OpenDCT: An open source digital cable tuner.

[nkd]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

It's not so much random, as just whichever one was added 'first'. This depends on a few things - each scan is done in numerical order, so from a fresh start, the lowest number channel would be the one that sticks, because when it gets to the higher number, it will find the channel still in the list. However, on subsequent later scans, there are already channels there, so say they have for a long time had a channel at 1002, and recently added it at 702. 1002 is already in sage's list, so when it gets to 702 in a scan, it skips it. Quirky, but once you know about it, it makes sense.

Over the years, I have come to the realization that since the cable companies seem to put channels wherever they please, with little rhyme or reason, I end up remapping most my lineup into more logical 'groups' anyway (typically removing a lot of fluff that I know will never be tuned in).

In either case, a firewall is not going to be 'altering' the scan results - the scan would either work or it wouldn't - so the lack of a couple channels is not going to be firewall related.

got it, thanks for your time

[nkd]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

The scan looks normal. I was referring to channels you said you couldn't tune in when I was talking about the Firewall, but now that you've done a channel scan on the HDHomeRun, it's unlikely that you'll have any channels tuning over RTP since they can now all tuner over HTTP. It sounds like you're now mostly interested in what channels are being selected in a channel scan. Fuzzy is definitely more qualified than most to comment on this part of SageTV.

ok ... thank you

[dleany]

On a similar, but dissimilar note, I just tried to set up a new SageTV server to replace my current one, starting with a fresh install of Win10, SiliconDust, etc. After running the Silicondust software, which loves to update the tuner firmware, my "old" SageTV setup lost all of its encoders, (if I try to tune in any channel, I get a "No encoder can tune this channel," even though I had 9 tuners installed. On my new SageTV server, when I try to add a new source, it tells me, "No video capture devices were found..." Last time this happened, it was due to Silicondust changing the identifier emitted by the tuners, rendering it invisible to OpenDCT.

Has anyone else had this problem?

[dleany]

No one? I haven't been able to record anything for the past two days. I see no new OpenDCT downloads, either. It's especially sad because I just set up a 24TB RAID 5 NAS, which has been working perfectly.

I really miss having Sage; it's the only decent solution anyone has ever made for recording TV. I was really excited to see the v9 update, but without tuners, I'm out of luck.

[amg]

try doing a full channel scan from the hdhomerun device webpage, then start opendct, then start sage.

[nkd]

Originally Posted by dleany

No one? I haven't been able to record anything for the past two days. I see no new OpenDCT downloads, either. It's especially sad because I just set up a 24TB RAID 5 NAS, which has been working perfectly.

I really miss having Sage; it's the only decent solution anyone has ever made for recording TV. I was really excited to see the v9 update, but without tuners, I'm out of luck.

I am not expert but i have had similar issues and following is my list of tasks i do to debug

1. Do you have 32 and 64bit java installed? If so OpenDCT sometimes picks up the wrong version and fails. If you have both versions installed then run OpenDCT in a console (OpenDCT installs this shortcut) and watch for errors in the beginning. When i had this issue the error actually tells me that OpenDCT was likely picking up the wrong java version. To fix, uninstall the wrong version of Java.

2. If OpenDCT is working ok, then next is to make sure that OpenDCT service starts after SageTV service. To verify if this is a issue, shut down both SageTV and OpenDCT service. Then start SageTV service followed by OpenDCT. If this works then I would delayed the start of OpenDCT service via the service panel. This way on a reboot SageTV service starts before OpenDCT. You could also create a dependency between the services to ensure correct order of start; i have not tried this but should work.

Usually once i go through 1 and 2 i have things working ok.

Best of luck ... I have been using Sage for over a decade and love it so when it fails it hurts

[dleany]

Thanks to you both! I finally found the cause. When I set up the new server, I didn't notice that OpenDCT on the new server was configured incorrectly; when I added tuners to that server, it was actually picking up the tuners from the old server. Once I shut down the old server, the new server ccouldn't see those tuners anymore. You both reminded me to check out my system again, and that's how I found the problem.

Thanks again for your help! I'm up and running again. Like you, I've been using Sage for around a decade now, and I hate being without it!

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by dleany

Thanks to you both! I finally found the cause. When I set up the new server, I didn't notice that OpenDCT on the new server was configured incorrectly; when I added tuners to that server, it was actually picking up the tuners from the old server. Once I shut down the old server, the new server ccouldn't see those tuners anymore. You both reminded me to check out my system again, and that's how I found the problem.

