Setting Up a New SageTV Server

[reggie14]

It's been a while since I set up a SageTV server (~5 years). I'm not entirely sure I remember how to do everything correctly, plus I'm probably trying to do some weird things. So, I'd appreciate some help.

Basically, I'm trying to go from a SageTV v7 server running on WinXP-SP3, to a Sage v7.1 server running on Win7Pro x64. My fiance is very attached to the TV, so I'm trying to minimize the downtown as much as possible.

Part of this upgrade involves making use of my HDHR Prime tuners. Since I didn't have any experience with SageDCT, I decided to install Sage and let it run in trial mode as I tried setting up SageDCT. It was a lot easier than I expected. Anyways, so now I have a semi-functional SageTV server running on my new box, but my recordings, metadata/fanart, and, most importantly, my wiz.bin are still on my old system.

At this point can I copy my wiz.bin over (after moving recordings, that is)? I'm not sure if its a problem than 1) my wiz.bin is from an older SageTV server version, and/or 2) I already have the HDHR Prime tuners set up.

If need be I could certainly remove the tuners, or even uninstall/reinstall Sage, but I'm not sure if the the newer SageTV version can use my old wiz.bin directly. I think I remember some older versions breaking compatibility with wiz.bin formats. If that's going to be a problem I'm not sure what to do. I guess I would upgrade my old server before copying the wiz.bin.

I'm a little reluctant to do that because that could wreck my old SageTV install. If something goes wrong as I migrate to the new server I'd like to be able to fallback to the old one.

[dcardellini]

I'm about to take this same step too.

Only difference is I need to run Win 7 32-bit due to heavy reliance on Firewire recording off my completely open cable STB's.

Standing by for some pointers on this one.

[reggie14]

I used to be a firewire recording user. It was nice to have a cheap way to record full-quality HD channels, but I found hte drivers and sgraphrecorder to be pretty buggy. It was a bad sign when I had to turn off Data Execution Protection so my machine would stop crashing everyday. Then it just crashed every week...

Things got better when I switched completely to HD-PVRs. But, the firewire drivers were still being used to do channel changing. As such, I still get occasional crashes. Scheduling nightly reboots helps.

Anyway, part of why I'm rebuilding is to clean all the firewire stuff off my box. I'm hoping SageDCT+HDHR-Prime will be pretty stable, and then that (along with my regular HDHR) will be used for 95% of my recordings. I have some movie channels, so I'll keep my Verizon STB and use a USB-UIRT for channel changing. I bought one years ago and never even took it out of its packaging. I hope it works.

[mayamaniac]

backup your wiz.bin, then upgrade sagetv on your old machine to version 7, this will update the wiz.bin to v7 compatibility, then use that wiz.bin for your new setup.

[dcardellini]

I guess I have been very fortunate with system stability and my firewire stuff.

My server (WinXP) runs 24/7, headless. I have only had to restart it once over the past year due to possible instability.

My three cable STB's supplement 4 OTA HD tuners (USB) for seven tuners total. I really turned the corner on stability several years ago when I added a very long channel change delay in system (8 seconds).

I record a lot of stuff off the premiums, and watch off of three different PC clients. Just don't think the HD Prime fits my profile. Hold breath that the STB's remain unencrypted. I guess I go to multiple HD-PVR's when that hole is closed down.

Thx Mayamaniac. That seems pretty simple.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

backup your wiz.bin, then upgrade sagetv on your old machine to version 7, this will update the wiz.bin to v7 compatibility, then use that wiz.bin for your new setup.

OK... I kind of figured you'd say that. I can do that. I was hoping the v7 wiz.bin was compatibile with the v7.1 wiz.bin, but it's probably best to upgrade and let the installer do whatever it needs to do.

By the way, I already have the Sage v7.1 system up and running. If I wipe away any recordings I have (since they're just there for testing purposes anyway), can I just replace the wiz.bin of my existing installation? Basically its a clean install with a few tuners set up. My guess is that should be OK...

Originally Posted by dcardellini

I record a lot of stuff off the premiums, and watch off of three different PC clients. Just don't think the HD Prime fits my profile. Hold breath that the STB's remain unencrypted. I guess I go to multiple HD-PVR's when that hole is closed down.

As a side note, anything you get via firewire recordings should be available through an HDHR Prime. Your STB shouldn't be outputting copy-protected channels via firewire without encrypting them. If you recording premium channels, that implies your provider is not copy protecting those channels. That's a bit odd, but I guess you're just a bit lucky (for now).

Still, I can understand why you might not want to spend $150 on an HDHR Prime if you think you're just going to have to buy HD-PVRs in the long run.

[dcardellini]

I had no idea that the 5C flag absent on my cable channel feed may imply open recording with the HDHR Prime (thought it was a different encryption type).

Humm......I may want to give this a try. I have been 5C-free for nearly 8 years now. Time to read these forums on HDHR Prime now.

thx.

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by reggie14

OK... I kind of figured you'd say that. I can do that. I was hoping the v7 wiz.bin was compatibile with the v7.1 wiz.bin, but it's probably best to upgrade and let the installer do whatever it needs to do.

As far as I know, v7 and v7.1 wiz.bin should be compatible. But it doesn't hurt to do the upgrade anyway just to be sure. Remember to run SageTV once after upgrading, I don't think installing the upgrade changes wiz.bin until you run SageTV at least once.

Originally Posted by dcardellini

I had no idea that the 5C flag absent on my cable channel feed may imply open recording with the HDHR Prime (thought it was a different encryption type).

Humm......I may want to give this a try. I have been 5C-free for nearly 8 years now. Time to read these forums on HDHR Prime now.

thx.

