I know that isn't many channels, but I've read that they will be leaving these 9 stations on MPEG-2 for the forseeable future.


There are other posts that say those are going to MPEG4 by Feb 2009, so who really knows.

I do think you are dreaming if you think you will get anywhere close to $400 for it. One can pickup the receiver for $25 (or less) on eBay and a new DIY kit is $275 (with 1/2 off a second unit, a warranty and full support). It appears the November specials would even install it in that unit for less than $275 (I would guess about $225 as that seems to be the difference in the units that need the newer / older boards).

Thus if you could purchase a new one from R5000HD for $250, why would anyone pay close to that for a used one?

I sold a working BEV receiver with the installed mod a full two years ago and only got $175. for it. I advertised it everywhere, and ended up selling it on ebay. I thought it was a bit low, but there is NO demand for it whatsoever.
If at that time, the greedy bastards at Nextcom had offered the changeover of the old style to the new style mod for a reasonable amount(like the current "special") I would have gladly done that, but they chose to alienate me as a customer instead, and I haven't used their service or promoted it to a single person since their rebuff.

And I was a two unit owner who recommended the mod to countless people BEFORE they treated me so shabbily...

Thanks for the responses, folks.

I don't really expect to get $400 for it, but was hoping for a best offer around $250 or $300. (I paid $350 a year and a half ago, based on the info on Nextcom's site that the current MPEG-2 stations would probably always work). I'd probably sell it for $150 or $200, but for $50 or $100, I'll just keep the thing.

Someone offered me $50, but I turned it down. It's worth more than that as an "upgrade".

@none74, I'm sorry to hear that you were treated so poorly. I feel that $225 for the "upgrade" is still a bit too much. They are essentially giving $60 off to existing customers. If they are able to use the parts in a new mod, then the fee shouldn't be much more than the $100 transfer fee.

Anyway, I don't think many folks can do the "DIY" installation, so it would cost $375 to have Nextcom do it, and the boxes still go for $25 to $40. That's where I came up with the price.

Important thing, though: is there really no authoritative answer on if/when the current MPEG-2 stations will actually go away? If they are going to go away soon, I need to just keep this thing and forget about it.

-Wes

Here in NJ my old DTC-100 R5000 modded box can no longer receive HBO-HD (channel 70) as it has apparently transitioned over to MPEG-4.

I wanted to try using cable with the R5000 so I purchased a new DCP501 Motorola box but my local Comcast company wont activate or provision it. They say that they don't allow user owned equipment to be activated. I spoke to the local manager and they told me that same thing.

Has anyone else had this problem? How did you get it activated?

Thanks for any help

You should be able to receive HBO if you manually enter channel 70 in... I think it just doesn't show up in the guide.

I also think that the cable companies may be required to activate your equipment, but I'm not sure.

If I manually enter channel 70 the box tunes to 71 (showtime hd).

I've been playing around with a Hauppauge HD PVR. It records HD from the analog component outputs of any device. Its recording format is ts files that contain H.264 video and AC3 audio. The PS3 plays these back perfectly.

I haven't figured out a good way to edit these files. Does anyone here know of tools that I can use to do that?

What format are the MPEG4 Dish recordings in? Are they similar ts files?

If I manually enter channel 70 the box tunes to 71 (showtime hd).

I've been playing around with a Hauppauge HD PVR. It records HD from the analog component outputs of any device. Its recording format is ts files that contain H.264 video and AC3 audio. The PS3 plays these back perfectly.

I haven't figured out a good way to edit these files. Does anyone here know of tools that I can use to do that?

What format are the MPEG4 Dish recordings in? Are they similar ts files?

You are correct that manually entering any channel that the box is not mapped for will tune to the next adjacent channel. The other post has bad info and you are correct that it cannot be tuned to.

The R5000HD Dish units record in MPEG4 /h.264 as well. However, the R5000HD MPEG4 look much better than the Hauppauge as it is pulled directly out of the stream and does not go through the Digital>Analog>Digital conversion that the Hauppauge does. Furthermore, the .h264 encoders that Dish uses are FAR SUPERIOR to the Hauppauge .h264 encoder (as can be figured out by the price). You loose the advantage of the better encoders with the Hauppauge unit.

The PS3 AC3 decoder has a little bug in it. If you play back a file that starts with 2 channel audio that then switches to 5.1 audio the PS3 will not send out the 5.1 audio data correctly - instead you will just get 2 channel audio.

So for example I recorded an HBO show that began with a segment that showed what happened on the previous episode and that segment had 2 channel audio which the PS3 correctly sent to my receiver.

When the new episode started and switched to 5.1 audio the PS3 continued to send out a 2 channel audio stream.

My solution was to write a command line tool that found the start of the 5.1 channel audio and then stripped out all the data that came before it.

I am releasing a new version that will also work with ts files that contain H.264 video data

Here is a link to that software:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/mkps3tsfile/

Enjoy!

FYI

R5000 users that want a low-power PC have a new choice.

Unlike most mini PCs that use 2.5 inch hard drives,
this one has an internal 3.5 and 5.25 inch bay.

I can verify that the MSI Wind PC Intel 945GC
does indeed work with the R5000.

You can find them for $150 which includes a 1.6GHz ATOM CPU

Tested using XP SP2 driving a VIP211

27 watts when I equipped it with a maxtor 750GB drive
and a NEC full-size DVD burner.

cheap VGA graphics.

Gigabit ethernet

uses single SO-DIMM same as laptops so if U have any spare...

can boot from internal CF card slot.

SDHC reader on outside.

internal miniPCIe connector

small external power supply.

ST

photo here
http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggImage/productimage/56-167-032-09.jpg

I have exhausted all possibilities for Comcast to fix the low quality signal issue in my area; which basically make my R5000 Comcast cable boxes useless.

I would like to know how hard is it to get the latest DirecTV boxes modded with R5000 for SageTV. I'm going to miss Comcast On Demand dearly, but the higher quality mpeg4 video and more HD channels from DirecTV might make up for it, especially if it actuallly works flawlessly.

Can someone please shed some light on this? I am not interested in Dish Network; as I consider them the "Kmart" of Satellite TV.

I would like to know how hard is it to get the latest DirecTV boxes modded with R5000 for SageTV.

Very hard - literally impossible.

It seems like the only alternative is Dish Network, and I've always made fun of themn for being the Kmart/Walmart of Satellite TV... no tellling when they will either switch their boxes again, merge with another company, or just disband.

God I wish comcast had the a competent customer service and network technicians. Their incompetience actaullly disgusts me. Id jump to directTV in a heartbeat if I knew of a way to get mpeg4 R5000 from their latest boxes.

Very hard - literally impossible.

MKANET: Nextcom told me that the DishTV HD video was better quality than Directvs.

If you are an NFL "Superfan" then Directv is best for you.

DishTV seems to have a lot of foreign programming packages that are important for some folks.

Another solution is to just go with a Hauppauge HD PVR. You won't be getting exact bit for bit copies of HD shows but it does a surprisingly good job and it may be a good solution for you.

I dont honestly know why you think Dishnetwork will go out of business. Belltv in Canada is basically Dishnetwork Canada. They use the same equipment. Bell is Canadas biggest telecommunication company. I find it hard to believe that Bell would continue to use and sell dishnetwork equipment in Canada if there was any word on dishnetwork going belly up.

God I wish comcast had the a competent customer service and network technicians. Their incompetience actaullly disgusts me. Id jump to directTV in a heartbeat if I knew of a way to get mpeg4 R5000 from their latest boxes.
Michael, if you really care about HD picture quality, do not subscribe to DirecTV. (Dish is better but not by much.) The only way to get superior HD quality is to dump spoon-fed TV (cable/satellite, and broadcast as well for that matter) and buy or rent HD DVD and Blu-ray discs. Otherwise, you have to live with what you described.

Michael, if you really care about HD picture quality, do not subscribe to DirecTV. (Dish is better but not by much.)

With all due respect, Directv looks far superior that Dish on my sets with the latest equipment. Directv also has higher resolution and higher bandwidth.

Unfortunately, the only way to manipulate the material is with the next version of Windows that has drivers for the forthcoming Directv addon in Windows Media Center (and then you are stuck with DRM).

With all due respect, Directv looks far superior that Dish on my sets with the latest equipment. Directv also has higher resolution and higher bandwidth.

Unfortunately, the only way to manipulate the material is with the next version of Windows that has drivers for the forthcoming Directv addon in Windows Media Center (and then you are stuck with DRM).

I am curious what the new DirecTV resolution and bit rate is, I now have Comcast and I switched from DirecTV about 4 years ago when they were running the HD-Lite with 1280X1080 resolution and mpeg2 at 8-10 Mbps what are they running now with the mpeg4 signals?

I know that Dish is 1440X1080 and 5-6 Mbps on the mpeg4 channels.

Mike T

Dish has come a long way with their MPEG4 encoding since they switched. I watch on a Sharp XV-Z20000 DLP projector, and I'm really impressed with most of their HD offerings. I have several of the Star Trek movies in MPEG4, and most fit on a single layer DVD. They're not Blu-ray quality, no question, but they look every bit as good as anything I've seen on my buddy's DirecTV setup. I expect things might improve when their next bird goes up.

IMO, the decoder that one uses to play the MPEG-4 recordings makes a critical difference in the PQ. I have never been satisfied with PC software decoding for playback of R5000 HD files on an HDTV. My TVIX M4100 can usually play these recordings well, but Fast Forward and Rewind doesn’t work properly. The PS3 plays these files well, but often will down-mix DD 5.1 audio to DD 2.1 audio, as referenced by bwooster above. Unfortunately, bwooster’s program to correct this audio problem is designed for a Mac, which I do not own. So, even after over a year of effort, I still have not found a reliable decoding device for all my R5000 MPEG-4 recordings.

Does anyone have any experience capturing Dishnetwork OnDemand 1080p streams using the R5000? Can I just use a plain old Vip211? Am I going to need an old fashioned phone line or can this be done via an ethernet internet conenction into the VIP211?

I'm in the process of transitioning from comcast to Dish Network. I'm very spoiled with my customized seemless Comcast On Demand into SageTV.

Dish has come a long way with their MPEG4 encoding since they switched. I watch on a Sharp XV-Z20000 DLP projector, and I'm really impressed with most of their HD offerings. I have several of the Star Trek movies in MPEG4, and most fit on a single layer DVD. They're not Blu-ray quality, no question, but they look every bit as good as anything I've seen on my buddy's DirecTV setup. I expect things might improve when their next bird goes up.