Thanks again for your help! I'm up and running again. Like you, I've been using Sage for around a decade now, and I hate being without it!

Also, a bit of advice - if you are going to use OpenDCT to interface with your HDHR tuners, you do not need any silicondust software on the system.

[dleany]

Thanks! I usually put the SiliconDust software on the machine first, simply because it allows me to install a single piece of software and verify immediately that the tuner hardware is working. With Sage, a problem could be due to an OpenDCT issue, or it could be a SageTV issue, or it could be a tuner issue. This particular time, I messed up the OpenDCT install, but the SiliconDust software at least proved to me that the tuners were working correctly.

I'm really happy to see Sage is still alive; it's the best system ever. The only thing left is to make a project to turn a Raspberry Pi into a Sage set top box!

[bisongde]

Hey EnterNoEscape,

I have channels that are playable on VLC and the HDHomeRun app playing the "Copy Once" video files. Did you ever implement that switch to disable this functionality? 100% confident they'll play absent this feature.
*Added 59 second videos that will be streamed in place of an actual recording if the channel is detected to be Copy Once or Copy Never.
*Added a check after tuning that will return to SageTV early if the copy protection status is Copy Once or Copy Never.

Thanks!

Edit: Nevermind! In opendct.properties the switch enableerrorvideo should be set to false instead of true. This disables the placeholder messages for streams it thinks it can't tune. This corrected the issue for me.

[AlphaCrew]

How do I handle CopyOnce shows?

Ran into one yesterday and the system would not stop trying to tune it. I wasn't home so I got bombarded with a gazzilion alerts.

[KryptoNyte]

Remove it from the channel lineup(s) for the OpenDCT tuners. You could set up other options to record the copy once channels.

[AlphaCrew]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

Remove it from the channel lineup(s) for the OpenDCT tuners. You could set up other options to record the copy once channels.

The problem is it's not the channel, but certain shows. Is there a way to have OpenDCT bail on anything other then x00 recordings?

What other options do I have to copy x02 shows?

[KryptoNyte]

Originally Posted by AlphaCrew

...
What other options do I have to copy x02 shows?

Set-top-box and an HDPVR for example = 1 tuner for copy-once channels. There are other more involved options.

What network (channel) is this, and to what cable service do you subscribe?

[AlphaCrew]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

Set-top-box and an HDPVR for example = 1 tuner for copy-once channels. There are other more involved options.

What network (channel) is this, and to what cable service do you subscribe?

Verizon FiOS and NATGEO

[KryptoNyte]

https://forums.verizon.com/t5/Fios-T...on/td-p/798274

[hufnagel]

Greetings.

I'm having problems with re-running the channel scan for OpenDCT. I have let it run now for 10 minutes at a time and it will still only show a limited number of channels. There are currently 8 channels missing from the list.
I'm attaching a ZIP file with the logs from a recent run. It was only left hanging for a minute, but the results are the same.

I'm running firmware 20170815 on my Prime, and Sage v9.

Please let me know if there are any other details you require.


ETA:
I was able to manually edit the dct_hdhomerun.properties file to add in the missing channels. I also figured out how to generate the channel line entries so that the correct call signs are automatically passed to SageTV, and I don't have to manually re-map all my channels.

[AlphaCrew]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

https://forums.verizon.com/t5/Fios-T...on/td-p/798274

Thanks but this does not help me, I used NATGEO (Not HD) as one example, but there are other shows (Not channels) that end up getting flagged x02.

I need a way to stop sage (or the DCT) from continuously trying to tune the channel.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by AlphaCrew

Thanks but this does not help me, I used NATGEO (Not HD) as one example, but there are other shows (Not channels) that end up getting flagged x02.

I need a way to stop sage (or the DCT) from continuously trying to tune the channel.

That would require some changes in the scheduling logic for SageTV and likely some new commands would be added to the network encoder protocol to communicate that a show is coming in as copy protected and try to schedule it on a different tuner.

The best OpenDCT could do is stop responding to NOOP pings which would make SageTV think it's offline, but if it's Copy Once, it's like the same across your entire CableCARD tuner which means eventually the entire tuner would be unusable. The other problem with this approach is how long would OpenDCT leave it inaccessible? It doesn't know anything about the schedule. It just does what it's being told to do.

If I had a channel that copy protected some shows, I would just put the entire channel on an analog capture device such as the HD-PVR and because there isn't a better way to be sure you're not going to randomly have a failed recording.

[AlphaCrew]

Bummer, Thanks for the response. I was hoping that OpenDCT could access the shows copy flag and act accordingly (Ignore the tune request).