The Official R5000-HD Technical Status Discussion [Text View] - Page 8

euryd

12-04-07, 01:24 PM

Last week I "lost" the R5000HD device on a Windows XP machine - several days after I had done the most recent Windows Critical Update.

Strangely enough, I tried everything - including a system restore with no luck, so I finally took every Nextcom or R5000HD reference out of the registry and uninstalled every USB device in the device manager - on the next boot it found the R5000HD - but identified it as - you guessed it - a DVB-T USB device.

When I tried to force it to us the Nextcom Driver it said that the driver contained no info for that device.

So, I am wondering if this is truly a Vista issue - as the same thing happened in XP after the last critical update.

To make a long story short - after 3 hours, I used Acronis TruImage and restored an image of the 20 Gig C:\ drive in 10 minutes and was done with it - after I did all the Windows Updates from the last 3 months that were not installed on the image.

Why the Nextcom device disappeared - why it would not detect again - and why it came up as a USB DVB-T Device are somewhat of a mystery. But I wonder if something has changed - in Vista and now XP with the new critical updates - that have caused this.

Has anyone figured out how to remove the DVB-T erroneous driver so that one can install the Nextcom driver. I can't seem to get rid of the DVB-T driver no matter how many times I deleted it and did a driver re-install. Windows seems to only want to install the incorrect driver. Thanks.

balazer

12-04-07, 03:24 PM

thurstonw

12-04-07, 06:22 PM

To fix the erronious DVB-T driver:

Per this post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10366921&highlight=dvb-t#post10366921) and this post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10387855&highlight=dvb-t#post10387855):

First look for cebdaldr.inf and cebda150.inf in your Windows inf directory and delete or disable them. If that doesn't do it, use Agent Ransack to search your inf directory for files containing the text vid_04b4&pid_8613 , and disable or delete those. If that doesn't do it, use Agent Ransack to search your entire system disk for *.inf files containing the text vid_04b4&pid_8613 , and disable or delete them. (don't delete any Nextcom files, of course)

That worked for me in Windows XP. I haven't tried in Vista.

I had the same problem in Windows XP. I did as balazar says, but I also disconnected the computer from the network and restarted the computer. After the reboot, and with the network still disconnected, I plugged in the R5000-HD and it installed correctly. I reconnected the network cable and everything works great. The actual cause of the problem can be found here. (http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.development.device.drivers/browse_thread/thread/a10f3e61437757af/c2286ea7aaeb006e?q=usb+hdtv+device+microsoft&_done=%2Fgroups%3Fq%3Dusb+hdtv+device+microsoft%26&_doneTitle=Back+to+Search&&d)

-Thurston

euryd

12-05-07, 03:42 AM

Balazer and Thurstonw,

OK, I tried both your suggestions and it worked. Thanks very much.

I was originally confused about searching for the string vid_04b4&pid_8613 . But I finally figured you meant two strings vid_04b4 and pid_8613 separately.

balazer

12-05-07, 03:53 AM

I actually meant the one long string as I typed it. Did that not work?

euryd

12-05-07, 03:22 PM

I was not able to find any files with the long string. I tried it twice. Maybe I made some kind of mistake as this is the first time I am using the software.

When I used the two strings individually separated by the &, I found several files including the Nextcom drivers and some mouse drivers. I removed everything else except for the Nextcom and mouse drivers.

During hardware driver installation, Windows still asked me for the DVB-T drivers but when I pointed it to the R5000 driver directory, it accepted the Nextcom drivers. After doing this twice, the R5000 worked.

ralphjb

12-08-07, 07:29 PM

Well just got a new Vista 64 machine. Now I am in driver hell.

Will R5000 work with Vista 64? I am unable to install the driver. Windows does not recognize the install file. I am pointing too the drivers directory in the programs/r5000 directory. Any help is appreciated.

Enrico Ng

12-08-07, 09:47 PM

I have an R5000 right now and it has worked well for me. I've noticed all these new MPEG4 HD channels and would like to be able to see them someday. I figure that direcTV will dump the MPEG2 channels someday and I'll have to come up with a new solution to record HD.

I noticed that Nextcom has a LIMITED-TIME upgrade special where you can save about $250. It is alittle confusing because it says you can upgrade all DirecTV units, however they do not say they have a direcTV solution.

Is there something about the direcTV MPEG4 which makes it nearly impossible to record? Will there ever be a way to record? Should I switch to Dish?, I have to do some more research but they seem to offer the same channels.

I feel I need to make a decision now if this is a limited time offer.

MKANET

12-09-07, 12:58 AM

I just tested my UPS battery backup to see what would happen during a power outage. The R5000 driver was the ONLY driver that didnt come back out of Hibernation. I'm guessing getting this driver to support hibernation would probably be asking too much.

balazer

12-09-07, 02:13 PM

Configure your UPS to shut down the machine instead of hibernating. You don't expect do be losing power frequently, do you?

MKANET

12-09-07, 02:25 PM

MS Vista power options for shutdown=broken. It's notification alert is also broken too for low power/critical. Instead of shutting down Windows gracefully, it turns off the PC while in windows. Next time you boot up, in the event viewer you get the message "previous shutdown was unexpected". I'm guessing that's why my APC powerchute app (Vista aware) doesnt even offer shutdown and only offers hibernation. There isn't anythign for me to adjust or fix in Vista to make it shutdown gracefully like in XP/Win2k.

Configure your UPS to shut down the machine instead of hibernating. You don't expect do be losing power frequently, do you?

morikaweb

12-11-07, 02:09 PM

HT Slider

12-11-07, 03:59 PM

I am thinking of getting this mod but have a concern. I am Canadian and if I understand correctly I have to ship my STB over the border to the stats, have it modified, then shipped back here?

Have any Canadians here done this? I'm worried about homeland security or something confiscating my box or else getting nailed with massive duties/ processing charges. As it is the box + the mod costs over $850 which is a lot of money for me, I couldn’t afford to lose the box or get nailed with bull charges.

I had no problem whatsoever at the border, but I did drive it across myself and use The UPS Store to ship and receive.

I don't think there would be a problem shipping it from Canada either. Customs didn't have any concerns at all. I also brought along an ExpressVu bill to prove we have a paid subscription as well as the old purchase reciept for the Bell 6000, but didn't need either.

We've had our R5000HD working with Vista Media Center now for a good 6 weeks. The image quality is incredible compared to the PVR-250, not to mention DD5.1 audio.

If you want to use it with Media Center, it was a (big) challenge to get it working properly, but now that its configured as well as I can, it hasn't missed a recording once.

My understanding is Nextcom is working on a Vista Media Center driver so in the future it should be easy to set up.

jones07

12-12-07, 09:17 AM

R5000HD with SageTV is a breeze

Enrico Ng

12-15-07, 12:11 AM

Are there any direcTV users here who have switched to Dish to get the MPEG4 stuff?
How does the image quality compare?

R5000-HD

12-17-07, 11:51 PM

Free DVR software (SageTV and Multi source versions) with the purchase of a new R5000-HD modification or pre-modified receiver. Qualified purchases will receive refund/credit.

Clearance: DirecTV pre-modified Mitsubishi SR-HD5, take $150 off. These units may not be stocked after this.

Special purchase: Take $75 off the price of a new pre-modified Dish 211 receiver (quantities very limited).

Orders placed on or before Jan 1, 2008 or while inventory lasts.

ralphjb

12-18-07, 08:00 AM

Are there any direcTV users here who have switched to Dish to get the MPEG4 stuff?
How does the image quality compare?

I have done so. I can detect no difference in quality.

GypJoe

12-28-07, 11:45 AM

Help a MCE brother out HTSlider - I'm following you on all the forums now!

:)

MKANET

12-28-07, 11:53 AM

Thats creepy. j/k

Help a MCE brother out HTSlider - I'm following you on all the forums now!

:)

MKANET

12-30-07, 12:53 PM

Does anyone have any idea if the R5000 mod will work on U-verse STBs? I dont know anything about their STB's... all I know is it's available in our neighborhood; and, it's over fiber.

thurstonw

01-01-08, 07:18 PM

MKANET

01-01-08, 07:38 PM

No, I'll try that. I'm hoping I can find out what model motorola boxes are being used. Also, if U-Verse uses mpeg4 or mpeg2.

I believe it will because it's a motorola STB. Have you tried contacting Nextcom?

-Thurston

bwooster

01-02-08, 03:39 PM

mkanet: Check to see if your box has a fireport. You may be able to just record stuff from that port.

MKANET

01-02-08, 03:49 PM

I don't have one yet. I'm currently still with Comcast cable. Im not sure what kind of support I'd get in sageTV with just a firewire port. I know the ones that come with my current motorola cable boxes are disabled; and even if they were enabled, they have copy protection on them.

mkanet: Check to see if your box has a fireport. You may be able to just record stuff from that port.

MikeSM

01-02-08, 03:58 PM

Does anyone have any idea if the R5000 mod will work on U-verse STBs? I dont know anything about their STB's... all I know is it's available in our neighborhood; and, it's over fiber.

I would stay away from u-verse. Esp if you like HD. They don't have enough bandwidth so the HD is overcompressed - most folks are reporting poor HD quality, and it's not delivered over fiber, at least any more so than comcast. It's fiber to the neighborhood, and then copper from there. Total capacity maxes out at 20 Mb/s, and that's with a tailwind.

Given that it's an IPTV based box, I doubt you'd be able to tape the MPEG stream as is done with a normal STB, and I believe everything is sent as wmv encoded video, maybe h.264 - so getting into sage will not be easy...

If you look at this picture of the internals of the u-verse box http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=7057711, you'll see they use the sigma 8634 processor, which does decryption and decode in one chip, so I doubt it could be modified, at least not without a lot of software hacking.

It's possible that AT&T is not shipping anything encrypted given all the issues they are having, but I think it'd be hard to tape in any case. And no 1394 port either.

thx
mike

bwooster

01-02-08, 05:20 PM

In NJ where I live the cable company is Patmedia and uses cable boxes that have active Firewire ports. I can hook my old Mac (Powerbook) up to it and make HD recordings from it.

boiler11

01-10-08, 01:10 PM

Over the last few weeks I've been having an increasing problem with r5000hd recordings having about 1-2 seconds of the last channel viewed at the beginning of a new recording. This seems to have started since I upgraded the r5000hd software to the lastest version.
Has anyone else experienced this? I want to say I recall hearing about someone having this problem a long time back, but I can't find the post in this now huge thread.

I have fast stream and file switching disabled in sage. This is an annoyance with SD->HD mpeg2 and a real problem with H.264->mpeg2 channel changes. The 2 seconds of H.264 at the beginning of a valid mpeg2 stream make the whole file useless. Note also that this occurs primarily with changing OTA channels.

etk29321,

I'm having what might be a related problem. I have about 25% success when i try to tune OTA channels in SageTV through my r5000 modified Dish Vip 211s. The Dish box always tunes to the correct channel (as observed through a TV connected to the composite video out), but 75% of the time the R5000 app shows that it is tuned, but file size remains at 0 (zero bytes). When this happens I can see the file in the output directory, but it's size remains at zero.

I'm running the latest R5000 app, version 2.5f on a Vista machine. I see in the revision history of the R5000 app for version 2.5d:

Addresses problems with new Dish receiver OTA capture and H.264/MPEG-2 falsing.

Was this fixed in 2.5d and then broken again in 2.5f?

Did you have to revert to 2.5d to get it to work?

It seems like at least one or two other people have had this problem:
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?p=235709&postcount=15

Thanks,
Sean.

HT Slider

01-11-08, 08:39 AM

Help a MCE brother out HTSlider - I'm following you on all the forums now!

:)

What do you need help with?

If it's my incomplete "how to" document for setting up the R5000HD with Vista Media Center, keep bugging me and I will complete it eventually.

If you have a specific question, fire away and I'll try to answer to the best of my ability.

Our R5000HD modded Bell 6000 STB is still working very well with Vista Media Center, but it isn't 100% flawless. Over the past 3+ months we've recorded 3 or 4 shows (out of probably 100's) where a portion of the recording is simply missing from the middle of the show. It could be due to snow interfering with the dish, but I'm not certain. I never saw the problem until sometime in December (about when the snow started to fly), but Bell or a Windows Update may have changed something too. It has also been working perfectly again since about Christmas.

Based on some of the comments with Sage TV users, it sounds like our Vista Media Center implementation works at least as well (perhaps the issue is with the R5000HD itself).

etk29321

01-11-08, 01:58 PM

etk29321,

I'm having what might be a related problem. I have about 25% success when i try to tune OTA channels in SageTV through my r5000 modified Dish Vip 211s. The Dish box always tunes to the correct channel (as observed through a TV connected to the composite video out), but 75% of the time the R5000 app shows that it is tuned, but file size remains at 0 (zero bytes). When this happens I can see the file in the output directory, but it's size remains at zero.

I'm running the latest R5000 app, version 2.5f on a Vista machine. I see in the revision history of the R5000 app for version 2.5d:

Was this fixed in 2.5d and then broken again in 2.5f?

Did you have to revert to 2.5d to get it to work?

It seems like at least one or two other people have had this problem:
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?p=235709&postcount=15

Thanks,
Sean.

Sean, am currently running 2.5f. I ended up having to change a setting in Sage that configured how long Sage waits after a channel change before starting to record the stream. I always had full files though, so my problem isn't likely the same as yours.
When it's recording a zero byte file, are you seeing any failed transfers or is your signal strength maybe not all that solid? I've only ever gotten zero byte files when I was using a buggy VIA USB controller.

boiler11

01-11-08, 02:57 PM

Sean, am currently running 2.5f. I ended up having to change a setting in Sage that configured how long Sage waits after a channel change before starting to record the stream. I always had full files though, so my problem isn't likely the same as yours.
When it's recording a zero byte file, are you seeing any failed transfers or is your signal strength maybe not all that solid? I've only ever gotten zero byte files when I was using a buggy VIA USB controller.

Hi etk29321,

Thanks for replying.

Do you remember the setting you changed in sage to make it wait after a channel change?

Are "failed transfers" reported in the R5000 log? The only mention of failure I see in the log is "failures: 0".

I don't *think* it's a signal quality issue. The signal meter in the dish box shows 100% for most channels. I think the lowest is 75-80%.

edit: forgot to mention that I have no problems with sat channels, SD mpeg2, HD mpeg2, and H.264 channels all work fine.

Thanks,
Sean.

etk29321

01-11-08, 03:09 PM

Hi etk29321,

Thanks for replying.

Do you remember the setting you changed in sage to make it wait after a channel change?

Are "failed transfers" reported in the R5000 log? The only mention of failure I see in the log is "failures: 0".

I don't *think* it's a signal quality issue. The signal meter in the dish box shows 100% for most channels. I think the lowest is 75-80%.

edit: forgot to mention that I have no problems with sat channels, SD mpeg2, HD mpeg2, and H.264 channels all work fine.

Thanks,
Sean.

Here was the solution from r5000hdsupport. It was actually in the R5000HD config, not sage:

Hi,
You can program a delay after the channel by manually adding an entry
into your configuration file:
"RecDelay: <time>" where the "time" is the delay in mS (e.g. 1 sec =
1000). To add a 2 second delay after the channel add:
RecDelay: 2000
the entry must be made exactly as shown with the colon after the token
and a space before the value.

The configuration file is found in the R5000 install directory:
c:\program files\r5000hd\ and is named: <device serial#>.cfg
Insert the entry last on the list but before "end" label if present. Thanks,

David

For failed transfers, I imagine they're in the log, and that sounds like it might be the right item. I watched for them just in the R5000HD recording gui while it was recording something. There's a status box labeled "Failed Transfers".

hollywoodjoe

01-13-08, 06:50 PM

Does the R5000 work with BeyondTV? I use that to manage my Hauppauge analog tuner as a well as my dual-QAM HDHomeRun tuner. The latter maps itself as digital OTA channels that can be added to BeyondTV. Can the R5000 also map itself to digital OTA channels?

boiler11

01-13-08, 08:46 PM

Here was the solution from r5000hdsupport. It was actually in the R5000HD config, not sage:

Hi,
You can program a delay after the channel by manually adding an entry
into your configuration file:
"RecDelay: <time>" where the "time" is the delay in mS (e.g. 1 sec =
1000). To add a 2 second delay after the channel add:
RecDelay: 2000
the entry must be made exactly as shown with the colon after the token
and a space before the value.

The configuration file is found in the R5000 install directory:
c:\program files\r5000hd\ and is named: <device serial#>.cfg
Insert the entry last on the list but before "end" label if present. Thanks,

David

For failed transfers, I imagine they're in the log, and that sounds like it might be the right item. I watched for them just in the R5000HD recording gui while it was recording something. There's a status box labeled "Failed Transfers".

:D:D:D

Thank You!

That worked perfectly. I tried 9000 first (9 seconds), and it worked great! I tried 1500, and it still had problems. Seems to be working reliably at 2000.

Thanks!

Sean.

RTK

01-23-08, 09:35 PM

hlkc

01-23-08, 09:50 PM

Please correct me if I am wrong. I am new in this thread, tired waiting for CableCard version for Sat signals and I am looking for something to record HD channels from something like DirectTV. Am I in the right place? Is this still available? If so, where can I get one for my HTPC? Thanks in advance.

Largo

01-24-08, 02:38 AM

I believe the new DirectTV boxes can't be modified to work with this because of their mpeg4 channels, but you can record Dish Networks.

ralphjb

01-24-08, 08:44 AM

I believe the new DirectTV boxes can't be modified to work with this because of their mpeg4 channels, but you can record Dish Networks.

That is correct. You can get modded mpeg4 boxes for Dish, but they not for DirecTV. It was for that reason that I switched from DirecTV to Dish.

boiler11

01-24-08, 10:12 AM

jhue

01-24-08, 08:00 PM

Is there an easy (any) way to convert a HD R5000 h.264 recording to standard def DVD playable in a regular DVD player? For MPEG2 HD .ts files there are lots of options but for h.264 recordings I didn't know how to do it.

