HDHomeRun (HDHR) Prime + SageDCT

[mistergq]

After you add the tuner to sage, restart the computer. Don't know why, but mine worked after a computer restart.

also, are you using XP or Windows 7?

[freewheeling]

Well, it was working quite well last night when I went to bed, but had a halt during recording in the early morning and since then any attempt to what TV live creates a pixelated and choppy picture. I rebooted everything and it's still happening. Using the config tool I tried some tests, and the results are inconsistent. Sometimes it gets a response and sometimes it responds with "actively refused." I thought that perhaps the cable company reduced power on us, but the channels all still work fine in WMC and QuickTV, so it's only SageDCT that's the problem.

Beta.

I'm still thinking seriously about migrating to WMC. At least that works. It's closing in on a year since Google bought SageTV and I'm sure this is something the Sage people would have dealt with by now, if they were in the game. It looks like Google is just going to let this product die.

[freewheeling]

Is there a way to use my extender with Windows Media Center? I'm giving up on SageDCT. It's now back to not communicating with the tuners (the target actively refused the connection) and I can't even get the service to start.

I figure if I get Girder along with my USBUIRT I can use a remote with Windows Media Center and the guide interface isn't too bad. I imagine I'll only be able to use the extender to view recorded shows. I'd really prefer Sage, but I just can't get it to work reliably.

The QAM channels work OK (except for tuner 0) but that's maining because SageDCT is out of the loop and it doesn't have to deal with the CC. There's no getting SageDCT to work, at least not in its current form.

[freewheeling]

I discontinued the Trend Micro firewall and started Windows Firewall. (Checked to see that SageDCT, SageTV were allowed but didn't see anything about UPnP. Windows 7 instructions about UPnP are a bit vague and confusing. For instance, in Windows 7 there is no "exceptions tab" to click.) Anyway I uninstalled the SageDCT software (deleting all the old folders), restored the old Sage.properties file, rebooted the system. I then reinstalled the SageDCT software and configured SageDCT, conducted a scan, used the txt file to modify Sage.properties (after having turned off SageTV) and rebooted.

I then clicked on the EPG:null entry to input the information for all three tuners. Seems to work, even with HD, but *NOW I CAN'T CONNECT WITH MY HD200*. It says it's connecting and I get no error messages, but the screen is blank with "no signal."

So I turned off Windows Firewall and it connects. I then turned the firewall back on for Public Networks and it still seems to work. I'm not sure what to do about that UPnP thing. I allowed "network discovery" but is that the same thing?

I have a couple of NAT routers so turning off the firewall isn't a huge thing, except that both Windows and Trend Micro nag me about it.

So, working for now.

Update: Not any more. All I did was remove a few channels from the lineup and now nothing will play. Still works perfectly in WMC. I think that's about it. No reason to continue trying, it's just not gonna work consistently.

[loomdog32]

From my experience, you need Windows Firewall w/ UPnP turned on ONLY for discovery of the HDHR. Seems UPnP service is tied to the firewall service - boo MS...

The second firewall was defiantly causing issues. IMO multiple firewalls on a single computer are never a good idea.

And yes, in Windows 7, Network Discovery is UPnP.

[freewheeling]

Originally Posted by loomdog32

From my experience, you need Windows Firewall w/ UPnP turned on ONLY for discovery of the HDHR. Seems UPnP service is tied to the firewall service - boo MS...

The second firewall was defiantly causing issues. IMO multiple firewalls on a single computer are never a good idea.

And yes, in Windows 7, Network Discovery is UPnP.

Yeah, the firewalls were causing issues (although I never had both of them on at the same time). But ultimately that's not what kept SageDCT from working. It simply wasn't consistent. I've set up most of my recordings on WMC already, because it works like a charm with the HDHRP. I'm trying to figure out how to use the SageTV remote with WMC, or at least figure out some kind of remote to control it in Girder. If I could get SageDCT to work I'd hang in a little longer with SageTV, but the critical thing is that Google isn't doing anything with the product after 8 months, which suggests they're probably never going to get it together. It's nice to be able to buy a company and then just throw it away.

[KJake]

Originally Posted by freewheeling

It's nice to be able to buy a company and then just throw it away.

They haven't thrown away the IP or employees:

Originally Posted by Narflex

I still work on SageTV every day along with the whole team from SageTV before it was bought. SageTV is not dead. Ohhh....I wish I could say more...but that time has not come yet....

You're getting upset about a third-party program that was designed by Andy on Windows 7 with no firewall and for the Ceton CC tuner. He still calls it beta, and obviously doesn't have the resources to test it on each possible configuration.

The fact that he released it and added support for the HDHR3CC is a blessing.

My advise, try and get it working in the environment it was designed for first, then try and make it fit into yours.

Most of us have this working with little effort, so to continue to lay blame on SageDCT or Sage is ignoring the obvious.

[mistergq]

I am not sure what to tell you. SageDCT just works for plenty of us. You have already found one problem caused because using non-windows firewire. These problems could be caused by something installed on your computer or weak signal. I had to stop using Colossus because of an incompatibility issue between Colossus and FIOS where the sound would lose sync after local commercial. That does not mean Hauppauge made a crappy product or it was Sage's fault. It is what it is.

I have a feeling that once you start using WMC consistently, you are going to have this same problem.

There will be errors, but they are rare and far few between. Its not perfect but nothing is.

As to Sage being dead, Jeff has already spoke on this, but you know that as well.

[freewheeling]

Originally Posted by KJake

They haven't thrown away the IP or employees:



You're getting upset about a third-party program that was designed by Andy on Windows 7 with no firewall and for the Ceton CC tuner. He still calls it beta, and obviously doesn't have the resources to test it on each possible configuration.

