CableCARD tuner support for MediaPortal 1 (2 Viewers)

[twemperor]

As promised, logs. I did a bunch of test channel changes using the Argus TV Plugin. The first 10 were tuning changes, the last two I stopped and started new streams. On average, the tuning was the fastest I've ever had in MediaPortal! (~2-3 seconds). The first tuning took ~23 seconds, and TV Server hung on the last one. I think TSWriter locked the timeshift buffer.

 

[twemperor]

For comparison, I was unable to make channel tuning fail using the 'test channels' feature of TVSetup. Here are a couple hundred tunes that were under 2seconds and successful.

 

[mm1352000]

Thanks for the feedback twemperor
Comments...

1. You seem to still be using the PBDA interface. I'm curious: is there any particular reason for that? As explained a couple times I expect it would be slower than the [new] native interface, and from our perspective it is less flexible too. I was tempted to remove support for that interface entirely as it may get a bit confusing for people... but I'm curious if you think there are advantages over the other interface.
2. Regarding tuning time on the first tune, that was due to PMT (info about the video, audio and subtitle streams) not being found on the first try. Your PMT timeout is set to 20 seconds. In other words, TV Server waits for PMT for 20 seconds before giving up and either trying another tuner or searching for a different PMT source. In your case the PMT was found from a different source, so I guess your cable provider occasionally changes the PMT source. Default is 10 seconds so I guess you've modified this previously for some reason? It should be possible to drop the PMT timeout to two seconds as per my recommendation to Douglas.
3. I don't see TV Server hanging on the last tune, though I do see that it appears like data is not received from the tuner. Can you describe the symptoms (ie. visually, what do you do and see)? It may well be that interactions with Argus are causing this, but the other possibility is that the channel DRM prevents viewing in MP (ie. it might be copy-once rather than copy freely). If you were using the new interface I'd be able to say more (unlike the native interface, PBDA wraps up all the info about copy protection so we have no idea whether streaming should work or not).

mm

 

[twemperor]

@mm1352000, thanks! There are two sets of InfiniTV tuners in the TVServer, I kept the first ones marked ATSC since they are the ones that worked. I'm not sure how switch to the 'new' interface. Suggestions? Delete everything and start over?

As for the hang, the symptom was no error message in the GUI. The only indication I had was the error log and the inability to delete the Timeshift buffer. Once I stopped the service I could delete the buffer. I wouldn't worry about this so much, I could have done something weird trying to break it.

 

[zyrod]

I think I did the install correctly.

• MP 1.4
• Updated HDHOMERUN PRIME to beta 20130708beta1
• Used MediaPortal 1.4CableCARD 2.0.zip
• Windows 7 64 SP1
• Fios TV

I see 3 "HDHomeRun Prime Tuner". I have set the CAM Enable and limit to 1. Adjust the Scan time. When I go scan the channels I choose DigitalCable and then I get an message stating "ATSC: scanning digital cable, out-of-band service information"

I have included the log files. I will try this on my PVR computer to see if I get the same results.

 

[mm1352000]

Hello zyrod

I think I did the install correctly.

• MP 1.4
• Updated HDHOMERUN PRIME to beta 20130708beta1
• Used MediaPortal 1.4CableCARD 2.0.zip
• Windows 7 64 SP1
• Fios TV

I see 3 "HDHomeRun Prime Tuner". I have set the CAM Enable and limit to 1. Adjust the Scan time. When I go scan the channels I choose DigitalCable and then I get an message stating "ATSC: scanning digital cable, out-of-band service information"

That all sounds correct.

In my experience with the new patch it takes about one minute for a full scan to complete. However, from the log files it seems like TV Server is not receiving any channel information.

Couple of questions:

1. Who is your cable provider?
2. Do you have switched digital video (SDV) with a tuning adaptor (TA), or just a standard digital cable connection?

mm

[edit: bah! My bad. Verizon FIOS, right... and so no SDV/TA. Hmmm...
Have you had the tuners working with any other software?[/edit]

 

[zyrod]

Hello zyrod


Couple of questions:

1. Who is your cable provider?
2. Do you have switched digital video (SDV) with a tuning adaptor (TA), or just a standard digital cable connection?

mm


[edit: bah! My bad. Verizon FIOS, right... and so no SDV/TA. Hmmm...
Have you had the tuners working with any other software?[/edit]

Correct FIOS TV.

I normally use windows media center for my application. I checked the HDHomeRun setup to make sure I selected MediaPortal as the application.

WMC and HDRs QuickTV still work. I mess around a lot on this computer where as the PVR computer is just OS and not much more. I'll report back if I'm getting the same issues on that computer.

 

[mm1352000]

Cool - okay.
So, your networking situation...
According to the log files there are 4 local IP addresses on that PC:

[2013-07-12 23:15:39,355] [Log ] [11 ] [INFO ] - Controller: local ip address:192.168.1.115
[2013-07-12 23:15:39,355] [Log ] [11 ] [INFO ] - Controller: local ip address:169.254.50.17
[2013-07-12 23:15:39,355] [Log ] [11 ] [INFO ] - Controller: local ip address:192.168.106.1
[2013-07-12 23:15:39,355] [Log ] [11 ] [INFO ] - Controller: local ip address:192.168.56.1

Also, the IP address for the tuner itself is:

[2013-07-12 23:17:32,515] [Log ] [24 ] [DEBUG] - cur. URI = rtsp://192.168.1.144:554/tuner0/current

I wonder if this could be a factor somehow.
One other question: do you run any firewalls?

 

[zyrod]

Cool - okay.
So, your networking situation...
According to the log files there are 4 local IP addresses on that PC:

[2013-07-12 23:15:39,355] [Log ] [11 ] [INFO ] - Controller: local ip address:192.168.1.115
[2013-07-12 23:15:39,355] [Log ] [11 ] [INFO ] - Controller: local ip address:169.254.50.17
[2013-07-12 23:15:39,355] [Log ] [11 ] [INFO ] - Controller: local ip address:192.168.106.1
[2013-07-12 23:15:39,355] [Log ] [11 ] [INFO ] - Controller: local ip address:192.168.56.1

Also, the IP address for the tuner itself is:

[2013-07-12 23:17:32,515] [Log ] [24 ] [DEBUG] - cur. URI = rtsp://192.168.1.144:554/tuner0/current

I wonder if this could be a factor somehow.
One other question: do you run any firewalls?

I just finished the install on that PVR pc and I have it up and running there with out any issues.

1 Controller is for my VirtualBox , 2 are the for the vmware, and the 4th 192.168.1.115 is the physical NIC. It definitely looks like some kind of configuration issues on the this particular PC. I just usually test software first on this PC before moving it over to the PC that wife will complain about if it doesn't work right

Now to play around with MediaPortal and hopefully I will be able to get away from WMC.

Thanks for all the hard work. Donation incoming!

 

[Lyfesaver74]

Love all the feedback!!!! Keep it coming guys... PLEASE!

I am sure most of you with issues when installing this are speaking up and I like that. Helps to work out any bugs. That being said if you are installing it and it works, please let us know. That is just as important as when it does not work. A lot of you are reporting back that the patch works for you, but for those that might have forgotten... PLEASE let us know =)