Easy to do with Avisynth and VirtualDub (I also have CoreAVC installed for decoding), but I have an audio sync problem that I haven't been able to solve. Since many of the canned solutions are based on Avisynth and Virtualdub, they have the same problem. The problem seems to be on the audio side, the result of transcoding the video appears to be in perfect sync with the original, but the audio, even if I don't touch it (just demux it from the original and remux with the new video) plays out of sync.

Nero Recode can convert the file without introducing audio sync problems. Problem is that you can't use your favorite codecs, unless you're willing to transcode twice, which doesn't help quality. If you're happy with Nero's codecs, that may work for you.

My current solution is to just play the H.264 capture directly (after remuxing), using a Playstation 3.

MKANET

01-24-08, 08:11 PM

Nero does this without any fuss.. just drag and drop and click next, next... and BURN.

Is there an easy (any) way to convert a HD R5000 h.264 recording to standard def DVD playable in a regular DVD player? For MPEG2 HD .ts files there are lots of options but for h.264 recordings I didn't know how to do it.

TIA

RTK

01-24-08, 11:37 PM

Nero does this without any fuss.. just drag and drop and click next, next... and BURN.

Mike,
Which version of Nero are you using and does it require the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray Plug-in?

MKANET

01-24-08, 11:53 PM

Hi Rick, I'm using Nero 8 Ultra (Nero Vision App). Although, I have added the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray Plug-in, I'm almost positive it's not needed for this since you're just making an DVD disc. Nero natively recognizes these files. You can even edit, make chapters, etc. I don't think it gets much easier than this. Good luck..

Mike,
Which version of Nero are you using and does it require the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray Plug-in?

RTK

01-25-08, 12:20 AM

Hi Rick, I'm using Nero 8 Ultra (Nero Vision App). Although, I have added the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray Plug-in, I'm almost positive it's not needed for this since you're just making an DVD disc. Nero natively recognizes these files. You can even edit, make chapters, etc. I don't think it gets much easier than this. Good luck..

I'm off to download. Thanks for your help Mike. BTW, the screen shots in your signature from SageTV are pretty cool.

Ron Tobin

01-25-08, 09:37 AM

Hi Rick, I'm using Nero 8 Ultra (Nero Vision App). Although, I have added the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray Plug-in, I'm almost positive it's not needed for this since you're just making an DVD disc. Nero natively recognizes these files. You can even edit, make chapters, etc. I don't think it gets much easier than this. Good luck..

mkanet: Have you been able to take an R5000 recording, transfer it and author it to BD media with the plug-in, and get it to play back on a BD player?

MKANET

01-25-08, 09:48 AM

Ron, I have no problems bringing in a R5000 recording into Nero, editing it and making a BD-R or BD-RE blu-ray movie disc. Nothing too fancy with the blu-ray extra features... but gets the job done. However, I noticed one problem:

1) On the computer, when playing it back on PowerDVD Ultra, the video and audio are not in synch (and sometimes the video will skip a few frames). It almost looks like the blu-ray movie discs that are made with Nero do not have the perfect specs necessary for PowerDVD to playback correctly with hardware acceleration.

EDIT: I did get some kind of UCF warning message before burning saying the disc cant be played back properly on a Windows XP machine.... but, I have Vista.

I didn't see any options to change to make it playback better in PowerDVD. I have zero problems playing back commercial Blu-ray disks in PowerDVD.

mkanet: Have you been able to take an R5000 recording, transfer it and author it to BD media with the plug-in, and get it to play back on a BD player?

MKANET

01-25-08, 09:49 AM

Cool Rick, let me know how it works out for you.

I'm off to download. Thanks for your help Mike. BTW, the screen shots in your signature from SageTV are pretty cool.

GypJoe

01-25-08, 11:41 AM

What do you need help with?

If it's my incomplete "how to" document for setting up the R5000HD with Vista Media Center, keep bugging me and I will complete it eventually.

If you have a specific question, fire away and I'll try to answer to the best of my ability.

Our R5000HD modded Bell 6000 STB is still working very well with Vista Media Center, but it isn't 100% flawless. Over the past 3+ months we've recorded 3 or 4 shows (out of probably 100's) where a portion of the recording is simply missing from the middle of the show. It could be due to snow interfering with the dish, but I'm not certain. I never saw the problem until sometime in December (about when the snow started to fly), but Bell or a Windows Update may have changed something too. It has also been working perfectly again since about Christmas.

Based on some of the comments with Sage TV users, it sounds like our Vista Media Center implementation works at least as well (perhaps the issue is with the R5000HD itself).
I will be relying on your assistance very soon.

Update:

I got the dish installed and I snail-mailed the new receiver to get modded and now I wait.

I sure hope I don't run into the incomplete recording issue after all of this because that is why I am dumping firewire to begin with!

Ron Tobin

01-25-08, 04:23 PM

Ron, I have no problems bringing in a R5000 recording into Nero, editing it and making a BD-R or BD-RE blu-ray movie disc. Nothing too fancy with the blu-ray extra features... but gets the job done. However, I noticed one problem:

1) On the computer, when playing it back on PowerDVD Ultra, the video and audio are not in synch (and sometimes the video will skip a few frames). It almost looks like the blu-ray movie discs that are made with Nero do not have the perfect specs necessary for PowerDVD to playback correctly with hardware acceleration.

EDIT: I did get some kind of UCF warning message before burning saying the disc cant be played back properly on a Windows XP machine.... but, I have Vista.

I didn't see any options to change to make it playback better in PowerDVD. I have zero problems playing back commercial Blu-ray disks in PowerDVD.

I wonder how it would work on a commerical BD player? Guess for the low price of the add-on, it might be worth a try. I have a BD burner, but have not yet burned anything, awaiting authoring software.

Thanks for your response.

jhue

01-25-08, 05:14 PM

Nero does this without any fuss.. just drag and drop and click next, next... and BURN.

I have Nero 7 Ultra and found their H.264 encoder to be very crappy, even when configured to encode with a bitrate 2x that of the original. If you're going to SD MPEG-2 for DVD, that's a different codec, and maybe it's a whole lot better. Thankfully, the ability to play the capture natively with a Playstation 3 has mostly eliminated my need to transcode my captures. Still, it would be nice if the audio sync problem was solved so that VirtualDub was an option.

stjr

01-25-08, 05:26 PM

jhue,

Could you please explain how you remux R5000 H.264 captures to play on the PS3? Do you use Tsremux to convert the files from TS to M2TS? Can you use fast forward and rewind when playing these files on the PS3? Thanks in advance for your help.

RTK

01-25-08, 09:33 PM

Cool Rick, let me know how it works out for you.

Nero 8 looked like it was going to be an easy way to create a SD DVD from a R5000 h.264 HD recording but thus far it has not been successful. Nero allows me to load the R5000 h.264 HD recorded .ts file and it starts transcoding however after about a half an hour it hangs. I will try a different recording in case this one just happens to be flawed but I'm sort of perplexed why it would hang.

MKANET

01-25-08, 09:48 PM

Rick, try smaller files first; then, larger ones. This will tell you if you might be running out of resources such as temp file disk space. You're right, it also might be that particular recording.

Nero 8 looked like it was going to be an easy way to create a SD DVD from a R5000 h.264 HD recording but thus far it has not been successful. Nero allows me to load the R5000 h.264 HD recorded .ts file and it starts transcoding however after about a half an hour it hangs. I will try a different recording in case this one just happens to be flawed but I'm sort of perplexed why it would hang.

RTK

01-25-08, 09:52 PM

Any idea what to do about running out of resources? I've made how brewed HD-DVD on DL-DVD media using Ulead MF6 so I doubt its a resource issue although I'll take your advice and try a smaller size file and a different recording. Out of curiousity, how long does it typically take your PC to transcode an hour of HD h.264 file to DVD? I realize this is highly dependant upon the cpu.

MKANET

01-25-08, 10:00 PM

If it is a resource issue, smaller and medium sized files will work consistently. My first guess would be if its a resource limit is the amount of free disk space the windows swap file is on or where the temporary scratch directly is that Nero uses. You can check the amount of free disk space on the hard drives you have on your PC.

I wouldn't jump to conclusions though. First thing is first, see if you can reproduce this behavior and at what point it fails.

Find out where it stops on a few different sized files..

Any idea what to do about running out of resources? I've made how brewed HD-DVD on DL-DVD media using Ulead MF6 so I doubt its a resource issue although I'll take your advice and try a smaller size file and a different recording. Out of curiousity, how long does it typically take your PC to transcode an hour of HD h.264 file to DVD? I realize this is highly dependant upon the cpu.

RTK

01-25-08, 10:52 PM

Thanks again. I've just started to transcode a different 1hr show ~2.5GB to DVD so I'll know something shortly. If this fails, I will back down to a 1GB size file and go smaller if needed. I have over 100GB free space on the drive so I doubt its a space issue but I'll know more shortly.

RTK

01-26-08, 12:46 AM

Looks like the initial file I tried may have somehow been corrupt as a slightly smaller one worked fine :) I'll try a larger file overnight. Thanks again Mike.

MKANET

01-26-08, 01:23 AM

Thats great to hear!

Looks like the initial file I tried may have somehow been corrupt as a slightly smaller one worked fine :) I'll try a larger file overnight. Thanks again Mike.

jhue

01-27-08, 06:13 AM

Do you use Tsremux to convert the files from TS to M2TS? Can you use fast forward and rewind when playing these files on the PS3?

Yes and yes. FF and FR work find up to the 120X max.

dj7675

01-27-08, 09:51 AM

Yes and yes. FF and FR work find up to the 120X max.

Are you burning the captures to disk after using tsremux for playback, or are you streaming? And are they mpeg2 or h.264?

RTK

01-27-08, 01:15 PM

If you take a Dish R5000 h.264 capture and run through tsremux are you outputing the file as ts, m2ts, or blu-ray? Does an extension need to be added (ie .m2ts) for the PS3 to recognize the file? Can this file(s) be burned to SL or DL DVD for playback in the PS3?

Previously I have remuxed R5000 HD h.264 files to .ts and some (maybe the longer ones?) would lock up after a period of time although I haven't tried using the PS3 as media player in a while. R5000 mpeg2 recordings playback great on the PS3 but haven't been so great recently on the PS3.

stjr

01-27-08, 01:57 PM

I think that TS and M2TS are just different extensions commonly used to package H.264 captured streams. It appears (from the program menu of TSRemux) that when you take the Dish R5000 H.264 captures with a TS extension and remux them to M2TS, the byte packets change from 188 to 192. If this is all that is needed for trouble free playback on a PS3, then I will consider purchasing a PS3.

I would also like to know whether it makes a difference for playback purposes if the original H.264 R5000 recording is compressed or at contant bit rate. IMO, compressed is much more desirable, because it is much smaller than the CBR files.

RTK

01-27-08, 02:48 PM

I'm going to do a little experimenting with R5000 h.264 file playback on the PS3 today so I hope to have some answers for you shortly. I"m in the process of burning an AVCHD disc made from an R5000 file which hopefully will playback on the PS3.

stjr

01-27-08, 03:02 PM

Thanks Rick,

It seems to me that it takes more work to create an AVCHD formatted disk compared with just playing an R5000 H.264 captured file with minimal or no post-capture processing.

I have a Tvix M4100SH, which plays R5000 H.264 TS files directly with minimal glitches, but FF/RW is partially broken. My understanding is that DVICO will be working on a fix for this, but I am looking for alternatives that work at least as well if not better.

RTK

01-27-08, 04:35 PM

I just looked at the time to create an AVC disc... ~10hrs :eek:

I've run a movie thru tsremux and will try that streamed from my server.

RTK

01-28-08, 12:48 AM

OK after some initial issues which I determined were related to my network or the mediaserver software, I tsremuxed an ~5GB R5000 h.264 recording of 12 Monkeys and transferred it to the PS3 hard drive and it plays back perfectly with FF/RW, etc. I'm going to let the whole movie play to be sure there is no file size limitation.

jhue

01-28-08, 03:39 AM

Are you burning the captures to disk after using tsremux for playback, or are you streaming? And are they mpeg2 or h.264?

I stream with Nero MediaHome (part of Nero 7 Ultra). I have about five other uPnP servers on my PC, but Nero has given me the fewest problems.

I already wrote that with the current firmware the PS3 has problems with HD MPEG-2 and I use my IOData LP2 to play those.

RTK

01-28-08, 11:39 AM

One more note. Be careful (avoid) editing R5000 h.264 recordings with H.264 TS Cutter. I tested a few files after using it to crop the file shorter and it introduced a lot of errors.

stjr

01-28-08, 01:03 PM

One more note. Be careful (avoid) editing R5000 h.264 recordings with H.264 TS Cutter. I tested a few files after using it to crop the file shorter and it introduced a lot of errors.Thanks for the update. You might try using TSSplitter as another resource for editing H.264 files. Was the recording of "12 Monkeys" made in the compressed mode or the CBR mode?

RTK

01-28-08, 03:15 PM

Thanks for the update. You might try using TSSplitter as another resource for editing H.264 files. Was the recording of "12 Monkeys" made in the compressed mode or the CBR mode?

Thanks for the tip on TSSplitter, I'll have to check it out. All of my R5000 recordings are done with null packets removed. Since they all playback fine from the PC and take up less hard drive space, I didn't have any reason to record with them. If it become an issue for PS3 or a standalone media player playback, I would consider changing but thus far it hasn't. Is there a specific reason to record in CBR mode?

stjr

01-28-08, 04:18 PM

VBR (compressed) is preferable from my point of view. Some MPEG-2 decoders have required 19.3 Mbps CBR TS files in order to produce glitch-free playback. That's why the R5000 offered the CBR option. In the MPEG-4 world, there especially is no reason to have null packets inserted in the files if they have no effect on playback.

So, it appears to me that when TSRemux converts 188 byte packet stream files to 192 byte packet stream files (TS to M2TS), the files become compatible with the PS3. My options (if I want reliable FF/RW) are to wait for DVICO to fix its FF/RW features with R5000 H.264 TS files on the TVIX, or use TSRemux and convert the files to M2TS for the PS3. Thanks.

Largo

01-28-08, 04:23 PM

The H.264 files that I run through TSremuxer and output to Blu-ray stutter on my PS3. I burn them using Nero 8 using 2.5 UDF profile. All my mpeg 2 files play flawlessly using this method.

has123

01-28-08, 08:34 PM

RTK

01-28-08, 09:44 PM

The H.264 files that I run through TSremuxer and output to Blu-ray stutter on my PS3. I burn them using Nero 8 using 2.5 UDF profile. All my mpeg 2 files play flawlessly using this method.

What format are you burning to disc, AVCHD, DVD or just recording the file to disc? Before you conclude there is an issue with the PS3 playback of h.26 content, instead of burning the file to DVD, transfer the tsremuxed R5000 h.264 file to the PS3 hard drive over your network and see if that removes the stuttering.

RTK

01-28-08, 10:10 PM

TSSplitter looks interesting for editing h.264 content but how do you know the points to trim/edit if you can't see the image?

stjr

01-28-08, 10:32 PM

RTK

01-29-08, 02:21 PM

Another TSSplitter user told me that he was able to get the image to display, but I never was able to get an image. IIRC, I used another application to view the file and guestimate a trim point. The resulting trimmed file played fine on my Tvix M4100SH box.

Edit:

I'm mixing up programs. The program that I used was TS Packet Editor, not TSSplitter. It has a window for viewing the contenet. Sorry for the confusion. http://www.videohelp.com/tools/TS_Packet_Editor

Thanks for the update, I"ll give that one a try too.

For anyone interested, after reading Largo's post I burned a tsremuxed an R5000 h.264 HD file directly to DVD (UDF 2.5, no transcoding) and played back perfectly in the PS3. I'll try a few more files later today. See this thread for more info:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=834474

RTK

01-29-08, 05:51 PM

TS packet editor reference above appears to work well for basic trimming/editing of R5000 h.264 files. On the two files I trimmed, it introduced no errors.

Largo

01-29-08, 11:32 PM

Thanks for the update, I"ll give that one a try too.

For anyone interested, after reading Largo's post I burned a tsremuxed an R5000 h.264 HD file directly to DVD (UDF 2.5, no transcoding) and played back perfectly in the PS3. I'll try a few more files later today. See this thread for more info:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=834474

So when you tsremux the h.264 file, do you output to a TS file? Then when you burn it, you just burn it as pysical partition UDF 2.5? I tried it and when I play the DVD on my PS3, it says data file and there's no data. When I look at the Nero info log, it says it sets the DVD to DVD-ROM. As that ok? Thanks.

RTK

01-30-08, 01:36 AM

the exact steps I used are:

run R5000 h.264 .ts file thru tsremux, output format "m2ts", name the output file with ".m2t" extension.

Burn file to DVD with Nero Burning ROM (Nero8)
from the type of projects shown, choose "DVD-ROM (UDF)"
Multisession tab=No Multisession
UDF tab, Options=Manual settings, UDF partition type= physical partition, File system version= UDF 2.50
leave other tabs at default
Click the "New" button at the bottom

Load the tsremuxed h.264 .m2t file into the left hand side of the screen.
Click the burn icon on the menu bar at the top of the program.

optional: use transport stream packet editor to trim file. if program is used to edit, do not multitask while program is running as I suspect this results in an output file with errors. you can run file thru mpeg2 repair to check for errors if desired.

There are probably other ways to do it but this has worked for me to make HiDef discs from R5000 recordings on both standard SL and DL DVD media playable directly on the PS3 with no lengthy transcoding. Other than the few minutes thru tsremux, its essentially just the time to burn the file to disc.

