STB Firewire (IEEE-1394) Support

[foolio]

Originally Posted by DFA

I too am enjoying Sage with a little HD in our lives. It was a long haul for me to get there starting with migrating from W2K to XP to get the needed firewire stack. The turning point was when Anders stepped in with the UNE. I knew it could be done but lack that level of programming skills. In the end it has been worth it but now have to monitor and fret about the BF situation.

DFA

that damn BF flag is the reason I don't want to invest too much money into this. I really don't want to put out $50+ for the USB-UIRT if it's only for the next 4 months. Maybe we'll get lucky and the cable company won't enforce the BF on their firewire, especially in smaller cities.

That's one of the reason I'm really anxious for Ander's to release a BDA-driven network encoder for the Fusion card. These cards made before 7/1/05 don't have to recognize or enforce the BF unlike the cable companies who can always update their firmware to enforce it.

[travisbell]

Originally Posted by DFA

Good to hear. I have not yet implemented SP2 and seem to keep finding reasons not to. So guess I'll keep staying put.

DFA

I have SP2 running on my HTPC and it is fine. I think that Naylia may have been an isolated incident.

[Naylia]

Yeah, never really isolated it flawlessly, but it works now luckily. But from the experience I've learned to pay attention to the idea of why fix it if it ain't broke. If SP2 does not provide specific capability that you need, why upgrade. I think all the security patches are available without it. You certaintly don't need the security center. Most people have a much better firewall in their router, and I sure don't use IE. So eh...I'm not going back to it.

[tdalton]

I'm not sure what is using a loopback connection but I can tell you this HDTV streams tend to run between 20-25Mbs per second although depending on what other scholop is in the payload they can be much higher. As a matter of fact I have heard that they can go as high as 100Mb but the number I've come across the most is 20Mb. As cheap as gigabit equipment is now it's definitely worth the investment but don't expect to come close to 1Gb especially with Cat5e it's more like 650Mb but still a lot faster than 100Mb!

TD

Originally Posted by DFA

While on the topic of ethernet speeds, I have a question.

I have always assumed that for "localhost" loopback connections, that the speed rating of the ethernet port is irrelevent since nothing actually hits the physical port and Cat5 copper.

Furthermore, assuming the first assumption to be correct, I have thought that internal loopback connections are only limited to the speed of the PCI bus.

Can anyone confirm or correct me on this? In the context of HD stream transfers for local loopback connections, I would like to better know the facts.

DFA

[zinkpig]

I just replaced one of my older dct 2224 boxes with one of 6200 HD boxes yesterday. I was using the exetuner plug in to control my older box via serial port for capture. Any way to just use the firewire to just change channels like the older plug in ?

[DFA]

zinkpig:

Not at this time and perhaps not even in the future. Technically it can be done but not enough "mass" of people trying / using FW to justify the code work. Also, future of FW link is uncertain with BF flag and court challenge to begin Feb 22. Much remains to be seen and what will become.

DFA

[dvsing]

Hello--

I just got everything up and running, except for the USB-UIRT which I haven't received yet so I have to do manual channel changes on the Mot-6200 STB to conicide with my recording schedule for those 5 HD channels that I'm pulling from the network graph recorder.

I'm seeing one big problem right now... if I'm watching "live" on the same channel that I'm recording, it will go along fine for a minute or so and then crawl to a stop... and if it recovers then SageTV can't talk with the graph recorder and it drops off the schedule as a nonfunctioning encoder. Restarting the sage service OR restarting the graph recorder fixes the problem... Now, I've done a little debugging on this.. because I dont have any problem watching shows that have been previously recorded but are no longer being recorded--- in fact, if I stop recording a show and then start it up again so that it's recording to a newer file, I can also read from the older file...

I've narrowed down the problem to a very specific situation: SageTV is playing back from the same file that the network graph recorder (UNE) is recording to. Now, when this is the case, SageTV has to continuously poll the UNE with "GET FILE SIZE" so that it can update it's internal status of how much of the file has been recorded. These messages are sent perhaps 10-20 times a second it looks like from the UNE debug screen. This ONLY happens when you're playing back the same file that you are recording to. I dont know if this constant polling of file size is causing a problem or not. All I know is that after about a minute of this, the video comes to a crawling halt and the debugging messages stop... sage becomes very unresponsive and hopefully pressing "home" will return it to the main menu... however if it does, Sagetv thinks the graph recorder is gone... (see above)

Anyone else experiencing this problem? I'm using the Sonic Cinemaster Audio and Video decoders for playback, with overlay (required for hardware accel.) and hardware accelleration enabled.

