HDHomeRun (HDHR) Prime + SageDCT

[KJake]

FYI - new Beta out that fixes this problem and does some other stuff. They're returning to monthly beta builds now (I suspect that CES got the better of them).

http://www.silicondust.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2484

Originally Posted by nickk

Release 20120124beta2

Windows:
* Configure VLC to auto deinterlace rather than always deinterlace when VLC is selected as the viewing application.
* Generate SageTV SCN files when HDHomeRun Prime is used without a CableCARD.
* Add support for Easy HDTV DVR and NextPVR.
* Fix crash/deadlock in HDHomeRun Service causing errors.

HDHomeRun Prime Firmware:
* Update PnPX tags for device discovery under Windows.
* Disable the sending of WMDRM headers for copy freely content (introduced in earlier beta) - fixes problem where Windows incorrectly reports copy-freely content as copy-protected.
* Add monitoring of the CabelCARD to detect problems where the card is unresponsive or has lost OOB communication.
* Add network flow control support - improves compatibility with some switches and/or PCs.
* Improvements to network support - fixes situation which could cause WMC ehRecvr service to crash.
* Fix handling of ignored tables causing some channels not to detect or play in HDHomeRun applications.

HDHomeRun Dual Firmware:
* Update PnPX tags for device discovery under Windows.
* Fix handling of ignored tables causing some channels not to detect or play in HDHomeRun applications.

HDHomeRun TECH Fimware:
* Add Multicast SAP support.
* Fix handling of ignored tables causing some channels not to detect or play in HDHomeRun applications.

[freewheeling]

I just got my cable card and had it successfully activated. I'm able to tune the channels on QuickTV and HDHomeRun Setup finds all of the channels on the card, but SageDCT doesn't do a thing. It appears to find the tuners, but won't tune any channels and the encoders never show up so testing and even starting the service don't work.

This was where I was at before I set up the QAM tuners, and I figured that all the problems would disappear once I got a card.

Again, the instructions on how to uses SageDCT are inscrutable. Even if I found channels it's not at all clear to me what I do with the assignments text. Past them into Sage.Properties, but where? At the beginning? And why can't I tell SageDCT exactly where to find the tuners, at 10.0.1.201. Even when the tuners were briefly identified and the service worked there were no tunable channels found, and the address of the encoders was 10.0.1.202/port#. Is that correct? That's the location of my wireless adapter. Why is it using that address? Shouldn't it be using the 201 address?

Update: Now I'm finally getting an encoder, but when I attempt to test it I get the following:

No connection could me made because the target machine actively refused it 127.0.0.1:6975

Sometimes I get this:

No connection could me made because the target machine actively refused it 10.0.1.202:6976

Again, 202 is my wireless router's address. Why is it using that?

Why is it being refused? Anyway, the location of the tuner is 10.0.1.201 so why am I getting the 127 subnet? Also, when I try to start the service I get a message that says: "Cannot start service SageDCT on computer '.'.

So what computer is that? Why isn't it identifying the correct computer?

By the way, whenever I try to save the Username / Password info it loses the password. It never gets saved.

[gplasky]

It's a Prime requirement that the tuners be located on the same subnet as your server that runs SageTV and SageDCT resides. If your server is on 192.168.x.x sub net and your tuner is on a 10.0.1.x subnet the Prime will not work. This is true even if you were using it with Windows Media Center. Now if that is not the case let me know. As far as cutting and pasting the text it really doesn't matter where you put it. You'll notice after saving and closing the file and opening it again all the .properties lines are in alphabetical order.

Gerry

[freewheeling]

Originally Posted by gplasky

It's a Prime requirement that the tuners be located on the same subnet as your server that runs SageTV and SageDCT resides. If your server is on 192.168.x.x sub net and your tuner is on a 10.0.1.x subnet the Prime will not work. This is true even if you were using it with Windows Media Center. Now if that is not the case let me know. As far as cutting and pasting the text it really doesn't matter where you put it. You'll notice after saving and closing the file and opening it again all the .properties lines are in alphabetical order

The tuners and the SageTV server are both on the 10.0.1.# subnet. SageDCT is insisting that the tuner is either at 127.0.0.1 (which is the local host, I think) or at 10.0.1.202 . The tuners are at 10.0.1.201 so it's almost right, but no cigar. I've indicated the "Replace Path" as 10.0.1.201 but to tell the truth the term "replace path" is ambiguous to me. What does it replace? If it's supposed to replace the local host, it's not doing it. It's adding 1 to the final number, which is the address of my wireless adapter that connects to my router at 10.0.1.1.

Why is it doing that???? It I were using an ethernet card it wouldn't be using the card's address would it?

I can't figure out how to point it at the right address. All of the other programs that deal with the HDHomeRun Tuners seem to find them with no trouble, and SageTV even found the QAM tuners (although it never finds tuner 0 for some reason).

This is exasperating. I spent all this time getting a cable card installed and SageTV can't even find it. I'm tempted to just dump Sage and start using WMS. It's a piece of junk, but at least it's a piece of junk that works.

