STB Firewire (IEEE-1394) Support

[davidk21770]

SBDARecorderDump is what the dump.ax filter that comes with SGraphRecorder calls itself in the directshow list.

[wetalien]

Hi,

My first language is French, so please pardon my incorrect use of English grammar.

My setup:
Gigabyte Motherboard (GA-MA78GM-S2HP)
Windows XP SP2
SA 3250HD Cable box

My SA 3250HD box has 2 enabled firewire ports. I have installed the drivers from http://home.comcast.net/~exdeus/stbfirewire/ and all works well.

I have 4 imaging devices in Device Manager, a tuner, a panel, and 2 unknown devices that I disabled. (I’m getting the same problem if they are enabled)

Using channel.exe I can change the channel on my cable box using firewire and it works great, even from sage (using svideo for capture).

My issue is that after a random amount of time all 4 imaging devices disappear from my windows device manager causing channel changing to stop working. Sage still records at the right time, just on the wrong channel.

Turning the cable box on and off makes no difference. Using "Scan for new hardware" has no effect. Disabling and re-enabling my firewire bus controller has no effect.
I have to disconnect and reconnect the firewire cable or reboot my computer for the device to reappear in device manager. And once it’s back everything wokrs fine for a while longer.

My issue is that up here in Canada it's not mandated that the firewire port be enabled, so my cable provider (Rogers cable) is no help. I've already tried to exchange my box for a different one and I'm still having the same issue.

Any ideas what I should try? I don't really want to mail order an IR blaster if I don't have to.

[reggie14]

That brings up a related question that I have: what's the difference between Tim Moore's FireSTB drivers and the ones listed on the Exdeus STB Firewire page? I went to Tim Moore's page to get FireSTB, but it looks like the Exdeus page is newer.

[wetalien]

Just a quick update for the benefit of others that may have this issue.

I upgraded to Windows XP SP3 to no effect. I was grasping at straws trying to get this resolved so I went out and bought a new Firewire cable to replace the bargain bin retractable one I had. It seems to have solved the problem. It's been 2 days and it's still working. I should have got a good cable in the first place, all the time I wasted on this was worth a lot more than the $10 I paid for the new cable.

Originally Posted by reggie14

That brings up a related question that I have: what's the difference between Tim Moore's FireSTB drivers and the ones listed on the Exdeus STB Firewire page? I went to Tim Moore's page to get FireSTB, but it looks like the Exdeus page is newer.

My understanding is that the inf files on the Exdeus STB Firewire page has more PnP Hardware IDs making it support more recent STB's. I'm assuming the underling drivers are identical.

[RacerDeac]

Just to confirm...does ANYONE have channel changing via Firewire working with a SA 4250HDC and Maestro firmware? I've tried every suggestion on this thread. The box will accept the command with -f followed by -a0, -a4, -a5 or -a6, but the channel will not change.

[reggie14]

Sorry RacerDeac, I have a Moto DCT6200 and I never ran into any channel changing problems.

I still do, however, have pretty hardcore crashing problems every 5-7 days. Svchost is crashing because of a Data Execution Prevention error. I'm mostly assuming that's the STB drivers crashing, taking down Svchost with it. It's a pretty nasty crash, because it basically completely takes down the server. The server will stay on, but new programs won't start, and existing programs start up new threads or fork off new processes. So, you pretty much have to walk up to the computer and physically hit the restart button.

I'm thinking about trying to resolve this problem by completely turning off DEP. My computer's bios doesn't have an option for that, but I think I can do it by putting /NOEXECUTE=ALWAYSOFF in the boot.ini file. I know that's not a great way of trying to deal with the problem. In fact, it kind of reminds me of an error handler I wrote once for a BASIC program that basically skipped over the line of code that caused the error. But, while the computer might still crash when the error condition is reached, I'm pretty sure it won't cause any permanent damage to the files on the machine. It should just damage programs/files in memory, meaning I can fix any problems with a reboot. What do you think?