So ... short version: anyone having trouble when sage is playing back the same file that UNE is recording to?

[turak]

Originally Posted by DFA

Turak:

That is exactly what I am doing and have done so from the start. The trick to that is to find an independent EPG that has the same lineup. I found a neighboring town that had the same cable company provider with same lineup. Lineups are posted on their websites. I used the zip code for the neighboring town for the UNE when configuring.

I have cable directly hooked to the PVR-250 tuner for lower analog stations, an s-video link from the STB to the PVR-250 and the FW link from the STB to the HTPC. I use my providers non-digital EPG for the PVR-250 tuner, my providers digital lineup for the s-video link and the neighboring town digital lineup for the UNE. That way I can control and assign channels by device / input.

Go to Page 4, Post #78 of this thread and take a look at the JPEG's attached in that post. I have shown the EPG's and encoder EPG assignments. This has worked well for me.

DFA

What keeps SageTV from trying to record from both sources at the same time? Say it wanted to record two shows that are on at the same time and one of them was on an HD channel and one was on an SD channel. Wouldn't it try to record both since two tuners (pvr-250 and FW) are available?

[zinkpig]

Originally Posted by DFA

zinkpig:

Not at this time and perhaps not even in the future. Technically it can be done but not enough "mass" of people trying / using FW to justify the code work. Also, future of FW link is uncertain with BF flag and court challenge to begin Feb 22. Much remains to be seen and what will become.

DFA

oh that doesnt sound good. I ll have to look in to using my pvr 150's IR blaster then

[foolio]

Originally Posted by turak

What keeps SageTV from trying to record from both sources at the same time? Say it wanted to record two shows that are on at the same time and one of them was on an HD channel and one was on an SD channel. Wouldn't it try to record both since two tuners (pvr-250 and FW) are available?

No. sage doesn't know the difference between HD/SD show - the EPG data doesn't contain any flags to that effect. (too bad, that would be a very useful flag) To sage, it's just like you haveing two pvr-250 - it wouldn't make sense to record both showings.

[DFA]

zinkpig:
A USB-UIRT is a good HTPC investment no matter what IMHO. I would be lost w/o it. The ability to use it to wake the PC from suspend state by remote is justification enough for me.

turak:
For manual recordings, channel is fixed by virtue of what and where you select to record in the EPG. For Favorites, you can configure any Favorite to use "Any" channel or choose a specific, singular channel. Sage gives you everything you need to do what you want as long as you can come up with the EPG's.

dvsing:
I have not experienced the problem you describe while watching "Live TV". Have not heard anything like that yet from others either. For "Live TV", it is always the case for Sage, irregardless of the encoder, for playing the file from HDD right behind the recording process. Nature of the beast.

What does sound unusual is the "GET FILE SIZE" polling frequency of 10 to 20 times per second. Did you mean per minute rather than per second?

It sounds like some sort of Sage configuration issue where playback is catching up with recording. Also, the polling frequency which originates from Sage is very high; orders more higher than what I am seeing.

I do not know where or what to tell you to look for in the properties file though.

DFA

[DFA]

Hi All:

Just to let you guys know, I am leaving tommorrow (Fri, Feb. 18) for Egypt for 2 or 3 weeks on business. I will be out of loop and have no access to internet where I am going. Camel is best source of communication where I am going.

Just did not want you all to figure I fell off the end of the earth or slipped into a black hole although the places I go are close to that.

So, good luck and keep the fire-wires burnin'.

Dane

[dvsing]

Originally Posted by DFA

dvsing:
What does sound unusual is the "GET FILE SIZE" polling frequency of 10 to 20 times per second. Did you mean per minute rather than per second?

It sounds like some sort of Sage configuration issue where playback is catching up with recording. Also, the polling frequency which is also originates from Sage is very high; orders more higher than what I am seeing.

I do not know where to tell you to look in the properties file though.

DFA

The GET_FILE_SIZE queries from sage to the SGraphRecorder are 10-20 times PER SECOND, not per minute. This is only when I'm watching the same file that's being recorded to -- is this not supposed to be happening?? anyone?