Largo

01-30-08, 06:25 PM

I think the renaming of the file was the culprit on my end, I will try renaming the m2ts file. Thanks.

anisota

02-23-08, 09:22 AM

jediod

02-24-08, 07:39 PM

RTK

02-24-08, 09:26 PM

I noticed this as well but don't have a solution. From comparing a file before and after, it appears the ac3 5.1 sound is converted to DD 2.0 after its run thru tsremux. I've read somewhere that the PS3 doesn't support 5.1 for external file playback although I haven't kept up on the issue.

jediod

02-24-08, 10:31 PM

Thanks for the quick response RTK. Maybe Sony will update in the future.

RTK

02-24-08, 11:08 PM

I'd like sony to issue a firmware update so that I can playback R5000 files directly without having to process with tsremux. As you probably know, without tsremux the video is fine but there is no audio. Firmware updates with the PS3 have been sort of 2 steps forward one step back but you we'll see what happens in the next revision. At this point, I'm not "tsremuxing" all my files.

quantumstate

02-25-08, 05:50 PM

I thought I'd mention here that I've added support to MythTV for R5000-enabled STBs. The code only works with Dish Network boxes so far (and has only been tested on a ViP211), but it should work for all Dish boxes (and probably BEV too). I already have some DSStoDVB code which would let Myth work with DirecTV R5000s too, but I'd need the help of someone with such a box to complete the work. I have no idea what it would take to add support for any other R5000 enabled providers.

You can find all the gory details in the mythtv-dev mailing list:
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/dev/318110
(sorry I can't link it, this is my 1st post here)
YES! THANK YOU!

A BIG thing holding me back from the H5000 was no MythTV, and the requirement of using all the crappy Winduhs tools for everything. I don't even like Winduhs to touch the interweb (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cZC67wXUTs).

What a relief. Professional tools, like MythTV and LiVES. Now all I need is a good hardware H264 en/decoder.

searcher2

02-25-08, 08:57 PM

This is a warning to all who use PowerDVD to watch the R5000 .ts files. DO NOT INSTALL THE NEW UPDATE!!!!! The patch will prevent you from viewing Blu-ray files ported to the hard drive!!!!!!! I'm not sure about .ts files! Please spread the word!

quantumstate

02-25-08, 09:15 PM

Couple questions:

- I am looking to store recorded videos in the longest-term encoding possible, for archival purposes. I've about decided this is the format of BluRay. (not sure what that's called) Agree? Hopefully this is also a good format for viewing?

- Can the R5000 software take advantage of a quad-core CPU? Or is transcoding the main time-consuming factor? Would quad help with simultaneous viewing and recording? IOW is it worth it to buy quad-core, and if so, where?

- Can the R5000 software take advantage of a 64bit CPU? Can it even run on one?

Granted I will be running Linux, but any insight is welcomed, including Windows.

jmv

02-26-08, 10:20 AM

Help! My R5000 QIP-2500-3 boxes just arrived yesterday, and I can not get them to work. I am using SageTV. Mostly when I try to watch something, nothing happens it just sits. A couple of times, a channel fired up, the R5000 HD app started to record, and on some of those occasions I actually saw video (mostly, just stayed black or never even left the SageMC screen where I had pressed watch). When ever it did record a stream, it always tuned the same channel and that wasn't the channel I selected. Also, the R5000 doesn't seem to change the QIP-2500 power state. Does the R5000 work while the STB is in standby, or do you need it "on" with the power button? Any ideas?

Details for how I tried to setup the R5000's

I have two QIP-2500-3's so I used the multi-instance SW 2.5f. I installed the 2.5f SW, then proceeded to plug in the first R5000 USB, find the Nextcom driver etc. Got the "can't update firmware" flash, but it seemed to install OK. Then I did it with the 2nd one. I confirmed in Hardware manager that the Nextcom driver for two occurrences showed up in the USB devices category. I then fired up the HDnet SW and entered my two keys for the SW. It proceeded to ask for the driver again, which I again pointed it to the driver. Finally, I was up. I followed the R5000 directions, set each encoder to use Sage as the preference, set 1 to 6969 one to 6968. Both said they were waiting for Sage...so I edited the Sage.properties per the instructions on the R5000 website.

I then launched sage and went in to set the channel line ups and set them. I do notice one weird thing here...Under Source Details, sage lists the second R5000 as Functioning: False; the first R5000 as Functioning: True.

Also, the R5000-HD app does not launch automatically...is it supposed to in the regular setup, or do I need to add it to the startup menu...seems like it should has fired up automatically?

Also, other then setting up the channels in Sage, I never told the R5000 what channels I had...am I supposed to do that somewhere? Lastly, when I did power on the QIP2500's, they each listed a different channel, and neither listed the channel that had been recorded.

HT Slider

02-26-08, 10:36 AM

jmv

02-26-08, 12:16 PM

I set the type to Moto DCT2000...Can you tell me if the R5000 cares if the STB is on or not and if it actively controls the powerstate of the STB. I used the R5000PVR, and it seems a little hokey too...it will record whatever station I tune the STB to, but it doesn't seem to change the station (just whatever I was watching previously...

thanks,

mv

jmv

02-26-08, 01:13 PM

Well, I did few things, and at least early testing shows me things can work. All changes I made in the R5000 setup. I don't know if this changed anything, but I changed the setup to know these were DCT2000 style devices. I also unchecked save file as .TS. The last two things I did and both of these I know mattered...I launched two instances of the HD-5000 App...this caused Sage to see both QIP-2500's. I also changed the R5000 config files for both to put a 2 s delay using the recommendation posted in several places...but I'll post again for completeness:

You can program a delay after the channel by manually adding an entry
into your configuration file:
"RecDelay: <time>" where the "time" is the delay in mS (e.g. 1 sec =
1000). To add a 2 second delay after the channel add:
RecDelay: 2000
the entry must be made exactly as shown with the colon after the token
and a space before the value.

The configuration file is found in the R5000 install directory:
c:\program files\r5000hd\ and is named: <device serial#>.cfg
Insert the entry last on the list but before "end" label if present.

Now I am testing a few other things...I am still curious if the STB needs to be powered "on" to use the R5000 or if it works with standby only power...

Also, it looks like the R5000 records constant bitrate...there doesn't seem to be an option to record actual/real bitrate...is there a way to get the R5000 to do that? The HDHomerun's always record actual and I'd like R5000 to do the same to always get the smallest but best quality file.

HT Slider

02-26-08, 03:16 PM

Now I am testing a few other things...I am still curious if the STB needs to be powered "on" to use the R5000 or if it works with standby only power...

Also, it looks like the R5000 records constant bitrate...there doesn't seem to be an option to record actual/real bitrate...is there a way to get the R5000 to do that? The HDHomerun's always record actual and I'd like R5000 to do the same to always get the smallest but best quality file.

The R5000HD can both power the STB on and off as well as change channels. The question is if Sage TV's integration is programmed to power it on and off (obvoiusly it needs to change channel).

With Media Center (just as an example) I need to keep the STB on all the time.

You can record at constant bit-rate (a few different bit-rates too) or at the actual bit-rate. This is controlled in the same configuration panel where you selected which STB you have.

I record using the actual bit-rate (labelled "compressed") and it works well plus produces files that are less than 1/2 the size of constant bit-rate recordings. The only issue is some .ts splitters/mpeg-2/mpeg-1/AC3 codecs can't handle "compressed", so you'll have to experiment. I actually found there were more issues with constant bit-rate, so I always use compressed.

quantumstate

02-26-08, 03:29 PM

HT Slider

02-26-08, 04:03 PM

In addition to my other questions above, I don't understand why you have a choice with bitrate? Seems like you are just recording the transport stream from the STB, so shouldn't you get whatever it gives?

There are a couple of standard, constant bitrates used for transport streams and it used to be that .ts splitters were written specifically to work with these standard bitrates.

The R5000HD allows the trasport streams to be padded with nulls in order to produce these standard, constant bitrates. If you tell it to use "compressed", it doesn't add the nulls so you end up with a smaller file, but it is no longer using a standard bitrate.

quantumstate

02-26-08, 04:08 PM

Oh, so how does this compare with the BluRay format? I think H5000 allows you to save in BluRay? Does this add nulls or otherwise increase filesize?

jmv

02-26-08, 05:25 PM

Well, my setup remains extremely tempermental. I am using SageTV on a server with the R5000's installed on the same server.

I know have it working in Sage, but I am afraid as soon as I shutdown all hell will break loose like it did the last time I got it working.

How have folks set up the R5000 SW and the SageSW so that it seemlessly runs at startup w/o user intervention?

Also, I can not seem to get R5000 SW to record through sage with anything other than constant bit rate...I set compressed but it still records in constant. It is also saving the files in .mpg extention v. .ts. When I tried setting it to .ts, Sage would not playback the file.

thanks,

mv

HT Slider

02-26-08, 06:29 PM

Oh, so how does this compare with the BluRay format? I think H5000 allows you to save in BluRay? Does this add nulls or otherwise increase filesize?

Compare in what way?

Obviously if we are PVR'ing regular TV with the R5000HD, it is littered with commercials.

The bitrate used by my satellite provider is about 1/4 of the standard transport stream bitrate for mpeg-2 so the image quality isn't as good as full bandwidth. Considering the low bitrate, the image quality is quite good (very few artifacts, etc.). With Blue-ray, there are many different bitrates and codecs that can be used but in general Blue-ray movies use very high bitrates and produce top quality video (quite a bit better than the R5000HD recordings). Blue-ray offers several higher quality audio formats also, while the R5000HD provides whatever your content provider uses (typically highly compressed Dolby Digital 5.1).

I don't personally know of any software that can burn to Blue-ray, but there is likely something out there that can. The task is basically the same as burning any mpeg-2 or mpeg-4 video into a Blue-ray movie format. Most of us, myself included, use the hard drive to store R5000HD recordings and then delete them once we've watched them.

Does what add nulls? Burning to Blue-ray? Nulls are only added if you tell the R5000HD software to force a constant and high bitrate to be used.

quantumstate

02-27-08, 02:10 PM

Thanks HT Slider. I do not have an H5000 yet, but I gather there is a way to save to various transport stream formats, including BluRay. I mean to ask how does saving as compressed differ from saving as BluRay format?

My provider is Dish. I understand that they have severely reduced quality, but maybe it's the best we can do.

Ya, I will be saving to disk for viewing and deletion as well. But there will be some programs I want to archive as well; I've learned my lesson with my present Dish 922, which holds ~30 programs I wanted to save but now it turns out I can't get them out of the fool receiver! My goal is to choose a format that the H5000 can transcode to, which will last as long (calandarwise) as possible, and save everything that way. Seems to me that that would be in BluRay format, since that should come into most widespread use. I want to save it in this format on disk, for that future time when I will be burning it to BluRay optical. Hopefully the viewing experience will not be degraded as compared with some other H5000 format I could save to.

brzez

02-27-08, 03:30 PM

I've been using an R5000 with SageTv and so far it works well.

I have a WinXP system hooked to an R5000 modded Dish 411 receiver and a FusionHDTV PCI tuner for OTA captures. I enabled local OTA Digital channels on my Dish 411 and can view all my HDTV locals on the Dish 411 receiver (I do not susbcribe to Dish locals). I've also noticed that my Dish 411 HDTV locals are able to be captured and displayed by the R5000. So I was thinking that I can have a backup for primetime locals by remapping Dish satellite locals to OTA locals.

So my next step was to remap Dish satellite locals to OTA locals on SageTv by assigning a different physical channel number to the Dish channel number in the SageTv program guide. As an example, Dish channel 8491 (CBS Chicago) was remapped to OTA local channel 00201. The remapping worked fine but when I select the channel in the program guide, it does not change to the correct channel number. The problem is the leading 00 in the 00201 channel number -- when I look at the component video output of the Dish 411, the leading 00 is omitted when the channel change is sent to the R5000. The SageTV config file contains 00201 but I'm not sure where the problem is and if I enter 00201 in the R5000 STB control panel app, it changes channels correctly. Its either SageTV omitting 00 when sending to the R5000 or the R5000 doing it when it receives it from SageTV.

Has anyone encountered anything similar? Are there any workarounds or fixes?

I'm using the latest R5000 app and drivers as well as SageTV release 6.3.9

Thanks..

-- John

jmv

03-01-08, 02:00 PM

After multiple trial and error, I now have the system working pretty well. I have 2 R5000MOD'd FIOS QIP2500-3 STB's. I also have 2 HDHomerun's for 6 tuners total on my SageTV server. I am using the latest SageTV multi version of the 5000HD 2.5f application with a beefy SageTV server box (Dual 5160 3.0GHz Xeon CPU's in a S5000XVN workstation MB; Storage is 3ware 9550SX with 14 spindles). When I am recording 1~6 streams, each stream consumes less that 3% CPU (each of the two 5000HD instances run 0.78% with instantaneous bursts to 2~3%).

I still have two issues. Both are nusance issues with work arounds that are liveable...

Issue #1...multi instance SW will not load both instances using Windows XP startup folder. If I only put one R5000-HD shortcut in the startup folder, it loads fine, but I only am able to use one encoder in Sage (Sage sees the other encoder as off)...if I put two shortcuts to R5000-HD SW, when it tries to load the second instance, it provides various errors, asks for my activation keys, or just fails to load giving a windows error. Work around is to manually load a second instance of the R5000-HD app by double clicking the shortcut after Windows boots fully.

Issue #2...stuttering if you try to watch the program while SageTV is recording that program using the R5000. If I watch one of the 5000HD streams while it is recording, the CPU cycles for that instance will steadily climb over 5~15min, eventually get to 20~25% CPU utilization, and the playback will stutter. Immediatly after I shutdown the playback, CPU utilization drops to the original 0.78/2~3% burst levels. If I playback a fully recorded file, I don't have this problem. It doesn't matter if I am recording 6 tuners or 1 tuner, if I watch the 5000HD while it is recording, I have the issue. I do not have this issue on the HDHomerun streams, they can be watched w/o growing CPU cycles too much, and rarely stutter (v. the 5000HD which is repeatable and always results in stutter). I've also sent a help request to the Nextcom folks, but am interested if anyone else has this behavior...

thanks,

jmv

anisota

03-01-08, 09:36 PM

I thought I'd post an update that MythTV should now support DirecTV boxes for HD streams (at least for the MPEG2 variety supported by R5000 boxes) using the patches I mentioned earlier. Standard-def won't work yet (for DirecTV) though. Also, the code is only very lightly tested so far.
If someone could dump a stream from a cable box (it can be done using usbsniff on Windows) drop me a PM and I'll tell you what needs to be done so I can get those working in Myth too.

MKANET

03-20-08, 01:46 AM

I'm running out of places to ask this on the Internet; but, I'm hoping I'll catch someone's attention who can actually help...

Is there an idiot-proof app to trim/crop mpeg4 AVC files without re-encoding (that has a video preview window & audio). ...which also remuxes and removes unwanted streams too.

The closest thing I found was TSRemux... which for some odd reason doesnt have a video preview window; plus, its trimming function seems to be broken.

I can't seem to find one decent app that does this.

Can anyone be kind enough to help?

RTK

03-20-08, 02:29 AM

Mike,
Check out TS packet editor. I've been using to edit my R5000 h.264 file and it works pretty well.

http://www.videohelp.com/tools/TS_Packet_Editor

quantumstate

03-20-08, 08:36 AM

Also LiVES.

MKANET

03-20-08, 01:06 PM

Thanks Rick... I can't wait to try it. Do you know how hard it was for me to find something like this? From the screenshot, it looks like it does exactly what I want.

quantumstate, it looks like LiVES is not for Windows; and, may even re-encode. But thanks anyway.

etk29321

03-20-08, 03:44 PM

quantumstate,

LiVES appears to be mplayer based for decode. Did they add PAFF support to their H.264 libs and I just missed it? I've been waiting for that feature for a long time since I use mencoder to do most of my transcoding operations.

MKANET

03-20-08, 05:22 PM

Rick, how do you navigate forward/backward in more granular steps than 1 second intervals? I dont see the preview window changing unless I use -/+1 second intervals. If I try go frame by frame intervals (using the -/+F buttons), I see the time change, but not the preview window. What am I doing wrong?

I dont have this problem with my 1080i mpeg2 files.

PS: Can I remove unwanted a/v streams in the file with this program?

Man... I sure hope I get the frame by frame feature to work. I'm definitely going to need more granular editing that 1 second intervals. This is definitely the closest I've ever coming to doing it right.

Thanks for your time Rick,
Mike

MKANET

03-20-08, 10:44 PM

I just tried another program that definitely supports h.264.

However, it's doing the same thing TS Packet Editor does with freshly ripped, standard Blu-ray files. The below program looked very encouraging. But there's just something different about blu-ray files than H.264 AVC files that don't come from blu-ray discs.

http://www.h264tscutter.de/

Am I the only person on earth trying to trim blu-ray video files??

EDIT: LOL... I was so desperate I posted on an all german speaking forum

http://www.movie2digital.de/thread.php?threadid=46864

RTK

03-21-08, 02:28 AM

Hey Mike,
I had mixed results using h.264tscutter as it didn't splice at the points I chose and worse I found it introduced errors. YMMV.

With regards to TSPE, its not perfect but it does a pretty good job. To view the preview window, you are correct that you have to choose the +/-1 buttons. The -/+p and -/+F buttons do appear to allow you to choose shorter intervals although you are correct that the preview window doesn't work. I've pretty much given up that videoredo will add h.264 functionality despite statements that they are working on it. I've even tried using procoder3 which doesn't work with R5000 h.264 files. For now TSPE is the best I can find and is sufficient for basic trimming.

MKANET

03-21-08, 09:32 AM

Thanks Rick, I was starting to think that there was something wrong with just my machine. It looks like what I'm seeing is "normal".

There's one last app that I'm going to try AVIdemux; which claims to do trimming without encoding... the only part it asks to encode (if you choose) is between the keyframe and the cutpoint.

Yes, TPSE was actually the only app that did it correctly. Maybe we can try AVIdemux before completely giving up.

I appreciate you help Rick.

Edit: AVIdemux doesnt work either.

