HDHomeRun (HDHR) Prime + SageDCT

[jal]

Killed it and restarted, now showing the lineup, went to Program Guide, selected a channel to watch, and got the old error (haven't seen this one in 2 days), "There is no tuner available". Went back into Setup Sources, opened the tuner says "Functioning: False". The last time I got that error it was the firewall, maybe I'll play around with that again. This is really hard (sigh).

[jal]

I got frustrated with Sage again so I loaded up NPVR again. Thanks to you, I had a 'real' channel list this time around, did not have to do any more manual mappings and so NPVR is working fine. Maybe it's time for me to say welcome to NPVR and goodbye to Sage, I don't seem to have the brains to figure Sage out (much as I love that software when it 's up and running properly).

Seems no matter what I try, all I get is a zero-byte file with Sage.

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by jal

I got frustrated with Sage again so I loaded up NPVR again. Thanks to you, I had a 'real' channel list this time around, did not have to do any more manual mappings and so NPVR is working fine. Maybe it's time for me to say welcome to NPVR and goodbye to Sage, I don't seem to have the brains to figure Sage out (much as I love that software when it 's up and running properly).

Seems no matter what I try, all I get is a zero-byte file with Sage.

SageTV unfortunately does not Natively support the prime it needs SageDCT to work it is a pain to setup.. I am only running Sage on my test system and went to WMC on my main Sytem. I found WMC Media Browser, Android Pad and a Roku hard to beat.

[jal]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

SageTV unfortunately does not Natively support the prime it needs SageDCT to work it is a pain to setup.. I am only running Sage on my test system and went to WMC on my main Sytem. I found WMC Media Browser, Android Pad and a Roku hard to beat.

Thanks! I have never heard of Roku, I'll be looking into it now. One question. Our main TV is a fairly modern HDTV (about a year old) but isn't internet ready (it doesn't have any internet connectivity per the manual). Can I still use a Roku with it? If so, what kind of cables would connect the Roku to the TV?

[jal]

Ok I found it, for the Roku all i need is AV cables and/or HDMI or something like that. Sounds really good. Thanks again!

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by jal

Ok I found it, for the Roku all i need is AV cables and/or HDMI or something like that. Sounds really good. Thanks again!

You will need Internet connection for the Roku not the TV. New Rokus are HDMI

[jal]

I played around with it some more. Turns out Sage is actually doing some recording despite the 'No Signal' message. Here are some of the quirks that I'm finding:
(1) I have a 2ndary hard drive. When I use a folder on that drive for recording, SageTV creates zero-byte files. When I use a folder on the cdrive (one I randomly created) I get sizeable recordings. What's odd is that the permissions structure on both folders is the same - full control is given to System, Administrators, Romeo (me). Both drives are NTFS formatted.
(2) Another thing that fooled me is that the channel list is oversized. If I select a channel we are not signed up for, I get zero byte files.

(3) I can play the good files in WMP. And if a recording has been completed, I can play it back in Sage. The problem right now, therefore, is the 'No signal' on LiveTV. What's really weird is that I occasionally do get live tv, if I try a station about 15 times, maybe once in the 15 tries I can see LiveTV. Typically what happens is that I first see it playing in the Video preview window and then I can tune it live. Weird.

MPEG-2 Decoder: Sage MPEG-2 Decoder
h.264 Decoder: ffdshow

[waylo]

Originally Posted by jal

I played around with it some more. Turns out Sage is actually doing some recording despite the 'No Signal' message. Here are some of the quirks that I'm finding:
(1) I have a 2ndary hard drive. When I use a folder on that drive for recording, SageTV creates zero-byte files. When I use a folder on the cdrive (one I randomly created) I get sizeable recordings. What's odd is that the permissions structure on both folders is the same - full control is given to System, Administrators, Romeo (me). Both drives are NTFS formatted.
(2) Another thing that fooled me is that the channel list is oversized. If I select a channel we are not signed up for, I get zero byte files.

(3) I can play the good files in WMP. And if a recording has been completed, I can play it back in Sage. The problem right now, therefore, is the 'No signal' on LiveTV. What's really weird is that I occasionally do get live tv, if I try a station about 15 times, maybe once in the 15 tries I can see LiveTV. Typically what happens is that I first see it playing in the Video preview window and then I can tune it live. Weird.

MPEG-2 Decoder: Sage MPEG-2 Decoder
h.264 Decoder: ffdshow

I think at least for problem #3 you are encountering what many of us have here.

I think the common denominators are (please correct if your situation is different):

Win 7
SageDCT contributor v2.7.0.2, using default DUMP recording method.

For some reason, the DUMP method of recording produces files that SageTV cannot render, and may return a "render error" when attempting to play those files (or attempting to watch while recording). Using VLC or other playback methods gives a fully functional video. But SageTV cannot playback these files.

This does not happen all the time either.

Some have recommended changing to the ffmpeg version of recording in the SageDCT settings. I found this resulted in viewable recordings all the time, but they were quite choppy.

EDIT: Oh, just saw that you were on Windows 8. Well, maybe the same fix attempts will help.

[jal]

Originally Posted by waylo

I think at least for problem #3 you are encountering what many of us have here.

