Major issues with FireDTV

[raxtor]

Hi all,

This is just a log of what I've tried to do with MP the last two weeks or so; hopefully it'll help someone.

I have two HTPCs. One is an older Dell Latitude D800 (Pentium M, 1.7Ghz, 512M RAM and 40G disk), the other is a brand new Latitude D820 (C2D, 2G RAM, 100G disk).

As input I'm using a FireDTV receiver, which is connected to a diseqc switch, which is connected to two sat dishes. The first points at 19.2 E Astra, and , using smart card +CI, picks up the Dutch Canal Digitaal channels (along with loads of other crud of course...). The second points at 28.2 E Astra, and is used to pick up the FTA BBC and ITV channels.

I was using MP 0.2.2.0 on the old laptop, on top of a 60 day evaluation version of Windows MCE. I had tried to use MCE on that machine, but it turns out that the built-in video didn't have enough memory for that. So I installed MP 0.2.2.0 along with the BDA driver version 4.2 (which was on the CD that came with the FireDTV). After some struggling (until someone told me to do multiple scans) I got this to work properly, and I've used that configuration ever since. As I said, however, this was running on a 60 day version of MCE, so change was inevitable.

I had picked up a new HTPC, that Latitude D820. It came preinstalled with Windows XP SP2 UK, along with a whole boat load of other crud that our system manager had installed on it (i.e. Office 2003, Roxio CD thingie, Embassy Trust Suite, McAfee Antivirus and other stuff). I uninstalled most of that, got rid of the weird partitioning scheme (from C, D, E and F to just C(xp) and D(ata)) and proceeded to install MP.

I'd decided to install the latest and greatest, which by that time was still an SVN of TVServer. I also installed the latest BDA drivers (4.8) from Digital Everywhere, of course.

No go. The scanning process would bomb out.; see this thread for more info. Editing the .ini file (as described here did help, but now I wouldn't have those BBC channels (despite the fact that they were in the ini file).

I put back a clean image (I use TrueImage) and tried MP 0.2.2.0, but with the same result: scanning would bomb out.

I put back a clean image and tried MP 0.2.2.0, with the 4.2 BDA drivers, but with the same result: scanning would bomb out.

I exported the channel list on the old machine, then imported it into the new one. None of the channels (at least, those I tried; I wasn't going to try them all) would give any picture or sound.

I wiped the entire disk clean, install Windows XP SP2 anew, plus Autopatcher May 2007 (then create a new image), plus BDA driver 4.8, plus MP 0.2.2.0: scanning would bomb out; importing channels would not give a picture.

I put back the image created in the previous exercise, try BDA driver 4.2 plus MP 0.2.2.0. Same result (scanning bombed; importing channel list didn't help)

I put back the same image, try BDA driver 4.8 plus MP 0.2.3.0 RC1. Same result.

I wiped the disk clean once again, then installed the 60 day version of MCE + Autopatcher May 2007, plus BDA driver 4.2, plus MP 0.2.2.0 -- all this in an attempt to make the configuration as similar as possible to the old HTPC, which was still working a-okay -- but again, no go.

Tried MCE + BDA 4.8 + MP 0.2.3.0 RC1: same result.

Uninstalled MP 0.2.3.0 RC1, installed GBPVR (yeah, ok: but I had to try it): no picture.

Uninstalled BDA drivers (and GBPVR), installed the latest MCE drivers, tried MCE: hey presto: we've got a working TV again!


Which is why, at the moment, I'm running using MCE (in a 60 day version) rather than MediaPortal, on my production system.

My conclusion: there's something wrong with the combination BDA driver + Firewire controller in my new HTPC. OTOH, the included MyTheatre application (which, so far I'm aware, uses the BDA driver as well) kept on working throughout each of the attempts outlined above. So: modified conclusion: there's something weird going on with the combination BDA driver + Firewire controller + .Net framework v2 and v3 (I tried both).

As I said, I'm now using MCE on my production box, and while it's working, I'd rather use MP (if only because the EPG in MCE is nonexistent for the channels I prefer.) I can now zap the old HTPC and see if I can get *that* back to work after wiping it clean. Still, to all of the MP team for bringing out a wonderful application. Yes, I still so, even after having spent nearly every evening during 2-3 weeks getting it to work

Comments, anyone?

[Rikl64]

Sent you a PM.

