STB Firewire (IEEE-1394) Support

[evilpenguin]

Make sure you put in a email to sage support about the issue, cause I think they are ignoring me as an isolated issue.

[heffe2001]

"Sage TV does not support Firewire" is what they are going to say...

Well, actually they DO support it on Linux (untested, and I guess it's not officially supported yet either, but one of the guys said it's in there).

What's the best way to go from the cable box to a PS stream? Been playing with it today, and so far havne't come up with a good process...

[Naylia]

Actually when I contatcted Sage earlier about firewire they were either responsive in the positive or no reply at all...originally the errors had to do with how Sage handles TS streams and they are very willing to improve that capability, there may still be problems in this area because if you notice elsewhere firewire HD seems about as reliable as some of the tuner cards right now .

[evilpenguin]

They actually got back to me just this afternoon and seem interested in figuring out what is going on. I mean, as long as i'm not on the bleeding edge of the file being recorded, it's just transport stream data being read off the hard drive. This seems like a battle Sage would want to fight.

[Bohica]

I also have the same problem while watching live TV. If we could fix this before the superbowl -- it would be great. I think -- however -- it has to do with the server -- and specifically SageGraphRecorder. Whether it is simply too CPU intensive to record HD programming and *serve* the file at the same time - I dont know, or just an issue with SGR itself. This is a very common problem I think... be interested if anyone using firewire can watch a live recording reliably.

*edit* -- I am going to try to see if I can get HD firewire working on a remote system -- and just direct the recording to the server again with version 4.0. If I am right that it is SGR and the server not playing well together -- maybe I can get a reliable live connection from seperating the two...

[Bohica]

Originally Posted by TakeFlight

I have the same problem from time to time. It doesn't always happen. And only when trying to playback HD recordings. I never bothered to ask if anybody else was having the problem. I've just been living with it.

Posted elsewhere -- some mine -- some others -- the intervideo decoders from windvd do a great job -- and also do better audio leveling for mpeg2 content. You do need to install the windvd AFTER sage tho -- as sage somehow breaks the codecs if they were installed first.

[TakeFlight]

Originally Posted by Bohica

Posted elsewhere -- some mine -- some others -- the intervideo decoders from windvd do a great job -- and also do better audio leveling for mpeg2 content. You do need to install the windvd AFTER sage tho -- as sage somehow breaks the codecs if they were installed first.

I've tried this with an older version of WinDVD that I have (v5) and it doesn't fix the problem for me. Also, some HD recordings actually cause SageTV to close with no error when I try to play them with the intervideo codec. It does this on both the SageTV server and a SageTV client so it's consistent on two computers. Maybe I need a newer version of the codecs? On the flip side, I think the picture quality is better with the intervideo codecs on the recordings that do playback without crashing SageTV.

[evilpenguin]

Just tossing something out there, could the problem have anything to do with the time being synchronized and changed while the show is recording? I have an auto synchronize that is set up to update the Sage Server's clock every 30 minutes (my server clock gets off pretty fast), and I've notice that the problem always occurs in the first 30 minutes viewing.

So If Sage is trying to reconcile the recording time/playing time/displayed time during recording it could get pretty confused and give up, where as when you are watching a show after it has finished recording, the actual time doesn't matter.

[Aganerral]

Hey all, just a quick question before I go pick up my BD cable box tomorrow or the day after and start this project. I saw in the first post that the cable companies are required to provide a box with firewire at our request. Just in case Comcast tries to give me shit about this, does anyone have a reference link to that regulation? I don't doubt evilpenguin at all Just want to be able to say 'Pursuant to US Resolution abc123, as of April 1 2004 you must provide..." in case they won't cought one up

[Rogue9]

Quick question.

I picked up my Motorola DCT6412 yesterday. I haven't tried hooking it up to the computer via the firewire yet, but I plan to this weekend. So I don't know if it will work or not.

My question is this, assuming the connection does work, can I just use the STB as my DVR, and then transfer the HD recordings I want to keep/archive to the PC via the firewire? Or does the firewire thing only work on a "Live Stream?"

It sure would be nice to let the STB handle all my DVR functions itself, since thats what its designed for. And then I could just dump a few HD recordings over to the PC to make room on the DVR.

Thanks!

[aperry]

I don't think it works that way. I think that to get the programs into Sage, you have to record them via the firewire port. As others have mentioned in this thread though, 5C encoded shows will not work over firewire, so if your cable company uses it a lot, then the firewire option is not going to do you much good.

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by Aganerral

Hey all, just a quick question before I go pick up my BD cable box tomorrow or the day after and start this project. I saw in the first post that the cable companies are required to provide a box with firewire at our request. Just in case Comcast tries to give me shit about this, does anyone have a reference link to that regulation? I don't doubt evilpenguin at all Just want to be able to say 'Pursuant to US Resolution abc123, as of April 1 2004 you must provide..." in case they won't cought one up

Honestly, no one you talk to will understand what you are talking about. The best thing to do is just go to the comcast main office in your area and have them bust out cable boxes until they find one with firewire. They might pull some shit and try and give you a DVR box with firewire and charge you for the DVR ($5 bucks a month), however, tell them that you are 100% sure that there are non-DVR cable boxes that have firewire and that is what you want. They'll prolly give up and just give you the DVR box and not charge you for it.

[TakeFlight]

Originally Posted by Rogue9

Quick question.