I can compare them side and side and must disagree, but whatever floats your boat.

I know this is hearsay, but the R5000 folks who see all kinds of content every day say mpeg4 on dish n comparable to direcTV, if anything its a tad bit better; and of course, significantally better than comcast. Its pretty easy to be biased to what you are paying for and already have. In my case, I have comcast, and I know it blows; HD looks soft on almost all my premium channels (relatively low bit rate mpeg2)... if it was mpeg4, it would be a different story.

IMO, the decoder that one uses to play the MPEG-4 recordings makes a critical difference in the PQ. I have never been satisfied with PC software decoding for playback of R5000 HD files on an HDTV. My TVIX M4100 can usually play these recordings well, but Fast Forward and Rewind doesn’t work properly. The PS3 plays these files well, but often will down-mix DD 5.1 audio to DD 2.1 audio, as referenced by bwooster above. Unfortunately, bwooster’s program to correct this audio problem is designed for a Mac, which I do not own. So, even after over a year of effort, I still have not found a reliable decoding device for all my R5000 MPEG-4 recordings.

PS3 with the new firmware plays the files perfectly without any sort of editing and with 5.1 sound even when the file transition between stereo and 5.1.

I upgraded my PS3 to the 2.52 firmware this weekend and found no change in the down-mixing of DD 5.1 to DD 2.1 audio problem. I confirmed this by playing the same recording (remuxed from TS to M2T) on both the TVIX M4100 and the PS3. The TVIX played the file in 5.1, the PS3 in 2.1. If there is a technique that I am missing, I would like to know about it.

I upgraded my PS3 to the 2.52 firmware this weekend and found no change in the down-mixing of DD 5.1 to DD 2.1 audio problem. I confirmed this by playing the same recording (remuxed from TS to M2T) on both the TVIX M4100 and the PS3. The TVIX played the file in 5.1, the PS3 in 2.1. If there is a technique that I am missing, I would like to know about it.

As someone mentioned earlier, if the video starts out DD 2.0 and then switches to DD 5.1, the PS3 does not switch the audio. But if you stop the video (stop, not pause) and start it again, the PS3 will see the DD 5.1 since it starts in that part of the audio. I have a few videos that start with commercials that are in DD 2.0 and have this problem. But if I stop them once they are in the main program and then continue them, the audio plays fine.

As someone mentioned earlier, if the video starts out DD 2.0 and then switches to DD 5.1, the PS3 does not switch the audio. But if you stop the video (stop, not pause) and start it again, the PS3 will see the DD 5.1 since it starts in that part of the audio. I have a few videos that start with commercials that are in DD 2.0 and have this problem. But if I stop them once they are in the main program and then continue them, the audio plays fine.
My PS3 with 2.52 firmware will not switch to DD 5.1 using this technique (stopping and restarting the video). The audio stays at 2.0.

My PS3 with 2.52 firmware will not switch to DD 5.1 using this technique (stopping and restarting the video). The audio stays at 2.0.

I have no special technique for this. My setup is Dish vip211, output is in ts compressed (no fill packets) and NO further editing or steps played through TVersity (NO transcoding).

Can someone send me a short mpeg4 HD clip in muxed as TS? PM me please... preferably from a premium channel. PM me please.... I just wanted to get an idea of the average bitrate; and see how smoothly it plays in sageTV... now with full H.264 support with EVR DXVA2.

I have no special technique for this. My setup is Dish vip211, output is in ts compressed (no fill packets) and NO further editing or steps played through TVersity (NO transcoding).has123 - Thank you immensely for this feedback. Your comments have changed my approach to recording and playing these files.

In earlier firmware versions, the PS3 would not play R5000 H.264 TS files at all and MPEG-2 TS files played with horrible stuttering. The H.264 TS recordings had to be remuxed in order to play.

The latest firmware appears to play both H.264 and MPEG-2 TS files without any remuxing and (in my case) automatically switched from DD 2.0 to DD 5.1 when the audio track changed. The trick for perfect playback (as you said) is to just play the TS files as they are recorded, without any modification.

I play my files from DVD-R's, because I found TVersity to be a little quirky in the past, but I may experiment again with streaming play. :)

has123 - Thank you immensely for this feedback. Your comments have changed my approach to recording and playing these files.

In earlier firmware versions, the PS3 would not play R5000 H.264 TS files at all and MPEG-2 TS files played with horrible stuttering. The H.264 TS recordings had to be remuxed in order to play.

The latest firmware appears to play both H.264 and MPEG-2 TS files without any remuxing and (in my case) automatically switched from DD 2.0 to DD 5.1 when the audio track changed. The trick for perfect playback (as you said) is to just play the TS files as they are recorded, without any modification.

I play my files from DVD-R's, because I found TVersity to be a little quirky in the past, but I may experiment again with streaming play. :)

You are welcome. I have no problems with TVersity though my setup involves a wired gigabit connection. Play, FF, RW are almost instantaneous and I love the new scene breakdown added with the latest firmware.

You are welcome. I have no problems with TVersity though my setup involves a wired gigabit connection. Play, FF, RW are almost instantaneous and I love the new scene breakdown added with the latest firmware.I'll check it out. Thanks. :)

Is 1080p on demand content capturable via VIP211's?

Is 1080p on demand content capturable via VIP211's?

I doubt that it is capturable at all and if it is, it has to be through vip622.

Does anyone have Nextcom's phone #? I have an emergency support request and no way to get a hold of them via email now.

I have a PS3 with the latest system software. It still has bugs in playing back an audio stream that switches from AC3 2 channel to 5.1 channels.

I tested the PS3 with two different file formats:

1) an MTS (note: MTS!) file produced by my Hauppauge HD PVR that contained H.264 video + AC3 audio

2) a TS file from a R5000 recording that had MPEG2 video + AC3 audio

The audio starts as 2.0 DD and changes to 5.1 DD.

The PS3 output ALL the audio as 2.0. It did NOT switch to put out 5.1 audio. I confirmed this by looking at the data sent to my receiver (it shows exactly how many channels it received and if a sub-woofer channel is being sent)

Stopping playback in the middle of the 5.1 audio and then restarting playback from that point in the stream did NOT fix the problem.

Another type of file to try would be a TS file that contained H.254 video + AC3 audio but I am pretty sure that the result would be the same

I deal with the issue by using a command line tool that I wrote that simply strips out all the data before the first 5.1 audio packet. The PS3 has NO problems with the stripped files.

According to the R5000 support they claim that a couple of DCP-501s from their customers had had issues where 5-10% of the time do not respond to IR commands. I haven't tested this with my brand new 501's yet (I will test tonight). But is there a known IR issue with these boxes; or perhaps there was a bad batch of them from a while back? My guess is if there was reproducable problem Motorola would have already fixed the problem.

MKANET: Did comcast "provision" or "activate" your dcp501?

They refused to do this for me.

Dishnetwork is now permitting recordings to be made to external USB hard drives with the VIP211. Has anyone tried this service and does it interfere with the R5000 functionality in any way? http://tech.dishnetwork.com/departmental_content/TechPortal/content/tech/receiver/howto/externalharddrive.shtml

I wrote a tool that takes a TS file as its input and strips out any 2.0 AC3 audio that is in the beginning and also adds some tags to the streams so that it can be played back on a PS3. This new version also fixes a problem that VLC version 0.9.6 had with TS files that were produced by older versions of the tool.

The download contains a Mac OS X version.

The source code is in C so it should be easily ported over to Windows but I can't figure out how to get a free C compiler working on Windows so I could not do it myself. The code compiles easily and cleanly under Mythbuntu.

Download it from:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/mkps3tsfile/

- Cheers

So in reading this long thread it seems that recording MPEG4 streams on DVHS with the R5000 is possible.

What are the playback options? If I get back into DVHS recording I want a system as simple as was the 169time that I used for years since the Dish HDTV modulator was dropped.

I don't mind a PC solution as long as I can make it a black box that boots and spits out HDMI from firewire input. Of course some menu interaction would be needed but that's OK.

Ideally a 1394 to HDMI MPEG 4 decoder would be the ticket but I can't find any suitable.

Comments? As the price for the DIY R5000 kit is now quite reasonable, I am tempted to try it.

So in reading this long thread it seesm that recording MPEG4 streams on DVHS with the R5000 is possible.

What are the playback options? If I get back into DVHS recoording I want a system as simple as was the 169time that I used for years since the Dish HDTV modulator was dropped.

I don't mind a PC solution as long as I can make it a black box that boots and spits out HDMI from firewire input. Of course some menu interaction would be needed but that's OK.

Ideally a 1394 to HDMI MPEG 4 decoder would be the ticket but I can't find any suitable.

Comments? As the price for the DIY R5000 kit is now quite reasonable, I am tempted to try it.

Have you taken a look at the Hauppauge HD PVR (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1015617)? It records to AVCHD from component outputs (YPbPr) from any HD source.

I just got one today. I hope to use it to record material archived on my Dish 622 (stuff I didn't set up to record on my R5000). The R5000 is the much better solution, of course, but sometimes I end up with things on the 622 that I didn't think to record.

These solutions are USB2, of course. I've pretty much stopped using Firewire for anything except freelance video work I do for others who are still using MiniDV or HDV.

I know about the Hauppauge and have played with one. Quality is not good enough for my tastes. I have roughly 500 DVHS movies which I consider quite acceptable image quality wise against BluRay. Sure Bluray is better but not when disks cost around $25. Furthermore it will be years before some of the older films are released on Blu Ray if ever. I would like to get them now on DVHS.

Of course my long term goal is to go with vider server and get rid of the tapes but the disk storage price point is still too high.

Most MPEG-4 (H.264) feature length films recorded in the VBR (compressed) mode with the R5000 will fit on one single layer or double layer DVD+R. IMO, DVHS and Blu-Ray backup is overkill.

Most MPEG-4 (H.264) feature length films recorded in the VBR (compressed) mode with the R5000 will fit on one single layer or double layer DVD+R. IMO, DVHS and Blu-Ray backup is overkill.

OK, that sounds good but how is it played back? Software or hardware decoder? I know some of the video cards not have hardware MPEG4 on board.

I prefer playing H.264 files on the PS3. There is significant discussion of the merits of various decoders in this thread. YMMV.