PS: It looks like TS Packet Editor doesnt do a good job with very short clips. I cut a 5 second video as a test and the audio goes out of synch with the video.

Hey Mike,
I had mixed results using h.264tscutter as it didn't splice at the points I chose and worse I found it introduced errors. YMMV.

With regards to TSPE, its not perfect but it does a pretty good job. To view the preview window, you are correct that you have to choose the +/-1 buttons. The -/+p and -/+F buttons do appear to allow you to choose shorter intervals although you are correct that the preview window doesn't work. I've pretty much given up that videoredo will add h.264 functionality despite statements that they are working on it. I've even tried using procoder3 which doesn't work with R5000 h.264 files. For now TSPE is the best I can find and is sufficient for basic trimming.

jones07

03-22-08, 07:00 PM

mkanet
your SageMC sti theme looks absolutely lovely. Do you have it available somewhere as a down-loadable theme, so my system can look as cool as your?:o

Jones:)

MKANET

03-22-08, 08:22 PM

Hi Jones, thanks. All I did was install sageMC with the iTV theme for it; and the glassy menu bars. PM me if you have any questions or need help to get started. Here are some more screenshots of my sageTV setup...

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h283/mkanet/newmain.jpg (Main Menu)
http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h283/mkanet/miniguide.jpg (Mini Guide)
http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h283/mkanet/Netflix1.jpg (Netflix Watchnow)
http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h283/mkanet/5.jpg (Sirius Radio)

mkanet
your SageMC sti theme looks absolutely lovely. Do you have it available somewhere as a down-loadable theme, so my system can look as cool as your?:o

Jones:)

HT Slider

03-22-08, 09:20 PM

Does anyone have the R5000HD working with Vista SP1?

I've been using the R5000HD for about 5 months under Vista and it has been working well. I'm just a little leary about what SP1 is going to break...

I do want to upgrade to SP1 because Media Center sometimes crashes when playing HD recordings from the R5000HD. SP1 is supposed to include a new MPEG-2 decoder that is more robust and that I'm hoping won't crash anymore.

Can anyone confirm that the R5000HD software, version 2.5f, works fine under Vista SP1 before I let Windows Update do its thing?

MKANET

03-22-08, 09:32 PM

Vista SP1 works great even with 2 R5000HD's. I just downloaded the standalone version of SP1 and installed it. I did trust the windows update to do it for me.

Vista 32bit
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...DisplayLang=en

Does anyone have the R5000HD working with Vista SP1?

I've been using the R5000HD for about 5 months under Vista and it has been working well. I'm just a little leary about what SP1 is going to break...

I do want to upgrade to SP1 because Media Center sometimes crashes when playing HD recordings from the R5000HD. SP1 is supposed to include a new MPEG-2 decoder that is more robust and that I'm hoping won't crash anymore.

Can anyone confirm that the R5000HD software, version 2.5f, works fine under Vista SP1 before I let Windows Update do its thing?

MKANET

03-22-08, 09:32 PM

Vista SP1 works great even with 2 R5000HD's. I just downloaded the standalone version of SP1 and installed it. I didn't trust the windows update to do it for me.

Vista 32bit
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...DisplayLang=en

Does anyone have the R5000HD working with Vista SP1?

I've been using the R5000HD for about 5 months under Vista and it has been working well. I'm just a little leary about what SP1 is going to break...

I do want to upgrade to SP1 because Media Center sometimes crashes when playing HD recordings from the R5000HD. SP1 is supposed to include a new MPEG-2 decoder that is more robust and that I'm hoping won't crash anymore.

Can anyone confirm that the R5000HD software, version 2.5f, works fine under Vista SP1 before I let Windows Update do its thing?

jones07

03-23-08, 09:41 AM

Hi Jones, thanks. All I did was install sageMC with the iTV theme for it; and the glassy menu bars. PM me if you have any questions or need help to get started.

[)

Right now my sage is stock with just comskip as my only add-on. I'm tempted to try sageMC after seeing your ui. Maybe when I get a few days to play around I will.

Thanks

jones07

03-23-08, 09:46 AM

Can anyone confirm that the R5000HD software, version 2.5f, works fine under Vista SP1 before I let Windows Update do its thing?

My R5000HD version 2.5f, works just fine under Vista SP1. You shouldn't have any problems.

CherieK

05-23-08, 06:54 AM

For the longest time we have been unable to customize our station selection in Zap2it for the 4DTV channels. Every time we try, we get the following error:

ADODB.Recordset error '800a0bb9'
Arguments are of the wrong type, are out of acceptable range, or are in conflict with one another.
/iEPG/edit_stations.asp, line 339

This means we cannot use the program listing, since the HD channels are at the bottom of a list of ~200 channels. (We can only use the search capability for movies that we already know are playing.)

We get the same error running Internet Explorer, Nestscape, Opera, and Firefox, under both Windows 2000 and XP.

What can we do to fix this problem on our computer, and/or how do we get Zap2it to fix the problem on their end?

jmv

05-23-08, 03:36 PM

I have R5000 in FIOS Moto2500's. From time to time, the boxes turn off and then they only record the station they were last tuned to beforing turning off. Anyone else have this problem or a workaround.

mv

ctdish

05-23-08, 03:40 PM

Unfortunatelly ZAP2IT has been like this for years and I don't think there is going to be a fix.
John

videohot

05-25-08, 05:12 PM

I have a few related questions about playback of Mpeg 2 and H264 streams we record with the mod though they may be received as off topic.

While I can play H264 files perfectly via Media Player Classic and the core codec I still haven't found a software player that is great or nothing that compares with the MYHD card. ALL software players I have found leave trails of mush and some jerkiness in parts. My new Gateway laptop with a 8800gts & t9300 will play H264 Dish files perfectly, like my recently rebuilt HTPC's will but, plain old Mpeg 2 is still an issue. The HTPC's have MYHD cards in them though. I have used default settings in most every program and the last one, Nero Showtime, while nice, is far from perfect.

A friend I talked to, active on AVS uses overlay players but says he hasn't found a perfect one either. OK, I'm a dummy. I still don't know what an overlay player is exactly and don't know what will work if any that WORK!

Re Sage and R5000 recorder.

I would like, if possible to have .ts extensions on all recorded files from Sage. It seems to record most with an .mpg extension and some with a .ts extension possibly related to a broken stream when recording.

Any way to have it record h264 files with a .mpg extention and mpeg 2 files with .ts? Would sure make it easier when figuring out how to play them.

If some of this is redundant, sorry. Going thru the thread doesn't seem to help me.

Thanks for any help.

Larry

MKANET

05-25-08, 05:24 PM

If you want to playback mpeg2/h.264 correctly without problems, nvidia hardware accelerated Cyberlink H.264 / mpeg2 decoders work best. I wouldnt trust CoreAVC decoders since they aren't allowed to take advantage of your display adapter's GPU (provided you have a pretty decent GPU). Your 8800GTX would be great.

You need a H.264 decoder to playpack H.264 files, you cant just rename a H.264 file to an mpg extension and expect for the mpeg2 decoder to play it back.

PS: .TS files are just containers for mpg2 files. Similar to how .mp4 is a container for H.264 files.

I have a few related questions about playback of Mpeg 2 and H264 streams we record with the mod though they may be received as off topic.

While I can play H264 files perfectly via Media Player Classic and the core codec I still haven't found a software player that is great or nothing that compares with the MYHD card. ALL software players I have found leave trails of mush and some jerkiness in parts. My new Gateway laptop with a 8800gts & t9300 will play H264 Dish files perfectly, like my recently rebuilt HTPC's will but, plain old Mpeg 2 is still an issue. The HTPC's have MYHD cards in them though. I have used default settings in most every program and the last one, Nero Showtime, while nice, is far from perfect.

A friend I talked to, active on AVS uses overlay players but says he hasn't found a perfect one either. OK, I'm a dummy. I still don't know what an overlay player is exactly and don't know what will work if any that WORK!

Re Sage and R5000 recorder.

I would like, if possible to have .ts extensions on all recorded files from Sage. It seems to record most with an .mpg extension and some with a .ts extension possibly related to a broken stream when recording.

Any way to have it record h264 files with a .mpg extention and mpeg 2 files with .ts? Would sure make it easier when figuring out how to play them.

If some of this is redundant, sorry. Going thru the thread doesn't seem to help me.

Thanks for any help.

Larry

R5000-HD

05-30-08, 04:23 PM

The current release of the DVR is now at version 3.0. This version most notably adds support for Windows Media Center, as described here. (http://www.nextcomwireless.com/R5000/mce.htm) Currently this special version of the DVR package is freely available for a 30-day test drive.

The R5000-HD installs as a capture device connected to a STB. This gives the ultimate in flexibility since recordings can be easily scheduled via the integrated guide and played back in Media Center. Users can pause and rewind live TV just like with any other tuner source. Recordings are the same high-quality, lossless streams that R5000 users have been used to. Standard transport streams can also be recorded along side the Media Center dvr-ms files.

In addition, support has been added for the new BEV 9242 DVR and some minor tweaks and improvements have been made over the previous release. It is recommended that all users upgrade to version 3.0, especially if trying to troubleshoot any problems experienced with earlier versions.

MKANET

05-30-08, 04:55 PM

I already found a minor bug, system tray icon for DVR apps dont change their color to red when recordings are active. I am using the 3.0 Multi version with SageTV support. I emailed r5000support@nextcomwireless.com to see how to fix this or get an update.

All basic functions works fine. I didnt change anything.. only replaced the DVR executable. I didnt even reboot.

The current release of the DVR is now at version 3.0. This version most notably adds support for Windows Media Center, as described here. (http://www.nextcomwireless.com/R5000/mce.htm) Currently this special version of the DVR package is freely available for a 30-day test drive.

The R5000-HD installs as a capture device connected to a STB. This gives the ultimate in flexibility since recordings can be easily scheduled via the integrated guide and played back in Media Center. Users can pause and rewind live TV just like with any other tuner source. Recordings are the same high-quality, lossless streams that R5000 users have been used to. Standard transport streams can also be recorded along side the Media Center dvr-ms files.

In addition, support has been added for the new BEV 9242 DVR and some minor tweaks and improvements have been made over the previous release. It is recommended that all users upgrade to version 3.0, especially if trying to troubleshoot any problems experienced with earlier versions.

RTK

06-01-08, 10:09 AM

HT Slider

06-01-08, 02:09 PM

It seems there are some issues with these new drivers and Media Center, at least with the Vista w/SP1 that I'm running.

After installing the R5000HD 3.0 software, you first need to manually install the DVR driver (just like you would normally for the R5000HD). Vista tries to detect it as some other device, but the driver for it fails to install. To install the correct driver you need to go into the Device Manager and manually force the failed device to update, pointing Vista specifically to the Program Files\R5000HD\driver folder on the disk. Even then it sometimes can't find the actual driver file from the .inf for some reason (if you tell it to automatically install from the location you specify). After telling Vista where to get the driver, you have two choices; automatically install the driver or select the specific driver. If you instead select the specific driver as well as the specific directory, it does sometimes find the driver and install it. Alternatively I found if you edit the .inf file and define the location of the driver specifically (V:\program files\R5000HD\drivers in my case) it works for sure (for some reason with my last Vista R5000HD install, the only way I could get it to install was by editing the .inf file; even manually selecting the driver after selecting where to install from didn't work).

After that you need to start up the R5000HD DVR software and configure it for your STB as well as use compressed streams and make sure the R5000HD's built in Media Player plays content from your STB and can control it. Then go into the new Media Center configuration and tell it to run as a server for the Media Center Virtual Tuner. At that point it should be continuously streaming, and making the stream available to Media Center or networked PCs that are running Media Center.

Then to get the Virtual TV tuner for MCE to install, you need to again manually force it to install. Here, since there isn't any hardware to work with, you need to go into Device Manager and right click on the system name at the top of the devices. Telling it to "Add Legacy Hardware" allows you to manually install a driver without Vista actually detecting any hardware.

After that, and a reboot (or a restart to the Media Center services), Media Center should detect that there is an additional TV tuner to choose from. Mine did.

Unfortunately at this point, although my system detects it and allows me to configure Media Center to use the tuner, I only see blank video in Media Center. Media Center doesn't throw any errors, and can still record, but both Live TV and all recordings just end up blank on my system.

Also, in order to get the guide to work you need to actually tell Media Center where you actually live, not USA if you are in Canada. I tried USA (per the R5000HD MCE instructions) and could only access the TV guide for US providers, not Bell ExpressVu. There was also no image when configured for USA on my system.

I do have Vista installed using the "V:" drive letter, instead of "C:" and I think there might be a bug in the virtual tuner code that breaks it if C: is not used. There is quite a bit of troubleshooting help for MCE at the R5000HD web site, but I've been through every single thing there (several times) and still can't get it to work.

As an experiment, I have discovered that if I copy the entire V:\program files\RH5000HD to C:\ (using the same path), and don't make any other changes at all, all of a sudden Media Center starts to see a "trial period expired" message for all Live TV and all recordings. Since I only installed it that day, clearly the 30 day time limit has not expired yet. Also since copying everything from V to C makes this happen, I suspect if I had the entire OS installed on C: everything would be working right now.

I am still using FireSTB on a separate boot partition (mounted as C:) and it works well for the R5000HD and Vista Media Center (the only issue is no Live TV in HD; HD only works for Recorded TV). It was extremely difficult to set FireSTB to work with the R5000HD so I don't want to screw up my C: install/boot partition to try the beta MCE virtual tuner driver. Hopefully Nextcom will release a new version of their MCE driver that works with an OS installed on V: so I can give it another try.

Has anyone managed to get this working with Vista Media Center or MCE2005? Which drive letter is the OS installed on? I'm sure once the virtual driver is working this is going to be the ultimate HD source for Media Center.

RTK

06-01-08, 08:41 PM

Making progress but still not there yet. Using the virtual driver, does channel changing take place over the USB cable as it does with the R5000 software or via MCE IR Blaster? Is it possible to watch live TV over the USB cable?

R5000-HD

06-01-08, 09:26 PM

I do have Vista installed using the "V:" drive letter, instead of "C:" and I think there might be a bug in the virtual tuner code that breaks it if C: is not used. There is quite a bit of troubleshooting help for MCE at the R5000HD web site, but I've been through every single thing there (several times) and still can't get it to work.

As an experiment, I have discovered that if I copy the entire V:\program files\RH5000HD to C:\ (using the same path), and don't make any other changes at all, all of a sudden Media Center starts to see a "trial period expired" message for all Live TV and all recordings. Since I only installed it that day, clearly the 30 day time limit has not expired yet. Also since copying everything from V to C makes this happen, I suspect if I had the entire OS installed on C: everything would be working right now.

I am still using FireSTB on a separate boot partition (mounted as C:) and it works well for the R5000HD and Vista Media Center (the only issue is no Live TV in HD; HD only works for Recorded TV). It was extremely difficult to set FireSTB to work with the R5000HD so I don't want to screw up my C: install/boot partition to try the beta MCE virtual tuner driver. Hopefully Nextcom will release a new version of their MCE driver that works with an OS installed on V: so I can give it another try.

So, your C drive is a boot partition? Is this where your Vista system files are located? I assume since you have FireSTB running on the C partition you originally installed the R5000 on your C drive?

Can you boot 2 different OS from this PC (one from C and one from V)? Or when you say "boot partition" are you using the strict definition of the term (boot files reside on the system partition / system files reside on the boot partition).

-R

docchak

06-01-08, 11:39 PM

Intrigued by the option of using XP MCE I installed the latest R5000 software but MCE doesn't recognize any tuner installed? For the R5000 to appear as a tuner under TV settings does MCE require that an MCE TV tuner card already be installed?

Make sure that you manually install the r5000hd, the detail is on the web site:

http://www.nextcomwireless.com/R5000/dvr_manual/mce_manual_installation.htm

RTK

06-02-08, 02:39 AM

Thanks, that was part of the problem. I'll have timeto play with it again next weekend.

HT Slider

06-02-08, 04:34 PM

So, your C drive is a boot partition? Is this where your Vista system files are located? I assume since you have FireSTB running on the C partition you originally installed the R5000 on your C drive?

Can you boot 2 different OS from this PC (one from C and one from V)? Or when you say "boot partition" are you using the strict definition of the term (boot files reside on the system partition / system files reside on the boot partition).

-R

It is configured for a dual boot. The primary boot uses C: as the operating system location and all software is installed on C. Here I have FireSTB working fine with the R5000HD so I didn't want to mess with it.

The alternate boot uses V: as the operating system location (since there is no way to install the OS using a letter that is already in use by an existing drive that is attached at the time - very annoying...).

With the alternate boot, I originally didn't even have C: mounted at all (to ensure it didn't get messed up). All I had mounted was V: for the operating system, R: for my 1 TB Recorded TV storage and M: for my 500 GB movie archive. With the alternate boot, all software, including the R5000HD is installed to V:.

With that all I could get out of the R5000HD within Media Center was a blank screen. The R5000HD DVR worked perfectly, including the Media Center tests, etc. (as mentioned in my earlier post). Media Center also did recognise the R5000HD and allow me to configure the "tuner".

Later I mounted C: as an experiment, renamed the existing C:\Program Files\R5000HD directory to C:\Program Files\backup-R5000HD and then copied the entire V:\Program Files\R5000HD over to C:\Program Files\R5000HD.

At that point I get the "30 day trial has expired" message instead of video within Media Center, but at least I see something.

Also at that point I went through all of the troubleshooting tips, including making sure the copy on the C drive was wide open permission wise (for everyone) and still I only get the 30 day trial expired message still.

At that point I gave up, restored the original R5000HD directory on C:, unmounted C: from the alternate boot (running on V) and then went back to the functional boot partition using FireSTB.

Based on what I experienced, it really does look like there is some absolute path to C: somewhere within the virtual tuner that requires the virtual tuner software be installed on C:.

DigitAl56K

06-02-08, 07:02 PM

Is it possible to use the R5000-HD driver to view streams live in DVBViewer, DVBDream, and like applications?

R5000-HD

06-02-08, 07:51 PM

With the alternate boot, I originally didn't even have C: mounted at all (to ensure it didn't get messed up). All I had mounted was V: for the operating system, R: for my 1 TB Recorded TV storage and M: for my 500 GB movie archive. With the alternate boot, all software, including the R5000HD is installed to V:.

With that all I could get out of the R5000HD within Media Center was a blank screen. The R5000HD DVR worked perfectly, including the Media Center tests, etc. (as mentioned in my earlier post). Media Center also did recognise the R5000HD and allow me to configure the "tuner".

Later I mounted C: as an experiment, renamed the existing C:\Program Files\R5000HD directory to C:\Program Files\backup-R5000HD and then copied the entire V:\Program Files\R5000HD over to C:\Program Files\R5000HD.

At that point I get the "30 day trial has expired" message instead of video within Media Center, but at least I see something.

Search your registry (both boots) for the multiplexer filter. Use the search string "r5kmpx.ax". There should be a match under HKCR\CLSID\{32A90E9C...\InprocServer32
The default value is the path to the dll.

The MCE checkup utility attempts to load this dll into a graph. If it succeeds it means the dll was registered properly and the file was found in its location.

-R

R5000-HD

06-02-08, 08:08 PM

HT Slider

06-02-08, 09:46 PM

HT Slider - when you installed your first version of the R5000 was it from the Vista (V) boot using the C drive as the install location or did you boot from C and install to C? From your last post it appears you had to have installed the MCE version from the Vista boot since you didn't have C mounted, correct?

-R

The first version of the R5000HD (2.5f) was installed on the C drive to a fresh Vista install (performed last year). The V drive was non-existant at the time of installation of the R5000HD software. Everything still works fine using FireSTB when booting from this partition.

The second version of the R5000HD (3.0) was installed on the V drive to a fresh Vista install also (performed last Friday night). The C drive was invisible and unmounted at the time of installation of the R5000HD software. When I boot using this partition, no image is produced in MC unless I mount C and copy the R5000HD directory over to C (and then it says 30-day trial expired instead of working).

Both were fully updated through Windows Update and latest MB, audio, and video drivers installed prior to the R5000HD install. Both situations should be representative of simple operating system installation, but one using the C drive and the other using the V drive.

I'll try to take a look at those registry settings you mentioned later tonight. My wife is currently watching her favorite shows in HD (using the "C" boot partition that uses FireSTB) with Vista Media Center so I can't check right now.

RTK

06-03-08, 12:32 AM

in an attempt to fix things I've no reached the dreaded "30 day trial period expired." is there a way to start over? Its only been 1 day :confused:

Ad-Rok

06-03-08, 03:27 AM

Guys, just chiming in here to mention that I have a pristine Motorola DCT5100 with no firewire port that I purchased last year that I never managed to upgrade with R5000 modifications. PM me if interested, it has to go ultra cheap.

Thanks for a great product and service, R5000 guys. :-)

Cheers,
Adam

R5000-HD

06-04-08, 03:55 PM

We are currently offering the R5000-HD modification (including pre-modified STBs) at 20% off the regular list price plus free return ground shipping (US customers).

DIY installations - In response to continued requests we will be trying out "Do it yourself" install kits. Greater savings are involved and they can be ordered in the usual manner via our website (http://www.nextcomwireless.com/store/). Please contact us for instructions. We do not recommend this option for the casual experimenter since a certain amount of knowledge and skill is required to work with the surface mount technology used in these set top boxes.

-R

HT Slider

06-04-08, 11:39 PM

Search your registry (both boots) for the multiplexer filter. Use the search string "r5kmpx.ax". There should be a match under HKCR\CLSID\{32A90E9C...\InprocServer32
The default value is the path to the dll.

The MCE checkup utility attempts to load this dll into a graph. If it succeeds it means the dll was registered properly and the file was found in its location.

-R

The boot partition with version 3.0 of the R5000HD software has "V:\Program Files\R5000HD\mce\r5kmpx.ax" as the "default" entry each time r5kmpx.ax is found in the registry.

I haven't checked the old boot yet that uses 2.5f, but I'm certain it won't be the same (or may not even be there) within the registry. That boot partition doesn't have the mce sub-directory under the R5000HD directory.

EzInKy

06-05-08, 08:15 AM

We are currently offering the R5000-HD modification (including pre-modified STBs) at 20% off the regular list price plus free return ground shipping (US customers).

Just want to be sure before I go with the HD-PVR, does this product work or will it work in the near future with a Linux HTPC?

R5000-HD

06-05-08, 11:34 AM

Just want to be sure before I go with the HD-PVR, does this product work or will it work in the near future with a Linux HTPC?

Please see: http://www.nextcomwireless.com/R5000/mythtv.htm
Thanks

-R

EzInKy

06-05-08, 09:26 PM

Please see: http://www.nextcomwireless.com/R5000/mythtv.htm
Thanks

-R

Thanks for the response. Other than the CoreAVC requirement this seems like this could be a perfect solution for an open source HTPC.

HT Slider

06-06-08, 12:32 AM

in an attempt to fix things I've no reached the dreaded "30 day trial period expired." is there a way to start over? Its only been 1 day :confused:

I finally managed to get the new, beta MCE virtual tuner driver working on my system this evening.

It was truly awesome to experience high definition 720p and 1080i Live TV with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio for the first time within Vista Media Center and to be able to actually channel surf through the HD channels as well as pause, rewind, fast forward, etc. People have been dreaming of having this ability for literally years, especially the well over 100,000 Media Center users/enthusiasts over on www.thegreenbutton.com (http://www.thegreenbutton.com) (there are literally 10's of 1000's of posts discussing bringing HD into Media Center).

Like you, I did have trouble getting it working and unfortunately there are quite a few bugs that really need to get fixed at the moment. I'm sure when it is out of beta it will work well though.

As far as getting it working on your system, there was a new beta version released with a new trial period - version 3.0a (http://www.nextcomwireless.com/R5000/support_download.htm#Beta). Once you install it, don't uninstall it; expecting to be able to reinstall it. For some reason this seems to instantly expire the trial period.

To get mine to work I found I needed to use a bizarre procedure (that I believe might be related to the fact that most channels I subscribe to use AC3/Dolby Digital 5.1 audio):

Uninstall version 3.0 and reboot.
Follow all of the MCE R5000HD installation instructions, including turning on the MCE server mode and then setting up TV in Media Center (note that during TV setup in MC that the tray icon for the R5000HD DVR turns red, indicating a connection with the virtual tuner). During the TV Setup in MC, if there is only a blank sample image shown, "pretend" it is working and work your way through the rest of the setup, including the TV Guide.
After this, reboot.
Then, instead of starting the R5000HD DVR, first start Media Center and try to watch Live TV. It won't work, but this is a necessary step to make it work on my system (without this step the Virtual Tuner will never connect to the R5000DVR).
After that, exit Media Center, start the R5000HD DVR and wait. After about 5 seconds the tray icon will turn red and it will be communicating with the virtual tuner driver for MCE. You will also see the MCE buffer status. Click the "X" to close the R5000HD DVR to the tray.
Finally start MC and Live TV will produce at least video. If the channel the STB is on contains AC3 audio, there will be no audio yet (and if you switch to a channel without AC3, MC will crash hard, along with the Virtual Tuner driver. If you change channels and it crashes, you'll need to reboot and follow the steps after rebooting again. I couldn't find any way to recover other than rebooting.
Now start recording the Live TV (without audio), press the green button and go into Recorded TV and start playing the same show that you were watching Live (currently recording).
At this point everything, including AC3 audio will work and you can start using Media Center in HD.

One extra tip, I discovered that sometimes when switching between an SD and HD channel in Live TV or vice verse, that MC might crash and the Virtual Tuner will break it's connection to the R5000HD DVR (and you then need to go through the entire "reboot, start MC, watch Live TV, exit MC, start the R5000HD DVR, wait, start MC, watch Live TV, record Live TV, green button, Recorded TV, watch recording" process to get everything working again). One workaround that never seems to crash is to press "Stop" and exit Live TV and then use the guide to change the channel. I think this forces Media Center to create a new graph so it gets around the crashes when switching between SD/HD.

I don't know if other STBs have this problem, but the biggest show stopper for me at this time is if a recording starts that needs to switch between HD/SD, that recording will end up being unplayable. Only recordings initiated while the STB is already streaming the same SD/HD will the recordings be playable.

What seems to happen is Media Center starts recording the SD/HD show on the "old" channel and then while recording, the STB flips between SD/HD. The STB essentially changes channels too slowly. The recording keeps on going, but when you play it back, Media Center stops playing at the SD/HD transition and you can't watch anything past it.

It is a great start and I'm anxiously looking forward to when this gets out of beta and fully functional, but if you want a relatively reliable way to use the R5000HD with Media Center today (Vista anyway) and your system behaves like mine, I recommend to keep using FireSTB for now (ideally set up a dual boot so you can help provide feedback on the real driver and so you'll know when it is ready for prime time). FireSTB is a pain to set up and does not support Live TV so the R5000HD virtual tuner will be a huge step forward soon.

thurstonw

06-07-08, 12:01 AM

Finally start MC and Live TV will produce at least video. If the channel the STB is on contains AC3 audio, there will be no audio yet (and if you switch to a channel without AC3, MC will crash hard, along with the Virtual Tuner driver. If you change channels and it crashes, you'll need to reboot and follow the steps after rebooting again. I couldn't find any way to recover other than rebooting.

One extra tip, I discovered that sometimes when switching between an SD and HD channel in Live TV or vice verse, that MC might crash and the Virtual Tuner will break it's connection to the R5000HD DVR (and you then need to go through the entire "reboot, start MC, watch Live TV, exit MC, start the R5000HD DVR, wait, start MC, watch Live TV, record Live TV, green button, Recorded TV, watch recording" process to get everything working again).

Are you sure that Media Center is "crashing"? On my setup when I alternate between AC-3 and MPEG audio channels, MC is shut down and then restarted by the R5000 DVR. Presumably it needs to be restarted for some changes to take effect. This all happens pretty quick, like in a second or 2, so maybe in your setup its just not getting restarted for some reason?

Also, I find it doesn't make any difference when or if the DVR is running. If you stop it, turn off your STB or tune it to a non-subbed channel you'll see the "Oops, no signal..." message over a test pattern. If the DVR isn't connected (e.g. not running) you see a different message. There's never a point where I don't see some kind of video. If I start the DVR, the message disappears after a few seconds.

Whenever I run into problems with Media Center I stop the receiver service (ehrecvr). Saves the trouble of rebooting.

tw

HT Slider

06-07-08, 12:10 PM

Are you sure that Media Center is "crashing"? On my setup when I alternate between AC-3 and MPEG audio channels, MC is shut down and then restarted by the R5000 DVR. Presumably it needs to be restarted for some changes to take effect. This all happens pretty quick, like in a second or 2, so maybe in your setup its just not getting restarted for some reason?

For certain it is crashing. Vista creates a crash log to submit to Microsoft too. On top of that, I can't get anything out of the Virtual Tuner, other than a blank screen, after the crash.

Are you also running a fully updated Vista w/SP1?

My system never shuts down and restarts MC, but most of the time it stops the video when switching between HD/SD and I then have to manually go back to "Live TV" and then it starts playing video on the new channel. Although it is annoying to have to keep manually going to Live TV, this does work. The problem is it is hit and miss for totally crashing. I'd estimate that roughly 10-20% of the time instead of the stop message, I get the hard crash. At that point I can even kill every single process I can find related to MC, the virtual tuner and the DVR but it won't start working again until I go through the full reboot process (as well as starting MC Live TV prior to starting the R5000HD DVR).

Also, I find it doesn't make any difference when or if the DVR is running. If you stop it, turn off your STB or tune it to a non-subbed channel you'll see the "Oops, no signal..." message over a test pattern. If the DVR isn't connected (e.g. not running) you see a different message. There's never a point where I don't see some kind of video. If I start the DVR, the message disappears after a few seconds.

Whenever I run into problems with Media Center I stop the receiver service (ehrecvr). Saves the trouble of rebooting.

tw

With mine I never see an "Oops, no signal" ever. It is either a blank screen, or it works. The only other signal I've seen is "trial expired".

I've tried stopping the receiver service, but no matter what I do, the virtual tuner doesn't reconnect until I reboot.

I wonder if the inability for the virtual tuner to connect has something to do with the type of video/audio being used? Most of my HD content uses AC3 for audio and all of it is MPEG-2. The HD video is a mix of 1080i (1920x1080) and 720p (1280x720). The SD video is a mix of somewhat non-standard 480i resolutions (702x480, 640x480, 708x480, etc.) and most of it uses MPEG-1 audio, but some uses AC3.

It sounds like your system is behaving the way it is supposed to behave. Which operating system do you use and which STB?

BTW, my system is 100% rock solid stable (with a fresh install) without the 3.0a MCE Virtual Tuner installed. It is also a relatively new system with a GA-P35-DS4 motherboard, 4GB of RAM, an Intel Q6600 processor, an ATI 3870 video card and a total of 2.1 TB of hard drive storage. I've also run memory tests and burn in tests for at least 24 hours for each. It has never experienced a glitch anywhere so I know the problem isn't the hardware. Also, to make sure other software potentially conflicting wasn't a problem I performed a fresh Vista install to a freshly formatted partition and then installed SP1, all of Windows Updates, followed by the latest Gigabyte certified drivers. I don't have anything installed other than the HDTVPump transport stream splitter and the 3.0a R5000HD driver. I didn't even install HDTVPump at first to make sure there was absolutely nothing installed at all. It is running Vista 32 Home Premium and the STB is an ExpressVu 6000. Also, the STB and the R5000HD work perfectly when the R5000HD software version 2.5f is used along with FireSTB for Vista.

mdv

06-07-08, 01:34 PM

If anyone wants an R5000 modified Dish 6000, let me know. Probably can't be activated except as replacement on current account.

Mark

thurstonw

06-11-08, 03:28 PM

For certain it is crashing. Vista creates a crash log to submit to Microsoft too. On top of that, I can't get anything out of the Virtual Tuner, other than a blank screen, after the crash.

Are you also running a fully updated Vista w/SP1?

It sounds like your system is behaving the way it is supposed to behave. Which operating system do you use and which STB?

I'm using XP MCE with a Dish 211. Maybe the problem is isolated to Vista.

tw

MMABoxing

06-22-08, 04:59 PM

HT Slider

06-23-08, 11:34 AM

Hey I have a few questions for you...

So if i buy the R5000-HD DVR Modification for Bell 9242 from your site, What steps would I need to get the Recorded television program(HBO Boxing Events) to my Computer (Windows Vista m8120n Media Center) ?

Looks like a very good product that I want to buy.

I live in Canada .

Thanks.

In theory, all you need is your modified 9242, to install the R5000HD MCE driver, and then set up Vista Media Center, just like you would normally.

The reality is the MC driver is still in the beta stage and there are some issues. I can't say for certain a 9242 will behave like my Bell ExpressVu 6000, but with the latest Vista MC driver (3.0b), if the STB is on an SD channel and MC tries to record HD or vice-verse, the recording isn't playable. In addition to this, the audio for all of the HD channels is very patchy with lots of short blank audio pauses. If the STB is already on an SD channel, the SD recordings do work fine.

I obviously don't know how long it will be before the driver is really usable with Vista MC and ExpressVu, but Nextcom has been updating the MC driver and releasing new beta versions roughly once a week. 3.0a had many Vista issues and 3.0b is a major step in the right direction (no more crashes and the R5000HD is relatively easy to get working with VMC now).

For the time being, the most reliable way to use the R5000HD with Vista Media Center is to use the 3rd party plugin FireSTB (the Vista version). Live TV only gives you SD quality, but Recorded TV works well, including top quality HD recordings with perfect Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. FireSTB is unfortunately a handful to configure (needs to be configured through the registry to work with the R5000HD and ExpressVu), but it works. FireSTB also will not work with the next major Media Center update that Microsoft will be releasing through Windows Update.

As I've said to everyone else (I keep getting e-mails and PMs asking how well the R5000HD MC driver works), I'll post here in this thread and the one over on "thegreenbutton.com" when it is really working for me

One final, and potentially major, thing to consider is if ExpressVu will even allow recording of your HBO boxing events. The R5000HD, when used with Media Center, complies with CGMA-A copy protection flags. In other words, if ExpressVu decides to set "copy never" flags on a particular show, you can't actually record it at all. With the totally ridiculous Bill C-61 they are trying to pass in congress, if you use a method to record that ignores these flags (Sage TV, MythTV, etc.), you will be breaking the law ($20,000 fine). To make things more confusing, CGMS-A, according to the CRTC, isn't even used in Canada - but, per Bill C-61, defeating or ignoring any content protection will be against the law. Hopefully C-61 will never pass. Right now we can legally record and time-shift anything we subscribe to for personal use. Note that I have been told that protection flags are currently not used on any HD channels and I have personally never had an HD recording fail due to them (but ExpressVu could potentially start setting these flags in the future on premium content like HBO). I don't subscibe to HBO so I can't confirm if SD HBO content is recordable either.

MMABoxing

06-23-08, 03:04 PM

wow. Thank you very much. sounds pretty hard to setup.

HT Slider

06-24-08, 12:07 AM

wow. Thank you very much. sounds pretty hard to setup.

I wouldn't say that; at least not once the MC driver is ready. It "should" be relatively easy.

For all we know the MC driver might work well in a couple of weeks - before you even have time to get ExpressVu set up (that in itself can be incredibly "hard to setup" - with installers missing dish installation appointments and screwing things up...).

One thing for certain: Once you do get an R5000HD working, there isn't really anything else out there that can touch it. You get the absolutely best image quality with a very easy to use and powerful PVR. We have 1 TB of Recorded TV storage and share the recordings with our other 5 Media Center PCs. There is nothing (that I'm aware of) other than the R5000HD that can enable this sort of functionality with top quality digital recordings.

