HDHomeRun (HDHR) Prime + SageDCT

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by themeister

I'm not talking about a "hard" link between the tuner and the disk. Bandwidth optimization is what you want. I meant that if you have 3 streams, then you need 3 physically separate capture devices, all of which are in the server, not network-attached.

That is not quite right I have 5 network attached capture devices for a total of 12 tuners connected to a switch that is connected to 1 NIC on my Server and also have 2 or more clients connected to the switch and I have not experienced dropouts. A few times I had all 12 recording and clients attached and have not experienced dropouts.

It is not like you are flooding the network as if you are copying files. Recording a 2 hour show in HD does not take that much bandwidth as it is done through a 2 hr. period.

[themeister]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

That is not quite right I have 5 network attached capture devices for a total of 12 tuners connected to a switch that is connected to 1 NIC on my Server and also have 2 or more clients connected to the switch and I have not experienced dropouts. A few times I had all 12 recording and clients attached and have not experienced dropouts.

Are you using ffmpeg? What level of code do you have in the HDHR Prime? I only experienced this when I moved to ffmpeg. Before that, I had streams feeding a single RAID-5 array.

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by themeister

Are you using ffmpeg? What level of code do you have in the HDHR Prime? I only experienced this when I moved to ffmpeg. Before that, I had streams feeding a single RAID-5 array.

I am using FFMPEG and am using the latest Beta firmware on my prime. I am also using the onboard Gigabit Nic on my I3. I was using a PCIE Intel nic but I needed the slot and found out that my onboard worked just fine.... I am recording to 4 drives (BandWidth) and do not use UNC paths.

[themeister]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

I am using FFMPEG and am using the latest Beta firmware on my prime. I am also using the onboard Gigabit Nic on my I3. I was using a PCIE Intel nic but I needed the slot and found out that my onboard worked just fine.... I am recording to 4 drives (BandWidth) and do not use UNC paths.

I'm positive that my problem is not the NIC or the switch. I tried both on-board and Intel PCI NICs, both gigabit. Attached the Prime directly to both NICs and still had the problem. Signal strength is excellent. I found that rebooting the Prime at lease once a week helps reduce droppage (it gets worse in time) and adding another disk helped. I'm running 2014121 in the Prime. Kind of afraid to upgrade because you can't go back.

[waylo]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

I am using FFMPEG and am using the latest Beta firmware on my prime. I am also using the onboard Gigabit Nic on my I3. I was using a PCIE Intel nic but I needed the slot and found out that my onboard worked just fine.... I am recording to 4 drives (BandWidth) and do not use UNC paths.

Did you find UNC paths slow things down? Or just your preference not to use them?

I have the setup listed below in my sig, with the HD Prime and the original HDHR hooked directly into my router. The router then goes to a Powerline network, which is where my server picks up the network.

I find that with 3 HD streams recording, or 1 client trying to pull data while the server is recording 2 HD streams, the recordings start becoming extremely choppy to the point of not being watchable.

I use UNC paths because I like comskip to work on my clients.

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by waylo

Did you find UNC paths slow things down? Or just your preference not to use them?

I have the setup listed below in my sig, with the HD Prime and the original HDHR hooked directly into my router. The router then goes to a Powerline network, which is where my server picks up the network.

I find that with 3 HD streams recording, or 1 client trying to pull data while the server is recording 2 HD streams, the recordings start becoming extremely choppy to the point of not being watchable.

I use UNC paths because I like comskip to work on my clients.

I do not use unc because I find it more reliable not to. No extra load on the NIC when using SageDCT. All my clients use mapped drives so using comskip is no problem at all. This was recommended by Andy the author of SageDCT .

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...postcount=1008

[waylo]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

I do not use unc because I find it more reliable not to. No extra load on the NIC when using SageDCT. All my clients use mapped drives so using comskip is no problem at all. This was recommended by Andy the author of SageDCT .

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...postcount=1008

Thanks for the info suggesting mapped drives over UNC. I remember reading that post while reviewing this MONSTER thread!

A quick question reviewing my understanding of mapped drives: so does each client individually need to map the drives on the server to the same letters? I use some mapped drives for my local network but I'm not familiar with how drive mapping works within SageTV server/client interactions.

[NetworkGuy]

Originally Posted by waylo

I use UNC paths because I like comskip to work on my clients.

So if I stop using UNC paths, comskip will not work on the extenders?

