STB Firewire (IEEE-1394) Support

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by basset

Hi

I have 2 SA 8300HDC boxes and have been using them for ever with s-video out and channel change over the firewire. I tries last night to use the firewire recording. I followed the instructions in the various documents and got to the point where I can use VLC to view the video from both STBs.

I installed SgraphRecorder and registered the dump.ax. I then used the latest graphedit (latest version). I configure the graph, but when I hit play I get most of the time an empty file. Some HD channels do produce output, but even SD channels give no output and sometimes after a couple of seconds or when I press stop on graphedit, the machine BSOD and reboots.

I know the firewire drivers work since VLC works without a problem and I can't recall that it ever crashed.

I've set everything up in SageTV too and configured the recorder. No need to say that I get nothing when the channel changes and is soon followed by a BSOD and reboot if I leave it too long.

Any ideas why VLC works but Sgraphrecorder / graphedit doesn't ???

I'm SOOOOO close to using my HDTV for what it was meant

Basset

What operating system are you running? ... What does your grf file look like... What does your Sgraphrecorder ini look like?

Also read from here.
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...t=9288&page=96

[basset]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

What operating system are you running? ... What does your grf file look like... What does your Sgraphrecorder ini look like?

Also read from here.
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...t=9288&page=96

Hi,

Sorry nyplayer .. I meant to put that in there and it completely slipped my mind. Here you go ...

- Running XP SP3
- 2 x 8300HDC
- 2 x PVR150
- SGraphRecorder.ini

; Port is the port number that this network encoder will listen to commands
; from Sage on. Use this when setting up the network encoder in Sage.
[System]
Port=6969

[Graph]
FileName=sgr1.grf
TuningDelay=7000
UnloadGraphOnStop=1
UnloadGraphOnSwitch=1


[Girder]
UseGirder=0
GirderHost=127.0.0.1
GirderPort=1024
GirderPassword=
GirderPrefix=Channel
GirderIndividualNumbers=1
GirderInterNumberTimeSpacing=10


[ExeTuner]
UseExeTuner=1
ExeTunerPath=C:\HDTune\channelw.exe -a0 3

-Graphedit graph


Thanks
Basset

[nyplayer]

You should use the grf that Reggie posted in the thread I referred to above. Make sure you register the dump filter that came with SGraphRecorder and use the SBDARecorderDump directshow filter not the MPEG2DUMP as output.

[basset]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

You should use the grf that Reggie posted in the thread I referred to above. Make sure you register the dump filter that came with SGraphRecorder and use the SBDARecorderDump directshow filter not the MPEG2DUMP as output.

I changed the graph to match the one you mentioned, but still no luck.

I then noticed that in VLC, although I select the two different Tuners, it alway shows the picture from the one tuner only. I'm not sure if that is a bug in VLC or not. I re-installed the firewire drivers just to be sure, making sure it uses the correct ones (using the instructions in the document mentioned in this thread)

While I was trying different things, I also noticed that graphedit did start dumping to a file once, it seems that it was triggered by me changing the channel on the STB (via STB remote) while PLAY was selected with graphedit, but it inly recorded for about 5 seconds and then it didn't want to work anymore.

I'm starting to think my aging XP installation either needs a clean install or maybe I should move to vista or windows 7 and get a good clean install to try this with. It is obvious the firewire from the STBs work (or at least one is for sure) but there is something else wrong with the system.

Maybe I should just bite the bullet and re-install *sigh*

Basset

[basset]

Originally Posted by basset

I'm starting to think my aging XP installation either needs a clean install or maybe I should move to vista or windows 7 and get a good clean install to try this with. It is obvious the firewire from the STBs work (or at least one is for sure) but there is something else wrong with the system.

Maybe I should just bite the bullet and re-install *sigh*

Basset

I ended up trying a different hard drive with Vista and still no luck, then tried my laptop and still no luck. I went to comcast and exchanged the 8300HDC for two 4250HDC's and so far so good .. s-video works as normal with channel changing and I can use VLC to play the firewire (which had problems before).

I'll setup the rest and see how it goes.

Basset

[texneus]

Hi all, I've been able to get FW recording to operate correctly (and there was much rejoycing...). Thanks to those who have taken the trouble to figure this out !! Now the next hurdle. I'm only able to recieve maybe a third of my channels over firewire. The rest I'll capture with an HDPVR. Is there a way to "pool" sources in Sage so this possible with only one STB?

In other words, Sage sees FW & HDPVR as different sources, even though they use the same STB, right? Therefore Sage could start a FW recording, then on the same STB change the channel to record on the HDPVR, thus interupting the FW recording (or visa versa). Can Sage be made aware the STB is already in use? Or is 2 STBs the only answer?

[wayner]

I think you are out of luck - there is no way for Sage to know that these are using the same STB so you may get conflicts unless you manually schedule around them.

