HDHomeRun (HDHR) Prime + SageDCT

[FMAX]

I watch mainly HD content, my wife watches GloboTV, ala carte...
I recently set up the Prime and all was working smoothly since January.
3 weeks ago the day before my in-laws came to town, No Signal????
a few of my SD channels also no signal. I tried multiple scenerios, never same results?
One time I could not get preview on Prime-0 or Prime-1, but same channel on Prime-2 ok????
HDHR software always showed subscribed, not copy once like HBO.
HDHR Quick TV worked fine, Sage TV no Signal?
Then a few of my HD signals went out?
Signal strength always shows 89-100%( not that that means anything...)

Is it a signal problem, why does Quick TV work and Sage does not?
I am on Comcast.
This all started mid April, same as everyone else???

Bouncing Ideas...Anyone?

[mechling-burgh]

I have the Prime installed on my XP box works great but for the occasional halt. My question is are people have halts on windows 7 also or is it more an XP problem? If its happening on both OS's how many of you with the halts have a realtek network card. I had windows 7 on my server for a little while but went back to XP because it seemed to run a little better. If the halt problem is windows XP I would give Windows 7 a try again maybe with an ss drive.

[davefred99]

Originally Posted by mechling-burgh

I have the Prime installed on my XP box works great but for the occasional halt. My question is are people have halts on windows 7 also or is it more an XP problem? If its happening on both OS's how many of you with the halts have a realtek network card. I had windows 7 on my server for a little while but went back to XP because it seemed to run a little better. If the halt problem is windows XP I would give Windows 7 a try again maybe with an ss drive.

Could you describe a little more detail on your halts issue. I just this week installed SageDCT on my aging Sage XP Server. For the most part I could not be happier however I have had a few instances where I am doing lots of putsing around on my Hd100 extender where it will freeze up for a few seconds. I was not sure if it was more related to the slow HD100 extender of more related to my server. I am only using a AMD 2400 single core XP processor but it has worked pretty well in Server mode up for some time now. I do not use it to watch live TV ever. Instead I use the Hd 100 Extender or my dual core Laptop with sage extender on it.

I am thinking of rebuilding My server with Win7 and a current/faster processor but am also considering building a new HTPC with MediaCenter on it instead or perhaps both MCE and Sage Extender and leaving my Sage Server as is.

[phelme]

Originally Posted by mechling-burgh

I have the Prime installed on my XP box works great but for the occasional halt. My question is are people have halts on windows 7 also or is it more an XP problem? If its happening on both OS's how many of you with the halts have a realtek network card. I had windows 7 on my server for a little while but went back to XP because it seemed to run a little better. If the halt problem is windows XP I would give Windows 7 a try again maybe with an ss drive.

I get the occasional halt too on XP and wonder the same thing. There appear to be additional PBDA options on Win 7 that aren't available to us and wonder if that's really an advantage.

My halts/device failures come in two flavors: those that happen when a tuner coming off of a recording is asked to record immediately again and the other, of which I had one or two this week, where SageTV itself decided the tuner isn't working (even though it appears to be according to the SageDCT logs and reported file size increases), shuts down the stream and another is started. Doesn't appear to be a pattern for either occurrence that I can see.

SS drive? You mean as the system disk? Can't see an advantage for recordings (yet anyway).

[mechling-burgh]

My halts just seem to be random, I don't see anything in the SageDCT log file either. I will admit I have the logging set to important only. I've had the SageDCT on a test machine running in demo mode before I move it to the production server. It's an AMD 3800 with a realtek network 10/100 card. The sageTV server is a Core Duo with a realtek 10/100/1000. I was just checking to see if I should go to windows 7 before moving it to the production server. ss drive I meant a solid state c: drive for OS only.

[phelme]

Originally Posted by mechling-burgh

My halts just seem to be random, I don't see anything in the SageDCT log file either. I will admit I have the logging set to important only. I've had the SageDCT on a test machine running in demo mode before I move it to the production server. It's an AMD 3800 with a realtek network 10/100 card. The sageTV server is a Core Duo with a realtek 10/100/1000. I was just checking to see if I should go to windows 7 before moving it to the production server. ss drive I meant a solid state c: drive for OS only.

Might want to try an Intel NIC and see if that helps. They handle larger amounts of data better than the RealTek offerings. I've definitely seen lower CPU usage and SageDCT is much better behaved when the Prime is running all tuners since switching to one.

[KJake]

Originally Posted by phelme

Might want to try an Intel NIC and see if that helps. They handle larger amounts of data better than the RealTek offerings. I've definitely seen lower CPU usage and SageDCT is much better behaved when the Prime is running all tuners since switching to one.

