STB Firewire (IEEE-1394) Support

[UFGrayMatter]

ok...i THINK i might have things working a litlte bit smoother. But...

here is a guide question.

How do i map my HD channel CBS (channel 702) so it shows up as channel 2. I did this, but then when i select it to watch, it only tunes in channel 2, not 702??

[PhillJones]

Originally Posted by UFGrayMatter

ok...i THINK i might have things working a litlte bit smoother. But...

here is a guide question.

How do i map my HD channel CBS (channel 702) so it shows up as channel 2. I did this, but then when i select it to watch, it only tunes in channel 2, not 702??

Yeah, that's what remap is supposed to do. It's in case the lineup you download isn't perfect, you can shift channels arround. It's not for re-ordering channels. I THINK that there's a plugin that does this though, although I may be wrong.

[Opus4]

BTW: if you only map the logical channel, you currently have to remember to map the physical channel back to the one it should tune for that channel. In the next version (v6.1), it will only map the logical while leaving the physical channel as it was.

- Andy

[CrapGame]

Please bear with me as I am a novice when it comes to recording via firewire from a STB. And sorry for interrupting a more technical thread on HD recording.

I don't have an HD-ready TV, but I would like to record SD via firewire in lieu of purchasing a second tuner card.

Could someone please let me know if the following is possible:

(1) connecting an SA3250 via S-video to an ATI TV Wonder card,

(2) connecting the same STB to my HTPC via firewire, and

(3) using Sage to view/record one SD channel while simultaneously recording a second channel via firewire?

Also, I have an Radeon X300SE 128MB. Would that be sufficient for these purposes?

If this is more hassle than it's worth, I'll just buy another turner. Just wanted to see if I could save a few bucks and still get the benefits of a dual tuner.

Thanks.

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by CrapGame

I don't have an HD-ready TV, but I would like to record SD via firewire in lieu of purchasing a second tuner card.

Could someone please let me if the following is possible:

(1) connecting an SA3250 via S-video to an ATI TV Wonder card,

(2) connecting the same STB to my HTPC via firewire, and

3) using Sage to view/record one SD channel while simultaneously recording a second channel via firewire?

Nope, the STB would be outputting the same content out through the firewire and s-video outputs.

You could record off the STB through the firewire and maybe record standard analog cable through the tuner's coax port. Or else hook up a second STB to the tuner card. so you could record off both STB's, one through a tuner and one through firewire.

[CrapGame]

Thanks much.

So, to be clear, I'm assuming both solutions require splitting the coaxial cable. Would this degrade picture quality or require amplifying the line?

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by CrapGame

Thanks much.

So, to be clear, I'm assuming both solutions require splitting the coaxial cable. Would this degrade picture quality or require amplifying the line?

Yup, you'll need to split the coax for that. The picture quality will degrade slightly on each split of the coax, but unless you split it too many times, it probably won't matter. If you split it too many times, then an amplifier may help.

[PhillJones]

Originally Posted by ke6guj

Yup, you'll need to split the coax for that. The picture quality will degrade slightly on each split of the coax, but unless you split it too many times, it probably won't matter. If you split it too many times, then an amplifier may help.

Not for digital cable though surely. If you have digital then the signal is at an acceptable level in which case you get a signal or it's not and you get garbage. If you order a second STB, the cable company will probably want to install it anyway so they'll take care of it and you'll have no drop in quality.

[CrapGame]

Thanks, Phil.

So it seems that for digital I can simultaneously view/record one channel and record a second channel only with two STBs, or I could junk digital and the STB, split the coax, buy a second tuner card, and go that way.

Of course certain non-premium channels are only available from TWCNY using digital, so I would need to pay an additional $10/month for a second STB to retain my current channel lineup and gain the dual tuner capability. Ugh.

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by CrapGame

Thanks, Phil.

So it seems that for digital I can simultaneously view/record one channel and record a second channel only with two STBs, or I could junk digital and the STB, split the coax, buy a second tuner card, and go that way.

Of course certain non-premium channels are only available from TWCNY using digital, so I would need to pay an additional $10/month for a second STB to retain my current channel lineup and gain the dual tuner capability. Ugh.

Here is another option for you. Hook up the STB via firewire for the digital channels(hoping you aren't going to run into 5C encryption issues) and hook up the tuner card with straight coax for the analogs. You'd be able to record one analog and one digital channel at the same time.

[CrapGame]

Got it. I guess this assumes that splitting the coax wouldn't distrupt the digital feed.

In any event, I was just looking at SA3250s on eBay. I need to find out if these will definitely work with my feed from TWCNY. If so, I'll go the two STB route.

[PhillJones]

Originally Posted by CrapGame

Got it. I guess this assumes that splitting the coax wouldn't distrupt the digital feed.