[Peter_h]

Originally Posted by RacerDeac

Just to confirm...does ANYONE have channel changing via Firewire working with a SA 4250HDC and Maestro firmware? I've tried every suggestion on this thread. The box will accept the command with -f followed by -a0, -a4, -a5 or -a6, but the channel will not change.

I had to use "channelw.exe -f -a6 -n <devicenumber> <channel>", where you enter your entries in for <devicenumber> and <channel> without the "<>".

Just play around with the parameters a little and you will get it working. You are pretty much there.

[bonoman]

Can someone post their tuning delay from the sgraphrecorder.ini and sage.properties network encoding delays? I had a DCH6200 that was working perfect with this and (moved) switched to a DCH3200. The channel change works fine and when I first start Sage, the current recording program is ok.

However, when I change channels, I just get the spinning circle and then a decode error and I've tried setting the delays to like 5 and 10 seconds and still no luck. Would be grateful if someone wanted to PM me their .ini and .properties that has a working DCH3200....

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by bonoman

Can someone post their tuning delay from the sgraphrecorder.ini and sage.properties network encoding delays? I had a DCH6200 that was working perfect with this and (moved) switched to a DCH3200. The channel change works fine and when I first start Sage, the current recording program is ok.

Did you ever get that working? I have a DCT6200 and I had the default delay for the network encoder (1 second, I believe), and am doing a 3 second delay in sgraphrecorder. Although, it seems like I can drop the sgraphrecorder way down without negatively affecting anything. I don't though, because I don't want to press my luck.

On a site note, I'm curious what people are seeing on their STB's diagnostics page, and how much they correspond to what channels you're able to record off of. I can record off of most of my HD channels, but not ABC-HD, History-HD, HBO-HD, or any SD digital channel. Not being to record off of ABC just started happening on Monday which got me to check the STB diagnostics page for that channel looking to see if 5c encryption was enabled. It wasn't. So, I checked the other channels I can't record off of, and it's not enabled for those either. Is there something else that might be preventing me from recording off of those channels, and perhaps more importantly, is there a workaround to get it working?

[gjvrieze]

Originally Posted by reggie14

Did you ever get that working? I have a DCT6200 and I had the default delay for the network encoder (1 second, I believe), and am doing a 3 second delay in sgraphrecorder. Although, it seems like I can drop the sgraphrecorder way down without negatively affecting anything. I don't though, because I don't want to press my luck.

On a site note, I'm curious what people are seeing on their STB's diagnostics page, and how much they correspond to what channels you're able to record off of. I can record off of most of my HD channels, but not ABC-HD, History-HD, HBO-HD, or any SD digital channel. Not being to record off of ABC just started happening on Monday which got me to check the STB diagnostics page for that channel looking to see if 5c encryption was enabled. It wasn't. So, I checked the other channels I can't record off of, and it's not enabled for those either. Is there something else that might be preventing me from recording off of those channels, and perhaps more importantly, is there a workaround to get it working?

You are not on Charter by chance? I can no longer record History HD on Charter here in Rochester, MN...

[Peter_h]

So it looks like my cable company (Time Warner) sent an update to my SA 4250 boxes this morning that disabled the firewire ports. One box works fine and another box no longer works. I only use the port for channel changing.

In device manager, the box no longer shows up in "Imaging Devices" and I have an unknown device as "61883 class bus device". When I try to update drivers with the STB firewire drivers it fails.

Has anyone else experienced the same? What kind of battle should I expect with the cable company when I go in to exchange the box?

I'm thinking of printing out a copy of the FCC mandate and taking it with me tomorrow.

[mayamaniac]

By law, they are suppose to provide the firewire port on their STBs, there's a PDF somewhere on the FCC site that says so. I'm sure someone here can link you to it if you need it.

