CableCARD tuner support for MediaPortal 1 (4 Viewers)

[mm1352000]

This rework is about cableCard tuners, these are basically network tuners, so no changes for DVB-C

Thx mm's comment about benefits for other QUAM tuners let me hope ...

Yeah, I mean North American cable TV ("clear QAM"). The difference there is in the scanning for channel details (name, LCN etc.)...

 

[megahorst]

Sometimes increasing or decreasing the frequency a little bit can help...

Thx for this suggestion.
I will give it a try and come back with my results.

 

[CodeMonkey]

Aaaaaaarg. Now that this is within my reach I really dislike Time Warner

Great work everyone

 

[mm1352000]

Aaaaaaarg. Now that this is within my reach I really dislike Time Warner

Yeah, ultimately the only power we have as consumers is to vote with our wallet. If you have no alternative it is a tougher choice...

Great work everyone

Thanks for your encouragement and enthusiasm. I hope TW listens to you!

 

[douglas_d]

Hey guys,

I just installed the new patch and got it up and running with my HDHomerun Prime. The channel changing is pretty slow. I just timed it and it took 14.5sec from the time I selected the channel in the main guide until it changed from the one I was on to the new channel. During that time it stops play on the current channel and goes black. Just providing some feedback I don't have any EPG stuff setup yet.

Also, I have the latest HDHomerun Prime Beta firmware installed (released yesterday)

Info:

Windows 7 x64
HDHomerun Prime
Running MediaPortal Server on same system running MediaPortal


Update:

It seems that I spoke too soon, as I'm getting varied change channel times between 3 seconds and upwards of 16 seconds. I'm not sure what is causing the difference in times, but I am monitoring my HDHomerun Prime web access and it shows the channel changes pretty much instantly.

 

[mm1352000]

Hello Douglas

Thanks for the feedback. Please could you provide log files as instructed in the first post so I can follow up and find where the delay is.

Cheers!
mm

 

[douglas_d]

Boom. That's what I call quick turnaround It's the last channel change to TBS that shows up with the problem. It looks like my HDHomerun Prime shows the channel change and then it initialized another tuner on the Prime before displaying the channel on-screen.

Thanks!

 

[mm1352000]

Boom. That's what I call quick turnaround

It's the last channel change to TBS that shows up with the problem. It looks like my HDHomerun Prime shows the channel change and then it initialized another tuner on the Prime before displaying the channel on-screen.

Yeah, I see what you're talking about there. Not 100% sure what the cause is - I'll need more time to investigate (at work right now so technically I shouldn't even be commenting here ) and will likely have to deliver a new version of the patch to resolve it.
People with Ceton tuners... do you see the same problem?
Anybody else with a Prime seeing the same thing?

In the meantime you can work around this problem by reducing the PMT timeout here:
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_...n/TV-Server_Configuration/06_General#Scan_Tab

Default is 10 seconds. A value of 2 seconds should be pretty safe.

mm

 

[bc0508]

MM
I updated mine with the new patch and updated the clients I am not seeing a lag on tuning with the HDprime. Everything seems to be working as it should. I will test more tonight with it.
It is faster now then it was with the first patch you did.

douglas_d do you have the lastest tuner software installed on your pc?

 

[mm1352000]

I know the patch has only been out for 24 hours or so, but I have to say I'm itching for feedback. As this is the fruit of my labour for the last 6 months I'm really interested to know what people think. Anything from "it just works", through "there's this annoying little qwerk..." to "I totally hate it and it doesn't work"... Any comments positive, neutral or negative would be great.

While I'm here...
I took the time to rewrite the ATSC and clear QAM scanning while doing CableCARD because there are some long-standing issues that I know have bothered people. Here are some of the things I fixed:

• QAM scan not scanning the cable VCT PID
• ATSC/QAM scan race condition that results in available names sometimes not being used (link)
• ATSC/QAM tuners not able to receive all channels from a single mux/frequency/transmitter with a single tuner (link)
• certain ATSC/QAM two part channel numbers not saved correctly (link)
• when ATSC/QAM channel names are not available, the "Unknown" name is not useful (link)
• ATSC channel details contains network ID, not valid/relevant for ATSC or QAM

These are mostly not huge issues; just annoying little problems and bugs that have snuck in over time.
For those of you that don't already know, we're in the process of rewriting large chunks of our TV engine. The idea is to clean up the mess that has accumulated over the years, add support for new features and hardware (like what I've done with CableCARD tuner support), and create interfaces that allow the TV engine to be more easily and naturally extended in future. This is one of the reasons I did the ATSC and QAM stuff mentioned above.

While I'm here waiting for feedback, this seems like a good opportunity to ask a few questions in relation to TV Server's support for North and South American TV and radio...

1. Are there any "big ticket" features that we are missing?
2. Are there any annoying bugs or usability issues that you'd like to see fixed?
3. What is the one thing that frustrates you the most about MP's TV Server?
4. Why do you use TV Server instead of one of the many alternatives?
5. What is/was the hardest thing for you to setup with MP's TV Server?

The above questions are really just starters. I'm open to hearing any feedback (though I'd prefer it if you stuck to the general topic of TV and radio).
Your feedback will be considered when it comes to planning what we do and how we do it going forward.