Basically get the latest 4.8 BDA drivers from Digital Everywhere and then install the Mpeg2data.ax and Psisdecd.dll files from XP 2005 MCE edition. If you search on Hauppage WinTV & BDA crashing in these forums you will find a link to down load these files. If not I can send you a copy.

Rgds.

[raxtor]

Hi Rikl64,

Thank you for your suggestion. But...

- I copied those two files off my current mce2005 installation onto the usb disk.
- Put back the image of xp sp2
- Installed latest driver from digital-everywhere
- Installed .net framework 2.0
- Installed MP 0.2.3.0 RC1
- Copied those two files into \windows\system32
- Hit MP Setup
- Configured FireDTV
- Hit Scan, off it went... then Boom, dr Watson (or whatever its current name is) comes along again.
- Rebooted machine, tried again: same results.

Sorry!

Any other suggestions?

[infinityloop]

Originally Posted by raxtor

- Hit Scan, off it went... then Boom, dr Watson (or whatever its current name is) comes along again.

1. which sat?
2. which transponder?
3. always the same transponder?

I have a simmilar issue. Skystar2 scan on Astra19.2°E is crashing always on the same transponder in TV-Server and Mp 0.2.3.0. scan in progdvb works fine.

i am currently setting up the test-htpc with a realy clean installation. because even svn reversion where i know that the scan worked, are crashing now.
it could be that a windowsupdate is causing this, or there is something on that transponder which is not handled correctly and triggers the crash.

but to come back to your problem, my floppydtv dvb-s and Nova-HD-S2 have no problems when scanning Astra19.2°E .

you have the M$ dvb hotfix installed, or?

[raxtor]

Originally Posted by infinityloop

1. which sat?
2. which transponder?
3. always the same transponder?

It's the 19.2 Astra that's causing the prob. I can't currently verify this, but it's always around the 11000Mhz or so that it crashes. I do NOT think it's always the same (or it might be getting further everytime I start the scanning process, skipping or not failing over ones it has done before.)

I have a simmilar issue. Skystar2 scan on Astra19.2°E is crashing always on the same transponder in TV-Server and Mp 0.2.3.0. scan in progdvb works fine.

i am currently setting up the test-htpc with a realy clean installation. because even svn reversion where i know that the scan worked, are crashing now.
it could be that a windowsupdate is causing this, or there is something on that transponder which is not handled correctly and triggers the crash.

As you can see above, I've tried many, many different configs with just two things remaining the same: Laptop and FireDTV. Now that I have a working production system again in Windows MCE I'll go and see if I can reproduce the problem on the old HTPC, cleanly installed.

but to come back to your problem, my floppydtv dvb-s and Nova-HD-S2 have no problems when scanning Astra19.2°E .

you have the M$ dvb hotfix installed, or?

Yup, and yup.

-edit-

Oh, and just to emphasize: avoiding the scanning process by importing the channellist.xml from a known good source doesn't help, either. No sound, no picture. :-(

[infinityloop]

Originally Posted by raxtor

It's the 19.2 Astra that's causing the prob. I can't currently verify this, but it's always around the 11000Mhz or so that it crashes. I do NOT think it's always the same (or it might be getting further everytime I start the scanning process, skipping or not failing over ones it has done before.)

would be very helpful to know if it always crashes on the same transponder, or if it is random

[raxtor]

Originally Posted by infinityloop

would be very helpful to know if it always crashes on the same transponder, or if it is random

Yah. Well, this is the production system we're talking about. Verifying this entails creating an image of the current system, restoring the old image, test & record, then restore the current system. I need to schedule this downtime

[Rikl64]

Did you use regsvr32 to register the .ax and .dll files from MCE2005? these files need to be registered. You need to unregister the old versions first. I put them in a separate folder so that you can check that you are using ther revised versions and that XP hasn't put the old versions back underself repair.

See this thread on how to install the patches to mpeg2data.ax etc

http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/mu...t=MPEG2data.ax

[raxtor]

Originally Posted by Rikl64

Did you use regsvr32 to register the .ax and .dll files from MCE2005? these files need to be registered. You need to unregister the old versions first. I put them in a separate folder so that you can check that you are using ther revised versions and that XP hasn't put the old versions back underself repair.

Ah. A major hint, there, dude. No, I didn't register them. Oh well, I'll try again -- someday tomorrow, I hope. and again!

[raxtor]

OK, I tried with the new files, but it didn't help, unfortunately. With hindsight, it' s easy to see why: one of the configurations I tried was with MCE2005, which includes these files by default.