[nyplayer]

Extenders do not care if you use unc paths or not comskip will work. The server streams everything to the extenders... So it is as if you are viewing on the Server. If you are using only Extenders I would not even use UNC paths.

[NetworkGuy]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

Extenders do not care if you use unc paths or not comskip will work. The server streams everything to the extenders... So it is as if you are viewing on the Server. If you are using only Extenders I would not even use UNC paths.

I removed the UNC paths for recording directories. We will see if that helps with the pixilation.

Thanks,
John

[KryptoNyte]

Hi. I can re-create the black-screen problem in SageTV on command.

The relatives that I just got setup here with Charter ... it was an interesting scenario. We had Charter out to the house last week to dial in the cable card and tuning adapter properly so that we were receiving all channels. Then, on Tuesday, in this particular market, they decided to perform the digital upgrade.

I found the new lineup in Sage this weekend (called Charter Rebuild, or something like that) and dialed in all their channels again. Strangely, Sage was now unable to tune - (or rather view) black screen - 10 or 20 stations that they should have been receiving. I thought it was a problem with the cablecard and tuning adapter, so started chasing that down when I realized that I could tell Sage to record that bad station, and although Sage couldn't render it, VLC could without issue.

I remembered reading about it in this thread, so I ended up switch to FFmpeg in SageDCT and it worked, but seems to hit this slower computer much harder on CPU usage, so kind of disappointed with this coincidence of them upgrading to digital just as I was dialing all this in.

Is there a better solution?

If a sample of the problem video file would help, just let me know via PM and I'll make one available.

[NetworkGuy]

Originally Posted by NetworkGuy

I removed the UNC paths for recording directories. We will see if that helps with the pixilation.

Thanks,
John

Still have the pixilation problem not using the UNC Paths.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks,
John

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by NetworkGuy

Still have the pixilation problem not using the UNC Paths.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks,
John

I do not know what else to tell you. In my case I finally had to leave Sage I cannot even render half of my OTA recordings. Especially ABC and NBC ... just was getting a black screen with the spinning circle. Hope somebody else can help.

[WellThen]

Before I start trying to read through the 95 pages of this thread, can someone briefly tell me whether using HDHomeRun Prime with Sage is still considered viable? My original HDHomeRun is getting flaky with reception problems, and I'm wondering if I should go back to getting my recordings from Cable (Comcast, metro Detroit). Thanks!

[FriscoJohn]

Working great for me. Just be sure your cable company doesn't put DRM on. Comcast SF leave everything as copy freely except the extra-pay premium channels. Only Windows Media Center can handle those.

[FriscoJohn]

Oh, one more thing, you'll need Babgvant's SageDCT (donator version). Well worth the $5 donation.

[WellThen]

Originally Posted by FriscoJohn

Working great for me. Just be sure your cable company doesn't put DRM on. Comcast SF leave everything as copy freely except the extra-pay premium channels. Only Windows Media Center can handle those.

Thanks for the reply, FriscoJohn. And thanks for the tip about Babgvant's SageDCT (donator version).

Are you aware of any post that neatly summarizes the necessary steps to get the Prime working with SageTV? Or am I in for the full thread read?

[FriscoJohn]

You might want to look at my first post in the thread and the responses. Good Luck.

[sjwoo]

Originally Posted by WellThen

Before I start trying to read through the 95 pages of this thread, can someone briefly tell me whether using HDHomeRun Prime with Sage is still considered viable? My original HDHomeRun is getting flaky with reception problems, and I'm wondering if I should go back to getting my recordings from Cable (Comcast, metro Detroit). Thanks!

The only thing I had to do was buy another video card -- I had trouble using the Sage MPEG decoder for video. But the card, after rebate, was $10! So no complaints. Everything is working perfectly now with SageDCT (donated version -- like everyone says, well worth the 5 bucks). Win 7 x64 + Sage + SageDCT + HDHomeRun Prime.

Also, I had to install LM Remote Keymap in addition to the x64 Streamzap remote driver. Without LM Remote Keymap, there was a horrible delay.

[waylo]

Originally Posted by WellThen

Thanks for the reply, FriscoJohn. And thanks for the tip about Babgvant's SageDCT (donator version).

Are you aware of any post that neatly summarizes the necessary steps to get the Prime working with SageTV? Or am I in for the full thread read?

This post has a decent summary. If you're on Win7, SageDCT should automatically open ports and such on the Windows firewall, I believe. I was/am on XP and it needed a lot of tinkering.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...postcount=1360