Migrating from analog cable to Directv HD

[Evil_Attorney]

A little late to this thread, but I can tell you that I use the HD PVR 1212 with each of my H21-100 Directv receivers and they are very stable with native resolution, SPDIF 5.1 audio, and serial tuning. I did remove the tops of each 1212 to improve the temperature inside the box.

And just to reiterate the problem with the 1512, a bug in Sage prevents audio on live TV on some channels for extenders only (HD300 and HD200). But PC clients at least appear to be ok with live TV. When I tried my 1512 with my H21-100 boxes, I had no problems with HDCP, though I DON'T have HBO/Showtime/Stars/etc.

[bigo93bronco]

Originally Posted by Evil_Attorney

And just to reiterate the problem with the 1512, a bug in Sage prevents audio on live TV on some channels for extenders only (HD300 and HD200). But PC clients at least appear to be ok with live TV. When I tried my 1512 with my H21-100 boxes, I had no problems with HDCP, though I DON'T have HBO/Showtime/Stars/etc.

Can you elaborate a little more on this please? I've heard discussions on the subject, but not the "final word". I was under the impression that people were able to get around this by increase the wait_to_tune setting, or something similar. Obviously stuff like this will play a major role in which of 3 devices I end up going with

[Evil_Attorney]

Originally Posted by bigo93bronco

Can you elaborate a little more on this please? I've heard discussions on the subject, but not the "final word". I was under the impression that people were able to get around this by increase the wait_to_tune setting, or something similar. Obviously stuff like this will play a major role in which of 3 devices I end up going with

No, there is no way that I know of to fix this and I tried just about everything to fix it. It's a very weird bug that appears to be in either the HD300/200 firmware or in the Sagetv server software. In the logs of my HD300, it is clear that the live TV stream of certain channels was providing video with no audio. However, once the recording was complete or Sage did a rescan of the recordings, the HD300 could play back the show. This was the case with HDMI and component SPDIF. Even turning off surround sound on my Directv receivers to stereo PCM mode didn't help.

My best guess is that it has something to do with how and when the 1512 adds certain audio info to the header of the recorded file. I believe that the Colossus had similar issues with sound initially and the Sage crew made changes to the Sage code to get things working properly.

[bigo93bronco]

hmmm, good to know. Didn't I read somewhere though that this was with channels that used a certain audio format or bitrate? I'm pretty well set on going with directv, so your input and experiences on the matter are particularly helpful

[Evil_Attorney]

When Directv receivers are set to 5.1 mode, they output in either AAC or AC3 I believe. I had issues with both. When set to stereo mode, the receiver outputs PCM, which also caused problems. So, no it didn't seem to be a format or bitrate issue. It's probably a quirk with how the 1512 writes data to the video file that Sage can't always handle properly. I remember having issues with how Sage transcoded the HDPVR 1212 videos into iPad format files several years ago. I talked with support and they said that Hauppauge did some non-standard things with their timecode or something like that. This is probably a similar issue.

[SHS]

One of the main reason why you want to used the increase the wait_to_tune setting it has to audio switching must lee with 2.0 and 5.1 where you end up with no audio which being causes by the slow STB.

[Evil_Attorney]

To be clear, I think I had tried some very high delay_to_wait values (I think as high as 15 seconds) and it didn't help the no sound issue. Even though it's a lack of sound, I don't think the sound format is causing the issue.

[bigo93bronco]

Interesting, what kind(s) of directv boxes was this with? Did you ever try any of this with the colossus?

[Evil_Attorney]

I believe they are H21-100, which is not a dvr, just tuner. They are several years old at this point.

[bigo93bronco]

hehe the "splitters" do what their supposed to do....plus a little more

Now that I know that is good, I can proceed with a little more testing

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by SHS

Bob just though I give you head up there some report that DirecTV is adding HDCP to the H21 and HR21

Got the splitter. Did nothing for my HR21 box so doubt it was a HDCP issue. Still getting bad recordings. Will try switching with H23 box next week or whenever a long enough window occurs to switch the boxes and HTTP tuning on my two servers. Want at least 6 hours of free time on both servers to be safe.

[SWKerr]

Originally Posted by bigo93bronco

hehe the "splitters" do what their supposed to do....plus a little more

Now that I know that is good, I can proceed with a little more testing

Can you post a link to the one you purchased.

[bigo93bronco]

Can we do that, or is that a no-no?

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by bigo93bronco

Can we do that, or is that a no-no?

You should be able to post a link like SHS did here to another forum where they are talked about. That is where I got my info on what to buy.

[bigo93bronco]

Here's the ones ya want http://www.ebay.com/itm/ViewHD-1x2-H...item3f0378859d

[patja]

Originally Posted by SHS

Bob just though I give you head up there some report that DirecTV is adding HDCP to the H21 and HR21

Hi SHS, I am wondering if you have more info on this? What's the source of the report?

I've been benefiting from the lack of HDCP on my HR21 for some time now and am worried about it going away...especially as we have a long trip planned soon and I don't want a call from the housesitter complaining about HBO not working on Sage while we are gone.

Wondering if I should be proactive and make the switch to component now.

[SHS]

Originally Posted by patja

Hi SHS, I am wondering if you have more info on this? What's the source of the report?

I've been benefiting from the lack of HDCP on my HR21 for some time now and am worried about it going away...especially as we have a long trip planned soon and I don't want a call from the housesitter complaining about HBO not working on Sage while we are gone.

Wondering if I should be proactive and make the switch to component now.

The report come from a face book user look under Recent Posts By Others look for Russell Farley post.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by patja

Hi SHS, I am wondering if you have more info on this? What's the source of the report?

I've been benefiting from the lack of HDCP on my HR21 for some time now and am worried about it going away...especially as we have a long trip planned soon and I don't want a call from the housesitter complaining about HBO not working on Sage while we are gone.

Wondering if I should be proactive and make the switch to component now.

I got one of the splitters myself - just incase. Also to make sure my problems with HDMI capture weren't HDCP related - they weren't! I am going to swap my H23 and my HR21 temporarily to see if that helps any sometime in the next couple of weeks. The H23 should have HDCP turned on but I will be testing that as well to see what happens.

[SWKerr]

Originally Posted by bigo93bronco

Here's the ones ya want http://www.ebay.com/itm/ViewHD-1x2-H...item3f0378859d

I got a couple of these this past week and tested them this weekend.

I can report that they did correct the problems I was having tuning select channels using HDMI.

[bigo93bronco]

Just hit a bit of a snag, Direct tv is shipping out H25 recievers now and they don't have a Ethernet port on them. I'm guessing that rules out HTTP tuning if I use those boxes right? I suppose I could buy some H24's but that's just raising the price of this switch even more