I think for premium channels, it will always be flagged as encrypted, so only way around it is with the HDPVR.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

I think for premium channels, it will always be flagged as encrypted, so only way around it is with the HDPVR.

Just to be clear, there's a distinction between encrypted channels and copy-protected channels. If you need an STB or CableCard to tune a channel, then the channel itself is encrypted as you get it from the cable company.

Whether or not 5C is enabled on a channel, and thus encrypted coming out of the STB, is determined by the copy protection flags sent down from the cable company. The same flags that are used by STBs to decide whether or not to turn on 5C protection are used by the HDHR Prime to decide whether or not it needs to DRM its recordings.

In general you're right- premium channels (e.g., HBO, Showtime) are almost always both encrypted and copy protected. But if dcardellini is able to record them off of firewire, that implies that its only encrypted, and NOT copy protected.

Also, thanks for your help, Mayamaniac. I'll probably move my server on Saturday. I'll need to switch computer cases and move hard drives.

[dcardellini]

Started to read the thread in Hardware section "HDHR Prime + SageDCT" to learn more about this.

I know that the remaining players here are a pretty sophisticated bunch.....so I apologize in advance for my apparent laziness.

Usually, as "a number" of folks make it through the long learning curve for making a new device work reliably, there is usually a single post or a blog link by a more Obsessive-Compulsive individual that kinda ties it into all together with a summary how-to, maybe with brief expanation for how it all ties together, and the remaining nigglies (at least to a point in time).

After swimming twenty minutes into this thread, I still had no sense if this a relatively reliable approach, nor even the basics to get to that point.

(I am deserving of the "just man-up" flame.....but I thought I might get lucky).

[reggie14]

I know exactly what you mean. I consider myself a fairly sophisticated SageTV user, and I'm confused too.

I haven't had it running long enough to know how stable it is, but I did a very simple setup that appears to be running well.

It appears as though people are having slightly better luck with Win7 systems than WinXP systems. I'm running Win7 x64. Apparently it is possible to get it working on WinXP, though I can't find the post describing how to set it up.

Also, people are having better luck when they just use local drive recording paths, rather than UNC paths. If you only have one recording path then its possible to use a special feature in SageDCT to use UNC paths within Sage, but local paths within SageDCT (this is the "replace paths" option). I didn't do this, and I couldn't tell how to do it even if I wanted to, since its pretty poorly documented.

So, I just went through a fairly simple install process, roughly following these steps:

1. I installed SageDCT.
2. I ran the SageDCT utility, had it search for my HDHR Prime tuner, and generated tuner assignments.
3. The previous step generates a text file that needs to be copied into the sage.properties file (close SageTV first). This partially sets up the tuners in Sage.
4. Start up Sage, and go to your list of tuners. Pick the first HDHR Prime tuner, and reconfigure the EPG source (which starts out saying null) according to your zip code/provider.
5. You'll need to manually select what channels you get. Don't try to scan for channels- it won't work. You just need to go through the list and manually enable the channels you get.

At that point it should just work. It seems to be working for me.

I don't have enough experience to know how reliable it is. My intuition, based on the other thread, is that it works pretty well if you 1) use local recording paths, and 2) avoid buggy HDHR Prime firmware/drivers (there seemed to be a string of beta firmwares that didn't play nicely with SageDCT).

[dcardellini]

Wow...that's exactly what I needed to get off top dead center.

For $176 off Amazon, I think this may be worth a try.

My new server build will have a couple of 4TB drives, and I am struggling during planning stage with having to load a Win7 32-bit OS for the Firewire, and problematic 4TB support on 32-bit.

Thanks again!

[reggie14]

I mostly have the new server up, although I ran into a lot of problems along the way. I think I worked through all of them, but sometimes new ones pop up (like the JRE v7 error describe in another thread).

One thing I can't find any info on is with my extender. When I'm on the home screen I see a message saying "Connected to [server-name]" in the bottom right corner. I'd like to get rid of that, since it gets in the way of the disk space bar.

[razrsharpe]

Originally Posted by reggie14

One thing I can't find any info on is with my extender. When I'm on the home screen I see a message saying "Connected to [server-name]" in the bottom right corner. I'd like to get rid of that, since it gets in the way of the disk space bar.

that's an option somewhere in detailed setup (i think customize).

[BobPhoenix]

What I did was to modify the XML file and get rid of the "Connected to" from the tag. I have multiple servers and like to be able to see at a glance which server I am connected to but also like to read the disk space bar. By getting rid of the mostly worthless "Connected to" I get the best of both worlds. Now I just need to make it show up on client as well as extenders/placeshifter.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

What I did was to modify the XML file and get rid of the "Connected to" from the tag.

That's a great idea! What file did you modify?

By the way, I looked through the configuration settings in SageTV a bunch of times... I guess I'll have to work again. It must be there somewhere.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by reggie14

That's a great idea! What file did you modify?

By the way, I looked through the configuration settings in SageTV a bunch of times... I guess I'll have to work again. It must be there somewhere.

I cheated. Instead of creating a plugin I took the SageTV7.XML file and looked for "Connected to" and changed it to an empty string:

<Action ID="2625" Name="FooterTipText = &quot;Connected to &quot; + GetServerAddress()" Sym="OPUS4A-213450"/>

to:

<Action ID="2625" Name="FooterTipText = &quot;&quot; + GetServerAddress()" Sym="OPUS4A-213450"/>

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by reggie14

By the way, I looked through the configuration settings in SageTV a bunch of times... I guess I'll have to work again. It must be there somewhere.

It is indeed in Settings/Detailed Settings/Customize. It should be right at the bottom, or one of the last before "Unsupported Extras" if you have that turned on. It is labeled "Display Name of Server on the Main Menu Footer".