HDHomeRun (HDHR) Prime + SageDCT

[Sparhawk6]

I just tested my system recording all three streams. I averaged 50 Mpbs over the network, and 10% CPU usage from SageDCT. I'm running an older Core2Duo - the E5200.

[jbuszkie]

Originally Posted by phelme

Look at the configuration of your NIC. It'll be labled something like "Local area connection" Get the properties for it, click on Configure and under the Advanced tab you might see (depends on the NIC) options like Checksum offload, Large Send offload, TCP Offload Engine etc. This indicates to Windows that the NIC can handle some of these tasks rather than the OS.

Thanks! I'll look into that..

[Kirby]

Originally Posted by jbuszkie

Yah.. both are moto.. Where do I find the services menu?
I've had good luck so far with the 5C. I hope it's an indication of the "copy freely" ability.
I'd really want to get away from the cable box all together!

Ok, so if you havent figured it out yet, its power off, select. Then go down to d6 which should be current channel stats. CCI bit will be in lower left of that screen.

[jbuszkie]

Originally Posted by Kirby

Ok, so if you havent figured it out yet, its power off, select. Then go down to d6 which should be current channel stats. CCI bit will be in lower left of that screen.

Cool.. I'll try that this weekend if I have time. That means I have to hook up the cable box to a tv though! hmm.. do I have the right cable for that??

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by jbuszkie

Cool.. I'll try that this weekend if I have time. That means I have to hook up the cable box to a tv though! hmm.. do I have the right cable for that??

No need. Go to the program guide and select a show that is airing on a channel handled by the cable box. Start recording the show and watching it. Now everything appears on the TV, but a few seconds behind.

[Sparhawk6]

Damn! I just learned that Comcast has set the copy protection flag for my non-premium channels above 699 to "Copy Once". Damn, damn, damn. This is an totally inconsistent policy. ALl non-premium channels below 700 are set to "Copy Freely". So in other words, I get ESPN and ESPN 2 as "Copy Freely", but ESPN News is "Copy Once". There are a ton of other non-premium HD channels in this range that I can't watch. It makes no sense.

Didn't someone say in this thread that they were able to talk to someone at Comcast to get the flags set appropriately? How did you do that? I can't imagine that the average customer service rep knows anything about this. They don't even know what a HomeRun Prime is.

[Sparhawk6]

I found his post:

http://www.gossamer-threads.com/list...hreaded#490415

I am now speaking to someone at the Corporate HQ after I sent an email to we_can_help [at] comcast.com. Wish me luck.

[avogodro]

I am a little confused about using sagedct.

Question 1. Do I need to be runningsagetv 7 or higher?
Question 2. Do I need to setup port forwarding for sagedct?
If so do I port forward to the sagedct?
Question 3. Is there any additional setup required for sagetv other than copying the assignment files to sagetv.properties file?

I ask all of this because I am running sagetv 6.5 and I have the tuners setup bit they won't stream the shows. It shows that the channel has been changed according to the hdhomerun web interface. I can stream the channels to my computer running sagetv via the hdhomerun setup through vlc player. Just cant get it to show up on sagetv. Another curious thing happens when sage is using the hdhomerun is my network dies. I lose internet connectivity and all wireless conectivity which makes me think its a port issue. Just me guessig though. Please help. I have had the prime for over two months dealing with a RA frome SD then dealing with comcast for a week to get my chanels.

[gplasky]

You're going to need the latest version of SageTV 7 to support the latest tuners like the Prime and the Ceton.

Gerry

[Sparhawk6]

I just wanted to comment, since I had seen this discussed before: I am able to play all the files recorded with SageDCT in either VLC or Windows Media Player. I had to update to the latest VLC, but it looks fine.

Windows Media Player always looks a little better than VLC, but VLC does much better with recordings in progress (I can pause, fast forward, etc., whereas WMP cannot).

[phelme]

I picked up a PCI card NIC. Now with 3 streams running SageDCT is down around 20%. I'm wondering if the reason I'm getting a bigger hit than others is Windows XP. And further am curious if Windows Firewall has something to do with it. Since I can't SageDCT without it, can't really test that.