[UgaData]

I'm only able to recieve maybe a third of my channels over firewire. The rest I'll capture with an HDPVR. Is there a way to "pool" sources in Sage so this possible with only one STB?

If you want to record 2 shows concurrently, you will need 2 STBs.

However if you're trying to "fill in" the channels that firewire can't record with channels from the HD-PVR, you can probably do it by copying the channel lineup and disabling the "firewire channels" in the HD-PVR lineup.

Personally, in this case, I would just drop the firewire for the HD-PVR since the HD-PVR can record any channels the STB can tune. Or get a second STB so you can record 2 shows concurrently.

[texneus]

Not interested in 2 shows at once, but the guides can be merged as you describe. The problem is a recording in progress can (and is) interupted by the other "source", since both sources originate from the same STB. I'd really like to see a solution to this, as I was very much hoping to eliminate the generational loss of the analog outputs when I can. Oh well...

[scoful]

One of my DCT-6200's (that had pretty much worked flawlessly) died after a slew of power issues in my neighborhood.

Now the Cable company says they only have Pace STB's with firewire.

I picked one up and have tried repeatedly to get it to work. Found updated drivers for them and can get sgraphrecorder to dump, but there's a lot of stream corruption - VLC will play it but there's lots of noise. Sage just shows 'No Signal'....

The other problem is that if I open both graphs and start them the one will always say "Insufficient Resources Exist".

Has anybody had any luck with the Pace HD boxes?

[Docholo]

Hi All, I've got problem with my sgraphrecorder setup. I get a
meistb.sys initiated blue screen about once every two to four recordings.

I have two computers, a SageTV server and a remote machine
running sgraphrecorder. All machines are XP SP3 Home or Pro.
The remote machine is talking via firewire to a Motorola DCH-6200
cable box.

The system will recording a few recordings fine and then the remote
machine will bluescreen/reboot on a meistb.sys related error.
I'm using the driver files from
http://home.comcast.net/~exdeus/stbfirewire/.

Is there any way to make meistb.sys more stable?

Thanks,

[metropole]

Are the original driver creators still around? Is there a chance to get a version ported to win7 x64?

[jbbtex]

Is there some trick I need to use to get the drivers to install on Vista 64?

When I connect my 4240, Windows recognizes it, but when I browse to the Vista drivers, they aren't recognized.

I just want to do channel change.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by jbbtex

Is there some trick I need to use to get the drivers to install on Vista 64?

When I connect my 4240, Windows recognizes it, but when I browse to the Vista drivers, they aren't recognized.

I just want to do channel change.

There are no 64-bit drivers. You'll need to change to 32-bit Windows in order for this to work.

[jbbtex]

Thanks for the quick reply.

Now I have an excuse to build another system!

[LexLS]

I currently have 1 Motorola DCH3200 running to my Vista Ultimate (32-bit) STV server via firewire for recording and channel change. It's from Comcast and I get all the channels I should. Is there any trick to getting a second DCH3200 STB hooked up?

Yesterday I tried and couldn't get my second one to show up in device manager. Tried different firewire ports, cables etc. Actually while I was messing with it it made the other working one disappear and I had to uninstall and reinstall all the drivers/software. Seems like I'm missing a crucial step here. I checked the Motorola diagnostic menu and it shows the 1394 port enabled.

[scoful]

Don't know what happened - everything had been working fine until about a week ago. Now I get the following when trying to view a firewire channel:

There was an error playing The Office:
ERROR (-7): General failure in
playback request


When I test my graph it still works fine. I have my channel change set up as a batch file and can normally see it pop up (I have a headless server so it doesn't matter). It's not popping up - like Sage isn't sending the request to Sgraphrecorder.

I can telnet to Sgraphrecorder so I know the communication lines are open.

[jbuszkie]

Originally Posted by scoful

Don't know what happened - everything had been working fine until about a week ago. Now I get the following when trying to view a firewire channel:

There was an error playing The Office:
ERROR (-7): General failure in
playback request


When I test my graph it still works fine. I have my channel change set up as a batch file and can normally see it pop up (I have a headless server so it doesn't matter). It's not popping up - like Sage isn't sending the request to Sgraphrecorder.

I can telnet to Sgraphrecorder so I know the communication lines are open.

did something weird happen to your properties file? check to see that the network encoder port is still what you expect.
Is there a file created?

Sorry.. That's all I got.

[scoful]

I finally gave up on getting it to work again on my server. I moved the cable box to one of my clients that stays on all the time. Works fine from there.

[jbuszkie]

Bummer.... at least you got a solution.

I do have a separate question to the folks here.. Is there a way to check
the current channel of the box?

I just added a second box and I'v noticed that the channel changes aren't always correct. It would be nice to change the channel - check that the channel is correct and then try again if it's not!

Is there a way to set that status with channel.exe?

Jim