I know about the Hauppauge and have played with one. Quality is not good enough for my tastes. I have roughly 500 DVHS movies which I consider quite acceptable image quality wise against BluRay. Sure Bluray is better but not when disks cost around $25. Furthermore it will be years before some of the older films are released on Blu Ray if ever. I would like to get them now on DVHS.

Of course my long term goal is to go with vider server and get rid of the tapes but the disk storage price point is still too high.

I'm capturing my first long file with the Hauppauge right now on my other system. Obviously, the quality of the original Dish H.264 file is higher, but there are some things on my 622 that I can't go back and get - such as the CNN coverage of the election of our first African American president, or critical games from the Cardinals 2006 playoffs/World Series win.

OK, that sounds good but how is it played back? Software or hardware decoder? I know some of the video cards not have hardware MPEG4 on board.

I record Dish H.264 with the R5000. I use tsMuxer to edit the file and create a Blu-ray folder on the hard drive. ImgBurn creates an iso file to store on my server (or burn to single or double layer DVD). Virtual CloneDrive mounts the image for playback in PowerDVD 8 Ultra. A Radeon 4850 video card handles hardware accelerated video playback of the H.264 file, as well as high definition audio through HDMI.

This approach has the added benefit of allowing not only skip forward/back, but clean fast forward and rewind, just like any Blu-ray set top box.

It's as close to home theater Nirvana as I've been. :)

yo. just have a quick noob question. so the r5000-hd kit can be installed by me and allows my old Hughes E-86 hd receiver to act like a DVR with my pc. what about the id card? does it have to be activated? or will the modification allow the box to decode the sat. signal without having the card activated?
OR will i have to call directv, activate the card, then be able to watch and record.

looked through the thread and couldnt quite find my answers. but hopefully this will put my old box to work instead of the dumpster. thanks!

yo. just have a quick noob question. so the r5000-hd kit can be installed by me and allows my old Hughes E-86 hd receiver to act like a DVR with my pc. what about the id card? does it have to be activated? or will the modification allow the box to decode the sat. signal without having the card activated?
OR will i have to call directv, activate the card, then be able to watch and record.

looked through the thread and couldnt quite find my answers. but hopefully this will put my old box to work instead of the dumpster. thanks!

you realize that the E86 will allow to record OTA HD but Directv is close to shutting down the few remaining MPEG2 HD Channels from 70-79?

OK, that sounds good but how is it played back? Software or hardware decoder? I know some of the video cards not have hardware MPEG4 on board.

Joesph Clark's solution looks good, but most likely you are probably in the best position of anyone to take a .h264 feed and convert it to MPEG2 at work and store it on DVHS if that is really your end desire.

Does anyone know if there is a mplayer patch that'll correctly play back h.264 dishHD streams recorded by my r5000hd yet? They added PAFF a little while back, so it no longer totally crashes anymore. Instead, I get video at half speed and full speed audio. Its really annoying being tied to windows for playback due to my relience on the cyberlink decoders.

The PS3 plays back ts files that contain h.264 video

The PS3 plays back ts files that contain h.264 video

How ?

Any links to a step by step "How to" on doing this ? I have a PS3 and access to tons of h.264 HD. I really like the way the PS3 plays back Blu-Ray and DVD's, I'd love to use it as a universal player...too bad it enforces region coding on DVD's and refuses to play back PAL discs(idiotic if you ask me...).

Does anyone know if there is a mplayer patch that'll correctly play back h.264 dishHD streams recorded by my r5000hd yet?

The Western Digital TV mplayer is working for me. Haven't stressed it, but doing ok.
Only drawpack is that it doesn't have skip forward/back like the Roku's Mplay. (The work-around for WD TV is to do fast forward/fast backward, or do edits on the file.) I've requested the skip feature from WD, but don't know if it will be implemented. I suspect there will be pressure from the advertisers.

Easy, quick way to test it: use tversity (free software) to stream files to the ps3

Longer way: use ImgBurn (free software) to burn files onto DVD discs using the udf format, my ps3 plays these perfectly, ff & rewind work

How ?

Any links to a step by step "How to" on doing this ? I have a PS3 and access to tons of h.264 HD. I really like the way the PS3 plays back Blu-Ray and DVD's, I'd love to use it as a universal player...too bad it enforces region coding on DVD's and refuses to play back PAL discs(idiotic if you ask me...).

As was already said use TVersity for streaming, you might have to rename the .ts to .m2ts.

If you want to play from DVD disks then the best way is to convert the files to AVCHD format and they will auto play on the PS3 and you can have chapters to allow skipping through the file. Google for tsMuxeR this can conver the .ts H264 files to AVCHD (Blu-Ray folder) in about 10 minutes. Then burn as UDF 2.5 onto DVD or DVD-DL and stuff into PS3. Go to this link and do a search for "AVCHD"--
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9946553#post9946553

Mike T

So now that it seems using MythTV with the R5000 has reached a stable plateau (http://svn.mythtv.org/trac/ticket/4752), it seems I can not load the R5000 firmware. When I plug the R5000 it comes up fine as a Cypress device, but when I load the firmware it kicks down from a high-speed EHCI device to a full-speed OHCI device, the r5ktest fails, and Myth doesn't recognize its serial number. Is anyone else seeing this problem?

I've tried both 32bit and 64bit Kubuntu, and the same error. I've tried only the trunk version of Myth with the proper R5000 patch, but this is happening before that point. The firmware loads fine and my R5000 works in XP Pro. Maybe it's my hardware somehow; new Asus P5N7A-VM. Very much wish I could get MythTV working with this.

Does anyone know if there is a mplayer patch that'll correctly play back h.264 dishHD streams recorded by my r5000hd yet?

Wasn't there a patch that allowed use of CoreAVC from Windows to be loaded into mplayer on Linux?

Yes, it's Alan Nisota's patch here:

http://code.google.com/p/coreavc-for-linux/

Wes

I tried the patch with some limited luck. It, not unsurprisingly, does not compile on mac osx (doesnt like the osx intel assembler). It will compile on ubuntu, but documentation says to use it with xine, not mplayer since mplayer won't support interlaced content.

Xine, however, seems to prefer ffmpeg since it thinks these are mpeg ts files. Has anyone actually successfully gotten this patch to work? How did you configure xine?

Any other FiOS subs having channel mapping issues with the R5000 for about the last week - specifically, 931, 929, 927, 925, 924, 921, 912, 911, 908, 906 and 903 in the HBO/Cinemax tiers showing the wrong channel?

Any other FiOS subs having channel mapping issues with the R5000 for about the last week - specifically, 931, 929, 927, 925, 924, 921, 912, 911, 908, 906 and 903 in the HBO/Cinemax tiers showing the wrong channel?


I'm not having any of these issues with my Fios/R5000 modded STB. Have you looked at the internal mapping tables on the R5000 DVR dropdown?

I've read through all 35 pages of this topic and can't seem to find the info I'm looking for. I've tried the R5000 on both my Windows Home Server and XPMCE systems with the same results. I've got the VIP722 modded with the R5000.

In Sage, the 722 seems to go into standby for the morning epg update and Sage can't wake it up which causes it to miss some recordings.

Using TitanTV, I've tried to use remote scheduling through the pvr app. When I set it to use remote scheduling, the pvr app crashes and disappears.

I've tried the network server/client setup and the pvr crashes as soon as I enable the pvr app to use the network setting.

If I use TitanTV directly on the system the R5000 is connected to it works fairly well but doesn't always wake up the 722.

I do have the standby setting disabled on the 722 but it still goes into standby.

I've also tried to set up the IR control to use the 722 scheduling directly but the vcr setup I've read both at Nextcom and on this forum doesn't seem to match what the 722/R5000 combination requires. If someone out there has this combo or the R5000 with the 622 or 211 I would appreciate how you got IR control to work. It looks like if I can get that to work, it would be the most bullet proof way to ensure scheduled recordings take place. Thanks.

Addendum to my previous post:

When I went to bed last night, the 722 was on. Through TitanTV I set up to record a movie at 6:15 this morning. The dvr tried to record - 5 files, 0 kb. Checked the 722, sure enough it was on standby with the prompt to hit "Select" to watch tv. Is there a way to wake the 722 up other than setting up a duplicate recording on the box itself?

What sort of uptime do other users get with their R5000-HDs? My config is 2xR5000-HD on Motorola DCT Cable FIOS, SageTV 6.4.8 service mode on Vista 32-bit, 2xR5000HD.exe multi-instance running. I need to reboot every day as R5000-HD starts acting up, i.e. file size stops increasing or failed transfers. Trying to determine if I have a hardware or software problem. Thanks.

What sort of uptime do other users get with their R5000-HDs? My config is 2xR5000-HD on Motorola DCT Cable FIOS, SageTV 6.4.8 service mode on Vista 32-bit, 2xR5000HD.exe multi-instance running. I need to reboot every day as R5000-HD starts acting up, i.e. file size stops increasing or failed transfers. Trying to determine if I have a hardware or software problem. Thanks.

Well, I have more R5000s than you and have tried a number of configurations.

What I do know is that I would use XP, not Vista - too much overhead in Vista.

Second, keep the machines loaded with the least amount of programs you can. Even if you don't start them, they seem to throw too much stuff into services and startup even if not used.

Third, if you use an Anti-Virus, use NOD32 has it has practically no performance hit, unlike Norton that can take a 20% hit of your cpu.

Fourth, don't load or install Adobe Flash (there is no uninstall). Don't ever check yes when asked to download it in IE. That is used on ads on TitanTV if you leave it open for scheduling and will end up running in loops and using up your processing.

Fifth, no matter what Raid Card or configuration I have used (and I have used IDE and SATA - SIIG, Adaptec, Promise and 3Ware - in Raid 0 and Raid 5) they all end up buffering and causing an error at some point. For whatever reason I can record use 4 R5000HDs to a single drive and never have an issue - but use 1 to a Raid 0 - when I try to run 1 more thing, whether an editor or the like, I am bound to get an error.

Though there are quirks in the R5000HD programs that I have learned will not be fixed (and some of these need a reboot to be fixed), overall, its generally the OS or other issues that force a reboot.

Makes no sense, but those are the realities I have learned over 4 years.

