MP htpc worked great - until rescan (1 Viewer)

[mm1352000]

I am well acquainted with that process!

I'll check the FTA flag situation today.

Cool - I'm about to head to bed but I'll keep an eye on my inbox tomorrow.

btw, I asked Hauppauge for an opinion about the tuning problem. NO RESPONSE for more than a week. Thanks a bunch, Hauppauge.

I'm dealing with Hauppauge support at the moment too. To cut a long story short, I bought a second hand tuner for testing and support, and it doesn't fully function even in WinTV 7. Seems to be a compatibility issue with the multiswitch/splitter I'm using. In any case, my point is that they do take a while to respond - my experience is about 5 - 10 days. Having said that, today I received 3 emails within the space of 8 hours. Give them a bit more time and hopefully they'll get to your issue.

Best regards,
mm

 

[cewillis]

Andrew, my comment about finding a lot of unwanted encrypted channels was just an unsolicited, off topic rant. Sorry about that.

Now, I found the Free to Error check box, 2 levels deep in Edit Channel -- never been there before.
And I see now that the red and green indicators with each channel is what you both are referring to as the FTA flag.
So I am including 3 pictures that show info about the channels that I use.
But first, an up to date summary:
My MP htpc can tune ANY and ALL of the channels, irregardless of the FTA flag.
It can successfully record ANY of the channels.
It can successfully record ANY two channels at the same time, unless the 2nd recording started is KOLDHD or KMSBHD.
It can successfully record KOLDHD or KMSBHD and any other channel if KOLDHD or KMSBHD recording is started first.
So the problem is most likely interference of some sort that is messing up the Hauppauge tuner.

The first image show how I tune QAM channels. (I have never intentionally done anything with or about the FTA flags)
The second image is the Channels screen. Note the same FTA for KOLDHD on the main screen and the first edit level.
The third image is the All Channels screen. Note the different FTA for KOLDHD on the main screen and the first edit level.

So I see how to set all the FTA flags -- thanks -- but since the channels are already tunable, does it make any difference?

 

[Andrew H]

No problem - we all get on a soapbox occasionally! Besides, it wasn't JUST a rant. I'd found the FTA while I was reviewing my log a while back - the tuner would tune a station using the tuning parameters it has (even the FTA = false) and upon locking in the FTA = TRUE would be logged. I think my CAM is set to 0 (default) which may indicate to MP to tune anything and see what the station sends back. Since neither of us is using any cable-card or CAM device it's irrelevent, or so I think. So, YES, I'd agree with you that it makes no difference although the purist in me says: if I know it's a FTA station, let me place that right into into its tuning parameters and get that Green icon! You never know what subtle bit may create another issue someplace else.

We're all so different in what we observe. I never payed much attention to the icon until one guy wrote something about how his was tuning the Red ones... only then did I connect the color of the icon to the FTA flag! Now you are familiar with the icon and its meaning. BTW, mine all are Green with a "T" inside which I believe means" Free To Air - Terrestrial (OTA) channel" - I'm surprised to see yours is a T also... I'd have thought C for Cable, or Q for QAM and YES, I'm just making this up because I don't know what options are coded into the application.

 

[mm1352000]

Hi guys

So just to set the record straight: like I said yesterday, up until 1.2.0a/b there was a bug that resulted in QAM (and ATSC???) channels being detected as FTA when they were encrypted, and encrypted when they were FTA. It made no difference because as Andrew H said, TV Server detects whether a channel is actually encrypted when it tunes the channel - if it is encrypted and you have no means to decrypt it then TV Server gives up and tells you that the channel is encrypted.

Okay, so that was pre-1.2.0b. With 1.2.0b we've kinda created the perfect storm for ATSC/QAM users - completely unintentionally of course. We fixed the encrypted/FTA detection thing, so any channels that are scanned in with 1.2.0b will be set to the correct "state". *However* people that update from <1.2.0b are a little "screwed" - changes somewhere in the tuner allocation logic mean that it is now more important to have the FTA flag set correctly. People with databases full of encrypted channels that are actually FTA will upgrade to 1.2.0b and be unable to view any of their channels until they set them all to FTA (or the correct state). Well that's annoying, I hear you say... and I agree. Completely unforseen. What makes it worse is that we can't suggest deleting the channels and doing a full rescan - 1.2.0b has experimental channel detection speedups included, and unfortunately those speedups don't seem to work very well for *some* ATSC/QAM and IPTV users. The issue is that some channels are no longer identified as TV or radio, which results in them not being added to the channel list -> users get correct "states" for the channels that are found, but some channels are no longer found at all. Some people are severely affected - their entire set of channels can't be found (for example: Dish network users get all their radio channels, but all the TV channels are not found! ).

So, we royally screwed up. I'm not sure if there is any sense in apologising here, but I am sorry for the way it has turned out. A real mess...

mm
:sorry: