New Unraid Hardware - Firewire Tuning Issue

[smdl]

Hi, folks.

I have been running SageTV on an unRAID Docker for several months, and everything has been working great (since C5Davey helped me get FireWire Tuner working). However, I recently moved my unRAID setup to new hardware, and while everything works great from almost every angle, I am seeing unpredictable FireWire tuning, now. About 50% of the time, the channel change works properly, but the remaining time, I see odd behavior. Sometimes a two-digit channel change will be split (59 becomes channel 5, then channel 9). Other times, there is duplication of two numbers (58 becomes 5 then 88).

One major difference that I noted in Linux FireWire tuning vs. Windows, was how much more quickly the channel change happened, and that was on very old hardware. I'm wondering if maybe the added performance of the new hardware is causing tuning to happen too quickly now, as it seems to be instantaneous. I have tried playing with the settings in Video Sources-->HD-PVR-->Tuner Control-->Remote Control Options, and these don't seem to make a difference.

Last thing that it seems could be a potential cause is that I had to put a different FireWire card into the new server, as my old card is PCI, and the new motherboard only supports PCI-E. The new one is from QNine.

Hoping someone might have seen something like this, and found a resolution. It might just be a matter of finding a way to slow down the channel changes, but I haven't found a way to do that yet. I'll keep searching, but any input would be welcomed.

Thanks,
Shaun

[wayner]

I use Firewire tuning but I never had an issue on unRAID, it was very straightforward and I didn't have any issues. My boxes are old Sci Atl - maybe that makes a difference.

[smdl]

Originally Posted by wayner

I use Firewire tuning but I never had an issue on unRAID, it was very straightforward and I didn't have any issues. My boxes are old Sci Atl - maybe that makes a difference.

Thanks, Wayner. If I recall correctly, I think you were using the generic tuner, which unfortunately didn't work with the Motorola boxes. So, I had to use the FireWire tuner, and that worked perfectly on both my Win 7 server, and in a container on my old unRAID server. Not so with the new unRAID server, though (Ryzen 7, 32MB DDR4).

I'm suspecting that the boost in server performance is a contributing factor, and I'm starting to wonder if restricting resources for this container might make for an improvement. I've never done that before, but in looking at the container settings (in advanced mode), it looks like I can probably restrict the number of cores it runs on. I'll try doing some additional searching before changing anything to see if I am understanding this correctly.

Hopefully, I can figure this out quickly, as the WAF is low, at present, and that is an oddity. She has been a staunch Sage supporter for over a dozen years!

Thanks again.

Shaun

[wayner]

I started off thinking that I had to use the gentuner program but it turned out that I didn't even need to do that - it just worked. Your other option is a USB-UIRT.

[smdl]

Thanks, Wayne. You must be using some sort of tuning device (either Gentuner or Firewire). Sounds like the default worked for you.

I just tried restricting the container to 2 cores and 4GB RAM, which unfortunately didn't make any difference. Looks like the most likely cause is the new PCIE FireWire card. Not too many of these around for PCIE, but I just found a 2-port Startech unit available through Staples, and I've had pretty good luck with their stuff in the past. I'll give that a try, and then revert to USB-UIRT if all else fails.

Thanks,
Shaun

[smdl]

Just to close the loop on this, I received the Startech card today, and am happy to report that it is working perfectly. So, buyer beware on the Qnine FireWire card.

Thanks to those who provided information!

Cheers,
Shaun