Right now I'm typing on my laptop and if I click on Media Center or pull out the remote and press "the green button" I can watch any of the ~250 recordings right from "Recorded TV" wirelessly. About 1/2 of them are HD. I can do the same in the family/home theater room, basement/entertainment room, study, or with either of my two daughters PCs. I can also transfer any of the recordings to this laptop to watch at the cottage, use any Media Center to burn them to DVD to watch in the car, or transfer them to the Sansa portable media player to watch anywhere (click and drag).

Media Center is very easy to use. My two children and wife have no problem using it, scheduling recordings, etc. My youngest was 4 years old when she "mastered Media Center" (and all of a sudden tons of Dora and Tooby and Binoo shows "started to record").

Having said that, unless you are willing to mess around with FireSTB, I would actually recommend waiting until the MC driver is fully functional (once FireSTB is set up, everything "just works" - but it isn't exactly "turn key").

BeachComber

06-24-08, 01:57 AM

HT Slider

06-24-08, 03:46 PM

As the R5000HD support in zap2it has come to an end and TitanTV does not have Canadian Channels available, does Microsoft Media Center have guide information for ExpressVu and StarChoice?

Where do they purchase their information from?

They have a fairly accurate 14-day guide (that includes ExpressVu and StarChoice). It also includes an integrated Movie guide that includes details about cast, crew, movie review, similar movie search, etc. as well as the ability to tell Media Center to "Record in the Future" for movies that are not available in the current 14-day guide listing. For Vista Media Center, there is also a "Sports Center" that includes all of the sports listing details as well as team statistics, injuries, depth chart, on-line previews, interviews, reviews and the ability to track favorite players.

The guide is "Powered by zap2it".

The movie data is provided by "AMG".

The sports center data is provided by "Fox Sports".

The guide data is included with MCE2005 and Vista Home Premium or Ultimate.

ChrisW6ATV

06-25-08, 12:35 AM

One thing for certain: Once you do get an R5000HD working, there isn't really anything else out there that can touch it. You get the absolutely best image quality with a very easy to use and powerful PVR. We have 1 TB of Recorded TV storage and share the recordings with our other 5 Media Center PCs.
I hope this is not off-topic here, but are any of your HD recordings in the AVC/H.264/MPEG4 format? If so, what did you have to do to get them to play in Media Center? Thanks.

HT Slider

06-25-08, 02:28 AM

I hope this is not off-topic here, but are any of your HD recordings in the AVC/H.264/MPEG4 format? If so, what did you have to do to get them to play in Media Center? Thanks.

No. ExpressVu still uses MPEG-2.

Unfortunately Media Center cannot play MPEG-4 recordings through the normal "Recorded TV" section. Vista Media Center will be able to at some point when Fiji gets released, but even it can't at the moment.

Media Center can play MPEG-4 videos though through "My Videos" or "Videos" (Vista) and it is fairly easy to configure the R5000HD virtual tuner to make Media Center work with MPEG-4.

The best solution right now is the following:

Install a codec that can decode MPEG-4 such as Cyberlink's, CoreAVC, etc. (simply installing PowerDVD will do this)
Register the file extension you wish to use as video (some codec installations do this automatically and others you need to do it manually).
Configure the MCE R5000HD DVR to both work with Media Center and also to make a second copy of the recording to your preferred "video" folder.
Use Media Center as you normally would to schedule recordings, etc.
Watch your recordings through "My Videos" or "Videos" (for Vista).

This allows you to take advantage of Media Center's advanced scheduling capability and easy to use GUI as well as record and watch MPEG-4 recordings. It also lets Media Center keep track of how many episodes of a series you have on the hard drive so it can maintain your schedule preferences (for example I have Media Center configured to keep 2 episodes of many series that I watch once in a while and it replaces them automatically once I watch one).

The only real downsides are you end up wasting twice the disk space for your recordings since there are two copies (but with 500GB drives at under $80 at times this is do-able) and you need to delete both of the recordings once you are finished watching the show.

A slick, closer to fully functional work around could be performed if the Nextcom MCE driver had some extra functionality:

Configure the Virtual Tuner to send a very low bit-rate video stream to Media Center that simply produces the message "Watch Recorded TV through Videos".
Configure a file tracker to notice when the mpeg-4 recording is deleted from the video folder and to delete the corresponding recording from "Recorded TV" automatically.

If this was implemented, Media Center would work well for MPEG-4 and the biggest difference is we would watch our recordings from "Videos" instead of "Recorded TV". The downside is the metadata such as movie details/reviews, episode title and episode description would not be accessible from "Videos" and we would need to view that (if we wanted to) from "Recorded TV". Another issue is we would need to use the less user friendly video file name, instead of the actual series and episode description to select what to watch. Media Center does include the series name and date recorded in the file name, but no episode information.

Edit: One issue I overlooked is "Live TV" (personally I almost never watch live TV these days). With the tuner sending only a low bitrate message for the video stream, you would actually have to start to record Live TV and then watch through "Videos" also. This would be a little messy. You would need a container and codec that is capable of playing back a file that is still being recorded and growing in size. I know some can (like wmv and dvr-ms), but I'm not sure which ones would do this for MPEG-4 (possibly .ts?). Although this is still doable, to make it work well an add-in that kicks in when Live TV starts to both start recording and start watching through Videos plus support channel changing would make it a lot more user friendly. If we were to go that far, the add-in may as well do the same when anyone tries to watch a show from Recorded TV and automatically start the appropriate video instead.

HT Slider

06-25-08, 03:02 AM

Is the US, which providers are using MPEG-4 at the moment?

Have most made the switch or are most still using MPEG-2?

I'm not certain, but I don't think any are using MPEG-4 in Canada yet.

xsrsmithx

06-25-08, 12:21 PM

BeachComber

06-25-08, 02:52 PM

Is the US, which providers are using MPEG-4 at the moment?

Have most made the switch or are most still using MPEG-2?

I'm not certain, but I don't think any are using MPEG-4 in Canada yet.

Dish and Directv are using h264 for HDTV at the moment.

There is no MPEG4 in Canada yet.

The newer cable boxes (none out as of this time for the most part) will be able to do MPEG4, but that is clearly years down the road.

ChrisW6ATV

06-26-08, 02:35 AM

ExpressVu still uses MPEG-2.

Unfortunately Media Center cannot play MPEG-4 recordings through the normal "Recorded TV" section. Vista Media Center will be able to at some point when Fiji gets released, but even it can't at the moment...
Thank you for all the detailed notes on this issue. I would be satisfied with the process you describe, if I ultimately decide to get one of these systems.

One major issue with computer playback of AVC/H.264 HD recordings seems to exist still, though. Movies that have been recorded from interlaced (1080i) HD AVC channels have a consistent, large "judder"-type problem that appears in horizontal motion about once per second. This problem seems to appear regardless of what channel the recording was made from, or whether the video board is an Nvidia or ATI, or whether the processor is an AMD or Intel, or what AVC codec was used, or whether hardware acceleration (if available) is turned on or off. In fact, this problem is one thing that is holding me back from buying into a system right now. Full-hardware players (Tivx, Playstation 3, etc.) do not have this problem, and it is not a CPU-speed issue, nor does it appear with recordings from progressive (720p) AVC channels.

RTK

06-26-08, 09:49 AM

What is the best tools to edit H.264 recorded off the R5000? Would like to cut out commercials or begining and ending junk from recordings. I would either like to keep it in the MPEG 4 format or easly convert to standard TS format. Any new software out there like VideoRedo or HDTVtoMPEG2?

options for editing h.264 are pretty limited at this time. best one I've used is TS Packet editor (http://www.videohelp.com/tools/TS_Packet_Editor).

xsrsmithx

06-26-08, 11:16 AM

Thanks - RTK Will give it a try.

Steve

BeachComber

06-26-08, 04:29 PM

pendragonsound

06-26-08, 11:16 PM

options for editing h.264 are pretty limited at this time. best one I've used is TS Packet editor (http://www.videohelp.com/tools/TS_Packet_Editor).

I tried TS Packet Editor a couple of weeks ago, but I've had better luck with:

http://www.h264tscutter.de/show_artikel.php?id=5

Version 111 is the smoothest in operation, but crashes when editing specific files. I've found version 107 works in those cases, but is otherwise uglier. There's a lot of room for improvement nevertheless.

RTK

06-27-08, 12:19 AM

I tried TS Packet Editor a couple of weeks ago, but I've had better luck with:

http://www.h264tscutter.de/show_artikel.php?id=5

Version 111 is the smoothest in operation, but crashes when editing specific files. I've found version 107 works in those cases, but is otherwise uglier. There's a lot of room for improvement nevertheless.

I haven't tried it for a while so perhaps things have improved however after testing a few edited R5000 Dish h.264 recordings, I found h264 tscutter introduced errors whereas editing with TS packet editor did not. YMMV. I am hoping that VideoRedo adds support later this year but not holding my breath.

RTK

06-27-08, 12:25 AM

Is anyone running the R5000HD unit on a machine that has a Raid 5 or greater unit in it. No issues with Raid 0. I am having a great number of issues with Raid 5 though.

I you run this unit on a Raid 5 or 6 machine, if you would be so kind, would you please list:

1) The Raid Card Type
2) Number of Drives
3) IDE or SATA/SATA2
4) Make, Model and Capacity and Model of the Drives
5) Number of HD Streams (HDTV or R5000 units) you run on the machine at once.

I'd like to see what actually works.

I have tried 3Ware 7500 IDE Cards and 9000 SATA Cards (3 Seagate Drives of 750GB each) and the raid is so slow I cannot record even 1 stream without causing major errors and Overflows in the buffers of the DVR.

However, even copying files to the drive is agonizingly slow - so I am wondering if I have another bottleneck somewhere.

I should point out that the CPU is not running anymore than 8% - 10%, so that is not the issue.

I'm in the process of rebuilding my system so its not currently installed but I have been using a Promise Supertrak EX8350 (PCIe SATA2)for over a year without any issues. Its been blazing fast and stable. I had a hard drive die and rebuilding a 2TB array did take some time but it worked fine. I am currently using 4 750GB Seagate drives but I am in the process of deciding whether to add another 750 or move to 1TB drives.

searcher2

06-27-08, 04:01 PM

I just go a call from Dish network. They said the 6000 will stop getting HD chanels in August. They want to swap it with a different model. Does anybody know anything about this?

Ron Tobin

06-28-08, 02:19 PM

I just go a call from Dish network. They said the 6000 will stop getting HD chanels in August. They want to swap it with a different model. Does anybody know anything about this?

What it probably means is that they will discontinue broadcasting MPEG2 in August and go strictly MPEG4. The 6000 is not capable of receiving MPEG4, however there are other Dish receivers which are (211 and 411 for example) and which you can get modified by Nextcom.

xnaron

07-06-08, 10:57 PM

On this page

http://www.nextcomwireless.com/R5000/products.htm#PC%20Requirements

it makes reference to DIY installation. Is this available for the bell 9242? If so what is the process? ie: is it plug in or is it soldering? Any details appreciated.

thanks

BeachComber

07-07-08, 04:48 PM

No R5000HD install is simply plug in. They all require soldering. If you do not have a really good solder skills and a solder station, its better left to the experts.

searcher2

07-07-08, 06:32 PM

Quote:
Originally Posted by searcher2 View Post
I just got a call from Dish network. They said the 6000 will stop getting HD chanels in August. They want to swap it with a different model. Does anybody know anything about this?
What it probably means is that they will discontinue broadcasting MPEG2 in August and go strictly MPEG4. The 6000 is not capable of receiving MPEG4, however there are other Dish receivers which are (211 and 411 for example) and which you can get modified by Nextcom.
__________________
Ron

Yeah you're right. All HD channels will be broadcast in Mpeg4. Damn Does anybody know of a good mpeg4 editing utility?
Rick

MarkV

07-18-08, 03:11 PM

Looks like the hammer is coming down from DirecTV. They want to give me a "free" swap for my HD equipment. I think they mean you give us your box and we loan you our box. Time to see if I can weasel out of my contract and switch to Dish.

Update:Sounds like February 2009 if one can believe the DTV phone support.

quantumstate

07-20-08, 08:10 PM

For several years I've planned to build an HTPC with R5000 and MythTV. Now is the time.

But Alan (Myth support for R5000) tells me that HD recording is unstable, and that he doesn't really have time to work on it. Not encouraging. So I've studied the Hauppage HD-PVR, and man it has a very spotty record. Experiences are all over the map, but a significant percentage get lockups due to heat, and some report reduced video quality.

If I buy the R5000 I am willing to put up with some inconveniences if I get reliable recording. Maybe this wouldn't be the case with Myth, which is the app I really want to use. Is it reliable in Winduhs? Are ppl actually using it?

MKANET

07-21-08, 12:04 AM

I think Alan at Myth must be doing something wrong. It works pretty much for everyone perfectly. At least for people I know and me (under Windows SageTV). If it was unreliable I doubt there would be so many people using it consistently. There are no inconveniences with the R5000. Just pleasure. I dont know what I would do if I didnt have it; as, none of the alternatives are acceptable.

For several years I've planned to build an HTPC with R5000 and MythTV. Now is the time.

But Alan (Myth support for R5000) tells me that HD recording is unstable, and that he doesn't really have time to work on it. Not encouraging. So I've studied the Hauppage HD-PVR, and man it has a very spotty record. Experiences are all over the map, but a significant percentage get lockups due to heat, and some report reduced video quality.

If I buy the R5000 I am willing to put up with some inconveniences if I get reliable recording. Maybe this wouldn't be the case with Myth, which is the app I really want to use. Is it reliable in Winduhs? Are ppl actually using it?

quantumstate

07-21-08, 08:11 AM

ralphjb

07-21-08, 09:27 AM

MKANET

07-21-08, 09:40 AM

I can't speak for MythTV. All I know it works as advertised for SageTV.

Quite a positive testimonial. Are you or any other happy customers using the R5000 in the Dish ViP211? For HD?

I really really wanted to use it with MythTV because I've run Debian exclusively for ten years, and I know little about Winduhs except that I hate it and don't trust it to touch The Internets. However I am told Myth support of the R5000 is 'unreliable', particularly HD recording which I value most.

So I decided on the HD-PVR, but so far in reading up to page 37 of that thread (out of 68) it appears to be a trainwreck.

Conflicted.

BeachComber

07-21-08, 03:08 PM

Where does SAGE TV get it's listings/program guide from?

Where is a good place to get the nuts and bolts of Sage?

MKANET

07-21-08, 03:49 PM

EPG comes from Zap2it. which is accurate even when local stations change their QAM info (ie comcast).

http://forums.sagetv.com/

Where does SAGE TV get it's listings/program guide from?

Where is a good place to get the nuts and bolts of Sage?

quantumstate

07-24-08, 08:43 PM

Huh?

quantumstate,

Yes SageTV runs in Linux.

Unfortunately we don't support the R5000. Also there is a plugin people use,
but I believe that is only for Windows.
http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=9288&highlight=r5000

If using a supported capture card in Linux, then yes it will act as a DVR.
Also you can FF through commercials, we don't support commercial skip. But
there is a plugin in the forums that people also use for this. I just don't
know if it is for Windows only or not as we don't support any user created
plugins.

We don't support transcoding to Blue-ray format in any version.

Here is a list of currently supported capture cards.
http://www.sagetv.com/requirements.html

Thanks,

I thought Sage supported the R5000.

BeachComber

07-25-08, 02:50 AM

I thought Sage supported the R5000.

I believe its R5000 supports Sage with its Sage version of the R5000 software.

3rob3

07-25-08, 02:33 PM

I no longer need mine if anyone is interested in one:

edit:
sold

HT Slider

08-11-08, 01:52 PM

The reality of the situation is this:

1. There are VERY FEW customers for Bell. I honestly think the previous poster was the last BEV box we modified. Virtually all of our Canadian customers are StarChoice subscribers.

2. The 6000 is no longer supported here in the USA (where we are located) by Dish Network. Without the actual hardware on-line it is difficult, if not impossible to seriously develop solutions for it. The 6000 probably represents the smallest percentage of R5000 users.

3. There is little demand for Media Center support while SageTV usage is still going strong. The R5000-HD + SageTV is definitely a favorite combination. While there is an enormous Media Center user base out there, for the most part they do not cross with R5000-HD users.

4. Cable represents a much larger dedicated MPEG-2 user base than BEV. Again, no interest in using Media Center but very strong demand for SageTV.

The 6000 hardware modifications are still offered and supported. This doesn't guarantee that they will be 100% compatible with future applications. We don't believe we should stop offering repair or other support for it just because a new application is not necessarily compatible with it.

It seems that the serious HD archivers out there have little interest in using Media Center. I don't believe its all because of lack of H.264 support.

-R

I don't know what happened to my original question.

My reality is after purchasing an R5000HD less than a year ago, the only reason to upgrade to a new STB ($600 + tax + hookup fees) and pay for another R5000HD upgrade ($550 + shipping, duties, etc.) would be to add MPEG-4 support. Annoyingly, in Canada, the only Bell STBs available that support the R5000HD are the 6000 and the top of the line HD-PVR (expensive), the 9242. My other options are stick with FireSTB and Media Center, hope that newer R5000HD drivers will work with the 6000, purchase a Sage TV server license and 5 Sage TV client licenses, or purchase a new STB and have a new R5000HD installed in it.

Do the StarChoice STBs support MPEG-4 and the R5000HD or is this another situation where there will be upgrades required in a few years?

I note you have not stated that the Bell 6000 won't work with the R5000HD MCE driver:

Is there anything fundamentally different about the MPEG-2 versions of the R5000HD (6000 STBs) and the MPEG-2/MPEG-4 versions of the R5000HD (latest STBs) that fundamentally affect the driver?
Are there known issues with the MPEG-2 hardware version that are difficult to work around for you?
The two issues I was seeing with the 3.0b version of the MCE driver were recordings failing to play back if the STB needed to change channels between SD/HD or vice-verse (at the start of recording) and audio glitches on HD channels. Do none of the other STBs have either of these issues or are these common issues with the beta driver?
Are you willing to put some additional effort in with me to debug the MCE driver for the Bell 6000? The driver seems fairly close to working. Assuming it works for other STBs, it looks like it would be relatively easy to get it working with the 6000.