I didnt have any problems running 4 R5000 DVR apps under Vista. Although, currently I have 3. I use Norton AntiVirus; including Adobe Flash (however, I use Firefox mainly) with almost 0% CPU utilization during multiple recordings. I have a webserver, FTP, and a bunch of other network based services running and active at the same time... playing directX 10 3D games from time to time without ever rebooting and recordings in the background. I did have a problem with the latest R5000 beta though from the R5000 website. I can pick up my PC remote control and watch or record On Demand in HD while people are downloading from my webserver, etc (same machine). Rebooting only at 3am only on MS Patch Tuesdays.

However, I have a Intel quadcore CPU with 4GBs of RAM. The only thing worth noting, I disbled the Vista superfetch service and manually set my OS swapfile to 8GB min - 8GB max only on my boot disk instead of letting the OS automatically try to allocate space needed on all disks. I also have indexing service disabled. EDIT: I also disabled Norton Antivirus from trying to scan my recordings disk.

PS: I didnt have any problems with XP either. However, Vista did require a little bit of work (mentioned above).

Well, I have more R5000s than you and have tried a number of configurations.

What I do know is that I would use XP, not Vista - too much overhead in Vista.

Second, keep the machines loaded with the least amount of programs you can. Even if you don't start them, they seem to throw too much stuff into services and startup even if not used.

Third, if you use an Anti-Virus, use NOD32 has it has practically no performance hit, unlike Norton that can take a 20% hit of your cpu.

Fourth, don't load or install Adobe Flash (there is no uninstall). Don't ever check yes when asked to download it in IE. That is used on ads on TitanTV if you leave it open for scheduling and will end up running in loops and using up your processing.

Fifth, no matter what Raid Card or configuration I have used (and I have used IDE and SATA - SIIG, Adaptec, Promise and 3Ware - in Raid 0 and Raid 5) they all end up buffering and causing an error at some point. For whatever reason I can record use 4 R5000HDs to a single drive and never have an issue - but use 1 to a Raid 0 - when I try to run 1 more thing, whether an editor or the like, I am bound to get an error.

Though there are quirks in the R5000HD programs that I have learned will not be fixed (and some of these need a reboot to be fixed), overall, its generally the OS or other issues that force a reboot.

Makes no sense, but those are the realities I have learned over 4 years.

I didnt have any problems running 4 R5000 DVR apps under Vista. Although, currently I have 3. I use Norton AntiVirus; including Adobe Flash (however, I use Firefox mainly) with almost 0% CPU utilization during multiple recordings. I have a webserver, FTP, and a bunch of other network based services running and active at the same time... playing directX 10 3D games from time to time without ever rebooting and recordings in the background. I did have a problem with the latest R5000 beta though from the R5000 website. I can pick up my PC remote control and watch or record On Demand in HD while people are downloading from my webserver, etc (same machine). Rebooting only at 3am only on MS Patch Tuesdays.

However, I have a Intel quadcore CPU with 4GBs of RAM. The only thing worth noting, I disbled the Vista superfetch service and manually set my OS swapfile to 8GB min - 8GB max only on my boot disk instead of letting the OS automatically try to allocate space needed on all disks. I also have indexing service disabled. EDIT: I also disabled Norton Antivirus from trying to scan my recordings disk.

PS: I didnt have any problems with XP either. However, Vista did require a little bit of work (mentioned above).


When you record the number of hours I do a day over 4 years and run everything through MPEG2Repair to see how many errors and timegaps you have, then perhaps we can talk.

My observations are just that. Yours are yours. Both are worth what we were paid to post them here. The end user can evaluate both and decide what to listen to.

And please send us some screen shots of R5000HD recording using 0% cpu in the task manager. It will only show 0% if not recording.

Sorry, it is what it is. It just works; regardless of volume of recordings or number of years of recordings.

I dont need to run MPEG2Repair since my recordings dont have errors that cause video/audio issues.

Im just saying it works using the software you mentioned (and more), if done right.

When you record the number of hours I do a day over 4 years and run everything through MPEG2Repair to see how many errors and timegaps you have, then perhaps we can talk.

My observations are just that. Yours are yours. Both are worth what we were paid to post them here. The end user can evaluate both and decide what to listen to.

Though there are quirks in the R5000HD programs that I have learned will not be fixed (and some of these need a reboot to be fixed), overall, its generally the OS or other issues that force a reboot.

What quirks are there? I'm thinking about getting an RD5000HD and want to make sure it's going to work first.

Thanks.

What quirks are there? I'm thinking about getting an RD5000HD and want to make sure it's going to work first.

Thanks.

It works fine for the most part as advertised 99.9% of the time. A few quirks you just need to learn to work around or plan for (though some are a real pain). Of course, the quirks normally hit you when the rare - one time only stuff comes on :(

Hey Everyone,

Been running SageTV catching analog cable and OTA HD for a few years now, and it is very family accepted. I have never had the need to interface with an external tuner. Now I am switching to Dish, killing the analog cable service, and putting up a larger off-air antenna.

Do you believe your R5000 modified setup is reliable enough to operate for your family while you are out of town? Aside from OTA HD, R5000/VIP211 is destined to become my only video source. Will the R5000 system run for two weeks without problems?

I travel quite a bit, and frequently only have Internet access over slow VSAT or BGAN, so I don't want to be VPN'ing into the home network to reboot or restart applications frequently.

Thanks for your feedback. Just want to make sure I am getting a reliable system out of the deal.

Benjamin

Hey Everyone,

Been running SageTV catching analog cable and OTA HD for a few years now, and it is very family accepted. I have never had the need to interface with an external tuner. Now I am switching to Dish, killing the analog cable service, and putting up a larger off-air antenna.

Do you believe your R5000 modified setup is reliable enough to operate for your family while you are out of town? Aside from OTA HD, R5000/VIP211 is destined to become my only video source. Will the R5000 system run for two weeks without problems?

I travel quite a bit, and frequently only have Internet access over slow VSAT or BGAN, so I don't want to be VPN'ing into the home network to reboot or restart applications frequently.

Thanks for your feedback. Just want to make sure I am getting a reliable system out of the deal.

Benjamin

Depends on what state you live in.

On the Dish 622 does the mod work off the output to tv 1? Leaving output for tv 2(second tuner) still useable, with for example an analog tuner capture card?

On the Dish 622 does the mod work off the output to tv 1? Leaving output for tv 2(second tuner) still useable, with for example an analog tuner capture card?

Start here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8975222#post8975222

and read the next 10 or so posts.

Beachcomber: I live in south-central Louisiana, but are you referring to Dishnetworks reliability by that statement regarding locality?

I am only concerned with the R5000 reliability.

Thanks for your feedback.

Benjamin

Beachcomber: I live in south-central Louisiana, but are you referring to Dishnetworks reliability by that statement regarding locality?

I am only concerned with the R5000 reliability.

Thanks for your feedback.

Benjamin

No, referring to reliability under Windows when there are errors in the stream, no matter if its C-Band/DBS or Cable.

Dish MPEG4 in most of the Country (such as San Diego where it never rains or CT where its slow steady drizzle) does not have many Rain Fade Issues. But if you are in the Southeast where you get sudden intense afternoon thunderstorms often daily (sometimes several times daily) and the R5000 is recording at the time, the errors in the stream will cause the program to crash and lockup. So no, I would not call it reliable enough to set it and forget it for a day or so - much less 2 weeks. Furthermore, if it does not error out, the program will only restart the capture 5 times over roughly 5 minutes, so it can shut down without an error during these multiple times of rain fade in the afternoon (or morning if your weather patterns run that way).

Unfortunately, in San Diego and CT they do not see this or understand it. Would I like to see an option to keep the recording going with no signal after 5 retries and suggested it? Yes. Would I like to see it email you (and page you) if it errors out? Yes. Would I like to see it restart its entire self if Windows crashes it during the errors? Yes.

As you mention Sage, I would assume you would be talking multiple units. Do you really have to watch the software to make sure that you do not schedule the same tuner from cutting off on program for another, even though most of the time it will catch it, but not always? Yes. Do I wish that there was an option to show a timeline and what tuner was scheduled to be in use recording what (think of an excel graph)? Yes.

Would I let any of these issues stand in my way of buying one? No.

I would just know the issues going into it.

With Windows 7 Media Center now supporting h264 broadcasts will we see full support for all Dish channels in Media Center?

Anyone have success installing r5000 drivers under Windows 7. I have a problem with the OS identifying the device as a Hauppauge USB device and installing the wrong driver.

There is a reason IT Departments do not role out Alpha/Beta Software on mission critical machines. If the R5000 is important to you, why do you do want to try playing Russian Roulette?

Even if its not, use R5000 on a old school stable machine. Play around with another machine that you can screw up.

I am playing round on a machine I can screw up. My HT runs on WinXP SP3. I was just curious to see how things would work on Windows 7 playing back the h.264 PAFF interlaced streams from my Dish with EVR & different codecs.

I've been having some frustrations (along with sufficient enjoyment!) with my two R5000HDs. I have the multi-instance software and use them with SageTV 6.4.8 in service mode. The issues I have been seeing is that recordings get restarted in the middle because SageTV thinks the network encoder died. Network encoders must respond within 15 seconds to any NOOP or GET_FILE_SIZE requests and the R5000 sometimes fails to do so. When I only use one R5000, I do not have a problem but with two it is once every two days that I miss the 1st half of a recording due to these bugs. To counter this, I developed the attached proxy program. It catches all the NOOP and GET_FILE_SIZE and processes them so they do not stress out the R5000 software. On my setup (Core i7, Vista 32) it helps make things much more stable. Another thing is that the handles of the R5000HD.exe process (in task manager, add that column to see handles) keep increasing especially when watching LiveTV. This proxy mitigates this as well. To use it, set R5000HD app to listen at another port and use a command window to run the attached exe as: R5000HDProxy <input port> <output port>. The 1st arg is the port # SageTV talks to, the 2nd arg is port# R5000HD.exe listens at. Repeat this for every R5000HD instance in your setup.

Hope it helps anyone. The R5000HD software needs some improvement but this can help out in the meantime.

To be specific on suggested improvements:
• Exhaustive testing of multiple R5000s with SageTV on modern hardware.
• Turning it into a real Windows service that can handle multiple R5000hds without requiring a separate instance for each one.
• Software should be able to start with Windows instead of requiring some type of delay for the USB to initialize. I had to write a batch file in my startup to delay-start my R5000HDs.
• Nice little tray app that shows the status of each and has buttons to pull up log files in wordpad/notepad.
• Resources should be freed so over long periods of usage no persistent increase in memory footprint or number of handles in use by process.
• Rework of the channel mapping interface so it shows previews of all the individual programs in the stream in separate windows and invites the user to click on the right one instead of iterating through previews and asking after each one whether it was the right channel

• Software should be able to start with Windows instead of requiring some type of delay for the USB to initialize. I had to write a batch file in my startup to delay-start my R5000HDs.