[freewheeling]

By the way, something else is starting to p me off about this. SageDCT doesn't seem to be consistent about the port numbers it's using. I have it set up to start with 6970 and it initially used 6975 for tuner 1, then it used 6976, and now it's starting with 6987. Why isn't it consistent? I have to keep changing my firewall.

I set this to a range of 6970-7000 in my firewall, but it keeps switching around because it doesn't have the correct address, and I can't seem to force it to look in the right place.

[flavius]

Have you tried turning the firewall off temporarily, let SageDCT do its thing and turning it on again with those ports?

[freewheeling]

Originally Posted by flavius

Have you tried turning the firewall off temporarily, let SageDCT do its thing and turning it on again with those ports?

The problem is that it misidentifies the address as 10.0.1.202 . Why it does that I have no idea. Every other program I have that I've used with HDHomeRun Prime seems to have no problem finding the tuners at the right address. DCT is the only one that can't seem to get it right. There's obviously a bug in it somewhere.

[freewheeling]

What is the "replace path" supposed to do, and why isn't it doing it? Why can't I specify the path to the tuners? Why does it find tuners but misidentify the address, and then can't communicate with the tuners?

[flavius]

Could be a bug. However, with the more usual class c network (192.168.x.x) it is working fine here, no trouble getting it going.

[freewheeling]

What does "use local host encoder location" mean? Is there a difference between the encoder and the cable card? Does the encoder mean the tuners? Is the encoder some other software?

[freewheeling]

is there a way that I can redirect the traffic to the 202 location to 201, in the router perhaps? People who use a direct connection must be using an ethernet card and either a router or a switch. The address of the server computer isn't 10.0.1.202, it's 10.0.1.199. 10.0.1.200 is the HD200, and the HDHomeRunPrime is at 10.0.1.201 .

Should I be doing something with port mapping? I assume that if the other software has no problem finding the right address then I shouldn't have to fiddle with port mapping.

[freewheeling]

Originally Posted by flavius

Could be a bug. However, with the more usual class c network (192.168.x.x) it is working fine here, no trouble getting it going.

I'm setting it up with Windows Media Center on the theory that perhaps SageDCT will get a clue from that about where to look. I'm pretty disappointed in this technology especially since I'm out a few hundred bucks with nothing to show for it. I'm thinking support for SageTV has virtually evaporated at this point and Google is still sitting on their hands. There isn't really a good substitute for SageTV, but at least I can probably sell my extender at a profit until people figure out Google has consigned it to the doldrums. I suppose I can always pick up a cheap XBOX to use with WMC.

[freewheeling]

I finally got SageDCT to communicate with the tuners during the test and then generated the assignment file. I pasted that into SageTV but when I checked there were no channels identified, so SageDCT didn't actually assign the channels. I did a channel scan in SageTV and it found 422 tunable channels, but when I tried to preview them nothing ever shows up, in spite of the fact that the signal strength registers as 100%.

I'm at a loss. It works, but not really.

[jkohn]

Sage's channel preview doesn't work with SageDCT/HDHRPrime, so don't assume that means there is still something wrong.

[freewheeling]

I really don't understand what's going on with this setup. There are three more tuners added to the 2 QAM tuners, but their designation in SageTV is something like: SageDCT-HDHomeRun Prime Tuner 13113B39-2 on 10.0.1.202:6975 Digital TV Tuner:null

null?? Why would the word "null" be part of the name?
Shouldn't there be some reference to the Zap2It listing for the channels? How does it know what to look up in a guide? What's supposed to be at that port? I'm just missing the whole point here. Nothing seems to make sense.

[freewheeling]

Here are some verbose log files. I had to change the extension to txt to get them to upload. Anyway, it looks to my untrained eye that channels *are* being found, but I don't understand where SageTV is supposed to get the guide data.

[freewheeling]

I've read through most of the posts in this thread but I'd really appreciate one single place that explains how to set this up and what the heck is happening. There's a mention of logs and a request for verbose logs but there are a whole bunch of log files in that directory and I've no idea what the difference is between them or which logs would be helpful. It's not at all clear to me how SageTV is supposed to get information on channel lists, when there's nothing that relates channel numbers and names in the output txt file. If I do a scan in SageTV I get a bunch of channel numbers but no info on names. The channel lineup on the

Oh I give up. I need some information, and there doesn't seem to be any place to get it. Here's the "assignment" file. What's an assignment? Shouldn't there be more information on channels in this file? There doesn't seem to be much of anything in it. What's the significance of not using the local host?

???????

[loomdog32]

Steps I used to get HDHR3CC to work in Sage. Note I got it to work in both w7 SP1 x64 and XP SP3. I reinstalled the OS several times in the past couple weeks. My setup consists of Sage using 2xHDHR and HDHR3CC. Sage server 192.168.1.50, HDHR #1 192.168.1.61, HDHR #2 192.168.1.62, HDHR3CC 192.168.1.63 - All set statically via my router.

