STB Firewire (IEEE-1394) Support

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by ryanagler

4250HD or 4250HDC? The model I have (and cant get to work) is HDC. It is through timewarner using the Maestro firmware?

Can you elaborate on how daisy chaining two boxes would help to make channel chaging work?

channel /v detects the box and dumps all of its information, etc, so it seems the 4250HDC certainly has its firewire port enabled. its just not listening to any of the channel commands.

Maybe they disabled it. I'm on Cox Cable and had a 4250HDC. I needed to use -f -a0 or -a6 for it to accept commands.

[google]

Originally Posted by ryanagler

4250HD or 4250HDC? The model I have (and cant get to work) is HDC. It is through timewarner using the Maestro firmware?

Can you elaborate on how daisy chaining two boxes would help to make channel chaging work?

channel /v detects the box and dumps all of its information, etc, so it seems the 4250HDC certainly has its firewire port enabled. its just not listening to any of the channel commands.

I'm at the same point. channel /v detects my box and dumps all of its information too. Were you able to get video from VLC? I'm not... but I just started trying this today.

I also have a 4250 from TWC.

[ryanagler]

Originally Posted by google

I'm at the same point. channel /v detects my box and dumps all of its information too. Were you able to get video from VLC? I'm not... but I just started trying this today.

I also have a 4250 from TWC.

So, are there _any_ TWC users out there with a 4250 able to change channels via firewire? If so, is your 4250 also using the Maestro firmware?

I also tried -a0 and -a6 (and also -a0,-a1,-a2,-a3,-a4,-a5), unfortunately with no response from the box.

I've haven't tried video with VLC yet, simply because there wasnt any reason to do so in my setup (HD-PVR).

[bfb1963]

Anyone know how to find the status of 1394 enabling and if the 1394 can be configured? Wasn't it true that all modern stb's must have firewire enabled, even if not usable?

[google]

Ok... I'm able to get video on VLC, *but* it seems I'm only able to get some of the analogs.

My hd channels show up with almost like pixelated green and garbled... Even the standard HD broadcast channels like ABC, CBS... does this mean they're encrypted?

Channel changing doesn't work, but I'd rather get the video coming in clean first. Any ideas?

[matt91]

My hd channels show up with almost like pixelated green and garbled...

I'm not actually sure what a 5C'd stream would look like, but I don't think that's it.

If you record, say, 30 seconds of a stream, then watch it (ie, not live) does it still have the same problem? What kind of hardware are you running? Can you watch HD programs otherwise?

It might be just that you don't have the horse power to watch other than SD programming.

[google]

Originally Posted by matt91

I'm not actually sure what a 5C'd stream would look like, but I don't think that's it.

If you record, say, 30 seconds of a stream, then watch it (ie, not live) does it still have the same problem? What kind of hardware are you running? Can you watch HD programs otherwise?

It might be just that you don't have the horse power to watch other than SD programming.

You know, I was thinking it might be my hardware, but then I found one premium hd movie channel that's streaming fine - it's one I don't subscribe to, but TWC just added the channel to the HD lineup so I'm guessing they're doing some freeview thing.

That's the only HD channel I can stream without any issue. The locals on SD are coming in fine also. I think the 5c flag might be on for everything else.

Been trying to get the diagnostic screen to show up on the SA4250, but can't seem to figure out how to do it. I've read to hold down the SELECT button until an envelope shows up the display and then to press INFO. I get the envelope but only the channel info pops up on the tv when I press the INFO button.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by bfb1963

Anyone know how to find the status of 1394 enabling and if the 1394 can be configured? Wasn't it true that all modern stb's must have firewire enabled, even if not usable?

I believe that the FCC mandated that all cable providers must provide a box with active firewire if requrested by a customer. However I don't believe all boxes have to have firewire enabled. And, of course, this only applies to the 5% of the humans that happen to live in the USA.

[bfb1963]

Here's the FCC link:

http://sujan.hallikainen.org/FCC/FccRules/2005/76/640/

Anyway, I called Comcast customer service to investigate this and gave them the above link. They were of course more than clueless and said they get back to me sometime next week. Wish me luck, because as soon as I see the firewire in my device manager and play with it for awhile, then the ieee 1394 port dies.

[Ryand833]

Originally Posted by Endymion

Try changing your tuning delay in the sGraphRecorder.ini to something like 2000 instead of 0. If it works, you can try to reduce it until you reach a happy compromise between long tuning times and getting no signal. I've left mine at 1500 as that give me rock-solid tuning.

Thanks for this tip. I was getting no signal and weird results in Sage, but increasing my tuning time took care of it.

[Opus4]

Cablevision must have done something to my SA 4250HD STBs overnight... I found them turned off this morning and was unable to change channel via firewire after turning them back on. The short story is that I had to change a parameter for the channel changing program.

Old:
Channel –f –a4 –n <Device ID> <Channel Number>

New:
Channel –f –a6 –n <Device ID> <Channel Number>

- Andy

[hemicuda]

I'm about to make the plunge.... does this work w/ SD boxes or only HD?

[wayner]

Originally Posted by hemicuda

I'm about to make the plunge.... does this work w/ SD boxes or only HD?

The SD boxes that we get in my area (from Scientific Atlanta) don't have firewire ports.

[TechJunkie]

Originally Posted by hemicuda

I'm about to make the plunge.... does this work w/ SD boxes or only HD?

I use Verizon FIos and thier SD boxes do not have Firewire ports but thier HD boxes do. I run one HD box with S-Video so I can watch TV using a Media MVP and change the channels using Firewire.

[hemicuda]

That's on my list if I can't also record via firewire. Found out today that they disabled all serial/usb ports on their STB's last fall. I hope they have an HD box that's not a DVR. Nit-picky, but they're another $6/mon rental.

Techjunkie: could I hit you up later for your setup method if I get stuck?

[TechJunkie]

Originally Posted by hemicuda

That's on my list if I can't also record via firewire. Found out today that they disabled all serial/usb ports on their STB's last fall. I hope they have an HD box that's not a DVR. Nit-picky, but they're another $6/mon rental.

Techjunkie: could I hit you up later for your setup method if I get stuck?

I run Verizon Fios HD stb (non DVR) versions with SageTV.

[heffe2001]

I'm playing with something similar to the firewire connection, but I'm having trouble with dump.ax locking the file until the graph stops playing. The Dump.ax I'm using is from 9/2/98, size of 39696, and it'll create a file fine, just locks it and sage can't do anything with it until I stop the graph.

I've even tried the Sage mpeg dump filter, same results.

I'm using Vista, so I'm wondering if that might be part of the problem?

I also tried the SBDARecorder's dump.ax, with the same results (as well as the Sage multiplexer, and a few others).

[Muchacho]

Do I have to set up the SgraphRecorder portion of the install if all I want to do is change channels using ExeMultiTuner?

Thanks, Mike

[wayner]

Originally Posted by Muchacho

Do I have to set up the SgraphRecorder portion of the install if all I want to do is change channels using ExeMultiTuner?

No.

[cgott42]

Hi I have Verizon High Def FIOS STB model motorola HD QIP7100-1
and would like to use Firewire to change channels
(I have Hauppauge HD-PVR to record).
However I followed the directions in this thread to a "t" but got the attached error message.
Everything was going along exactly as explained.
I even got the 3 windows messages saying "new device detected" (my Verizon STB connected to PC via firewire)
however no luck changing channel (see attached).

Let me know if there's something that I can do.

TIA