It does seem to be happier with the separate NIC as opposed to the one on the motherboard. Not sure what's going on with the Gigabyte board; it's all up to date on BIOS and drivers. I was certainly not seeing that kind of CPU load when using HD-PVR based network encoders over Ethernet. A puzzlement.

[Sparhawk6]

Originally Posted by Sparhawk6

Damn! I just learned that Comcast has set the copy protection flag for my non-premium channels above 699 to "Copy Once". Damn, damn, damn. This is an totally inconsistent policy. ALl non-premium channels below 700 are set to "Copy Freely". So in other words, I get ESPN and ESPN 2 as "Copy Freely", but ESPN News is "Copy Once". There are a ton of other non-premium HD channels in this range that I can't watch. It makes no sense.

Didn't someone say in this thread that they were able to talk to someone at Comcast to get the flags set appropriately? How did you do that? I can't imagine that the average customer service rep knows anything about this. They don't even know what a HomeRun Prime is.

Update:
I emailed we_can_help [at] comcast.com explaining the issue. I got an email back that same say (Saturday) from someone at the corporate office telling me that someone would call me Monday about the issue.

Well, today a "head end tech" in my area called me back . He said that yes, their copy protection flags needed to be updated in my area, and the flags on those channels I identified need to be set to "copy freely." I said it should happen within 24 to 48 hours. He said to call him back if I didn't see the changes. It seems to have worked! Bravo, Comcast. I can't believe I just said that.

Moral of the story: if you have non-premium channels set to "copy once", contact we_can_help [at] comcast.com. It seems that Comcast's corporate policy is that non-premium channels should be designated as "copy once" throughout their system.

[Skybolt]

Originally Posted by Sparhawk6

... Moral of the story: if you have non-premium channels set to "copy once", contact we_can_help [at] comcast.com. It seems that Comcast's corporate policy is that non-premium channels should be designated as "copy once" throughout their system.

Glad it worked for you, I'm not as lucky, not comcast but a local "Cable Vision" a Time-Warner network. Just the oppisite happend. ALL of my non-premium channels went to Copy-Once, and when I questioned he said all cable cards (My Area) are going to that.

Not saying this will happen to all, just glad the Prime also does clear QAM...

-Skybolt

[Sparhawk6]

Another update: All the channels now have their flags set to "Copy Freely". It worked out great. I'm very happy with Comcast right now.

[avogodro]

another stupid question...

I bought a license for sage 6.5 i have 7.19 downloaded.. There is no way to get a license for 7.19 now is there?

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by avogodro

another stupid question...

I bought a license for sage 6.5 i have 7.19 downloaded.. There is no way to get a license for 7.19 now is there?

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56225

[Telecore]

Now that SageDCT 2.0 is out, is there a way for those of us that are using earlier versions to update to the latest without destroying our current functioning setups?

Does a new install overwrite the old files but preserve the settings?

I was wondering because last week an update to the HDHomerun Prime software/firmware cost me hours of troubleshooting before I got SageTV working again. I still have some very minor issues with SageTV occasionally freezing while watching a cable channel, but recordings seem to be OK. Running Sage 7.1.9, Win7 64 bit SP1, SageDCT 1.9, HDHomerun 20110925a (1 Prime and 2 dual OTA tuners)

UPDATE- well, just watched a recording missing a few seconds/minutes + system message indicates a HALT occurred while recording. So not working as well as originally reported.

[Sparhawk6]

RE SageDCT 2.0 - how do I update? When I try to run the installer, it says "Error 1001, SageDCT service already exists". I had already stopped the service prior to installing.

[phelme]

Heh. I was hoping more guinea pigs had gone before me with 2.0.

You can remove SageDCT via Remove Programs so I imagine you'd shut down Sage, uninstall and reconfigure it. I wonder if your config files are kept around. Hmm.

I'll try it out and report back.

[Kirby]

Well I was an idiot and installed the latest HDHR firmware (10-3b2) and it hosed my Prime. TA wont stay connected to it, getting trap errors every few minutes. That will teach me to F with a working setup (9-25a firmware and 1.9 sagedct)