STB Firewire (IEEE-1394) Support

[Bohica]

Does Timmoore still monitor this thread? We do need an updated NON MCE version of his software. If anyone is friends with him or has his contact info can you send it to me?

Thanks!!

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by Bohica

Does Timmoore still monitor this thread? We do need an updated NON MCE version of his software. If anyone is friends with him or has his contact info can you send it to me?

Thanks!!

What do you mean, I just installed his software the other day and it worked fine in an XP pro box. YOu just have to follow the directions and install from a DOS prompt to bypass the MCE check. It will only install the drivers and the programs like channel.exe and channelw.exe. We don't use the MCE stuff, so it doesn't install that.

Here is timmoore's website so you can make sure you have the latest build.
http://home.comcast.net/~timmmoore/w...0Firewire.html

[Bohica]

Found that 10 minutes after I posted... Forget I asked... and thanks...

<T>

[stewart710]

Originally Posted by wado1971

I posted this question in the hardware section without response - hopefully it's more relevant here.

I've got the firewire HD working Very excited / thanks to all - now a question.

I have only one (1) STB and have two (2) outputs (one firewire and one S-Video-to-pvr150). Channel lineups are from different cities which works well. Now the problem is that sagetv doesn't realize that the two inputs are from a single source and will change the channel on the STB (s-video) while recording via firewire - or vis-versa.

Is there a way to tell sage that 'IF' the pvr150 is recording 'THEN' make the firewire busy? How is this issue dealt with?

thanks

It seems to me that we need some kind of virtual tuner plugin that knows that these two sources are coming from different places, but SageTV only sees it as one tuner. Is it possible to accomplish this using SageGraphRecorder? Is it possible to construct a graph that switches between sources based on the channel number entered?

[heffe2001]

Used to be that I coudln't watch HD live, could only record it, and then watch it afterwards. With 6.0 Sage, I can watch without any problems now, maybe a skip once or twice if other recordings start or stop. Anybody else have any better luck since 6.0 came out?

[dertb]

No Joy here. I can not watch HD content live. I can record it and watch it in playback form but when watching live i get freezes. I am getting massive ammounts of get_file_size when trying it that way. any ideas that would allow me to get the file size errors to go away..



AMD Athlon FX-60, A8N32-SLI Deluxe, 2 GB DDR400, GeoForce 7800 GT 91.47, Recording Drive SATA II (5 Maxtor @300 gig Spanned), LiteOn DVDRW 16X Dual Layer, 2 Hauppauge PVR 500 Cards, VBOX Cat's Eye USB-A-3560, FW-> SA 3150HD, DirMon2, ShowAnalyzer v.0.8.2

[heffe2001]

Originally Posted by dertb

No Joy here. I can not watch HD content live. I can record it and watch it in playback form but when watching live i get freezes. I am getting massive ammounts of get_file_size when trying it that way. any ideas that would allow me to get the file size errors to go away..

Those aren't errors, those are Sage requesting filesize from the network encoder. Seems to be working just fine here, with an occasional glitch, but I'm not so sure it's not my cablebox that's generating those.

[dertb]

Originally Posted by heffe2001

Those aren't errors, those are Sage requesting filesize from the network encoder. Seems to be working just fine here, with an occasional glitch, but I'm not so sure it's not my cablebox that's generating those.

So what wold be causing the freezing in live HD TV. This only happens when i use the firewire..

[MeInMaui]

Hi all,

I have 2 SA3250HD boxes connected to my server via firewire. I cannot record over firewire because all channels are 5C'd, so I want to set up to change channels over firewire and record the s-video outputs through my pvr500 card.

Unfortunately, instructions for using the exemultituner plugin are scarce. Here is what I have pieced together so far for use with firewire:

1. Copy exemultituner into ...\Program files\SageTV\Common\
2. Change the encoder 'device_ name' values for the two pvr500 tuners to correspond to the device numbers for the firewire panels (in my case 3 and 4) in sage.properties.
3. Add the registry value:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Frey Technologies\Common\EXEMultiTunerPlugin]
"command"="c:\getHD\channelw.exe %DEVICE% %CHANNEL%"

4. I saw some reference to making copies of the stubdevice.ir file and renaming them to match the new device names specified in step 2 above (also changing the device name within each file to match). Is this necessary?

5. I assume the computer needs to be rebooted for the new registry value to be recognized.

6. Set up the encoders in sage and tell them to use exemultituner for channel tuning.

Additionally, I would like to run SageTV in service mode. From what I saw, the service has to run from the local account and be set to interact with the desktop. However, I am using UNC paths so I don't think this is an option. Is there any way to get this to work with SageTV in service mode using a separate login with administrative privileges?

Edit: This works as BobP pointed out below.

