STB Firewire (IEEE-1394) Support

[eehtpc]

Originally Posted by tawpgk

Then go into regedit and update the EXETUNER key to have the -f and -a4 flags, e.g.

channelw -f -a4 2 %CHANNEL%

(my panel device is number 2)

That should get it going, it did for me. Looks like im a little late for UFGrayMatter, but maybe it will help others.

Thanks so much for the tip! The boxes are responding now, at least through the command line. Can you paste the path to the registry key to edit?

[tawpgk]

EE,

glad that worked. the reg path is

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Sage\EXETunerPlugin\command
i have my channelw command in the sage directory.

i think this is doc'd in the timmmore stuff, but maybe it should also be in the new doc by que3jxp.

[tawpgk]

Originally Posted by tawpgk

EE,

glad that worked. the reg path is

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Sage\EXETunerPlugin\command
i have my channelw command in the sage directory.

i think this is doc'd in the timmmore stuff, but maybe it should also be in the new doc by que3jxp.

actually its in the exetuner read me file.

[m1abrams]

Ok so I am trying to setup this firewire connection to an SA 4250. I followed the directions to install firestb.msi and rebooted.

When it is looking for the drivers it hangs looking for avcstrm.sys

I can not find this file anywhere. Most say it should be int he sp2.cab however I checked my sp2.cab and it is not there.

I am running XP Pro SP2.

Any help please.

[tawpgk]

Originally Posted by m1abrams

Ok so I am trying to setup this firewire connection to an SA 4250. I followed the directions to install firestb.msi and rebooted.

When it is looking for the drivers it hangs looking for avcstrm.sys

I can not find this file anywhere. Most say it should be int he sp2.cab however I checked my sp2.cab and it is not there.

I am running XP Pro SP2.

Any help please.

You may not have the most current .inf file. Check out my post in 1297 or try this link:
http://home.comcast.net/~exdeus/stbfirewire/

Good Luck!

Tom

[m1abrams]

Thanks I will try that when i get home. However I do not see the avcstrm.sys in that zip file. I am thinking that my windows install is missing that driver and I need to get it somewhere.

[m1abrams]

After doing some more research it seems avcstrm.sys is a Windows supplied driver. However I can not find it anywhere on my XP SP2 system. Only place I have seen it available online is some site that wants $20 for it. wth?

Please tell what I am doing wrong, it seems no one else is having issues getting this file. It is not provided in any of the firestb packages that I can tell.

[kevine]

Originally Posted by m1abrams

After doing some more research it seems avcstrm.sys is a Windows supplied driver. However I can not find it anywhere on my XP SP2 system. Only place I have seen it available online is some site that wants $20 for it. wth?

Please tell what I am doing wrong, it seems no one else is having issues getting this file. It is not provided in any of the firestb packages that I can tell.

check c:\windows\ServicePackFiles\i386 directory. If it is not there send me a message and I will get it to you.

[drinkmilk15]

so i've gotten everything to work except the sage portion. first of all i'm using this as my only tuner so i have no other mmc/encoders lines in my properties file. does it matter where i put the new lines? i put them in, but i can not get sage to recognize any capture devices. i'm following these instructions to the letter but getting nothing. what am i doing wrong? thanks

[drinkmilk15]

nevermind. looks like i fixed it.

[kevine]

Originally Posted by drinkmilk15

nevermind. looks like i fixed it.

What did you do though to fix it? If you followed instructions too the letter, then whatever you did might help someone else. Thanks.

[m1abrams]

Well I gave the firewire a shot. Not much luck though. I was able to get my computer to load the drivers for the STB. However whenever VLC tried to access the STB I would get an error "device unable to start" or something similar.

When I tried channel.exe that would blue screen my machine.

This is on a SA 4250. Any ideas or is this probably a no go on this box?

[Kirby]

I just re-setup my firewire setup, and have my timings such that SGR has a 2000 delay as well as (tried in both service mode and non-service mode, doesnt seem to affect it either way):

videoframe/network_encoding_to_playback_delay=4000
videoframe/time_to_start_into_tv_file_playback=5500

Firewire changes to my dct6200 are blazing fast (takes under 1 second) but most of the time I cant view live/delayed programming. And in some cases, I cant play the file at all. Threw one file into mpeg2repair, and got the following output:

MPEG2Repair: D:\16Blocks-1304439-0.mpg


Sequence Frame 0(0-X) / Time 0:00:00 :
Error: Packet at file offset 400209 has no TS Sync Byte

Sequence Frame 816(378-P) / Time 0:00:34 :
VideoError: Invalid Huffman code in non-intra MPEG2 block. MBA=1504(1024,192)
Additional error(s) detected.  Increase VerboseLogLevel in INI file for details.
FileInfo: Last video errors span 13 bytes at file offset 59823091

Sequence Frame 817(378-P) / Time 0:00:34 :
Info: End of MPEG2 sequence

Sequence Summary:

File Size Processed: 57.05 MB, Play Time: 00h:00m:34s
1920 x 1080, 29.97 fps (23.97 fps Telecine), 20.00 Mbps (11.85 Mbps Average).
Average Video Quality: 60.33 KB/Frame, 0.24 Bits/Pixel.
AC3 Audio: 3/2 Channels (L, C, R, SL, SR) + LFE, 48.0 kHz, 384 kbps.
Dialog Normalization: -27.0 dB, Center Mix Level: -3.0 dB, Surround Mix Level: -3.0 dB
1 of 817 video frames found with errors.
0 of 1065 audio frames found with errors.
13 corrupted video bytes in file.
0.000000 seconds of video timestamp gaps.
0.000000 seconds of audio timestamp gaps.