Is there something in this that we can use to stagger the startup of multiple R5000 units as you note you did -IF WE DO NOT USE SAGE?

Not really, but attached is my R5000 startup script. It uses ping as a delay command and thus takes delay 1st arg in ms as well as the two args to R5000HDProxy as 2nd/3rd arg.

Create shortcuts from the Startup folder to this script, one for each R5000. Specify args in the properties of the shortcuts. I use 60000ms and 90000ms delays for staggered startup of my two R5000-HDs.

Is there something in this that we can use to stagger the startup of multiple R5000 units as you note you did -IF WE DO NOT USE SAGE?

In addition to having staggered delays via batch/command line tools, you can also use Girder (or something similar) to automatically close the R5000 windows that open (via the same script) (issuing an Alt-F4 close command to the R5000 interfaces) ...quietly making the apps available only via windows system tray. You could run them as an NT service to hide them as well, but you wont have access to the apps the same way you would via the system tray. This is probably more relavantto people that use their R5000 PCs for other things other than dedicated background R5000 recordings.

Not really, but attached is my R5000 startup script. It uses ping as a delay command and thus takes delay 1st arg in ms as well as the two args to R5000HDProxy as 2nd/3rd arg.

Create shortcuts from the Startup folder to this script, one for each R5000. Specify args in the properties of the shortcuts. I use 60000ms and 90000ms delays for staggered startup of my two R5000-HDs.

Is anyone with a FiOS modded STB able to record on demand content as well as had any luck getting HD on demand authorized on the SD box?

Is anyone with a FiOS modded STB able to record on demand content as well as had any luck getting HD on demand authorized on the SD box?

On demand HD can not play on the modded Fios STB. I tried but get the on screen message saying it won't work.

I would remind anyone thinking about the R5000HD mod with FiOS that the exemption that FiOS has to deploy the QIP-2500 STBs ends sometime this year. After that time, you will be unable to get a R5000HD to work with a FiOS STB.

I would remind anyone thinking about the R5000HD mod with FiOS that the exemption that FiOS has to deploy the QIP-2500 STBs ends sometime this year. After that time, you will be unable to get a R5000HD to work with a FiOS STB.

Would you mind elaborating? This is news to me.

Would you mind elaborating? This is news to me.

If you remember, a requirement was put in place June 30th 2007 that the STBs purchased after that date would have to have cablecards for their encryption (as well as HDMI/IEEE1394 outputs).

Verizon was given an exception until 2009 (not sure if it was June 30th or when) and agreed that ALL their STBs after that point would conform as part of the exception.

That is why they intend to move to the QIP7216 as their installed STB in all installs (as I have posted about for months now), although they have now signed an agreement with Cisco/SA to supply a standard install STB as well.

If you remember, a requirement was put in place June 30th 2007 that the STBs purchased after that date would have to have cablecards for their encryption (as well as HDMI/IEEE1394 outputs).

Verizon was given an exception until 2009 (not sure if it was June 30th or when) and agreed that ALL their STBs after that point would conform as part of the exception.

That is why they intend to move to the QIP7216 as their installed STB in all installs (as I have posted about for months now), although they have now signed an agreement with Cisco/SA to supply a standard install STB as well.

Would you expect that there would be any replacement of the currently deployed QIP2500s or would those that are currently installed stay in place?

BTW -- I assume you received the mapping file I sent you in early January. Was it of any help?

Would you expect that there would be any replacement of the currently deployed QIP2500s or would those that are currently installed stay in place?

BTW -- I assume you received the mapping file I sent you in early January. Was it of any help?

1) They will not be replacing the QIP2500s in the field unless they go bad - and once the current stock is gone, there will be none available, so you do not have to worry about your current units). Down the road when FiOS starts passing MPEG4 channels in MPEG4, I have no idea if it would work or not (actually, as the R5000HD comes in after the DCII decryption, there is reason to believe it might still work as it relies on none of the QIP2500s MPEG2 circuits - but don't hold me to that statement).

2) Yes, thanks! As it turns out, the issue was TitanTV listing the channels as their Virtual Channel Number instead of the FiOS Channel Number.

Not really, but attached is my R5000 startup script. It uses ping as a delay command and thus takes delay 1st arg in ms as well as the two args to R5000HDProxy as 2nd/3rd arg.

Create shortcuts from the Startup folder to this script, one for each R5000. Specify args in the properties of the shortcuts. I use 60000ms and 90000ms delays for staggered startup of my two R5000-HDs.

I copied your bat file and made adjustments for my paths, but it still will only start 1 DVR instead of multiple instances.

Can you tell me where I went wrong?

@echo off
echo Starting R5000HD with a delay of %1 ms.
ping 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w %1 >NUL
start C:\MultiMedia\R5000HD\r5000hd.exe
ping 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 5000 >NUL
R5000HDProxy %2 %3 >out%2.txt 2>err%2.txt

I also use staggered startups for 3 R5000 HD apps and the respective 3 R5000 proxy apps. However, I use a freeware sleep utility which is easier for me, instead of using the ping command. For example, to pause for 3 seconds:

sleep 3

Just place sleep.exe in your c:\windows or c:\win32 directory; and, the command would work in any path.

I found a dependable one here:

http://www.richpasco.org/utilities/sleep.html

I copied your bat file and made adjustments for my paths, but it still will only start 1 DVR instead of multiple instances.

Can you tell me where I went wrong?

@echo off
echo Starting R5000HD with a delay of %1 ms.
ping 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w %1 >NUL
start C:\MultiMedia\R5000HD\r5000hd.exe
ping 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 5000 >NUL
R5000HDProxy %2 %3 >out%2.txt 2>err%2.txt

Do I wish that there was an option to show a timeline and what tuner was scheduled to be in use recording what (think of an excel graph)? Yes.

For what it's worth... The latest version of SageMC has a "Parallel Recoring" view of the schedule that sounds kinda like this. It's lke the guid-view, but with the tuner as the rows instead of channels, and all of the scheduled recordings show up in the time slot they will record on the row of the tuner they record on.

I copied your bat file and made adjustments for my paths, but it still will only start 1 DVR instead of multiple instances.

Can you tell me where I went wrong?

@echo off
echo Starting R5000HD with a delay of %1 ms.
ping 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w %1 >NUL
start C:\MultiMedia\R5000HD\r5000hd.exe
ping 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 5000 >NUL
R5000HDProxy %2 %3 >out%2.txt 2>err%2.txt
Need to start this script multiple times (with appropriate port numbers for each instance and different delay to achieve staggered startup).

BTW nextcomwireless was supposed to have a new version has anyone gotten a new beta beyond 3.0f from them?

I'm not sure how many of you have experienced strange instability anomalies when using the R5000-HD DVR app under Windows. These issues tend to be more of a problem if you use your R5000 machine to do other things; such as, using it for watching live TV (ie SageTV, VMC, etc), and/or if you are using Windows Vista. The most obvious issue is the handle leak bug (number of windows handles start incrementing during live TV playback). Depending on how much TV you watch on the R5000 machine itself, eventually the machine will slow down to a crawl.

Guho from this forum was kind enough to write an irreplaceable "proxy" app that prevents the R5000-HD app from causing problems. I've tested it for 3 weeks; and can confirm it works as designed.

I have been trying to convince R5000 support for months that there was a resource leak with the R5000 related to live TV without any luck. Finally, just recently, Guho from this forum had the technical ability to show the R5000 developer how to prevent the R5000-HD app from causing significant issues (using the code from the Proxy app). Per R5000 support, we should see a correctly working R5000-HD app very soon. I am hopeful that the next version of the R5000-HD app (maybe 3.0g) will be as good as the current beta + Guho's proxy. I highly recommend trying Guho's proxy app if you watch live TV on your R5000 machine until the next version of the R5000-HD app.

Guhu / MKAnet,

Thank you for your effort here. I've had issues watching live TV through R5000/sage, but decided I just would ignore them...glad to see someone has the grit to get this fixed...can hardly wait to enjoy ESPN live through my R5000 the same way I enjoy watching any of the flawless HDHomeRun feeds through Sage TV.

mv

I have been having lots of trouble with my R5000 moded Vip-211s. One of the problems was the R5000 app would crash on me after it had been up and in use for a while. I just upgraded my SageTV server and was getting lots of failed transfers. I was previously using Windows XP on an old AMD single core 3200+. I'm now running vista with a dual core Intel E7200.

I reverted back to 2.5f, and the failed transfers seem to be gone, but now I'm getting occasional glitches in my H.264 streams that cause the playback on my clients to "smear". The picture gets all pixelated and moving objects are blocky and smeared. The smearing goes away if I skip back a little then forward, but it's very annoying.

I overlooked guho's proxy before, I'll have to give that a try to see if it helps anything.

Edit: Wow, I just looked at the handle counts for my r5000 apps. The app for my box with higher merit (i.e. it gets used more often for Live TV etc.) is at 105,755. The other app which doesn't get much use, especially since I just rebooted last night, is at 1,550. I gotta try guho's proxy tonight.

I had been using an old laptop with an r5000 modified Dish 211. When it died (too expensive to repair mobo), I purchased an Acer Aspire X1200 to use exclusively with the r5000 modified 211. Of course, I should have checked to see if the r5000 software/drivers would work with 64 bit Vista Ultimate, the OS that came with the X1200, and they do not. So I purchased a 32 bit version of Vista Ultimate and installed it to dual boot with the 64 bit version. No problem. I downloaded a fresh 3.0c and installed it. No problem. However, as soon as a recording starts, the program crashes. It does not matter whether I hit the red record button, do a scheduled recording within the program, or schedule through Titan. I have done an uninstall, downloaded a fresh 3.0c,, and then reinstall. Same problem. Any ideas? I am not a noob. I have been building computers for more than eighteen years.

I had been using an old laptop with an r5000 modified Dish 211. When it died (too expensive to repair mobo), I purchased an Acer Aspire X1200 to use exclusively with the r5000 modified 211. Of course, I should have checked to see if the r5000 software/drivers would work with 64 bit Vista Ultimate, the OS that came with the X1200, and they do not. So I purchased a 32 bit version of Vista Ultimate and installed it to dual boot with the 64 bit version. No problem. I downloaded a fresh 3.0c and installed it. No problem. However, as soon as a recording starts, the program crashes. It does not matter whether I hit the red record button, do a scheduled recording within the program, or schedule through Titan. I have done an uninstall, downloaded a fresh 3.0c,, and then reinstall. Same problem. Any ideas? I am not a noob. I have been building computers for more than eighteen years.