So, am I even close? Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Aloha,
Mike

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by MeInMaui

Additionally, I would like to run SageTV in service mode. From what I saw, the service has to run from the local account and be set to interact with the desktop. However, I am using UNC paths so I don't think this is an option. Is there any way to get this to work with SageTV in service mode using a separate login with administrative privileges?

So, am I even close? Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Aloha,
Mike

I think it would work just fine. channelw.exe is just an executable file it is not a service so you should be able to set it up like I have with EXETunerPlugin for my one box. There is no need to interact with the desktop I don't think. Note I'm running in Service Mode with UNC paths. If you are haveing problems maybe you need the 8.3 file path like I entered below. I had problems until I used short path names.

Here is my Registry entry for EXETunerPlugin:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Sage]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Sage\EXETunerPlugin]
"command"="c:\\progra~1\\timmmo~1\\mce200~1\\channelw.exe 2 %CHANNEL%"

BobP.

[MeInMaui]

Thanks for the replies.

I did already have the firewire drivers installed with manual channel changing through channel.exe verified, but thanks for checking that the basics were covered.

I basically followed through with the steps I outlined above and it (eventually) worked. The biggest trouble was keeping track of the connection chain and the tuner names in sage. Hopefully this will prove to be much more reliable than using a USB-UIRT.

Thanks again!

Aloha,
Mike

[dflachbart]

I just entered the HD world . What kind of CPU power is required for the recording part ? I am sure that my current hardware (2.9 Ghz Celeron, MX4000) will not be up to the task of HD playback, but would it be sufficient to record HD shows in a client/server environment ?

Thanks,
Dirk

[evilpenguin]

You should be just fine. Firewire HD recording isn't anymore processor intensive than copying a big file, because thats essentially all it is.

[willgill]

Your 2.9Ghz Celeron will work great. I have a much lesser system as my HTPC (see my sig) and HD recording works flawlessly. Just make sure you take the usual precautions, dedicated hard drive, 64k clusters, "unencumbered" system without 25 startup items.

[WellThen]

Hi All, trying to figure out a way to pick up programs that are 5C'd by my provider (COMCAST).

Currently, I have an Athlon 2200+ with v4.1.3 Sage server with 3 tuners:
1) STB Firewire (as described in this thread)
2) Hauppauge PVR-150 PCI card
3) ATI AIW-7500 (which I don't really use - it's a software decoder, and I'm afraid the overhead would affect my recording or playback from the other tuners)

There are certain channels, above 100, that Comcast blocks for firewire. I would like to figure out a way to capture them via S-Video. My cable box is already controlling channels via firewire for Tuner 1 (above), is there some way to get it to also control them for another tuner, which could be set up as S-Video? (I have a spare Hauppauge PVR USB2 that could be pressed into service if necessary.)

Is there some way to make use of the same cable box for both the HD and SVideo? It seems like they's step on each other when both tuners wanted to use the cable box. But I hate to add another cable box just for this. And even if I did, could I control that cable box also via firewire?

Thanks!

[MeInMaui]

Originally Posted by jds23

You can't use the same STB for HD/SVideo, but you can control 2 different STB's via FW with Sage. I have Comcast, and 2 STB's ea. (on 2 different servers) being controlled via FW and it is working great (via Sage). You will need the "Exetuner" and "ExeMultiTuner" plugins to control each box seperately on one server. Your USB2 PVR will work fine as the second tuner, just hook up the second STB via FW and plug it into the SVideo port of the USB2 PVR and that will take care of the hardware connections. There were 2 guides I found in the FW thread here on Sage, and it was one of them that had all the info to accomplish this setup, I just don't remember exactly which one it was. -John

Just a quick note. The exemultituner plugin can control multiple STB's on its own. You don't need exetuner too.

Aloha,
Mike

[stewart710]

I've been monkeying around with this trying to get to the point where I can change the channel while watching LiveTV via firewire. I am now able to watch live HDTV and change the channel. in the SGraphrecorder.ini file I set the tuning delay to 2000 and changed unloadgraph on switch value from 0 to 1. I left the delay in sage properties at 4000.

[Bohica]

Hey all,

Just a quick note here. I was able to install a remote HD tuner, using the same setup as noted in the documentation. I now have 2 HD tuners working via firewire, one remote, and one local to the server. It seems to have no real problems, although I did install the remote on one beefy system. It seems to stutter a little when I have both tuners actively recording and I choose to playback a recorded or live HD stream to the same remote system -- but I cant blame it. Even then it is still watchable.

Anyone have two HD systems working on the same server? I did this once, and was able to get both working fine using two copies of SGR in different directories -- but had resource issues when both tried to record at the same time. I have not tried to do this again since the new release of SGR... would be interested if anyone has tried it...

[badahab]

I really wish this thread was a sticky...

[Opus4]

... it is already linked in a sticky.

- Andy