In any event, I was just looking at SA3250s on eBay. I need to find out if these will definitely work with my feed from TWCNY. If so, I'll go the two STB route.

Don't comcast have to authorize the box? Can you just buy a second box second hand and hook it up?

On the back of my box, there's a cable passthrough so you wouldn't even have to split it. I just assumed you'd have to rent a second box from comcast, making it cheaper to just rent a dual tuner DVR from them than to use sage.

[CrapGame]

Yes, I believe you're right about all of this, after having done some research. Although in July the new FCC regulations kick in forcing the cable companies to make digital services compatible with all third-party vendor STBs. For the moment, I'm just going to do without the second STB rental and thus simultaneous recording/viewing the digital channels.

[UFGrayMatter]

I just want to thank everybody that helped put this together and specifically helped me through my troubles.

I have successfully recorded HD shows for about 2 weeks now and all is PERFECT (besides some channels w/ weak signals ).

I love watching 24 w/ no commercials in HD!!!

Thank You!

Ryan

[stewart710]

I beleive I have similar problem with a weak channel or two. CBS channel 804 in eastern Massachusetts is still a bit choppy with Firewire recording and SageTV Version 6. It is especially annoying during Patriots games, not as annoying as blowing an 18 point lead to the Colts, but still annoying.

I wanted to ask the experts if this is something I should take up with Comcast, or should I rewire my connections inside the house, or is it a SageTV Problem?

[PhillJones]

Maybe I'm wrong but I was under the impression that the firewire connection is just the raw stream dumped on the disk. It the cable box can't recognize the bits due to a weak signal, you'll get no signal or a stuttery mess. It doesn't matter if you're watching it right then or streaming it to HDD. You can't have a channel that's viewable but is too weak to record via firewire.

Is this not the case?

I'm in Somerville and use to live in boston CBS has always been rock solid for me. NBC has had it's moments, especially when they first came online but seem pretty good these days.

[stewart710]

I would have thought so too, but I get no stutters watching CBS on my HDTV via my comcast box. I do get stutters when I watch it on SageTV via firewire and the stutters exist in my recordings as well. It used to happen on PBS 802 and 838 WSBK, unitl I switched to the newer graph which goes straight to .ts.

[gtd885a]

Originally Posted by stewart710

I would have thought so too, but I get no stutters watching CBS on my HDTV via my comcast box. I do get stutters when I watch it on SageTV via firewire and the stutters exist in my recordings as well. It used to happen on PBS 802 and 838 WSBK, unitl I switched to the newer graph which goes straight to .ts.

I'm not sure if this is a problem with weak signal, or possibly a 1080i problem. I have had problems with CBS broadcasts, especially during football games. Here is a discussion specifically about this:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22830

[UFGrayMatter]

Originally Posted by PhillJones

Maybe I'm wrong but I was under the impression that the firewire connection is just the raw stream dumped on the disk. It the cable box can't recognize the bits due to a weak signal, you'll get no signal or a stuttery mess. It doesn't matter if you're watching it right then or streaming it to HDD. You can't have a channel that's viewable but is too weak to record via firewire.

Is this not the case?

I'm in Somerville and use to live in boston CBS has always been rock solid for me. NBC has had it's moments, especially when they first came online but seem pretty good these days.

this isn't the case b/c the box corrects these errors. If you get into your diagnostics screen you can see Corrected Errors and uncorrected errors. I'm sure all this is happening after the TS dump through the firewire.

The question I have is how is a little tiny 164/90 cpu/bus processor doing that!

[rebelBodhi]

First, I'd like to thank everyone here who has contributed to the development of this awesome configuration. I recently built my own HTPC and ran into this thread. I followed the instructions someone put into a pdf summarizing the process and I was soon watching, recording and even changing the channel over my STB from my PC. Very sweet.

But while I can watch and record standard def channels fine, HD does not work well at all. I'll get maybe a few seconds (or sometimes a few minutes) before the screen just freezes. I can bring up the menu and change channel, back out to the main menu etc, but that channel just freezes.

It feels like a performance problem but I'm not sure.. It's perfectly smooth for those seconds or minutes, then either becomes choppy for a sec then freezes, or just freezes. I also feel like my system should be able to handle the load but I'm not sure what it takes. More RAM? RAID 0? No idea.

My setup:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ Manchester 2.4GHz 2 x 512KB L2
1 GB RAM
1 500GB SATA HDD (writing to a ~300GB partition on it)
EVGA nForce 4 SLI MoBo 1GHz FSB
EVGA nVidia 7600 GTS PCIe (just one for now)
(for now using the optical digital audio-out on the MoBo, adding a sound card soon)

Olevia 32" LCD HDTV using the (old-school) VGA-in

I'm just at a loss at what the HD problem is.. can't find any simliar problems in the thread .. anyone have any ideas? Thanks a lot!