STB Firewire (IEEE-1394) Support

[Kirby]

He's FOS. 5C is put on at the MSO from my understanding, that being Cox, Comcast, Charter, etc. Satellite companies dont send out 5C streams, so if he was correct, then that would mean that someone like Dishnetwork or DirecTV have to REMOVE 5C from channels like HBO-HD before they broadcast it to everyone.

[mangriotis]

Originally Posted by heffe2001

I think I'm using the 6p to 6p cable, and no problems. If it works via 6 to 4, then I'd not worry too much about it.

I got everything working fantastically over the weekend. I have the 6-pin out from the DTC6200 and the 4-pin into my PC.

I have Comcast here and was wondering which channels you guys have that are 5C'd out (you can PM me about this)...

[Bohica]

Originally Posted by Kirby

Are you saying that Cox has been 5C'ing your FOX and CBS channels during games, or on channels associated with NFL-ST? I've never had any CBS or FOX HD signals here 5C'd during an NFL game. Or even ABC during MNF. But I am on Charter in Michigan, so it could be provider specific too.

Exactly what I am saying... the show before and after works fine... but the actual game stutters with 1 or part of a frame every couple of seconds -- just like they are 5c'ing it. It's the only think I can think of...

[Kirby]

I really dont think thats a NFL regulation. I know for a fact that I recorded a few games this year. Example was the Turkey day games, and the two on Christmas. All those recorded fine as I watched them later. If it is a regulation, then not all providers are doing it.

If it matters, all those games I recorded were done from the QAM feed on my MyHD card, not through the firewire port on the DCT6200. I wonder if it was 5C that Cox hit you with, or could it be the BF? Is that even being used yet?

[mangriotis]

Last night, the wife was attempting to watch a file that was being recorded (i.e. she started it about 20m into an hour long show). For some reason, it started the recording 10 minutes late, then got an exception error at some point later in the show and shut down Sage completely, something with the mpeg2demultiplexer.dll. Anybody see this kind of thing before?

[heffe2001]

Originally Posted by mangriotis

I got everything working fantastically over the weekend. I have the 6-pin out from the DTC6200 and the 4-pin into my PC.

I have Comcast here and was wondering which channels you guys have that are 5C'd out (you can PM me about this)...

Here on Charter, no 5c at all, everything I pay for, I get via firewire capture (HBO, Cine, Stars, Showtime, TMC, etc, SD & HD broadcasts).

I know it's just a matter of time before they DO start with the 5c, but with our cable co's lackluster support for upgrades in the past, it's probably a long time away...

[Kirby]

Originally Posted by heffe2001

Here on Charter, no 5c at all, everything I pay for, I get via firewire capture (HBO, Cine, Stars, Showtime, TMC, etc, SD & HD broadcasts).

I know it's just a matter of time before they DO start with the 5c, but with our cable co's lackluster support for upgrades in the past, it's probably a long time away...

You're lucky. Most of the Charter super-headends I know about enabled 5C on all premium HD tier content as well as movie content back at the end of September (Sept. 30 at around 3pm to be exact). They have since added Cinemax and TNT HD to our lineup, but forgotten to enable 5C. Hopefully they wont find that mistake anytime soon. Every digital SD channel also has 5C turned on here, which sucks.

[mangriotis]

Originally Posted by Kirby

You're lucky. Most of the Charter super-headends I know about enabled 5C on all premium HD tier content as well as movie content back at the end of September (Sept. 30 at around 3pm to be exact). They have since added Cinemax and TNT HD to our lineup, but forgotten to enable 5C. Hopefully they wont find that mistake anytime soon. Every digital SD channel also has 5C turned on here, which sucks.

The same applies to me (no 5c at all), though I didn't want to post that to avoid alerting the cable companies to this... but what are the odds they read this forum??

[Kirby]

I need to move I guess!

[Kirby]

Originally Posted by Kirby

So is the behavior I am experiencing normal? Is there some other setting somewhere I can change, or would it be possible to incorporate something like the MultiTuner program for DCT2000 serial control, where it will try to re-send the channel change if it thinks it didnt work? Or even force a double tuning? Because it wont affect the firewire output stream if it changes a second time to the same channel number (in fact nothing at all happens).

I hate quoting mylsef, but after more testing last night, I still have issues with some channel changes over firewire. I have setup the SGR ini file to include a time delay of 125ms between each number (default was 50) in hopes that this would help. However I still have issues where it will send a channel change and totally miss a digit. Is this a problem within Sage (and not SGR) or possibly a problem with my DCT6200's panel and/or AV/C Panel driver? What else can I do??? Anyone?