The fact that he released it and added support for the HDHR3CC is a blessing.

My advise, try and get it working in the environment it was designed for first, then try and make it fit into yours.

Most of us have this working with little effort, so to continue to lay blame on SageDCT or Sage is ignoring the obvious.

You are probably right on all counts, except for the last point. I have the environment I have, and in that environment there's no way to get SageDCT to work. Or, at least, there isn't enough information to give me a decent shot at trouble-shooting. I also don't think this environment is all that different, since everything else seems to work with it just fine.

As to the other stuff, it doesn't really make sense that Google bought Sage in order to trash it, especially since the Sage team is now working for Google. So they're going to do *something* with it. And it would also be stupid to throw away a dedicated and knowledgeable user base, although there's no law against doing something stupid. I don't think Google is stupid though.

I have set up one of the tuners to use with SageTV as a QAM device, since that seems to work. The other two cablecard tuners I'll have to use with WMC, at least until SageDCT sufficiently works out the kinks that it functions at least as well as VLC. That is, until it reliably tunes using the cable card and doesn't drop or degrade communication with the tuners.

At some point I'll have to make a decision to switch to something else, but I can wait awhile longer. Using WMC isn't a great workaround, but at least it *does* work, and I can probably even autoconvert the wtv files so that I can at least import them into SageTV.

[freewheeling]

By the way, the other thing I haven't mentioned is that I have friends who are interested in setting up an HTPC system of some sort. I can't really advise them to use SageTV even though I think it's better than the others, because of the Google uncertainty. So their *only* option with a Windows-based server is Windows Media Center. Since they're really into sports WMC has a nice dedicated interface that would allow them to record like crazy. But they're going to have to use XBOXes as extenders, and once they get those they're kind of locked in.

So, I really wish Google would get their hurry on.

[freewheeling]

Originally Posted by mistergq

I am not sure what to tell you. SageDCT just works for plenty of us. You have already found one problem caused because using non-windows firewire. These problems could be caused by something installed on your computer or weak signal. I had to stop using Colossus because of an incompatibility issue between Colossus and FIOS where the sound would lose sync after local commercial. That does not mean Hauppauge made a crappy product or it was Sage's fault. It is what it is.

I have a feeling that once you start using WMC consistently, you are going to have this same problem.

There will be errors, but they are rare and far few between. Its not perfect but nothing is.

As to Sage being dead, Jeff has already spoke on this, but you know that as well.

If there's something unique about my environment it doesn't seem to impact any of the other programs that can access the cable card tuners. It's pretty unique to SageDCT. It's fairly typical beta software. It will work for some people and not for others. Yes, that's probably because of something in my setup, but it's not something so exotic that it impacts anything else. So far WMC has worked without a glitch. So does VLC, QuickTV, etc..

I don't think Sage is dead. That wouldn't make any kind of sense, especially in light of what Jeff has said. And I expect that SageDCT will eventually work even for me. It just doesn't work now.

[freewheeling]

Just for information purposes for anyone else in my situation, for whom SageDCT doesn't work but WMC does, here's a workaround. After installing WMC you can install something called WtvWatcher. It watches your recording directory and converts everything from wtv (which SageTV can't play) to dvr-ms (which SageTV can play). You can then add the directory to Sage's import list. There's a plugin for SageTV that creates a TV browser that will list the programs recorded by WMC (and anything else) in a coherent Sage directory under TV, so you don't have to use the Video function.

There's another plugin by babvant for WMC that will do a bunch of other stuff, including commercial skipping, but I haven't been able to get it to work yet. It's called, rather sexily, DVRMSToolBox. There's an option to install ShowAnalyzer, but I'm not sure which version it installs. Version 1 can supposedly read wtv files. I can't figure out how to determine which version of ShowAnalyzer I have installed, but it *is* registered. Maybe it'll just start working in WMC as it did in SageTV, by some kind of magic.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by freewheeling

Just for information purposes for anyone else in my situation, for whom SageDCT doesn't work but WMC does, here's a workaround. After installing WMC you can install something called WtvWatcher. It watches your recording directory and converts everything from wtv (which SageTV can't play) to dvr-ms (which SageTV can play).

SageMCTuner would probably be easier...

[tmiranda]

Now if you could only figure out a way so that I can record and play shows marked as copy once in SageTV I think I'd be one of the happiest people on the planet.

I'm still begging my cable company to change the flag to copy freely, but I think it will be a lost cause.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by 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.

Can you email me (andyvt @ babgvant com) a complete verbose log? The tuners are being found but there's not enough info in there for what's going wrong.

[phelme]

Originally Posted by 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

Anyone switched to this beta 20120128? Seem to be getting a lot more "Capture Device Failures" since upgrading myself.

[freewheeling]

Originally Posted by babgvant

SageMCTuner would probably be easier...

A bit, yeah! LOL

[freewheeling]

Originally Posted by phelme

Anyone switched to this beta 20120128? Seem to be getting a lot more "Capture Device Failures" since upgrading myself.

Try 20120124beta2 . It's been out for a few days.

OOps, sorry. I didn't know they already had another out. Thanks for the warning.

[freewheeling]

Originally Posted by babgvant

The current implementation uses the MPEG muxer in AVIVO so that will need to be installed.

I have Catalyst installed. Is that the same thing?

[freewheeling]

Originally Posted by babgvant

Can you email me (andyvt @ babgvant com) a complete verbose log? The tuners are being found but there's not enough info in there for what's going wrong.

What is a complete verbose log? There are about 30 or so separate log files, but two that are large (234,000 and 984,000 KB respectively). I've installed and uninstalled prolly a couple dozen times. :-)