I'm ready to do this on my setup. With the tweaking that I've done, I can say that 2 simultaneous recordings will work 99% of the time, but if I have a 3rd in there, it is a crapshoot. I don't usually get halts and the resulting recording plays fine, BUT it is about half the show and the timeline jumps about 7 seconds for each second.

I've tried adjusting the buffers in SageDCT, but I think this is just down to my network card. The switches that these systems are connected to are all gigabit, so there is plenty of bandwidth available...

[doncote0]

Originally Posted by KJake

I'm ready to do this on my setup. With the tweaking that I've done, I can say that 2 simultaneous recordings will work 99% of the time, but if I have a 3rd in there, it is a crapshoot. I don't usually get halts and the resulting recording plays fine, BUT it is about half the show and the timeline jumps about 7 seconds for each second.

I've tried adjusting the buffers in SageDCT, but I think this is just down to my network card. The switches that these systems are connected to are all gigabit, so there is plenty of bandwidth available...

Try this.

(bounce.bat)

echo off
net stop sagedct
net stop "hdhomerun service"
taskkill /f /im sagetv.exe
net stop sagetv
timeout /t 1 /nobreak
del /q c:\sagetv\sagetv\logs\*.log
del /q c:\sagetv\sagetv\*.log
timeout /t 1 /nobreak
net start "hdhomerun service"
timeout /t 5 /nobreak
net start sagedct
timeout /t 10 /nobreak
start /b %comspec% /q/k"C:\sagetv\sageGoUp.bat"
REM adjust timeout below for sage to come up fully
timeout /t 40 /nobreak
net stop sagedct
taskkill /f /im sagetv.exe
net stop sagetv
net stop "hdhomerun service"
timeout /t 1 /nobreak
del /q c:\sagetv\sagetv\logs\*.log
del /q c:\sagetv\sagetv\*.log
timeout /t 5 /nobreak
net start sagedct
timeout /t 10 /nobreak
start /b %comspec% /q/k"C:\sagetv\sageGoUp.bat"
REM adjust timeout below for sage to come up fully with 10 seconds to spare
timeout /t 60 /nobreak
net start "hdhomerun service"
timeout /t 1 /nobreak
taskkill /f /im cmd.exe
exit

(sagegoup.bat)
C:\sagetv\SageTV\SageTV.exe
EXIT

I say works most of the time because sometimes it seems like the Prime locks out one of the controllers. For example, nothing is recording but one of the Prime indicators is lit. For those times, shutting down the sagedct, bouncing the "hdhomerun service", testing all 3 prime channels using the hdhomerun setup, shutting down the hdhomerun service and starting the sagedct service before running that script seems to work. It's a little cumbersome, but I've gotten used to doing it every other week or so.

The main issues are about 99% from reboots. I have my computer reboot only weekly on Wednesday mornings (supporting Microsoft patch Tuesday updates).

You do not have to try this, but cheap is good and free is better as far as my solutions go. I might change this to a vbscript or exe someday, but I am fine with it now. I am using Windows 7.

A few items of note, if you cannot do the test from with SageDCT (sends a 1), the prime tuners will probably fail.
My weekly reboot is scheduled followed by that bat file which runs as soon as a network adapter connects (as a startup task).
Manual run has no problem, but the task run will hide the ui (not sure why) but sage will still be up and running. To restore the ui after a boot run this manually:

(sagegui.bat)
taskkill /f /im sagetv.exe
timeout /t 2 /nobreak
start "sage" "C:\sagetv\SageTV\SageTV.exe" -startup
timeout /t 1 /nobreak

(If I made it a vbscript, I probably wouldn't have this issue.)

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by doncote0

net stop "hdhomerun service"

FWIW, unless you are using other HDHR products this service can be disabled.

[doncote0]

Originally Posted by babgvant

FWIW, unless you are using other HDHR products this service can be disabled.

I am using 4 other HDHR tuners, so I still need it.

[GTwannabe]

How well does HDHomeRun Prime work? I had a HDHomeRun until Cablevision encrypted the broadcast channels (also, it ran hot and fried itself). Cablevision just yanked analog cable, so my Hauppauge PVR-500 is now useless and I'm dead in the water

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by GTwannabe

How well does HDHomeRun Prime work? I had a HDHomeRun until Cablevision encrypted the broadcast channels (also, it ran hot and fried itself). Cablevision just yanked analog cable, so my Hauppauge PVR-500 is now useless and I'm dead in the water

Mine is very solid.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by GTwannabe

How well does HDHomeRun Prime work? I had a HDHomeRun until Cablevision encrypted the broadcast channels (also, it ran hot and fried itself). Cablevision just yanked analog cable, so my Hauppauge PVR-500 is now useless and I'm dead in the water

Originally Posted by babgvant

Mine is very solid.

