STB Firewire (IEEE-1394) Support

[waynedunham]

NOT!

During a very recent Windows update I lost FW channel changing. I didn't notice it until last night because my HD-PVR's are last on my merit list to record. So they only record when all the other tuners (4 HDHR Primes and 2 OTA HDHOMERUNs) are being used or I'm recording something that the Primes can't get. My Xfinity is odd in that a few channels on one of my packages (no not HBO, Cinemax, etc) won't work on the Prime (Copy Once) but I can get them on the STBs

So I'm sitting there this morning going through all my ancient notes and printout from this thread trying to figure out why I lost tuning. Something looked odd even in device manager. On one of my STBs I'd get two "unknown" devices (panel and tuner I guessed), but on the other only one "unknown" FW device.

I then went into command line mode with the Timmmoore utilities. I was scratching my head after running channel -v saying "where are ID #'s?"

Much more head scratching, removing the STB's and rebooting to get a fresh install of them, etc.

In re-reading one of the FW threads in the forum I noticed someone saying that they had to change the FW driver back to legacy to get it to work. Changed the FW driver from the TI "proper" driver to the legacy driver and VIOLA! There were the panel and tuner devices, my IDs for my STBs, everything. Reran channel-v and there were the devices, and unique IDs.
Checked and I could now tune channels on both STBs, so all was back to normal. Good thing because at about 3:45 this afternoon I wanted to record a movie on one of those STB only (Starz family of channels) channels that my primes can't get.

So thanks M$ update for changing my drivers for me and causing me a couple hours in total to get the system back to working.

Is there a way to lock a driver to tell M$ to keep their grubby paws to themselves and leave it alone?

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by waynedunham

NOT!

During a very recent Windows update I lost FW channel changing. I didn't notice it until last night because my HD-PVR's are last on my merit list to record. So they only record when all the other tuners (4 HDHR Primes and 2 OTA HDHOMERUNs) are being used or I'm recording something that the Primes can't get. My Xfinity is odd in that a few channels on one of my packages (no not HBO, Cinemax, etc) won't work on the Prime (Copy Once) but I can get them on the STBs

So I'm sitting there this morning going through all my ancient notes and printout from this thread trying to figure out why I lost tuning. Something looked odd even in device manager. On one of my STBs I'd get two "unknown" devices (panel and tuner I guessed), but on the other only one "unknown" FW device.

I then went into command line mode with the Timmmoore utilities. I was scratching my head after running channel -v saying "where are ID #'s?"

Much more head scratching, removing the STB's and rebooting to get a fresh install of them, etc.

In re-reading one of the FW threads in the forum I noticed someone saying that they had to change the FW driver back to legacy to get it to work. Changed the FW driver from the TI "proper" driver to the legacy driver and VIOLA! There were the panel and tuner devices, my IDs for my STBs, everything. Reran channel-v and there were the devices, and unique IDs.
Checked and I could now tune channels on both STBs, so all was back to normal. Good thing because at about 3:45 this afternoon I wanted to record a movie on one of those STB only (Starz family of channels) channels that my primes can't get.

So thanks M$ update for changing my drivers for me and causing me a couple hours in total to get the system back to working.

Is there a way to lock a driver to tell M$ to keep their grubby paws to themselves and leave it alone?

Wow - that sucks. I better check my FW setup. What version of Windows, and can you note the updateif possible?

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

Wow - that sucks. I better check my FW setup. What version of Windows, and can you note the updateif possible?

Indeed it did suck. Sadly I didn't notice any specific driver updates, it was in one of the "rollups" apparently. I guess I'll have to go to the info page on the rollups from now on to see just what is included before I give the OK for the update to get applied. Thank God for Win7 and the ability to only have Win notify you of updates and let YOU decide whether to install them or not.

It is a Win7 32 bit installation. It is the only machine I have FW tuning on, I shudder to think what would happen if it was a Win10 install and M$ and their jack booted thugs came along with their "YOU VIL INSTALL THESE UPDATES NOW!!!!" demands.

[smaug_ca]

I know this is a really old thread but... I have Win 7 32 bit and I am able to user firewire channel changing.
Is there a solution to make this work if I upgrade to Windows 10 64 bit?
Has anyone done this with Win 10? I assume all of the 32 bit drivers and channel changer solutions no longer work in Win10.

[wayner]

No, the firewire drivers don't work on any 64 bit Windows system. However you can use firewire with unRAID Linux which is a 64 bit OS.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by wayner

No, the firewire drivers don't work on any 64 bit Windows system. However you can use firewire with unRAID Linux which is a 64 bit OS.

Can you run Plex Server and other Video Servers (AirVideo is one) on a Linux system? I’d love to have more ram and an updated OS system, AND 1394 channel change, but I need more than SageTV to run.
Also, I know nothing about Linux - where’s a good place to start?

[wayner]

You are describing my system!

I run SageTV, Plex and AirVideoHD in containers on my unRAID server. It works very well.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by wayner

You are describing my system!

I run SageTV, Plex and AirVideoHD in containers on my unRAID server. It works very well.

Hmm. I guess I have some linux learning ahead of me. Thanks

[wayner]

Poke around in this forum: https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=59

unRAID is a version of Linux customized for a NAS. It also supports Dockers which are kind of a virtualization where apps run in specific containers that are walled off from the rest of the system.

You can also easily run VMs, like Windows or Linux VMs on your unRAID server.

If you have an older PC you can try it out for a bit to see how it works, even without hooking up any tuners. Everything is pretty much managed by a Web UI, kind of like how you manage a Plex server.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by wayner

Poke around in this forum: https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=59

unRAID is a version of Linux customized for a NAS. It also supports Dockers which are kind of a virtualization where apps run in specific containers that are walled off from the rest of the system.

You can also easily run VMs, like Windows or Linux VMs on your unRAID server.

If you have an older PC you can try it out for a bit to see how it works, even without hooking up any tuners. Everything is pretty much managed by a Web UI, kind of like how you manage a Plex server.

You make all this sound easy
But thanks for the start - maybe I’ll give it a go with some spare parts, or on my test W7 machine - could I do that?

[wayner]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

You make all this sound easy
But thanks for the start - maybe I’ll give it a go with some spare parts, or on my test W7 machine - could I do that?

Yes - you might want to disconnect the W7 hard drive while you play around with this. unRAID runs off of a USB memory stick, you should probably have a hard drive or two to add to your drive pool and then you are off to the races.

It does get a bit trickier if you are using an SSD for a cache drive, multiple drives for your drive pool, etc. BobPhoenix on the SageTV forums is very knowledgeable on unRAID and has several servers.

[emveepee]

I use NextPVR and just went from Windows to linux and can't be happier with the support in linux for firewire and the HDPVR 1212. For $15 for the firewire card and another $15 for the cable it is a no-brainer. I even added a second Rogers SA8300 (they are dirt cheap on Kijiji, I got 2 for $30 so I have a spare).

I do find I can hang the driver using AC3 though if I record too early while changing.

For the life of me I couldn't easlly get the new STB's to work with LIRC until I found the ir eye, using any conf file even one that controls the Rogers DTA so I am glad there is an option.

Martin

[andre5006]

Yes the Firewire channel changer will work with Win10 but only the 32Bit version.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by andre5006

Yes the Firewire channel changer will work with Win10 but only the 32Bit version.

and I assume 32bit W10 has the same memory limitations as does 32bit W7?