I picked up my Motorola DCT6412 yesterday. I haven't tried hooking it up to the computer via the firewire yet, but I plan to this weekend. So I don't know if it will work or not.

My question is this, assuming the connection does work, can I just use the STB as my DVR, and then transfer the HD recordings I want to keep/archive to the PC via the firewire? Or does the firewire thing only work on a "Live Stream?"

It sure would be nice to let the STB handle all my DVR functions itself, since thats what its designed for. And then I could just dump a few HD recordings over to the PC to make room on the DVR.

Thanks!

This can be done but only for shows recorded from unencrypted channels. Also, there is no way to copy the files like you would from a computer. The only way to do it is play the show in realtime and record it with various capture utilities available. Do a search on avsforum.com where there is a dedicated thread for this.

[Bohica]

Originally Posted by TakeFlight

I've tried this with an older version of WinDVD that I have (v5) and it doesn't fix the problem for me. Also, some HD recordings actually cause SageTV to close with no error when I try to play them with the intervideo codec. It does this on both the SageTV server and a SageTV client so it's consistent on two computers. Maybe I need a newer version of the codecs? On the flip side, I think the picture quality is better with the intervideo codecs on the recordings that do playback without crashing SageTV.

I use windvd6 on about 7 different computers now... all work great... YMMV

[TakeFlight]

Originally Posted by Bohica

I use windvd6 on about 7 different computers now... all work great... YMMV

Maybe I'll have to give the latest (v7) a try and see how it works.

[Naylia]

has anyone successfully combined firewire recording and using a fusion5HDTV card at the same time?? anyone?

[Kirby]

Right now I am recording from firewire and from my Fusion5 Gold (OTA-HD). Seems to be going ok....

In regards to firewire to a DCT box, is it safe to use the firewire tuning to switch the box to and from an analog channel? I have tested a few times, but is it consistent? I get a much better signal with the s-vid output of my DCT than I do with any coax input to my PVR500 or ATI TheatrePro 550. I would assume that in order to do this trick (using s-video as well as firewire output of the same box) I will need to setup 2 tuners with cable lineups from neighboring cities (which I can do easy enough). I guess my concern is that the firewire input might still be "active" in Sage's eyes, and not seeing good data (or any data) might cause issues?

I also noticed that when tuning with firewire to and from a HD channel to an analog channel, that sometimes I dont have sound, and need to pause playback for a second, then hit play and it seems to resolve the audio correctly. Is this a common issue with Sage, or something specific to my setup? I am using AC3 filter being output via my motherboard's onboard SPDIF (NVIDIA4 chipset, asus a8n-sli premium MB).

[Kirby]

Originally Posted by Naylia

has anyone successfully combined firewire recording and using a fusion5HDTV card at the same time?? anyone?

An update on my previous post, I had my Fusion recording CBS HD last night (OTA) and DCT6200 was recording FOX-HD. After the show ended on CBS, I went into Sage Recordings to start the FOX show from the beginning, and when selected, got the program info bars top and bottom, black screen and a little window in the middle of the screen saying "no signal".

The odd thing is, after the DCT recording stopped at 10pm, I was able to play the file perfectly. So something weird happened, yet it did record correctly.

[IceStorm]

So after replacing my 9800 Pro with a 6600GT and moving Windows to its own 80GB disk, I'm still having problems with Firewire capture and playback.

To make a long story very short, what setups are people using for their Media Player configs?

- Full default doesn't work for me (frame rate of 17 to 22 FPS).

- Setting only the video decoder doesn't work because the video then tries to stay in 4:3 mode or puts the media player in a restart loop.

- Setting the audio decoder works, but then the video glitches every 10-60 seconds and the audio every few video glitches. The only exception seems to be if I use the Intervideo or Cyberlink video codecs, but those can't handle fast movement and keel over when the scene changes fast.

If it matters, I'm using a P4 3.06 (533Mhz FSB) with HyperThreading enabled, 1GB PC3200 in dual channel PC2100 mode (Asus P4G8X Deluxe, uses E7205 chipset), an 80GB disk on the primary IDE controller for the OS and apps, a 320 GB disk on a Silicon Image SATA controller for video (formatted with 64KB clusters as recommended), Pioneer DVD writer, 6600GT, Audigy Platinum, and Texas Instruments Firewire. I have an AverMedia A180 and a WinTV PVR-350 in the case, but no drivers installed. I want Firewire recording working before I really muck up SageTV.

Any ideas?

[soulprops77]

So I've been playing around trying to get the FW on my STB working (SA 3250HD). I read read Spaceghost's and Bohica's instructions.

I installed all drivers and software following Bohica's directions and it went very smoothly until I fired up VLC. As soon as I selected the capture device a picture cam right up, but when I tried to change the channel it froze up on me and I've been unable to receive anything over FW since. Now when I try to test it through VLC the capture device (tuner and panel) are there but when I select the tuner no window opens. All I see are the VLC controls (FF, Play, RW, etc). It doesn't seem to make any difference what channel I'm on.

I also set up a graph per Spaceghost's instructions and when I try to preview it a window opens but it's just black. No video. No audio.

Sound like an encryption thing? Could Time Warner NYC possibly encrypt every single channel HD and non-HD?

I apologize if this is a repeat post, I couldn't find anyone with this same issue.

Thanks,
Chris