1 - Install Windows
2 - Install Drivers (minus HDHR)
3 - Install Sage
4 - Install AC3 Filter
5 - Install ffdshow
6 - Install HDHR
7 - configure AC3 Filter
8 - configure ffdshow
9 - Setup HDHR for QAM. I also checked the CC, but dont know if that important.
10 - Setup Sage, minus HDHR3CC
11 - STOP ALL SAGE SERVICES!!!
12 - Install SageDCT
13 - Enable UPnP on the Firewall
14 - Add SageDCT and SageDCTconfigure as Firewall Exceptions
15 - run configureSageDCT. Discovery Tab, Scan. Then Generate Assignments
16 - Copy Assignments to Sage.Properties
17 - TURN OFF FIREWALL (or open ports in Firewall)
18 - Open SageDCT and verify connectivity of HDHR3CC
19 - Start Sage
20 - The DCT tunners will already be in the tuner list. Add correct EPG and set correct channels you plan to tune.
**NOTE - using XP, Channel Preview does work for me. In Win7 it does not**
21 - Enjoy

I am currently setup using XP, my Windows Firewall is turned OFF. Sage has been stable running for 7 days w/ 0 missed recordings

**Note - SageDCT is set to look for 127.0.0.1:Port for Tuner** Yes this is the local loop. I believe this should be the computer running SageDCT, NOT the IP of the HDHR3CC

[freewheeling]

Originally Posted by loomdog32

Steps I used to get HDHR3CC to work in Sage. Note I got it to work in both w7 SP1 x64 and XP SP3. I reinstalled the OS several times in the past couple weeks. My setup consists of Sage using 2xHDHR and HDHR3CC. Sage server 192.168.1.50, HDHR #1 192.168.1.61, HDHR #2 192.168.1.62, HDHR3CC 192.168.1.63 - All set statically via my router.

1 - Install Windows
2 - Install Drivers (minus HDHR)
3 - Install Sage
4 - Install AC3 Filter
5 - Install ffdshow
6 - Install HDHR
7 - configure AC3 Filter
8 - configure ffdshow
9 - Setup HDHR for QAM. I also checked the CC, but dont know if that important.
10 - Setup Sage, minus HDHR3CC
11 - STOP ALL SAGE SERVICES!!!
12 - Install SageDCT
13 - Enable UPnP on the Firewall
14 - Add SageDCT and SageDCTconfigure as Firewall Exceptions
15 - run configureSageDCT. Discovery Tab, Scan. Then Generate Assignments
16 - Copy Assignments to Sage.Properties
17 - TURN OFF FIREWALL (or open ports in Firewall)
18 - Open SageDCT and verify connectivity of HDHR3CC
19 - Start Sage
20 - The DCT tunners will already be in the tuner list. Add correct EPG and set correct channels you plan to tune.
**NOTE - using XP, Channel Preview does work for me. In Win7 it does not**
21 - Enjoy

I am currently setup using XP, my Windows Firewall is turned OFF. Sage has been stable running for 7 days w/ 0 missed recordings

**Note - SageDCT is set to look for 127.0.0.1:Port for Tuner** Yes this is the local loop. I believe this should be the computer running SageDCT, NOT the IP of the HDHR3CC

Thanks. I figured out that all this stuff about address locations and subnet masks was mostly irrelevant. I'm not sure why DCT wasn't communicating with the card at first, but eventually it did. At that point I did as you suggested above but kept getting an empty channel lineup and when I scanned it created a bunch of channel numbers without any names or station IDs which was pretty useless.

At that point I finally decided to remove the sources and then add them back in. So I first removed all the sources, and then added them back one at a time, and it then asked me the appropriate questions about location, tuning method, service, etc.. When I got done the first time I did another scan and it again found a bunch of channel numbers without ID information, so I had to start all over again. At that point when I added the channel lineup I chose *not* to do a scan, and all the channels were there.

So, it initially was creating a source with a "null" channel lineup, which I had to remove and then add the DCT tuner back in, get the right ID info, etc..

I haven't seen anyone else who had to do this, so I had no idea I'd have to, or why. There simply isn't enough information for me to do more than take blind stabs at trouble-shooting, and I eventually just stumbled on the solution. Seems to work now.

Update: BTW, I'm not using the Windows Firewall, but Trend Micro Internet Security. However, turning off the Trend Micro (along with its firewall) had no appreciable effect on anything. When I turned it back on I got a few messages asking whether to allow certain actions, which I allowed, and after that it worked just fine.

So it was never a subnet mask issue or a firewall issue (although DCT wasn't communicating with the card for quite awhile and I don't know what I did to get that working). The issue was mostly the null channel lineup when it generated the source. That stands to reason, because I had no way to *give* the relevant information about location or service via SageDCT, so naturally it couldn't find any ID info. It presumably was supposed to look that up on the card, but didn't.

[loomdog32]

Step 20, let me elaborate

EPG Lineup:null <-- select that (either with the mouse or arrows and enter)

That will take you through the setup wizard to add the epg lineup.
Use you zip code and select your digital cable provider
After getting to the lineup **DO NOT SCAN**
Just mark/enable the channels that you want Sage to tune.

Then add the same lineup to the other 2 tuners


There is no need to remove and re-add the tuner.