally Posted by zoso

I went through the WMC setup. Then installed SageDCT. Brought up SageDCT->Discovery and generated encoder. Pasted the result into the sage properties file. Went into sage to configure. Added my cable as the programming guide. Did a channel scan. It detected a bunch of channels, but did not map them to the logical chanels. Rather, what I get is all the logical channels not activated and then a bunch of channels that show up as:

OK - OK
OK

With check marks. And descriptions as:
Logical (Guide) Chan # OK
Station: OK, ID:423
Desc: OK

Tried to tune a few of these and got No Signal.

Any suggestion?

So to further trouble shoot this I deleted all epg and encoder (have 2 HDHomeRuns) information out of the properties file and then added the SageDCT encoders. I thought that even though I was creating a copy instead of just using the same as other tuners, maybe the HDHomerun epg information in the properties file was creating a conflict of some kind. No luck though, same result. Is SageDCT 1.3 possibly returning OK instead of the values it is supposed to be in a channel scan? Is the install for 1.2 still available anywhere?

[Endymion]

Originally Posted by zoso

So to further trouble shoot this I deleted all epg and encoder (have 2 HDHomeRuns) information out of the properties file and then added the SageDCT encoders. I thought that even though I was creating a copy instead of just using the same as other tuners, maybe the HDHomerun epg information in the properties file was creating a conflict of some kind. No luck though, same result. Is SageDCT 1.3 possibly returning OK instead of the values it is supposed to be in a channel scan? Is the install for 1.2 still available anywhere?

I don't think you need to do a channel scan. Once you add the .properties fils entries generated by SageDCT, all I did was go into video source setup and for each of the 4 tuners, select an EPG (as shown in the download page for SageDCT: http://babgvant.com/files/folders/sa...ntry19846.aspx).

The channels are included in the epg, you just have to go through and select what you actually subscribe to, and then check each one (by tuning to it form the Guide, or in Live TV, NOT preview) and make sure you can tune to it. Ones you can't tun to probably aren't copy freely. You can also verify those using the Ceton diagnostics page (manual tune).

[zoso]

Okay, thanks for the information... was hoping to not have to go through the 500 some odd channels manually, but if that is what I have to do then I will give it a shot.

[zoso]

Going through and manually checking channels now. There are quite a few (9 out of 32 so far) that will record 50 or 60 seconds before it will start displaying. Is this common?

Edit: So the slow to play issue is only on the server. If I tune the same channels on the extenders, they tune right away. This makes it a non-issue as I never use the server directly to watch. A new issue though is there are quite a few channels where I am getting only audio, no video. If I look at the Format under detailed information, it shows no video information, only audio.

Edit2: Nevermind. Went back and did some reading. Looks like I either have to install an updated demuxer, or upgrade to 7.1+

[Endymion]

Originally Posted by Endymion

Huh... I looked this morning and now only TWO of the Ceton tuners show working.... Let me reboot and see if that changes.

OK after a reboot I'm back to 3 working tuners. Not sure why I can't use the 4th tuner for recording.

[anosis]

Originally Posted by nebulink

I have Charter and was wondering what exactly will I gain by having the Ceton Cable Card?

- Will I be able to receive on-demand programming?
- could I order PPV events?
- Can the Tuner pick up Analog/Digital/HD just like a cable box?
- Are there any known premium channels that are blocked on Charter if I have a subscription?
- Is this stable enough to replace my 3 2250 cards?

Thanks!

I find the cable card option intriguing.

I am on charter as well and my Ceton is suppose to be here by Wednesday next week. I found this in regards to copy freely on Charter's web page...

Encoding Rules

These rules were created and approved by various private sector and governmental bodies to enable recording of content for personal use while protecting high-value content.

Copy Freely applies to "over-the-air broadcasts" and permits the user to copy for personal use and play back with minimal restrictions.
Copy Once applies to content from subscription services, such as HBO or Showtime, and permits the user to copy the content to a single device for playback at a later time but does not permit duplicating for any reason.
Copy Never is used for high-value content such as Pay-Per-View or VOD and does not allow the receiving device to record the content.

This is the link : http://www.myaccount.charter.com/cus...rtarticleid=17

I had a question as well... what version of Sage do I need as a minimum to use SageDCT?

[nebulink]

Originally Posted by anosis

I am on charter as well and my Ceton is suppose to be here by Wednesday next week. I found this in regards to copy freely on Charter's web page...

I would be curious to know if hbo, discoveryHD and other premiums are truly blocked. From the link you provided, it would appear that the Ceton would only pickup local channels. Ceton claims they can only record copy freely content.

[anosis]

Originally Posted by nebulink

I would be curious to know if hbo, discoveryHD and other premiums are truly blocked. From the link you provided, it would appear that the Ceton would only pickup local channels. Ceton claims they can only record copy freely content.

Yup, got the same fear. The only thing that makes me optimistic is the fact that one of the reps I spoke to about cable card availability told me he has been using a similar setup with WMC for months and he commented to be very happy with the HD content. At that time I was not aware of the 'copy freely' restriction, but judging his comment it sounded like he got more than just the basic channels.

I will let you know next week, given I can get a tech out here to install the card.