[turak]

Originally Posted by foolio

No. sage doesn't know the difference between HD/SD show - the EPG data doesn't contain any flags to that effect. (too bad, that would be a very useful flag) To sage, it's just like you haveing two pvr-250 - it wouldn't make sense to record both showings.

I don't mean the same show. Maybe I'm missing something here, but to Sage it would look like two independant tuners. If I have two favorites that are on at the same time, wouldn't it try to use one tuner (PVR-250) to record the one favorite and the FW tuner to record the other?

[Naylia]

Good trip and safe travels to you.

Originally Posted by DFA

Hi All:

Just to let you guys know, I am leaving tommorrow (Fri, Feb. 18) for Egypt for 2 or 3 weeks on business. I will be out of loop and have no access to internet where I am going. Camel is best source of communication where I am going.

Just did not want you all to figure I fell off the end of the earth or slipped into a black hole although the places I go are close to that.

So, good luck and keep the fire-wires burnin'.

Dane

[spaceghost]

Does anyone have a UIRT working with Sgraphrecorder besides Dane? I need some assistance. I've got some kind of communication problem. I can see the light blink in girder when sgraphrecorder is sending events, but nothing is transmitted. If I test each transmit command separately it works. So it's breaking somewhere between receiving a Number(x) command from sgraphrecorder and transmitting to the stb. Should I be able to see girder doing something besides the light blinking in the bottom?

I've increased the delay in sgraphrecorder to send events every 1000 ms, but I never see anything transmitted..even the first command.

Ideas? I'm so close.

[Naylia]

For those interested in changing channels over firewire with the Moto 6200 join me over here.

I'm not promising to solve it but I sure do want to get together a group that has the source and see if we can start the process or drum up some interest from other people that have th know how. I have some c++ experience so I'm going to look at the code but I know I'm gonna need some help.

[foolio]

Originally Posted by spaceghost

Does anyone have a UIRT working with Sgraphrecorder besides Dane? I need some assistance. I've got some kind of communication problem. I can see the light blink in girder when sgraphrecorder is sending events, but nothing is transmitted. If I test each transmit command separately it works. So it's breaking somewhere between receiving a Number(x) command from sgraphrecorder and transmitting to the stb. Should I be able to see girder doing something besides the light blinking in the bottom?

I've increased the delay in sgraphrecorder to send events every 1000 ms, but I never see anything transmitted..even the first command.

Ideas? I'm so close.

With girder open - the girder screen on-screen and not in the tray, you should see the name of each event flash on the bottom right corner of girder.

ie if your event codeword (set in the ini file) is channel. you should see "channel5" and some other payload information flash on the bottom right to signal that girder has in fact received the message.

[spaceghost]

I don't know what I did, but it's kinda working now. Seems like I have difficulties transmitting consistently now. If I learn the code from the remote for say Number6, then I press the test button, it won't work everytime. Seems like after I hit test 4-5 times then it starts working for about 4-5 times. Any ideas besides increasing the sending repeat(currently set to 14) or the delay between?

[dvsing]

spaceghost,

I just received my USB-UIRT, installed it, and have SGraphRecorder changing the channel now... a few things I noticed:

1) When teaching the USB-UIRT remote codes, you have to hold the transmitting remote at a specific distance from the box... 4" or so worked best for me. Any further than that and it wouldn't even pick up the signal when it was learning. The learning mode requires a very strong signal. I had to hold the button down throughought the auto-learn process..

2) My first attempt was to teach it the "Power" command from the remote for the MOT6200.... oddly enough, this was the hardest command to get it to learn correctly.. a lot of good it did me too since I dont use it =)

3) Even thought I taught it the "enter" command, I found that if you issue three digits in succession immediately followed by "Enter" then it will not always accept the channel change, however if just sending the 3 digits it worked fine... To accomplish this, I just disabled the "Enter" command in girder.. it still recieves it from SGraphRecorder, but just ignores it. Everything working great now.

-----

So, now my only problem is that when I'm viewing the same MPG file that SGraphRecorder is writing to, I get a *TON* of GET_FILE_SIZE messages being sent from SageTV to the SGraphRecorder.... like, several a second.. 10-20 usually. I believe that this may be a problem as someone reported that this is not what they see--- can anyone share their experience with the debug info shown from SGraphRecorder when watching a currently-recording MPG "Live" ?

Thanks,
Dan