Slipshod

08-12-08, 04:11 AM

Quite a positive testimonial. Are you or any other happy customers using the R5000 in the Dish ViP211? For HD?

I really really wanted to use it with MythTV because I've run Debian exclusively for ten years, and I know little about Winduhs except that I hate it and don't trust it to touch The Internets. However I am told Myth support of the R5000 is 'unreliable', particularly HD recording which I value most.

I've got two VIP-211s w/ the R5000 mod and am subscribing to Dish's "HD-Absolute" package and love it. Live TV is slightly flaky, but recorded TV is solid as a rock (and I hardly ever watch TV live). Trick-play is borderline (not as responsive as the VIP622 was with HD, but SD is generally fine), but it's still very usable. WAF is very good, and recently went up a big notch when I added an extra 640GB recording drive on the fly, while she was watching TV, so we could record all the olympic coverage.

I use Windows Home Server, R5000, and 2 HD-extenders. It's a pretty killer combo. I also threw VMWare server on it and am running my Zimbra and LAMP ubuntu VM installs on the same hardware. Soon I'll have all my data off the ReadyNAS and consolidated WHS (using hw RAID, not the drive extender madness).

Loving it...

HT Slider

08-12-08, 10:22 AM

I believe its R5000 supports Sage with its Sage version of the R5000 software.

How does this work?

I too asked Sage if they supported the R5000HD and was told "No".

Does Sage TV provide flexible driver hooks that enable 3rd parties to create drivers for their "TV Tuner" hardware and then Nextcom used this to create their R5000HD driver?

Why does Sage support point to using FireSTB (the same software I'm using with Media Center) to make the R5000HD work with Sage TV?

What is involved with setting up Sage TV to work with an R5000HD?

Is it simple to set up and rock solid in functionality or is it flaky in any way (FireSTB with MC for example only works with Recorded TV, not Live TV and even with Recorded TV it isn't 100% reliable)?

MKANET

08-12-08, 01:46 PM

I think what SageTV support was trying to say is that the R5000 driver and software for sageTV is not builtin.

Once you install the R5000 driver and respective SageTV "helper" app and you follow the instructions from the R5000 website to configure SageTV, to see the R5000 as a regular tuner, you're set!

It's 100% reliable. During the last year with both my R5000s recording pretty much round the clock, I have never missed one recording. Certainly just as reliable as a Tivo; except much better.

How does this work?

I too asked Sage if they supported the R5000HD and was told "No".

Does Sage TV provide flexible driver hooks that enable 3rd parties to create drivers for their "TV Tuner" hardware and then Nextcom used this to create their R5000HD driver?

Why does Sage support point to using FireSTB (the same software I'm using with Media Center) to make the R5000HD work with Sage TV?

What is involved with setting up Sage TV to work with an R5000HD?

Is it simple to set up and rock solid in functionality or is it flaky in any way (FireSTB with MC for example only works with Recorded TV, not Live TV and even with Recorded TV it isn't 100% reliable)?

quantumstate

08-13-08, 08:50 PM

Well, I just got my kit from Nextcom... it is very nice, except there are no instructions. All I have is two circuit boards and a bunch of wires....

Me sharpen stick to install?

:confused:

jstomlinson

08-19-08, 09:55 AM

Comcast just ran cable down my road and I have switched from Dish Network. I have a Dish ViP622 DVR with the R5000-HD modification for sale. I used it with SageTV. Perfect working order, with both original remotes. $400 + actual shipping.

8/27/2008: Item is sold, thank you

mosch

08-23-08, 09:46 PM

woodyh

08-27-08, 12:20 PM

quantumstate

09-04-08, 08:54 AM

Bought a ViP211 on eBay but the guy sent a 211K instead. Will the R5000 work in the K yet?

HT Slider

09-04-08, 11:52 AM

Has anybody gotten the R5000 MCE software to work yet? I've tried the beta and cant get past getting just a black screen on the virtual tuner setup? The time has run out and now I see they have a released package for $49.95, which I'll be happy to buy if it actually works.
Otherwise I suppose I'll have to switch to Sage.

woodyh

You can still download the released package and it will work for a trial period (30 days I believe).

Unfortunately I downloaded it last Friday and spent about 12 hours trying to get it to work and it is still a no go for me.

I had lots of problems with it and eventually gave up again.

I'll run you through what I did to get it working (somewhat) though:

Install the MCE R5000HD package.
Go into Device Manager and manually install the USB driver for the R5000HD (it isn't signed so Vista won't allow it to install during the regular R5000HD software installation).
Go into Device Manager and manually install the Virtual Tuner driver (again it is not signed). To do this you need to (inside Device Manager), right click on the computer name and select "Add Legacy Hardware". Then manually force the installation of the Virtual Tuner driver found in the R5000HD driver folder (in Program Files).
Manually start the R5000HD DVR software and configure both the properties for your STB.
Test that the R5000HD is now able to record to a .ts file that will play back properly (make sure you have a ts splitter installed; I use TSConverter2.5, which both includes HDTVPump 1.2 (TS splitter) and the ability to transcode .ts files into Media Center dvr-ms files; you have to install it and run it in administrator mode, or turn of UAC).
Inside the R5000HD DVR Media Center settings, make it so it will work as a server.
Reboot.
Manually start the R5000HD DVR software (for some reason it doesn't start on its own automatically).
Inside the R5000HD DVR, click the record button to start it communicating with the Virtual Tuner (for some reason I have to do this every time I reboot the system before I get anything other than a blank screen in MC).
Start Media Center and run through the TV setup. Make sure you select your actual country (or it won't be able to get any Guide listings). Also, for some reason I only see a blank screen for the video sample during the TV setup; just ignore this and pretend there is actual video.
After this, start Live TV and it should now be working.

Unfortunately, at this point, only SD channels work properly (with my Bell 6000 at least). When I switch to an HD channel, the audio stutters regularly and there are minor but visible video glitches. Also I found I needed to slightly rewind a little so I wasn't actually playing Live TV to get the best image and sound (it was typically terrible playing truly live).

Another issue is it takes a very long time to change channels and to get a functional video image on the screen again.

I decided to try a different MPEG-2 codec (as suggested on the R5000HD support web site), but discovered that the R5000HD DVR has a bug where it changes the wrong registry settings to change the MPEG-2 codec. If you look in the registry you can see it places the preferred codec key in the location for MCE2005, and not for Vista (I'm running Vista).

To change the decoder for Vista, you can use the utility found here instead: http://mediacenterexpert.blogspot.com/2006/07/vista-media-center-decoder-utility.html

Unfortunately I discovered that none of the other MPEG-2 decoders I have were able to fix the problems with HD video. I tried several different Cyberlink codecs (including the latest PowerDVD Ultra 7.3 and 8.0 codecs) as well as the "good old" Nvidia DVD decoder.

I then tried to record some TV. For SD channels it recorded OK, but for HD it had the same audio and video quality issues. I also discovered that the old beta issue still exists where if the STB is starting on an SD channel and switches to HD or vici-verse, that the resultant recording fails to play back past the SD/HD switch.

One test I performed was to have the R5000HD DVR simultaneously record to a .ts file. The .ts file was able to play back flawlessly (even inside Media Center), so the problem is related to Nextcom's Virtual Tuner driver, not the actual R5000HD DVR, USB driver, or hardware. I was also able to use TSConverter 2.5 to take that .ts file and convert it into a perfectly playable .dvr-ms file.

As it was when it was in a beta state, the MCE driver is close to being functional, but it is not there yet (at least with my Bell 6000 STB).

Note that I have received a couple of e-mails from people trying to get this to work with newer, non-6000 STBs and have been told they are experiencing exactly the same issues.

One bit of good news though. I then installed the latest regular R5000HD DVR package (3.0c), instead of the MCE version, and discovered that it works very well with FireSTB. In fact, the one issue I was having with 2.5f where sometimes a show would get cut off part way through seems to have gone away with 3.0c installed.

Note that I did need to turn off FireSTBs attempts to change the channel and instead resort back to the Microsoft IR blaster. For some reason I've never been able to get FireSTB to communicate channel changes properly with the R5000HD DVR software.

BeachComber

09-05-08, 11:57 AM

I've asked about this for years now and its clear that it will never be added to the software so I am looking for another solution.

Every week or so, the R5000HD software will error out and send and error to the Windows Event Log. You must then manually click ok to close the app - and it then misses any new recordings until you manually restart the application.

Is there an administrative piece of software/tool for Windows that will send you an email, beep you, call you, whatever, whenever you have an Application error in Windows?

MKANET

09-05-08, 12:05 PM

Windows Vista (which many people seem to bash without understanding its benefits and stability) has an excellent email notification system builtin to the Windows Event Viewer; and allows for custom actions as well. Although, I would probably try to find the cause of the crash rather than just get notified.

I've asked about this for years now and its clear that it will never be added to the software so I am looking for another solution.

Every week or so, the R5000HD software will error out and send and error to the Windows Event Log. You must then manually click ok to close the app - and it then misses any new recordings until you manually restart the application.

Is there an administrative piece of software/tool for Windows that will send you an email, beep you, call you, whatever, whenever you have an Application error in Windows?

BeachComber

09-06-08, 04:45 AM

Windows Vista (which many people seem to bash without understanding its benefits and stability) has an excellent email notification system builtin to the Windows Event Viewer; and allows for custom actions as well. Although, I would probably try to find the cause of the crash rather than just get notified.

Not using Vista and probably will never have Vista on any units in my house (especially as the new OS seems to be coming out in 24 months or less). Too much of a memory hog/performance hit.

I know what causes the crash. Unless you can control the weather there is no way to prevent it.

So again, does anyone know of any reporting software that would work with Event Manager to report a crashed program?

MKANET

09-06-08, 05:06 AM

If you're waiting for Windows 7 to come out with less memory consumption than Vista, youre going to be disspointed. This feature is included with the "current" version of the Windows Event Viewer and most likely to be in the Windows 7 as well. You might also try asking a non-R5000 specific forum if you want something for older Windows OS's.

Not using Vista and probably will never have Vista on any units in my house (especially as the new OS seems to be coming out in 24 months or less). Too much of a memory hog/performance hit.

I know what causes the crash. Unless you can control the weather there is no way to prevent it.

So again, does anyone know of any reporting software that would work with Event Manager to report a crashed program?

BeachComber

09-06-08, 01:07 PM

quantumstate

09-07-08, 08:54 AM

Bought a ViP211 on eBay but the guy sent a 211K instead. Will the R5000 work in the K yet?
+

R5000-HD

09-08-08, 10:38 AM

We have a small number of pre-modified ViP 211 units available at 25% off. These units are complete and come with a full warranty from Dish Network. Please visit our on-line store (http://nextcomwireless.com/store/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=68) for details and checkout our reduced prices on all modifications.

The ViP 211K is different from a 211 and is NOT able to be modified. Be aware that the 211K is often substituted for the 211 and is being pushed by Dish Network. It is a less expensive alternative and is smaller and somewhat cheaper looking (in our opinion). Internally the main difference is the 211 uses a separate decoder chip with more advanced capabilities than the all-in-one approach used in the K version.

-R

octavian

09-08-08, 03:28 PM

Well, I just got my kit from Nextcom... it is very nice, except there are no instructions. All I have is two circuit boards and a bunch of wires....

Me sharpen stick to install?

:confused:

quantumstate,

What did you think of the DIY kit. Was it a soldering nightmare? Did you have to remove any parts? I have experience with SMD soldering and I am considering the DIY kit. Let us know how it goes. :)

jmv

09-08-08, 06:11 PM

Beachcomber...

It's been a long time, but if I recall correctly you can use Girder to do things like watch for dialogue boxes and react to them. It is a high learning curve, but Girder can pretty much do anything a user can do. I wrote a macro in it to autopopulate IR codes into a pronto remote template and react to all the dialogues that popped up as it would save 1000's of code filled pronto pages...I also had it play a game for me once when I wanted to just do a bunch of repetitive things to build up my armies...but again this one is labor intensive...but if you are COMMITTED...then it is one path...

mv

quantumstate

09-08-08, 11:52 PM

Octavian, it isn't bad if you are careful and precise. I'd liken it to performing surgery. If you've done SMD you'll be fine. No parts removal. His pictures are terrible, but enhance them and you can see what's what. Follow them precisely.

I installed it on my 211, but something must have gone wrong because the 211 would then no longer boot. The light would come on for about 15 secs, but then goes out forever. So I removed the kit and have been trying to find a deal on another 211 for a couple weeks now. I bought one on eBay for $120, but the guy sent me a freakin' 211k. He won't send me a 211, saying you can't get them anymore. Not true, I just signed up as a Dish dealer to get one, and they have them. I tried to sell the freakin' 211k, but no dice.

Pretty scared about the kit at this point, but I know others have been successful. I plan to use it with MythTV, although I'm told that's not so reliable. Another option is Sage for Linux (I've run Debian exclusively for eleven years), although I do not know whether Sage/Linux works with the R5000. Maybe Nextcom can comment.

quantumstate

09-09-08, 12:16 AM

HA! Just snagged another 211 for $120 on Fleabay...

BeachComber

09-09-08, 02:34 AM

quantumstate,

What did you think of the DIY kit. Was it a soldering nightmare? Did you have to remove any parts? I have experience with SMD soldering and I am considering the DIY kit. Let us know how it goes. :)

Unless you have VERY FINE soldering skills and a very EXPENSIVE Weller soldering station with a VERY FINE tip, great temp control and super magnification, don't even think about it.

Octavian, it isn't bad if you are careful and precise.

I installed it on my 211, but something must have gone wrong because the 211 would then no longer boot. The light would come on for about 15 secs, but then goes out forever. So I removed the kit and have been trying to find a deal on another 211 for a couple weeks now.

Pretty scared about the kit at this point, but I know others have been successful.

I have not seen the solder points on a 211, but from what I have seen on the other units, my advice holds.

I had someone who makes his living doing technical work in the broadcast industry for over 20 years attempted this on 4 different boxes and only the last one was successful. Luckily they were leased boxes that "just went bad".

He had moved 2 units from a Dish 6000 of mine to another Dish 6000 and a BEV unit with no issue, so those were MUCH EASIER, though I would have never attempted it myself.

The fact that you paid $350 for the kit, ruined a ViP211 in the process, purchased a ViP211k that cannot be used now and now forced to purchased another ViP211 - combined with shipping, you would have been better off spending the extra $200 and had Nextcom do it, imo, as you might fry the next one as well.

I understand from the beginning that people wanted to try and do this themselves and now Nextcom is accomadating - but I really believe most have no idea what they are getting into.

That's my 2 cents of advice.

pendragonsound

09-09-08, 12:50 PM

I bought and did the 211 DIY mod a month ago. I have the appropriate tools and fine soldering experience. It took only a few minutes to perform and worked the first time. The only thing that slowed me down was trying to find the right hole punch because I preferred not to drill the USB access. The pictures were fine for my purposes, but they did point out a minor error in the instructions. I advised Nextcom and this was quickly fixed.

As with any mod, things can go wrong and you have to accept the responsibility if they do. It is worth a few minutes to drag out the multitester to verify the connections and check for shorts. That alone should prevent lunching a unit.

The trade-off for me was the downtime, cost and bother of sending my unit and waiting for its return. I would have wasted far more than the 20 odd minutes it took to do the mod, and saving the money made it worth picking up another 211 for recording. I'm using Sage on XP and both R5000s and a HD Homerun work furiously and reliably. I would rather run this on Linux/BSD/Mac, but dedicating a PC to this function wasn't a big deal. No OS does everything I want.

Anyone who does not have the necessary setup and experience should not attempt the DIY mod. However if you know what you're doing, there's nothing to worry about.

DrDon

09-10-08, 10:00 AM

Bickering and politics removed. Stay on topic, ya'll or risk being banned from this thread. And I've really been itchin' to try that function out :D

Joseph Clark

09-10-08, 10:53 AM

Bickering and politics removed. Stay on topic, ya'll or risk being banned from this thread. And I've really been itchin' to try that function out :D

Thank you.

bwooster

09-10-08, 03:11 PM

HD files recorded using the R5000 sometimes don't playback properly on the PS-3 (from a DVD-R). I sometimes found that the there was no audio or sometimes the audio was output from the PS-3 as two channel stereo instead of 5.1

I wrote a Mac OS X tool that will convert the R5000 ts files so that they playback properly on the PS-3. You can download the source code too so maybe someone will release a Windows version of it (I haven't had time to make one yet).

You can download the code and the tool from: "http://sourceforge.net/projects/mkps3tsfile/"

Enjoy!

BeachComber

09-11-08, 12:38 AM

ralphjb

09-13-08, 11:09 AM

Is anyone use Girder to communicate and control the STB control panel availabe within the R5000 software?

Right now I just open up the STB control panel, but it would be nice to integrate control into my Netremote/Girder setup. Have done some searching, but have not found an answer.

Thanks!
Ralph

MKANET

09-13-08, 06:50 PM

I use Girder + USB-UIRT for "On Demand / PPV Mode" custom support in SageTV to supplement the standard R5000 DVR software (DVR software and IR via bultin R5000 USB cable). Although, not as ideal as doing everything via the builtin IR control in the R5000 USB cable, its very dependable. You can't use Girder to send IR commands via the R5000 Windows driver; unless you write an R5000 plugin for Girder.

Girder / SageTV remote control:
http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h283/mkanet/1-12.jpg

Is anyone use Girder to communicate and control the STB control panel availabe within the R5000 software?

Right now I just open up the STB control panel, but it would be nice to integrate control into my Netremote/Girder setup. Have done some searching, but have not found an answer.