End of Log

The output file plays perfect. So it would seem that either my STB is messing up (no sync byte) or SGR/Sage/PC is messing up in some way as to not record properly. So I am wondering what else I could try.

I suppose I could push all firewire recordings to a separate recording directory, and post process them through mpeg2repair.

Another thing I noticed, it would appear that Sage is not honoring those delays I have set, beyond the first tuning attempt. When first starting sage, go into the guide, record a channel, I can count the delay of 4 seconds between the channel change and when the recording icon appears. On subsequent changes, the recording icon appears during the channel change.

How is everyone else handling this?

[drinkmilk15]

Originally Posted by kevine

What did you do though to fix it? If you followed instructions too the letter, then whatever you did might help someone else. Thanks.

the additional mmc/encoders lines from the most recently posted pdf instructions did not work. i found a much smaller set of them in an earlier posting, and adding those instead of the ones in the pdf full instructions solved the problem. maybe i didn't know how to use these correctly. I just copied and pasted the 50 or so lines directly into sage.properties.

I kind of have a new issue and i'm not sure if this is because of my setup or 5c. Certain channels wont tune and when i try to go to them, not only do they not tune, but completely freeze whatever application is trying to tune them and won't show channel changes at all anymore even to previously working channels.

Is this what happens when 5c is enabled? its making it very hard to try and find which channels do and do not work, as i have to close and restart the program everytime when i'm checking which channels work. thanks

[kricker]

Originally Posted by drinkmilk15

Is this what happens when 5c is enabled? its making it very hard to try and find which channels do and do not work, as i have to close and restart the program everytime when i'm checking which channels work. thanks

thats what it looked like when I used VLAN and tried tuning to 5c enabled channels. Although VLAN looked like it was frozen it really wasn't, as soon as I changed the channel to a non 5C enabled one, it displayed it properly.

[drinkmilk15]

Originally Posted by kricker

thats what it looked like when I used VLAN and tried tuning to 5c enabled channels. Although VLAN looked like it was frozen it really wasn't, as soon as I changed the channel to a non 5C enabled one, it displayed it properly.

this happens to me even in sage. it completely freezes sage and changing the channel does not unfreeze it. i wish it did, then i could just go through all my channels and make a list of which ones don't work and edit my epg accordingly. as it stands now though thats just too much hastle as i have to restart sage at every channel that doesnt work.

edit: I've done a little testing and i don't believe it has anything to do with the 5c. Whenever i change channels to pretty much anything it doesn't tune the channel. In vlc i played the captured device and it tunes fine. then i change the channel and it freezes up. but if i stop the feed and then hit play again it immediately starts playing again on the channel that wouldn't work before. has this ever happened to anyone before?

[m1abrams]

I gave firewire some more time last night and was able to get some channels to display over VLC. However most of them even the non-HD ones had pixalation. Some channels worse than others. The HD had the pixalation the worst. Kinda looks like macro blocking of some sort. A previous poster in this thread put up a screenshot of what I am getting.

I have read through this thread and several people have mentioned similiar problems yet no one has given a solution to it, or if there is a solution.

Anyone know what would cause this?

Thanks, I am close to giving up on SageTV and going back to Tivo. I love SageTV however it just is too difficult to get HD content .

[frontlinegeek]

m1abrams, the problem stems from the fact that there has been no active driver development for the newer settop boxes. It is one of those cases of older is better.

I use a pair of Motorola DCT6208s and are fine but people I know in Ontario that are on SA hardware are having all sorts of issues. It is believed that the firmware revision they are at is the issue but where all of the support is from the community and none from the actual manufacturer, we are all pretty helpless.

It is like I have stated on another forum that I am on. If firewire goes away, I am very likely to get rid of most, if not all of my cable package. SageTV and most of the other HTPC solutions are vastly better than what the cable and sat companies provide so I don't know if I could go back knowing there is something better that is being stimied simply because of Hollywood.

[m1abrams]

Well I tried the firewire this time with my Macbook Pro. It worked a bit better however the HDTV channels still have blocking. Oh well, gave it a shot. Will probably just get an HDHR.

[btrcp2000]

Well after two weeks of trying, I finally had some success. Firewire tuning is working through sage, but not reliably. Sometimes when I switch to another channel, I get a long delay, then a still image of the channel i was switching away from (sounds eerily similar to my HDHR issues...) If it doesn't totally freeze, I can usually go to a non-stb channel, and then back.

Is this where the timings come in, or are there other settings I can tweak to make this more reliable?

Also, does the stb have to be powered on constantly or can sage/sgr/something else send a power on signal (would prefer to use firewire tuning, but i do have a usbuirt)

BTW, I wish I had some useful advice for those who are still struggling. I tried drinkmilk's suggestion of using the original mmc/encoder lines, but sage didn't recognize the stb at all. After a few tries back and forth with the newer and older lines, it just randomly started working. However, I will not be turning it over to the wife and kids just yet, I think we're a little ways away from prime time.