STB Firewire (IEEE-1394) Support

[[JiF]Mike]

I just tried again and got it. Who knows what the problem was. In case it happens again here is a mirror. I can't promise to keep it updated though.

stb_firewire_drivers_2009-02-25.zip

huh....looks like these drivers don't work on 64bit Vista....<sigh>

[aflat]

Sadly nope, they don't work in 64bit Vista. I tried mucking with them a bit to get Vista to install them, but one of the mei drivers is the culprit. I could get the other mei driver to install. I couldn't even get it to run in emulation mode(it takes work to do this, Vista64 doesn't like non-64 bit drivers) with no success. In then end all I could do was install it, but it never worked. I had to go back to Vista32.

[[JiF]Mike]

Yeah I gave up on the 64bit and installed 32bit. Oh well...perhaps someday 64bit will be the norm.

Now I just have to work my way through figuring out how to change the channel on my Motorola DCH-6200. Drivers are installed...but that's as far as I got last night. At 2AM I went to bed lol!

[Petrucci]

Has anyone been successful tuning firewire from a Comcast STB on Windows Home Server?? I wont need to output directly from the server. I will be doing all of my output from hd-200 extenders.

Thanks for your help

[reggie14]

Sorry, Petrucci, I don't use WHS.

I'm doing firewire recording. I just noticed Comcast added a few new HD channels. While Sage generally automatically updates the EPG data, it isn't doing it with the firewire tuner. I had to do a bunch of remapping to get things where they are now, so I'd rather not remove the firewire recording source and add it back. Is there a good way to update the channel information without removing and re-adding the source?

[Petrucci]

Reggie, What comcast box are you using and how fast are your channel changes?

Thanks,
Eric

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by Petrucci

Reggie, What comcast box are you using and how fast are your channel changes?

I have a DCT6200 cable box. My channel changes are pretty fast. From clicking on a channel in the guide to seeing the last digit entered is about a second. Tuning time on the cable box is pretty short too, although I'm not sure exactly what it is because I'm doing firewire tuning. Overall, the amount of time it takes to start watching a show on a new channel is no more than 3 seconds.

[Petrucci]

Originally Posted by reggie14

I have a DCT6200 cable box. My channel changes are pretty fast. From clicking on a channel in the guide to seeing the last digit entered is about a second. Tuning time on the cable box is pretty short too, although I'm not sure exactly what it is because I'm doing firewire tuning. Overall, the amount of time it takes to start watching a show on a new channel is no more than 3 seconds.

Thats good news. I think I'll try the firewire route before spending any money on tuners. Thanks for the info.

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by Petrucci

Thats good news. I think I'll try the firewire route before spending any money on tuners. Thanks for the info.

Assuming you mostly watch network channels, I'd recommend getting a QAM or ATSC tuner (the HDHomeRun would be a good one) in addition to a firewire-capable HD box.

Firewire tuning has been moderately reliable. At first it crashed every week or so. I had to turn off DEP entirely (meaning, I changed the boot.ini file). After doing that I only had Sage crash on me once in a month, and that was when I had the Sage server playing live TV for hours on end (usually I use extenders, but this time I had things playing back on the server iteself).

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by reggie14

I just noticed Comcast added a few new HD channels. While Sage generally automatically updates the EPG data, it isn't doing it with the firewire tuner. I had to do a bunch of remapping to get things where they are now, so I'd rather not remove the firewire recording source and add it back. Is there a good way to update the channel information without removing and re-adding the source?

This is a relatively obvious solution, but I thought I'd post it for people new to Sage that might be running into this issue. I just remapped a couple of the on-demand channels that appeared in the guide. That is, I took a couple channels that I knew I could never watch, and remapped the logical and physical channel numbers to match the new channels, and mapped those channels to the corresponding station.

[mcaron1234]

Hi guys,

I'm trying to get firewire recoding and channel changing going on WHS. I have succesfully changed channels via channel.exe with my moto dct 6200 stb and firestb.msi. I am following instructions posted in by que3jxp in post 1350 of this thread. I can not get the pins for my dump filter to connect with the tuner. It throughs the eror shown in the thumbnail below.



Anyone know what my problem could be?

[gplasky]

WHS is basically Windows Server 2003. Make sure you have DirectX installed on your server and any other media components necessary.

Gerry

[mcaron1234]

Originally Posted by gplasky

WHS is basically Windows Server 2003. Make sure you have DirectX installed on your server and any other media components necessary.

Gerry

Ok, thanks. I just installed direct x but I'm not sure what you mean by "any other media components" (and google isn't helping my cause much). Care to nudge me in the right direction?

edit: Nevermind, direct x is all I needed to get the graph to link! Thanks!

[Taddeusz]

Well, not sure whether I'll be successful or not but after getting tired of dealing with Cox Cable's phone support. I'm trying to get my Firewire ports enabled for capturing video by sending them a request through their online support explaining that I'm going to file complaints with the FCC and BBB if they don't enable them. I hope I'll be successful. I don't know what channels it would net me if I am but that's a risk I'm willing to take. I mostly just want them to follow FCC guidelines and fulfill my request.

Dealing with their phone support on this is painful. First you have to wait. Then they either don't know what you're talking about to tell you they have no way of enabling them. I know they've done it for people in the past with a lot of coaxing. And I think the only people I've read about being successful are ones who have put up a big stink about it.

One guy actually sent letters to the FCC and BBB and within a few days was contacted by Cox to get the ports enabled.

Again, don't know what channels I would be able to record with the whole 5C thing but I just want them to do what they're supposed to.

[Taddeusz]

Ok, now I'm kind of embarassed. I guess before I was trying all channels that were 5C'd. The firewire port is indeed enabled but I'm very limited to the channels I am able to capture with it. Basically almost everything I can capture through clear QAM. All the major network channels in HD are 5C'd which I can get in clear QAM. Even PBS in HD is 5C'd! That leaves only 3 HD channels I can capture through FW. The rest are all SD. Everything else is pretty much the same except maybe for a few extra local informational channels that don't seem to be in clear qam. Pretty pathetic. Planet Green isn't even 5C'd and I can get it in the clear, not that I watch that channel.

[davidk21770]

I'm pretty sure that anything that you could get over the air, they're not permitted to 5c; ie., the broadcast channels.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by davidk21770

I'm pretty sure that anything that you could get over the air, they're not permitted to 5c; ie., the broadcast channels.

Yea, not sure why they're doing it. I also noticed all the channels I can get are all garbled. Could be the cheap VIA FireWire card I have isn't up to the task. All the channels come in clear with the STB's video output so I can only assume it has something to do with the FireWire.

[davidk21770]

I find that my cable box is better able to handle stream errors than capture on my computer. All of the capture techniques seem to work the same so I don't think that it's the firewire -- I think that it's post-processing. When I capture directly (not through Sage), I sometimes have to run the .ts file through a post processor like ProjectX or mpeg2repair before I can play them back or edit them.

[wbarber69]

When I try this:

1. Open up a command prompt and go to the SGR directory (in my example, C:\getHD\SGR).
2. Type the following command: INSTSRV SageGraphRecorder SRVANY.EXE

I get an error saying that the full path must be given to the exe

[davidk21770]

I had to provide the full path name:

INSTSRV SageGraphRecorder C:\getHD\SGR\SRVANY.EXE