You could try setting a value for RecDelay in your r5000 config files. I currently have mine set to 3000 (3 seconds). In my old post I was using 2 seconds.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=12803344&highlight=recdelay#post12803344

I have been having lots of trouble with my R5000 moded Vip-211s. One of the problems was the R5000 app would crash on me after it had been up and in use for a while. I just upgraded my SageTV server and was getting lots of failed transfers. I was previously using Windows XP on an old AMD single core 3200+. I'm now running vista with a dual core Intel E7200.

I reverted back to 2.5f, and the failed transfers seem to be gone, but now I'm getting occasional glitches in my H.264 streams that cause the playback on my clients to "smear". The picture gets all pixelated and moving objects are blocky and smeared. The smearing goes away if I skip back a little then forward, but it's very annoying.

I overlooked guho's proxy before, I'll have to give that a try to see if it helps anything.

Edit: Wow, I just looked at the handle counts for my r5000 apps. The app for my box with higher merit (i.e. it gets used more often for Live TV etc.) is at 105,755. The other app which doesn't get much use, especially since I just rebooted last night, is at 1,550. I gotta try guho's proxy tonight.

It seems that my "smear" problem was caused by updated Nvidia drivers. I had the problem with 180.84 beta and 182.06. With my initial testing last night, about 20 channel changes, the problem appears to be gone by going back to 178.24.

It could be that the R5000 Dish recorded H.264 streams actually have a glitch in them, but the older drivers handle the error better. I don't know, but I'm tired of screwing around with this stuff. Man I hope this is finally stable.

You guys need to contact R5000 support to ask them when they will offer an app that works correctly; we are basically dependent on Hugo's app just to for their software to work correctly. Several weeks ago, they said they would have something soon... still no word back.

It seems that my "smear" problem was caused by updated Nvidia drivers. I had the problem with 180.84 beta and 182.06. With my initial testing last night, about 20 channel changes, the problem appears to be gone by going back to 178.24.

It could be that the R5000 Dish recorded H.264 streams actually have a glitch in them, but the older drivers handle the error better. I don't know, but I'm tired of screwing around with this stuff. Man I hope this is finally stable.

This is a copy of hte email message sent to nextcomwireless technical support:



Both quotes from the link you reference on your support page.

Quote from boiler11 #2101:

Originally Posted by carefreepastor

I had been using an old laptop with an r5000 modified Dish 211. When it died (too expensive to repair mobo), I purchased an Acer Aspire X1200 to use exclusively with the r5000 modified 211. Of course, I should have checked to see if the r5000 software/drivers would work with 64 bit Vista Ultimate, the OS that came with the X1200, and they do not. So I purchased a 32 bit version of Vista Ultimate and installed it to dual boot with the 64 bit version. No problem. I downloaded a fresh 3.0c and installed it. No problem. However, as soon as a recording starts, the program crashes. It does not matter whether I hit the red record button, do a scheduled recording within the program, or schedule through Titan. I have done an uninstall, downloaded a fresh 3.0c,, and then reinstall. Same problem. Any ideas? I am not a noob. I have been building computers for more than eighteen years.


You could try setting a value for RecDelay in your r5000 config files. I currently have mine set to 3000 (3 seconds). In my old post I was using 2 seconds.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...y#post12803344



You guys need to contact R5000 support to ask them when they will offer an app that works correctly; we are basically dependent on Hugo's app just to for their software to work correctly. Several weeks ago, they said they would have something soon... still no word back.



So then...the question is: why is your application not working? When can I expect a fix.

Robert

It seems that my "smear" problem was caused by updated Nvidia drivers. I had the problem with 180.84 beta and 182.06. With my initial testing last night, about 20 channel changes, the problem appears to be gone by going back to 178.24.

It could be that the R5000 Dish recorded H.264 streams actually have a glitch in them, but the older drivers handle the error better. I don't know, but I'm tired of screwing around with this stuff. Man I hope this is finally stable.

Of course I angered the gods by claiming to have figured out the solution, even though I qualified it with "appears." The smear showed up again last night with 178.24 drivers on my 9600GT.

I've been using Cyberlink PowerDVD 8 for H.264. I had tried using Arcsoft the other day, but had some major stutter problems. That was an older version of TotalTheater (.113). I just updated to (.125) last night. I'm hesitant to try newer versions than that because people have reported stutter problems with versions beyond .125.

Initial results show that .125 is working better than .113, but I think I'll wait a while to claim victory again. This is why I gave up using my old Fusion I for HDTV 6 years ago and just bought a HD-Tivo. Too many headaches. :(

Quick question; what is the total cost of owership?

1 receiver: is it the price of the mod + sagetv license for Sagetv = XX

2 receiver: 2X mod price + sagetv license + multi use license= XX

Thanks,

Kryspy

In the two receiver case the R5000 software that is multi-instance also includes the SAGETV support. I don't use SAGETV so for its pricing someone else may be able to help you.
John

Kryspy, these are the kinds of questions you would ask R5000 sales. They offer specials and have price changes, so what we paid for might be higher than what they are offering currently. There are pretty good deals now; certainly way more affordable that a couple of years ago.

The price of leasing a receiver from comcast is $7 a month per box. Or, you could buy a Motorola DCP501 for $150 online (like SmartHome.com).

Coincidentally, I leased a Comcast DVR box to test it's DVR functions. Man, there's no comparison.. I'm so spoiled with SageTV + R5000's. It will probably be many years before Comcast will be able to offer that kind of functionality builtin to a single box (ie integrated IMDB information streamlined into menus, remote viewing through the internet (without converting to analog like slingbox), Sirius Radio, Pandora, Slacker, Netflix Watch Now, etc.


Quick question; what is the total cost of owership?

1 receiver: is it the price of the mod + sagetv license for Sagetv = XX

2 receiver: 2X mod price + sagetv license + multi use license= XX

Thanks,

Kryspy

Okay new to r5000 just recieved my 2 vip 211's yesterday to use with sagetv.

They see it okay and they ping it okay picture is great. About every channel change I either get a blank screen (left it for over a minute) or a get a popup like I pressed stop.

Either way if I look at the r5000 program I can see it is capturing a stream and the file size is growing.

If I hit stop and then hit restart program in sagetv the feed shows up or if I hit record the feed shows up.

any ideas?

adder:
using sage on whs
sage exclusively used on hd200 extenders.

Nextcomm has had their Media Center driver out for close to a year now and I was wondering if anyone is successfully using it.

I have spoken to several people who have tried it (I have too), but so far I haven't found anyone who has got it to work well enough to put it into service.

1. Do you have an R5000HD working with Media Center?

2. Which version of Media Center/OS are you using?

3. Which STB are you using?

4. What hardware do you have in your HTPC?

5. If you are having issues with it, what are they and how have you worked around them?

Note I am well aware of the lack of h.264/MPEG-4 support in the current versions of Media Center and I am more interested in information from people watching channels with MPEG-2 compression. In my case, we use Bell TV (ExpressVu) and they are still using MPEG-2 and apparently will be for a few more years. Of course if you have an R5000HD working with MC in Windows 7, please post that you have it working and what you did to get it working!


To answer the above questions for me:

1. My family is using the R5000HD with Media Center and has been for close to 2 years. We are not using the Nextcomm R5000HD MCE driver though. We use the basic R5000HD driver/software and FireSTB which is able to control the R5000HD DVR, making a simultaneous R5000HD recording at the same time Media Center makes it's s-video recording. Once the recording is complete, FireSTB replaces the s-video recording with the HD digital recording. The image quality is fantastic on HD channels, but this solution does not support Live TV.

2. Vista Home Premium 32-bit.

3. Bell 6000 (noting that this STB is not supported by the Nextcomm MCE driver). I have purchased a Bell 9242 but have not done anything with it yet.

4. GA-P35-DS4 motherboard, Q6600, 4GB RAM, 2.1 TB hard drive storage total, PVR-250 TV Tuner, ATI 3870 video card.

5. When I tried the MCE driver I found it would not reliably record if the STB needed to change channels between SD/HD channel (20-40% of recordings would fail). Channel changing with Live TV often took as much as 15 seconds for a single channel change. Sometimes the R5000HD DVR software would lock up, requiring a reboot (this would sometimes occur during channel changing; other times this would happen during the night, likely when trying to make a recording). All HD channels suffered from video artifacts and pauses in AC3 audio (temporarily "no sound" every couple of seconds, lasting a fraction of a second each time). The virtual tuner's buffer would overflow with some HD channels causing additional video glitches. My workaround has been to use FireSTB which has its own set of issues, but does consistently produce top quality recordings. If FireSTB/R5000HD fails to record properly (rarely, but it does happen), we can typically still watch the s-video recording or manually reproduce the dvr-ms file from the ts file.


Ideally I would like to have two R5000HD's installed in the new Bell 9242 and find a way to use this dual tuner hardware with Vista Media Center. The R5000HD hardware is excellent and Vista Media Center is excellent from the end user experience point of view (my wife loves Media Center and refuses to accept Sage TV). The challenge is dealing with Media Center's driver limitations and figuring out how to get the R5000HD hardware and software to work with it.

ht slider my wife was resistant to sage for a while but after seeing what it can do and tweaking sagemc she would never go back.

ht slider my wife was resistant to sage for a while but after seeing what it can do and tweaking sagemc she would never go back.

With the only reply to my question being a suggestion that sagemc has a decent WAF; I think it is safe to assume that not a single person is successfully using Nextcomm's Media Center driver for the R5000HD.

That is too bad, but based on my experience and the experience of others I spoke to, I am not surprised.

I have tried SageMC (briefly) and Vista Media Center definitely provides a slicker, more consumer friendly interface. Why Microsoft created such a poor driver interface in Media Center for HD sources I will never know. Realistically the only way to get the R5000HD to work well with Media Center requires a bunch of registry hacking combined with faking either an ATSC or DVB tuner. The "driver" has to be more than a driver in that it has to map virtual channels to real channels and hack the registry to get the TV guide to work and provide correct channel number labels for each channel.