Thanks!
Ralph

ralphjb

09-14-08, 10:16 AM

I use Girder + USB-UIRT for "On Demand / PPV Mode" custom support in SageTV to supplement the standard R5000 DVR software (DVR software and IR via bultin R5000 USB cable). Although, not as ideal as doing everything via the builtin IR control in the R5000 USB cable, its very dependable. You can't use Girder to send IR commands via the R5000 Windows driver; unless you write an R5000 plugin for Girder.

Girder / SageTV remote control:
http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h283/mkanet/1-12.jpg

Thanks so much for the reply. Actually I do use SageTV along with Girder and the USB UIRT and Net Remote. My issue is that I have two identical Dish boxes in the same rack. I have the IR receiver on the R5000 modified box to block reception from the USB UIRT IR blaster.

I guess that is exactly what I am looking for, an R5000 plugin for Girder.

Briands

09-14-08, 10:29 AM

Thanks so much for the reply. Actually I do use SageTV along with Girder and the USB UIRT and Net Remote. My issue is that I have two identical Dish boxes in the same rack. I have the IR receiver on the R5000 modified box to block reception from the USB UIRT IR blaster.

I guess that is exactly what I am looking for, an R5000 plugin for Girder.
Don't know which Dish boxes you have, but I think all of the current ones can be changed to have unique IR codes see Chapter 9 (http://www.dishnetwork.com/downloads/pdf/user_guides_and_manuals/vip211_dish411/vip211_dish411_Chapter_09.pdf) of the manual. I have 4 stacked on top of each other - three controlled by a single USBUIRT (with no additional blasters attached) and one controlled by USB via the R5000.

BTW, I use SageTV as well.

ralphjb

09-14-08, 11:08 AM

ralphjb

09-14-08, 05:13 PM

I didn't know that! Thanks so much. I will check it out.

Ralph

That worked! Thanks so much. I had no idea that feature was available within the receiver boxes. Now that I know, it makes sense.
Thanks!
Ralph

mkerdman

09-14-08, 09:01 PM

Don't know which Dish boxes you have, but I think all of the current ones can be changed to have unique IR codes see Chapter 9 (http://www.dishnetwork.com/downloads/pdf/user_guides_and_manuals/vip211_dish411/vip211_dish411_Chapter_09.pdf) of the manual. I have 4 stacked on top of each other - three controlled by a single USBUIRT (with no additional blasters attached) and one controlled by USB via the R5000.

BTW, I use SageTV as well.

Hi!

Could you walk me through the details of using USB UIRT IR blaster to control 3-4 Dish 211's/Dish 722's located in the same room as opposed to using an IR HUb like a Xantech with seperate emitters (I already know about the codes 1-9 for each Dish unit)?

Also, could you walk me through the details, including the pluses and minunses as well as "failures to launch" in using SageTV to control 3-4 Dish 211's located in the same room from the same "Sage Server".

Is it bullet proof, or, an adventure that works most but not all of the time?

Do you use the SageTV HD Extender. If so, is it nearly as seemless as a Dish 722, or, a setup with pluses and minunses as well as "failures to launch"or properly playback?

Lastly, if you do "Sage Server", and do not use a SageTV HD Extender, what is you playback device?

Thanks in advane!

Kryspy

09-15-08, 04:56 PM

How does the mod work on a Bell 9242 (Dish 622) ? Do both tuners show up in SageTV or just one ? How does the watch one while recording another work.

Also, I assume by the recent discussion about the 211K that the Bell 6141 are 211K as I have one and it is rather small in size and has a blue lit HDTV logo.

Bell website for 6141 details --> http://bell.ca/shopping/en_CA_ON.HD-system/61065.details

Rear of receiver says Model 0E24 or DE24 something like that.

Kryspy

Update: Received a reply from the R5000 team saying it utilizes tuner 1 just like a single tuner.

Kryspy

09-16-08, 03:12 PM

Judging by the rear of my Bell 6141 and some online photos of the rear of a 211K and its' front panel it is safe to assume the Bell 6141 is a 211K.

Just a little FYI for us Canadians thinking of modding a single tuner mpeg4 receiver.... ain't gonna happen.

Kryspy

jhue

09-16-08, 09:03 PM

I wrote a Mac OS X tool that will convert the R5000 ts files so that they playback properly on the PS-3. You can download the source code too so maybe someone will release a Windows version of it (I haven't had time to make one yet).

Aren't there already several TS remux tools available on Windows to accomplish this (tsremuxer.exe for example)?

MKANET

09-20-08, 11:23 PM

Did you check their homepage?

Here's the direct URL.

http://www.nextcomwireless.com/R5000/support_download.htm#Download

Well, I have the kit installed, but can anyone please tell me where I can get the driver and DVR app?

Bastian74

10-02-08, 11:29 PM

BeachComber

10-03-08, 01:37 AM

Bastian74

10-03-08, 11:09 AM

1) there is no option for Directv

2) there is no option for STBs that use HDCP.

Actually, so long as it has a component output it appears the Hauppauge HD PVR works fine. I have not seen a comparison of video before and after it's been re-encoded by the Hauppauge though. Of course you MUST loose some quality any time you re-compress an image. I've seen some Hauppauge samples and they seem good, just can't tell what it looked like before hand.

Does anyone know of a R5000-HD stream that was ALSO captured through a Hauppauge HD PVR? That would be the tru apples to apples comparison.

The fact that the HD PVR re-compresses can be a good and bad thing, it can be good in that it allows you to choose your compression setting which means you can choose capacity over quality if you want to.

I'm aware the MPAA is trying to turn off the component outputs - but their request is only for movies that aren't available on dvd yet so I'm not really that worried.

thurstonw

10-03-08, 12:58 PM

Actually, so long as it has a component output it appears the Hauppauge HD PVR works fine. I have not seen a comparison of video before and after it's been re-encoded by the Hauppauge though. Of course you MUST loose some quality any time you re-compress an image. I've seen some Hauppauge samples and they seem good, just can't tell what it looked like before hand.

Does anyone know of a R5000-HD stream that was ALSO captured through a Hauppauge HD PVR? That would be the tru apples to apples comparison.

The fact that the HD PVR re-compresses can be a good and bad thing, it can be good in that it allows you to choose your compression setting which means you can choose capacity over quality if you want to.

I'm aware the MPAA is trying to turn off the component outputs - but their request is only for movies that aren't available on dvd yet so I'm not really that worried.

I'm surprised that after all this time people still don't understand how this system works. The R5000 captures the MPEG encoded stream from a point inside the receiver where it is in the clear (unencrypted). HDCP is a technology that prevents access to high bandwidth uncompressed digital data via the DVI port.

The quality of the R5000 captures are 100% "lossless." This is because it captures the compressed data before it gets decoded for viewing. Its the same MPEG data that is output from the encoder at the broadcast end. No transcoding is involved.

As far as comparisons go, the R5000 capture will always be better. Its like comparing a digital rip of a DVD with a copy made via an analog connection. The difference in quality maybe minimal to your eyes but rest assured it is there. It really depends on how you view the material and how high your standards are.

Another thing to consider is the quality to size ratio. When satellite and cable providers encode a stream they are using some of the most advanced equipment available. A $250 consumer-level encoder is simply not capable of producing the same level of quality at these high levels of compression. In other words you'll have lower PQ for the same size file.

-tw

HT Slider

10-03-08, 01:09 PM

I'm curious about the technology, could someone provide a link or description about how it actually works? I though the whole point of HDCP was to prevent unauthorized copies of high definition video? I assume you're jumping into the digital stream after it's been decrypted - or before it's been encrypted for HDMI? Don't get me wrong, I will probably end up buying one of these kits, I'm just curious. Is this a perfectly legal solution? Is this the only solution?

Essentially what Nextcomm does is take STBs that do not have specific encrypted digital outputs and tap into the non-encrypted digital stream on the STB's PCB.

They then send this untouched digital video stream out of the STB over USB.

You obviously need to have a legal, paid subscription for the STB to be able to access it.

Per copyright legislation, this is legal. The grey area is your specific contract with your service provider and if you are allowed to modify the STB. I looked through my contract some time ago and if the STB was rented I was not allowed to repair or modify it. I own my STB so this doesn't apply.

One action that would definitely NOT be legal would be to share recorded content with anyone else - especially openly on the Internet.

The same applies to the Hauppauge HD-PVR, the 16-9 time system (169time.com), or recorded content using a VCR (or other s-video/component recording method).

BeachComber

10-03-08, 04:11 PM

Actually, so long as it has a component output it appears the Hauppauge HD PVR works fine.

You might want to check the title of this thread. It's the R5000-HD Thread, not the Hauppauge HD thread.

If you want info on the Hauppauge HD PVR, I suggest you post in the appropiate thread.

Your questions were answered as it pertains to the R5000HD. It will not work for your needs.

quantumstate

10-03-08, 06:10 PM

So far it's not working for my needs either. For the past two months my 211 has been patiently sitting there, but I can not make XP or Kubuntu work.

XP will not send out on HDMI no matter what I do (just-released G45 mobo), and Kubuntu will not compile MythTV with the R5000 extensions no matter what I do. I haven't had any TV for over six months, and am getting impatient with this.

I am now about to ditch this (expensive) hardware in favor of something that actually works. Any suggestions?

Bastian74

10-03-08, 07:22 PM

6 months? Did you know the writers strike is over?

BeachComber

10-04-08, 03:56 AM

MKANET

10-04-08, 04:12 AM

Meanwhile... back at my home... watching/recording a Comcast On Demand movie with SageTV/Vista while reading this post ;)

Let's see, you've blown up your ViP211 and haven't had TV for 6 months. Looks like that DIY kit saved you all kinds of time and money:rolleyes:

For those of us who use Windows and the R5000HD as it is advertised we continue to have no issues.

Suggest you use the unit as advertised or find a solution aimed for your OS/System needs. Life's too short.

quantumstate

10-04-08, 07:33 AM

Let's see, you've blown up your ViP211 and haven't had TV for 6 months. Looks like that DIY kit saved you all kinds of time and money:rolleyes:
For those of us who use Windows and the R5000HD as it is advertised we continue to have no issues.
Suggest you use the unit as advertised or find a solution aimed for your OS/System needs. Life's too short.
Pay attention now, BeachComber and MKANET. WINDOWS IS NOT WORKING!! I don't know how I can say it any more clearly. The G45 chipset is non-functional with XP and no one has been able to advise! What a sad life you must have, to take potshots at someone who is mightily struggling to make this work. To just lazily advise me to 'eat cake', and not offer any (specifically requested) hardware suggestions. You two haven't the slightest understanding of what I am doing here, do you.

Obviously I'm sharing information with the wrong crowd. This is supposed to be the "Technical Status Discussion", but apparently we are not very technical here so I've deleted my Linux progress report posts.

MKANET

10-04-08, 08:05 AM

You mean it doesnt work on the old version of Windows. Upgrading to Vista SP1 for new hardware makes sense to me today. If it still doesnt work with even the "current" version of Windows (even with Vista certified intel drivers), its time to think about getting a new motherboard... Sorry about the seemingly "kick rocks" response; but, using new hardware on an old OS just doesnt make sense; neither does "forcing" the R5000 to work with linux.

Pay attention now, BeachComber and MKANET. WINDOWS IS NOT WORKING!! I don't know how I can say it any more clearly. The G45 chipset is non-functional with XP and no one has been able to advise! What a sad life you must have, to take potshots at someone who is mightily struggling to make this work. To just lazily advise me to 'eat cake'. You two haven't the slightest understanding of what I am doing here.

Obviously I'm sharing information with the wrong crowd.

quantumstate

10-04-08, 08:17 AM

You think XP SP3 is an 'old' OS?
Pfffff

And I should think the maker of R5000 would welcome its functionality on a new platform, your preferences notwithstanding. I have used Debian exclusively for eleven years (maybe longer than you've used computers), and it is my preference. If I have to beat something into working, I'd rather do it on Linux than Winduhs any day. Isn't that OK with you?

MKANET

10-04-08, 08:26 AM

Try again.. Senior IT Engineer; supported information systems for over 18 years.

You think XP SP3 is an 'old' OS?
Pfffff

And I should think the maker of R5000 would welcome its functionality on a new platform, your preferences notwithstanding. I have used Debian exclusively for eleven years (maybe longer than you've used computers), and it is my preference. If I have to beat something into working, I'd rather do it on Linux than Winduhs any day. Isn't that OK with you?

etk29321

10-14-08, 11:16 AM

I've noticed over the last week that I all the sudden have to "un-standby" my vip211 each day to get sage to record via the r5000hd. Does anyone know if Dish pushed firmware changes to the vip211s that would have changed how it behaves? I had it set to never go into standby, but it appears to power-up into standby after the daily 3am epg updates. I had never had problems with this before about wednesday last week.

MKANET

10-14-08, 11:35 AM

If that's true, there's a way to get around the sleep problem. Under the R5000 webpage, in "about this release" you will see a section for "precode". You can put a precode command in the R5000 config file to wake your receiver up before the R5000 tries to send other commands to it... such as pressing OK waiting 500miliseconds, and pressing OK again (or things you would normallly do to get your box out of sleep mode). If you have any problems getting the Precode to work, below is a real life example of what's in one of my DVR R5000 config file...

before the END statement (but after all other lines), I have the following command:

PreCode: ok 100 ok 100

(this will press OK/enter, wait 100 miliseconds, press OK again, wait 100 miliseconds)

If you still have questions, you can send an email to the R5000 support email.

Just a Warning: They aren't the most customer-friendly support, as they seem to reply back to emails only when they feel like it; and may just ignore your email if it's a support issue they rather not deal with.

I've noticed over the last week that I all the sudden have to "un-standby" my vip211 each day to get sage to record via the r5000hd. Does anyone know if Dish pushed firmware changes to the vip211s that would have changed how it behaves? I had it set to never go into standby, but it appears to power-up into standby after the daily 3am epg updates. I had never had problems with this before about wednesday last week.

PeterS

10-14-08, 06:09 PM

I have a demonstration meeting tomorrow morning and could really use some help!

Vista Media Center - everything is working perfectly - except the R5000HD.

Previously R5000HD working perfectly outside of Vista Media Center.
New Build - SP1, etc. Purchased the MCE pack from Nextcom and trying to get things going.

Everything installs fine from the MCE download off the Nextcom Site. Find device and I can control it from the virtual controller, etc.

Trying to record from the DVR app - all appears to be working, lights up, data rates, etc. - but no file is created.

Trying to integrate into Vista Media Center - Tuner not found error, from the MCE Checkup in the DVR app. Tried restarting services, rebooting system - nothing, NADA - no change!

Tried uninstalling and reinstalling - pointing everything clearly at the right driver - no difference!

I am pulling what little hair out that I still have.

Anyone have any suggestions???

Help

BeachComber

10-15-08, 01:52 AM

OldTony

10-15-08, 08:13 PM

To All you Esteemed R5000 Users:

I have been running SageTV on Windows XP with clearQAM and Analog Cable. Its been very stable.

Recently we decided that we don't like getting 10 million channels and decided to terminate Comcast and go with ATSC + Turbo HD from dish.

Sage is a nice solution for an integrated program menu. But I have a special requirement for Closed Captions.

Recently I have discovered that Sage can Playback ATSC captions on about 40 of 47 channels I picked up without the plugin. This is great news.

So looking at the MPEG4 Stream that is captured from the R5000 I am wondering:

1. Are there captions in the MPEG4 ?
2. Do I need a special decoder to extract them?
3. Does anyone else have experience with this?
4. How reliable is the USB control of the R5000? ie do I really need a USBIRT for only 1 R5000?

Kind Regards,
Tony

R5000-HD

10-22-08, 02:12 PM

Fall Specials and Discounts:

Buy 1 get 50% off a second unit! Applies to most DVR modifications and DIY kits (see quantity discount area of item description).
Free return Shipping
DVR Software Sale. Purchasers of a new DVR modification or DIY kit receive a coupon good for $49.95 off all DVR software (applies to SageTV, Multi-instance and MCE versions).

Please visit our store (http://www.nextcomwireless.com/store/) for details.

(until 11/30/2008 or while supplies last. subject to early termination)

-R

woodyh

10-24-08, 11:07 AM

After trying the Nextcom MCE SW I decided to give up and give Sage TV a try based on everything I read here. But I can't get it working and I'm stumped. I think I have everything set up correctly from the instructions on the R5000 site. I cut and pasted all the settings for one receiver and changed the receiver entry to Dish 211. The R5000 appears to be linking up with Sage OK based on the messages at the bottom left of the R5000 window, but I don't get any recording files. All of the indications on the R5000 control panel (Bitrate, etc) seem to indicate proper operation EXCEPT file size remains at 0.

Prior to this the R5000 was working fine with MyTray, so I don't suspect a hardware problem. Where do I look next?

Woody

boiler11

10-24-08, 11:21 AM

woodyh

10-24-08, 07:34 PM

Thanks! I seem to remember something about that in the R5000 Sage instructions, but I thought that was supposed to be in the Sage.properties file and couldn't find it. Now that I know where to look that will give me something to try over the weekend.

Woody

R5000-HD

10-27-08, 12:14 PM

Although there is no firm date yet it looks like D* is getting closer to moving all their HD content to MPEG-4. A recent change has made HBO-HD disappear from the guide of some older receivers although the channel still exists in MPEG-2 format. The solution from D* (after trying the various resets and authorization hits) is to send you out a new HD receiver free of charge. Could be an intentional change made to get the attention of older receiver owners and push them to upgrade?

For those DirecTV owners who want to still use their R5000-HD modification with Dish Network or cable, we are once again offering the upgrade/swap: click here. (http://nextcomwireless.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=66&products_id=195) Price includes the labor to swap out the modification and additional hardware to upgrade the modification.

You'll need to send us the old DirecTV modified receiver and the new box you want to modify. The old DirecTV receiver has no value to us; there is no additional discount if you want us to keep it.

-R