CableCARD tuner support for MediaPortal 1 (3 Viewers)

[breese]

MM,
Here are your logs.
I forgot to change the SDT setting when doing the OTA scan but it was real fast anyways.

 

[CodeMonkey]

I have to admit that even though I can't really use this yet due to Time Warner, I find this very interesting. Having worked on satellite TV code I would have thought this lineup information would have been very similar, if not identical, to how satellite does it. But obviously it is very different.

My cable box gets the lineup almost instantly after reboot. But it also downloads it's code every time as well. Do you think it also downloads a seed frequency to get the lineup from as well? If so, configuring a seed channel seems like it would not be unreasonable.

 

[breese]

Do you have any type of digital cable card installed?
If you do, try a scan for channels and see what comes up

 

[mm1352000]

Here are your logs.

Thanks!
When you mark channel 2 as free (not encrypted) and try to tune it, does it work now?

I have to admit that even though I can't really use this yet due to Time Warner, I find this very interesting. Having worked on satellite TV code I would have thought this lineup information would have been very similar, if not identical, to how satellite does it. But obviously it is very different.

Depends what standard the satellite broadcasters are using (ie. ATSC vs. DVB vs. proprietary).
Here are the ATSC standards:
http://www.atsc.org/cms/index.php/standards/standards?layout=default
http://www.atsc.org/cms/index.php/standards/recommended-practices?layout=default

Here are the SCTE standards:
http://www.scte.org/standards/Standards_Available.aspx

The standards I'm looking at for OTA ATSC are mostly ATSC a/65 and ATSC a/69. Sometimes I take a peek in parts of a/53.
For CableCARD tuners I look at ANSI/SCTE 65.
For cable with a clear QAM tuner I look at a mixture of all of the above.

When it comes to [ATSC or SCTE] satellite, there is ANSI/SCTE 57 and ATSC a/81. SCTE 57 uses similar structures to SCTE 65, so adding support for receiving that type of PSIP should not be too difficult. In fact the code basically already handles the parsing but doesn't actually do anything with the information. a/81 on the other hand is quite different. I haven't done anything with it as I'm not sure how much this standard is actually used for useful transmissions.

For DVB, EN 300468 is the standard for cable, terrestrial and satellite.

My cable box gets the lineup almost instantly after reboot. But it also downloads it's code every time as well. Do you think it also downloads a seed frequency to get the lineup from as well? If so, configuring a seed channel seems like it would not be unreasonable.

Like a CableCARD tuner, the cable box has access to the out-of-band channel so it probably doesn't need a seed frequency.

 

[mark3141]

Hi,

I've recently attempted to use this but haven't been able to get any channels. I've set my scan to 60 secs and once the scan is complete, it says 'out of band service information... signal locked, no channels found.'

I'm using an HDHomerun Prime w/ CABLECard from Verizon FIOS. I assume the initial install went ok as I get a total of six tuners (the three tuners duplicated as mentioned in the instructions). However, I cannot enable the HDHR Prime Tuners without having the Silicon HDHR Tuners enabled. For some reason, when I disable the three Silicondust HDHR Tuners (as recommended in the set-up), all tuners associated with the HDHR disappear from the sub-menu below my server. I can see them in the menu to enable/disable tuners, but I cannot bring them up to run a channel scan. I have to re-enable them and restart the configuration to run a scan.

I also tried scanning these with preferred network changed from generic to ATSC with no luck. Once I made that change, like above, the tuners would disappear from the menu unless I restarted the configuration. Note that I've tried a fresh install of the HDHR and Mediaportal.

Logs are attached...hopefully, I'm just doing something dumb.

 

[mm1352000]

Hello mark3141

I'll try to answer your questions first:

I've recently attempted to use this but haven't been able to get any channels. I've set my scan to 60 secs and once the scan is complete, it says 'out of band service information... signal locked, no channels found.'

It looks like you're doing this correctly, though I note you don't need to scan all three tuners (and in fact it may not be a good idea to scan all three tuners at once).

I'm using an HDHomerun Prime w/ CABLECard from Verizon FIOS. I assume the initial install went ok as I get a total of six tuners (the three tuners duplicated as mentioned in the instructions).

Yes, I can see everything looks good in your log files in this regard.

However, I cannot enable the HDHR Prime Tuners without having the Silicon HDHR Tuners enabled. For some reason, when I disable the three Silicondust HDHR Tuners (as recommended in the set-up), all tuners associated with the HDHR disappear from the sub-menu below my server. I can see them in the menu to enable/disable tuners, but I cannot bring them up to run a channel scan. I have to re-enable them and restart the configuration to run a scan.

When you disable the 3 Silicondust HDHR tuners TV Server should tell you it needs to restart. Let that happen, then also make sure you close and reopen TV Server configuration. Restarting the TV service requires the HDHR Prime tuners to be redetected, which happens as a background process. Unfortunately TV Server configuration doesn't get notified and update itself when the Prime tuners are detected. Hence, if you don't close and reopen TV Server configuration you'll see what you've reported.

I also tried scanning these with preferred network changed from generic to ATSC with no luck.

Indeed, this will make no difference.

Once I made that change, like above, the tuners would disappear from the menu unless I restarted the configuration.

Yep, as per my comments above - this is expected behaviour. We'll look to improve it in the next-gen TV engine.

Note that I've tried a fresh install of the HDHR and Mediaportal.

Okay.

Logs are attached...hopefully, I'm just doing something dumb.

Thanks.

From your log files, it looks like you're doing everything perfectly. The issue seems to be that MP is not getting lineup information from the CableCARD. This raises a few questions:

1. Are you running any firewalls? (...and have you tested with them disabled?)
2. Is the tuner and/or CableCARD new, or have you previously used it in WMC, N-PVR etc.?

I'm wondering if (a) the reverse traffic from the PRIME to MP is being blocked by a firewall, (b) the CableCARD is faulty, or (c) the CableCARD needs to be activated by Verizon.

mm

 

[mark3141]

It was simply a firewall issue. I was also able to deselect the extra tuners by restarting the configuration. Thanks for the quick reply!

 

[mm1352000]

It was simply a firewall issue. I was also able to deselect the extra tuners by restarting the configuration. Thanks for the quick reply!

No problem - happy to help and glad the solution was so straightforward.

 

[breese]

When you mark channel 2 as free (not encrypted) and try to tune it, does it work now?

Sorry MM, Yes when I mark it timeshift does start.
Is there a way to mark them all at once?

 

[Sigpi007]

@mm1352000

Been testing the new patch you made on MP1.5PR, and to some extent it has helped the channel changing lag. But, overall MP seems a little "sluggish" like in the menu and such. And then this morning, the TVservice was stopped for no reason. I was able to restart it no problem, but it caused me to look into my TV Server log files and I noticed a whole bunch of errors related to timeshifting. I'm posting everything in a zip file. Wondering if you can take a look. Also supplying some observations to help narrow down the focus.

1.) MPIPTVSource - buffer free space too small?? Had to restart TVServer at 7:06 AM on 08-26. Looks like something stopped the service around 2AM that morning.

2.) TsWriter-2013-08-26.log => lots of entries for ---BUG-3782 fix v2---

3.) TsWriter-2103-08-25.log => from 14:21:04 through 16:28:00... lots of trouble writing to a ts file.

4.) Lots of errors in TVService1.log and TVService-Error1.log