[phenixdragon]

I am running into a problem on setting this up. I did see this at one time but now I am missing the "mmc/encoders/12345/encoding_host=" I do not see any lines that have ...encoding_host=

Any ideas on why I don't or what I can do to fix it?

Thanks!

[gtd885a]

Originally Posted by heffe2001

Here on Charter, no 5c at all, everything I pay for, I get via firewire capture (HBO, Cine, Stars, Showtime, TMC, etc, SD & HD broadcasts).

I know it's just a matter of time before they DO start with the 5c, but with our cable co's lackluster support for upgrades in the past, it's probably a long time away...

I miss those days, Charter 5c'd me a while back. I didn't know how good I had it. Now I'm stuck recording analog cable and locals. Wife never uses Sage anymore, always just uses the cable box directly, which of course totally screws Sage up so it doesn't even record the few things it can record correctly.

[chrismo16]

I just set up channel change over firewire and it works like a charm. Now that I have it set up I was hoping I could remap the HD locals to there non-HD channel numbers. Ex. ABC-HD is 210 and ABC is 10 in my lineup. I would like to remap 210 to 10 and remove 10 from both sources. The only problem is that even though 10 is actually 210, Sage tunes my STB to 10 instead. Does anyone know of a work around?

[iamhrh]

Would someone be so kind as to point me in the correct direction to get multiple Motorola DCT6200's recording over firewire?
Do I need to have multiple Graphs / Instances of SGR?
Anything I need to consider reguarding program guide data, IE, if I tell sage that two input sources use the same program guide information, does it automatically use whichever one is availible?

Thanks in advance for any help, I've already got one box working perfectly, and I'd like to get the second STB in place if possible

[Bohica]

Originally Posted by iamhrh

Would someone be so kind as to point me in the correct direction to get multiple Motorola DCT6200's recording over firewire?
Do I need to have multiple Graphs / Instances of SGR?
Anything I need to consider reguarding program guide data, IE, if I tell sage that two input sources use the same program guide information, does it automatically use whichever one is availible?

Thanks in advance for any help, I've already got one box working perfectly, and I'd like to get the second STB in place if possible

Hey -- sorry -- off the forums for a couple of days. Multiple tuners configure fine. Two instances of SageGraphRecorder -- each using a different graph in graphedit. When you name the graphs you create -- be sure you are selecting different tuners and name the graphs so you know which tuner is which... you will see that all the sources in graphedit are named the same. BTW -- you need to install the drivers for both tuners (set top boxes)... then choose a different port on the second SGR installation and configure sage. I had two running for a while -- but even on my BIG HUGE BEEFY system, I could not record two shows at the same time -- I got resource errors. When I get the chance I am going to add 1 or 2 remote HD tuners running on two of my clients that have HD STBs local to them. Let me know how your second install goes... hope this rambling helped...

[phenixdragon]

Man it would be nice to have had at least 1 of those running. But since I coudln't get any help I am using MCE for my firewire connection. Very easy to setup which I don't understand why someone hasn't donei t for Sage. Basically ou just install a program and then install the drivers for the STB (which is part of the installer) and bam, it works. Just too bad this isn't native for Sage.

[bhyman1]

I just tried to connect my SA8300HD PVR to my computer and set up firewire capture.

The drivers install fine and the computer recognizes the device and set's it up. The problem is, whenever I try to capture video from it, be it in VLC, Windows Movie Maker, or Windows Media Encoder, I either get an error, or get a BSOD.

Would this problem be caused by Time Warner doing something to the port? Like turning off most of it's functionality? Or should I try this on another computer?

[soulprops77]

I'm having a similar problem. all the firewire drivers are installed properly and they show up in VLC, but when I try to play from the capture device no window opens. I've checked the 5C status on my cable box for NBC HD and it says "Clear to Air" so that should be okay, no?

I also get no picture from GrpahEdit, but have had limited success using CAPDVHS. Basically it just seems very, very unstable.

The one time that VLC worked was when I tried to view a digital, bot non HD, channel. It crapped out as soon as I tried to change channels.

Is there something stupid that I could be missing?

[Bohica]

Sounds like either 5c, or they have your ports turned off, or your system has issues with the firewire... assume everyone is running SP2 for windows correct? Have you tested the firewire ports with other things to make sure your system can use them correctly? Tried another system with the cable boxes -- like a laptop or something? Just throwing out some troubleshooting tips...

[soulprops77]

Is there a particular bios setting for the 1394 perhaps?

I am using SP2 and I'm certain the port is working because the tuner and panel device are both recognized and the driver loads without a hitch. My iPod seems to work fine as well.

Trying to get technical info from Time Warner Cable is like pulling teeth, but I'm in the process of exploring that as well.

Thanks,
Chris