I guess I have to make a selection out of about 5 options:

Use DVB Bridge SDK to create my own driver for the R5000HD and Media Center. One of the issues here is trying to figure out how to access the video transport stream since the R5000HD driver does not include a directshow filter, nor any other published method (that I'm aware of) to access the video stream.
Continue to use FireSTB to bring R5000HD HD content into Media Center as I am currently. Unfortunately FireSTB only works with MCE2005 and Vista without the TV pack. Once Bell switches to MPEG-4 (couple of years likely), this will no longer work.
Switch all 7 of our Media Center PCs over to Sage TV and buy the multi-tuner R5000HD driver for Sage. Does this support dual R5000HD tuners in a single STB though?
Give up on the R5000HD altogether and pick up a Hauppauge HD-PVR. Hauppauge has confirmed that they will have a driver for Windows 7 (it is apparently a virtual tuner driver faking a DVB device). Note that there is already a functional driver available that uses the DVB Bridge SDK for the HD-PVR that works with Windows 7.
Give up on the entire HTPC solution and use the multi-room/whole home system that our new Bell 9242 provides. Unfortunately this only provides HD to two rooms and the remainder of the house only gets SD. There are also only 3 remote controls and worse, only two unique video outputs. I consider this a major step down, but at least it provides access to both HD tuners in the 9242 and with the 1.3 TB of hard drive storage there is actually more recording storage than we currently have with Media Center (1 TB). We could always add additional hardware PVR STBs, but then they can't share recordings and each one needs to make its own recordings.


I know what I really want is to have a pair of R5000HDs accessing both tuners in the 9242 and to get this working with Media Center - but this might be a lot of work. It might even be impossible if there isn't some way to access the R5000HD video transport stream.

Can anyone answer the following questions:

How can we access the video transport stream using the basic R5000HD driver - without first storing it to the hard drive in a .ts file?
Does the R5000HD driver for Sage TV support dual tuners in the Bell 9242/Dish 622/Dish 722? For this to work, the driver needs to keep track of which tuner the STB has selected to be controlled and switch control back and forth as required by Sage TV.


I think if the driver for Sage TV can support both tuners I should probably bite the bullet and go this way. If not, I will be looking at finding/creating/buying a new driver that does support both tuners so I may as well stick with Media Center and create my own driver.

Sorry I dont have the answers to your questions.. But, my experience was complete opposite of yours. I actually chose SageTV over Windows Media Center before I even had R5000s.

SageMC with the latest themes fanart, etc smokes VMC in my opinion (slicker, and more customizable). You can pretty much make the user interface do anything you want with its free programmable user interface editor.. SageTV Studio. It would certainly take less time to get it the way you want than to write your own driver for VMC.

With the only reply to my question being a suggestion that sagemc has a decent WAF; I think it is safe to assume that not a single person is successfully using Nextcomm's Media Center driver for the R5000HD.

That is too bad, but based on my experience and the experience of others I spoke to, I am not surprised.

I have tried SageMC (briefly) and Vista Media Center definitely provides a slicker, more consumer friendly interface. Why Microsoft created such a poor driver interface in Media Center for HD sources I will never know. Realistically the only way to get the R5000HD to work well with Media Center requires a bunch of registry hacking combined with faking either an ATSC or DVB tuner. The "driver" has to be more than a driver in that it has to map virtual channels to real channels and hack the registry to get the TV guide to work and provide correct channel number labels for each channel.

I guess I have to make a selection out of about 5 options:

Use DVB Bridge SDK to create my own driver for the R5000HD and Media Center. One of the issues here is trying to figure out how to access the video transport stream since the R5000HD driver does not include a directshow filter, nor any other published method (that I'm aware of) to access the video stream.
Continue to use FireSTB to bring R5000HD HD content into Media Center as I am currently. Unfortunately FireSTB only works with MCE2005 and Vista without the TV pack. Once Bell switches to MPEG-4 (couple of years likely), this will no longer work.
Switch all 7 of our Media Center PCs over to Sage TV and buy the multi-tuner R5000HD driver for Sage. Does this support dual R5000HD tuners in a single STB though?
Give up on the R5000HD altogether and pick up a Hauppauge HD-PVR. Hauppauge has confirmed that they will have a driver for Windows 7 (it is apparently a virtual tuner driver faking a DVB device). Note that there is already a functional driver available that uses the DVB Bridge SDK for the HD-PVR that works with Windows 7.
Give up on the entire HTPC solution and use the multi-room/whole home system that our new Bell 9242 provides. Unfortunately this only provides HD to two rooms and the remainder of the house only gets SD. There are also only 3 remote controls and worse, only two unique video outputs. I consider this a major step down, but at least it provides access to both HD tuners in the 9242 and with the 1.3 TB of hard drive storage there is actually more recording storage than we currently have with Media Center (1 TB). We could always add additional hardware PVR STBs, but then they can't share recordings and each one needs to make its own recordings.


I know what I really want is to have a pair of R5000HDs accessing both tuners in the 9242 and to get this working with Media Center - but this might be a lot of work. It might even be impossible if there isn't some way to access the R5000HD video transport stream.

Can anyone answer the following questions:

How can we access the video transport stream using the basic R5000HD driver - without first storing it to the hard drive in a .ts file?
Does the R5000HD driver for Sage TV support dual tuners in the Bell 9242/Dish 622/Dish 722? For this to work, the driver needs to keep track of which tuner the STB has selected to be controlled and switch control back and forth as required by Sage TV.


I think if the driver for Sage TV can support both tuners I should probably bite the bullet and go this way. If not, I will be looking at finding/creating/buying a new driver that does support both tuners so I may as well stick with Media Center and create my own driver.

I posted this over on the Sage forums too.

I just got my Dish 211 receiver with an r5000 mod set up. All is working well except that my recordings through Sage are always constant bit rate. I've gone through the settings in the R5000 options-preferences panel and set bit rate to compressed and checked the transport stream box, but it's still constant bit rate through Sage. If I stop the r5000 Sage Server and record through the r5000 dvr app, the recordings are compressed. Since this is working in the DVR app it seems like there must be a setting in my Sage properties file that is wrong. I added the r5000 encoder by copying and pasting the settings from the R5000 web page. I updated the port number and the identifier number of the encoder, but everything else is the same. Does anybody have any idea what's wrong?

Thanks,
Mike

Just wanted to post an update. I found the problem this evening. It's a bug in the 3.0e beta. When initiating recordings via Sage, the DVR ignores the bit rate settings and always does compressed. When I switched back to 3.0c, the DVR uses the compressed setting I selected. Guess I'll stick with 3.0c for now and hope for a new version that has faster channel changes and uses the compressed setting.

Thats great! Have fun using your R5000. But, I wouldnt hold my breath waiting for the next software release. For some odd reason the R5000 folks said they " The new software will be posted soon" that was in February.

Just wanted to post an update. I found the problem this evening. It's a bug in the 3.0e beta. When initiating recordings via Sage, the DVR ignores the bit rate settings and always does compressed. When I switched back to 3.0c, the DVR uses the compressed setting I selected. Guess I'll stick with 3.0c for now and hope for a new version that has faster channel changes and uses the compressed setting.

Thats great! Have fun using your R5000. But, I wouldnt hold my breath waiting for the next software release. For some odd reason the R5000 folks said they " The new software will be posted soon" that was in February.

Yeah, that's pretty much what they told me too. I figure I've at least given them a pretty good starting point to fix this one though. Thanks for the reply!

Mike

I intend to sell a large number of my 200GB/250GB/500GB PATA hard drives used for off line storage of R5000HD captured material. Most have not been powered on for more than a week. If anyone is interested in some spare Hard Drives in bulk for storage, let me know.

I also have a large collection of WD and Seagate 400GB/500GB and 750GB SATA drives that I'm selling in bulk as well.

Thats great! Have fun using your R5000. But, I wouldnt hold my breath waiting for the next software release. For some odd reason the R5000 folks said they " The new software will be posted soon" that was in February.

I've been told they are working on a new release soon and but never heard anything more than that a week or so ago. Not sure about any bug fixes related to sage. They did fix an issue I was having though and give me a new release so I'm happy :)

I've been told they are working on a new release soon and but never heard anything more than that a week or so ago. Not sure about any bug fixes related to sage. They did fix an issue I was having though and give me a new release so I'm happy :)

I got the same story on the new release about 3 weeks ago. Based on the file dates, I'd guess they haven't actually released any new versions beta or otherwise since last September. Kinda makes me doubt whether they're still doing any development on the product.

I think they expect us to just go kick rocks; hoping we will go away or forget about it.

I think that even if you guys have already emailed them before, you should send them an email right now: r5000support@nextcomwireless.com

Ask them what's the hold up in releasing the software that includes the "proxy" code to make their software stable.

That's pretty sad when their own customer hands them the code that fixes the problem on a silver platter; and, they are still having trouble working on the software.

We shouldn't have to rely on a 3rd party proxy software to force their software to behave.

I got the same story on the new release about 3 weeks ago. Based on the file dates, I'd guess they haven't actually released any new versions beta or otherwise since last September. Kinda makes me doubt whether they're still doing any development on the product.

I don't really have any issues the proxy software would fix, I'm using the single-instance version for Sage. I would like to see the beta with the quick channel changes get fixed though. It's pretty ridiculous that it just ignores the compressed file setting on the DVR.

Wish I bought one 5 years ago!

I want to thank Nextcom for selling it!! Thanks!!:D

Anyway, everything is going good but got 3 questions I hope someone can make a suggestion or answer..

1. When a show is recorded it gets named (show - episode).ts and wonder if there is any way to get the program details or anything also included into the file name automatically? Tivo file names include the release date which is nice.

2. When you use SageTV or other front end does it include or utilize the release date or program details?

3. Also can't find a good program to edit the ts files, cut or simple trim the start/end times. I strip null packets, which might be the reason some of the editors don't work. Even the TScutter included with the R5000-HD does not seem to work correctly it doesn't start or stop where you tell it to since its not a constant rate I guess. TS packet editor look real good but it also does not now where the end is...Anybody have good success with something?

Thanks!!

Even the TScutter included with the R5000-HD does not seem to work correctly it doesn't start or stop where you tell it to since its not a constant rate I guess. TS packet editor look real good but it also does not now where the end is...Anybody have good success with something?

If you are using TSPE it is imperative that you have an up to date Haali media splitter. The one that installs with CoreAVC is really old and performs poorly with TSPE. Not sure if they've updated to a more recent version, but check this.