Same here. Solid with no errors.

Gerry

[jbuszkie]

Originally Posted by GTwannabe

How well does HDHomeRun Prime work? I had a HDHomeRun until Cablevision encrypted the broadcast channels (also, it ran hot and fried itself). Cablevision just yanked analog cable, so my Hauppauge PVR-500 is now useless and I'm dead in the water

I think you will find mixed results. There are several people in this thread that have had lots of issues. and other where it just works. You have to ask yourself... does Cablevision put the copy-once flag on all their programs? If so then the prime will be useless as I understand it.

Mine.. I'm in the "it mostly just works" category I get occasional halts.. But it's better than it was when I first got it.

If the money isn't a issue.. then go for it. You can probably sell it on e-bay
if it doesn't work out. There is also the Hauppauge HD PVR. Or firewire recording from the cable box.

Good luck!

Jim

[GTwannabe]

Originally Posted by jbuszkie

I think you will find mixed results. There are several people in this thread that have had lots of issues. and other where it just works. You have to ask yourself... does Cablevision put the copy-once flag on all their programs? If so then the prime will be useless as I understand it.

Mine.. I'm in the "it mostly just works" category I get occasional halts.. But it's better than it was when I first got it.

If the money isn't a issue.. then go for it. You can probably sell it on e-bay
if it doesn't work out. There is also the Hauppauge HD PVR. Or firewire recording from the cable box.

Good luck!

Jim

Reviews say it works with Cablevision, but I hate paying them $115/month for internet and TV.

[phelme]

Originally Posted by babgvant

Mine is very solid.

Since I got a clue and increased my "RTP Delay" this week, I haven't had a failure either. Also put in a "tilt compensator" before the Prime input to prevent overload on the lower frequencies which was happening on a couple channels I watch (Velocity, HistoryHD).

[stewart710]

Can anyone give me any advice on what my problem is? Somedays I get my channels, other days, I get No Signal on the same channel. I have a HDHR Prime w/ Comcast Cablecard connected after my powered splitter where it comes into the house. Today NickHD and COmedyCentralHD were not working the past few days they were. I'm new to the HDHR and SageDCt, but I have been using Sagetv and Firewire recording for years. All of the channels work well in the QuickTV program, so its not encryption. Are there some settings I should be playing with? Thanks in advance, I'm on the verge of selling the HDHR Prime and just going back to one tuner with firewire. Server computer is using SageTV 7, Windows 7 32bit, 4gb ram, 8600GT graphics.

[phelme]

Originally Posted by stewart710

Can anyone give me any advice on what my problem is? Somedays I get my channels, other days, I get No Signal on the same channel. I have a HDHR Prime w/ Comcast Cablecard connected after my powered splitter where it comes into the house. Today NickHD and COmedyCentralHD were not working the past few days they were. I'm new to the HDHR and SageDCt, but I have been using Sagetv and Firewire recording for years. All of the channels work well in the QuickTV program, so its not encryption. Are there some settings I should be playing with? Thanks in advance, I'm on the verge of selling the HDHR Prime and just going back to one tuner with firewire. Server computer is using SageTV 7, Windows 7 32bit, 4gb ram, 8600GT graphics.

Try checking your signal levels in the Prime web page or using the HDHomeRun Config app on your PC.

[phelme]

Ugh. Another day, another 2.5 GB SageDCT log file (all in the space of 18 hours).

Looks like the bulk of the lines are like this:

2012/05/18 19:09:32.90 : Error ProcessPackets: An unexpected network error occurred.

or this:

2012/05/18 19:09:35.90 : RTP Sequence Error Last: 53114 Current: 7183

and before that started happening, there were a few of these:

2012/05/18 19:09:24.02 : ProcessMessage 7000: GET_FILE_SIZE \\SAGETV-SERVER\Recordings\Jeopardy-S28E175-DCPowerPlayers-16319175-0.ts
2012/05/18 19:09:24.05 : Error ProcessPackets: The specified network name is no longer available.

Since what I think is happening for the latter failure is it's trying to get the local file via the loopback (because of the UNC path), that's very odd that it would malfunction. Could be the XP firewall failing... who knows.

About ready to try upgrading to Windows 7 if this keeps up.

[zoop]

just to add $0.02, phelme all of my problems went away after ditching XP and moving to the consumer preview of win8. if you don't feel like buying 7, try 8 and see what it does for you (IE: does it fix it).

also, the latest version of the firmware is clearly superior to any they have released, absolutely solid.

/jer