[Peter_h]

Update: So I called and the tech didn't really know what a firewire port was but I was very polite and he said, frankly that if I was using the port and it stopped working that I should go ahead and just replace the box.

So I'm going in tomorrow and they have a box waiting with specific instructions to make sure there is a firewire port.

In case anyone needs this, here is a link to the FCC mandate.

FCC Firewire Mandate

The section we are interested in is Rule 76.640 Section 4 (i) on page 145.

(4) Cable operators shall:

(i) Effective April 1, 2004, upon request of a customer, replace any leased high definition set-top box, which does not include a functional IEEE 1394 interface, with one that includes a functional IEEE 1394 interface or upgrade the customer's set-top box by download or other means to ensure that the IEEE 1394 interface is functional.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by Peter_h

So it looks like my cable company (Time Warner) sent an update to my SA 4250 boxes this morning that disabled the firewire ports. One box works fine and another box no longer works. I only use the port for channel changing.

In device manager, the box no longer shows up in "Imaging Devices" and I have an unknown device as "61883 class bus device". When I try to update drivers with the STB firewire drivers it fails.

I don't know if my 4250HD is similar enough to your 4250, but... Back in Oct 2008, I had to change the channel changing command for my 4250HD as mentioned in my setup post and here. I didn't have to reinstall any drivers, but I had already installed a driver that was different from what most people were linking to.

- Andy

[gjvrieze]

Originally Posted by Opus4

I don't know if my 4250HD is similar enough to your 4250, but... Back in Oct 2008, I had to change the channel changing command for my 4250HD as mentioned in my setup post and here. I didn't have to reinstall any drivers, but I had already installed a driver that was different from what most people were linking to.

- Andy

Emm. I had to do the -f option on my DCH-6200 when I got it a couple of weeks ago, figured it out on my own, but glad to hear that others have had to do this too... (I have not missed a recording yet over firewire, with my 4.5s delay in Sgraphrecorder...)

[Peter_h]

Originally Posted by Opus4

I don't know if my 4250HD is similar enough to your 4250, but... Back in Oct 2008, I had to change the channel changing command for my 4250HD as mentioned in my setup post and here. I didn't have to reinstall any drivers, but I had already installed a driver that was different from what most people were linking to.

- Andy

Hi Andy,

It's actually not showing up properly in device manager anymore. I tried the drivers from timmmoores site as well as the other site and neither of them will install with the box, installation failed.

When i run channel /v the problem box is no longer listed. This box was working properly for almost 2 months save for the occasional lockup.

[gjvrieze]

Originally Posted by Peter_h

Hi Andy,

It's actually not showing up properly in device manager anymore. I tried the drivers from timmmoores site as well as the other site and neither of them will install with the box, installation failed.

When i run channel /v the problem box is no longer listed. This box was working properly for almost 2 months save for the occasional lockup.

Could actually be that the box is failing too, maybe not an update. The fact that you have a second box (that I presume works) makes me think the other STB is just going bad or at least the firewire failed...

[Peter_h]

Originally Posted by gjvrieze

Could actually be that the box is failing too, maybe not an update. The fact that you have a second box (that I presume works) makes me think the other STB is just going bad or at least the firewire failed...

Yeah, I think it was a bad update that killed the firewire port. I was home when it happened and watched both of the boxes reboot at 8:00 am on the dot.

From my conversation with the tech, it doesn't sound like it was intentional.

The second box works fine.

[[JiF]Mike]

The download link for the STB drivers doesn't seem to be working right now. Anyone have another link, or could mirror it? If anyone has it I could post a mirror link once I get the file.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by [JiF]Mike

The download link for the STB drivers doesn't seem to be working right now. Anyone have another link, or could mirror it? If anyone has it I could post a mirror link once I get the file.

Hmmm, did Comcast decide to stop giving its customers web space? I probably have the Timmmoore drivers somewhere if the site stays down. Does anyone have the exdeus drivers?