I think the common denominators are (please correct if your situation is different):

Win 7
SageDCT contributor v2.7.0.2, using default DUMP recording method.

For some reason, the DUMP method of recording produces files that SageTV cannot render, and may return a "render error" when attempting to play those files (or attempting to watch while recording). Using VLC or other playback methods gives a fully functional video. But SageTV cannot playback these files.

This does not happen all the time either.

Some have recommended changing to the ffmpeg version of recording in the SageDCT settings. I found this resulted in viewable recordings all the time, but they were quite choppy.

EDIT: Oh, just saw that you were on Windows 8. Well, maybe the same fix attempts will help.

I've got SageDCT 2.6 if I recall. I put in the $5.00 donation but I don't think I got a response. I suppose you saw the 'render error' in the log, I forgot to check the log, so the only error I saw was the 'No Signal' onscreen. Thank you so much for the info!

[waylo]

Originally Posted by jal

I've got SageDCT 2.6 if I recall. I put in the $5.00 donation but I don't think I got a response. I suppose you saw the 'render error' in the log, I forgot to check the log, so the only error I saw was the 'No Signal' onscreen. Thank you so much for the info!

Well shoot, some of my theories are not panning out for you then.

The render error is when you try to view the actual recorded file in SageTV directly. The program will sit there, spin its circle for a while, and then return a rendering error on screen.

[jal]

Originally Posted by waylo

Well shoot, some of my theories are not panning out for you then.

The render error is when you try to view the actual recorded file in SageTV directly. The program will sit there, spin its circle for a while, and then return a rendering error on screen.

Thanks for the update. I probably need to learn how to use GraphStudio. But given that I know absolute zero about audio and video codecs, the task seems too daunting...

[jal]

What's so mysterious about the lack of live tv is that Sage CAN and DOES play these .ts files - if the show is fully recorded they playback just fine in Sage. I just can't play them when they are still live. Weird.

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by jal

What's so mysterious about the lack of live tv is that Sage CAN and DOES play these .ts files - if the show is fully recorded they playback just fine in Sage. I just can't play them when they are still live. Weird.

Unless you can detect and see channels in the prime web page you are just beating a dead horse. look at screenshot. if you cannot see your channels your Cable Card is not paired correctly. Trying to get Sage to work with the Prime before making sure the Prime is working and channels are correct is like putting the cart before the horse. If you can post screen shots of the Prime webpage and not the HDHomerun setup.

[jal]

I thought we talked about that the other day - remember I said I called comcast back raging that they hadn't provisioned correctly and so they fixed it (or maybe I was telling someone other than you). Anyway here's my screenshot. At one point I considered migrating to NPVR but I'm having troubles there too so I'm not so sure. Right now I think I'm willing to use SageTV even without the benefit of liveTV.

[jal]

I have live TV !!!

[jal]

When I was playing around with the codecs over the last couple of days I didn't realize I had switched back to using the 2ndary hard drive. For some reason Sage won't record on that drive. A second ago I changed it back to a folder on the C:drive - and I got live TV !!!

[jal]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

Unless you can detect and see channels in the prime web page you are just beating a dead horse. look at screenshot. if you cannot see your channels your Cable Card is not paired correctly. Trying to get Sage to work with the Prime before making sure the Prime is working and channels are correct is like putting the cart before the horse. If you can post screen shots of the Prime webpage and not the HDHomerun setup.

Thanks for all your help!

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by jal

Thanks for all your help!

Glad you got it working. A good way to use the Hd Homerun channel webpage is it tells you the channels that can be enabled and any channels not on the list can be disabled. Also if on that list you see anything with DRM those have to be disabled in Sage.

[jal]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

Glad you got it working. A good way to use the Hd Homerun channel webpage is it tells you the channels that can be enabled and any channels not on the list can be disabled. Also if on that list you see anything with DRM those have to be disabled in Sage.

That's very helpful. Thanks!

[RangerZ]

I have been following this for some time (read it all) and experience the same issues using RCN Digital Cable Boston.

I noticed today while catching up on Continuum that the files I was unable to play in SageTV (render error) were all recorded at 30.00 FPS. The episodes of the same show that played fine in Sage were 29.97 FPS. I can play the 30 FPS episodes in VLC.

Multiply the .03 x 3600 (sec/hr) appears to be the missing time (1.8 minutes) in episodes that end early.

Unclear if this is a cause or result, but a bit of info I do not recall having been discussed.

Indirectly related is Direct-X. I think somewhere in the DCT logs there is reference to Direct-X 9, but my Vista-64 is on 11 (I not sure when it was upgraded from 9) and I know Win 7 loads at 11. Is this an issue?

Finaly, I recently found this link to an SD document "HDHomeRun Troubleshooting Guide [20090415]".
http://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun...leshooting.pdf. While old, it does reference the "No Signal" Issue and discusses the format of the channel numbers needing to be in "cable channel format" but is not really clear on what that is or how to validate it.

I am relectant to make substantial changes to my config for channels as there are a large amount of config and mappings that I have done, and the Channel Export Plug-in does not work with the Prime config. Does anyone know if I can copy a portion of the config file and as a back-up, and if so what? Lets assume I do not reconfig the tuners for now.