When VideoRedo finally supports H.264 it will probably be as good as their current product is with MPEG-2. But I've been waiting many months for that product to come out, and ended up having to buy TSPE to hold me over until that time.

I have searched on info about these, but the discussions have centered on playback. I am curious if one of these could be used strictly for recording with the R5000 for instance. Has anyone done so?

Please clarify your question. What does "these" refer to? And what info do you want>

I have searched on info about these, but the discussions have centered on playback. I am curious if one of these could be used strictly for recording with the R5000 for instance. Has anyone done so?

The easiest way to look at it, is the R5000 is an addon to your existing cable TV/Satellite box which allows it to stream it's audio/video directly to a PC in pure digital format. Your PC can play it back, record, schedule recordings, or anything you want to do with it. Media Center type software like SageTV can control the cable box as if it was just a regular PC tuner (used for record, playback, tivo style timeshifting).

I have searched on info about these, but the discussions have centered on playback. I am curious if one of these could be used strictly for recording with the R5000 for instance. Has anyone done so?

Please clarify your question. What does "these" refer to? And what info do you want>

Sorry. An example would be the Acer AspireRevo. MSI and Asus have similar PC's.

If you have yet to notice, the new version of TitanTV leaves the record button off the main page. Everyone needs to go to TitanTV, under the contact box, and request they return the DVR button to the main TitanTV lineup page.

I've got a Dish 211, and am stuck trying to figure out how to get it to NOT sleep at night. The damned update always leaves it back at the sleeping state, needing me to press select to wake it up. I use sage with the R5000, and it ends up failing to record anything every morning until i hit select on the box. I have fixed this issue on my non-modded boxes, by having sage transmit a select command to each prior to channel changes, however, I am unable to do this with the r5000. Any thoughts on this?

I've got a Dish 211, and am stuck trying to figure out how to get it to NOT sleep at night. The damned update always leaves it back at the sleeping state, needing me to press select to wake it up. I use sage with the R5000, and it ends up failing to record anything every morning until i hit select on the box. I have fixed this issue on my non-modded boxes, by having sage transmit a select command to each prior to channel changes, however, I am unable to do this with the r5000. Any thoughts on this?

You can send a precode:

http://www.nextcomwireless.com/R5000/support.htm

Programmable IR "pre-code" option - Adding the token "PreCode:" to the configuration file allows a programmable sequence of codes to be sent to the STB before a PVR channel change is initiated. This is helpful for receivers that may need additional commands to "wake up", etc. The format is:

PreCode: <IRcode0> <delay> <IRcode1> <delay>, etc.

where "IRcode" is any of the IR code tokens defined in the command line guide. The delay value is set in mS (1000 = 1 second). Use spaces to separate all tokens.

The command line sections tells you what codes are available:

http://www.nextcomwireless.com/R5000/support_howto.htm#command

Thank you... though i guess i can't be faulted for failing to find that in the 'documentation'... For those who are equally as confused as to why they can't just create a single document for this thing... I found by adding PreCode: ok 1000 to the .cfg file in the R5000HD folder to be sufficient to wake up my box... the change has to be made with the R5000 App closed.

Core i7 920s were on sale at Micro Center for $199 so now I'm building a new PC. How are people working around the lack of 64-bit drivers for the R5000? Do you keep an old PC around running a 32-bit version of Windows, or dual boot your new PC, and switch OSes when you need to capture? Has anyone had success running the DVR app inside a virtual machine (I haven't).

Most people just have an just an old, old bare bones PC running in the background; and, have their new machines (ie Windows 7 64bit) as their desktops. There's no advantage to try to get the R5000 to work under a 64bit OS performance-wise. Also, it doesnt really make much sense to set it up as a virtual machine shared with other VM's on the same PC; unless you absolutely can't tollerate the idea of having more than one physical PC :)

Core i7 920s were on sale at Micro Center for $199 so now I'm building a new PC. How are people working around the lack of 64-bit drivers for the R5000? Do you keep an old PC around running a 32-bit version of Windows, or dual boot your new PC, and switch OSes when you need to capture? Has anyone had success running the DVR app inside a virtual machine (I haven't).

I for one don't like having any extra HW running...it is more to pay electricity for and more to break down. I already have a 200W 7x24 system and don't need a second...I am running Windows 2008 Server 32 bit as my Sage/R5000/wholehouse audio/9TB server...I see the R5000 driver as the only thing keeping me from moving this system up to 64 bit and would love to hear a solution that doesn't entail another PC running...

Good luck with that..

I for one don't like having any extra HW running...it is more to pay electricity for and more to break down. I already have a 200W 7x24 system and don't need a second...I am running Windows 2008 Server 32 bit as my Sage/R5000/wholehouse audio/9TB server...I see the R5000 driver as the only thing keeping me from moving this system up to 64 bit and would love to hear a solution that doesn't entail another PC running...

Good luck with that..

um...whatever?

meaning it is far from likely that nextcom will ever release a 64-bit compatible driver. VM seems to be the only option that makes sense, and I'm not really sure if that even works, to tell you the truth.

I'm aware of Nextcom's very slow activity to address user issues in drivers/apps...I was and am hoping that someone knows the USB comm chip provider and would be able to point us to them to find a compatible dirver for 64-bit...if I understand VM's correctly (and I know I don't at any depth)...I believe you would need a driver that works at the host OS level not the VM level in order to make that HW visible to the VM...anybody know for sure...I wouldn't mind using the XP VM if you actually install drivers at the OS level (I was under the impression the XP Pro VM would get a generic set of drivers from the main os...

I'm seriously considering building yet another new computer to leave running all the time, just for recording from the R5000, and running a ********** client. It'll be a mini-ITX system with an Intel Little Falls 2 motherboard (Atom processor) and notebook hard drive. I think I can do it for just over $200. This should consume maybe 45 watts. This will replace a Linux appliance I've been running 24x7 that consumes about 15 watts.

I have been using an old notebook for recording the R5000 stream directly to a networked drive located on my Sage server that is located in another room for a couple years now.

It does not take very much of a notebook to do this. You just have to have compatible USB hardware.

The newly installed HDD-200 mod is showing 'excellent' buffer status, a data rate around 1740KB/s, and zero 'failed transfers' when recording. I also have full 4DTV control via the mod. The HDD-200 itself is working perfectly. My problem is, when I attempt to record, I get zero bytes. It will try for 30 seconds, timeout and report 'Error 255', then try again. When I received the modified HDD-200, it didn't work at all. The 'data clock' lead was wired incorrectly. I've fixed that and now 'data clock' and 'packet strobe' are correct (verified by scoping each lead).

It appears the NextCom guys are taking a long weekend and I'd really like to get this thing going for the July 4th holiday. There could be another wiring error or perhaps something is wrong in the software setup. Anyone had a similar problem and, if so, how did you fix it? Any other tests I can do?

What channel are you trying to record. Try a few different ones. I did some checking on mine I usually get a data rate of 3000 Kbs or higher. I think the software looks at the transport stream to determine if it has unscrambled video and if it does not find any, after about 30 sec it gives the error 255. If it has a hardware problem it probably needs to go back to Nextcom.
John

Is anyone sucessfully using their R5000 with Windows 7 Media Center ?

If yes, How do you have it set up ??

(I have sent this question to Nextcomm Support & am awaiting an answer)

Appreciate any help !!

PS: I am currently running 4 R5000 modded Dish VIP211s in Sage but am considering Switching to Windows 7 Media Center

Thanks !!

-Bruce

I think you do the same trick you would do when installing the driver for Vista32. You can find out how by doing a search in this thread. However, you're just going to have to install Windows 7 and install drivers and configure again when Windows 7 expired next year in June.

Is anyone sucessfully using their R5000 with Windows 7 Media Center ?

If yes, How do you have it set up ??

(I have sent this question to Nextcomm Support & am awaiting an answer)

Appreciate any help !!

PS: I am currently running 4 R5000 modded Dish VIP211s in Sage but am considering Switching to Windows 7 Media Center

Thanks !!

-Bruce

Anyone using an XP netbook for R5000 recordings?

Trying to get this thing to work has been a nightmare. I finally got a HDD-201 with a working R5000-HD mod, my R5000 SageTV license and I'm trying to get this running, with no luck so far. Here's where I am:

On the R5000-HD side:
1. The R5000-HD software in standalone mode works perfectly with the modified HDD201.
2. I installed the SageTV version, input the license key, and tested the software again, works perfectly.
4. Message reads: SageTV Server Off
3. I enabled the SageTV server on port: 6969
4. Message reads: SageTV. Waiting for connection on Port 6969
---------------------
On the SageTV side:
1. Bring up the server and select: HD200-4DTV-922 on 127.0.0.1:6969
2. Next screen, select USB
3. SageTV message: Waiting for video preview to load
--------------------
On he R5000-HD side:
1. Message appears: SageTV.Ch F4-1, E:\SageTV-Rec\HD2004DTV922 on 1270016969USB-0.mpgbuf
2. Software crashes!!!

The above sequence is 100% reproducible. I've tried bring up SageTV first, same result. R5000-HD always crashes just after the message: (SageTV.Ch F4-1, E:\SageTV-Rec\HD2004DTV922 on 1270016969USB-0.mpgbuf) displays.

Any ideas?

Trying to get this thing to work has been a nightmare. I finally got a HDD-201 with a working R5000-HD mod, my R5000 SageTV license and I'm trying to get this running, with no luck so far. Here's where I am:

On the R5000-HD side:
1. The R5000-HD software in standalone mode works perfectly with the modified HDD201.
2. I installed the SageTV version, input the license key, and tested the software again, works perfectly.
4. Message reads: SageTV Server Off
3. I enabled the SageTV server on port: 6969
4. Message reads: SageTV. Waiting for connection on Port 6969
---------------------
On the SageTV side:
1. Bring up the server and select: HD200-4DTV-922 on 127.0.0.1:6969
2. Next screen, select USB
3. SageTV message: Waiting for video preview to load
--------------------
On he R5000-HD side:
1. Message appears: SageTV.Ch F4-1, E:\SageTV-Rec\HD2004DTV922 on 1270016969USB-0.mpgbuf
2. Software crashes!!!

The above sequence is 100% reproducible. I've tried bring up SageTV first, same result. R5000-HD always crashes just after the message: (SageTV.Ch F4-1, E:\SageTV-Rec\HD2004DTV922 on 1270016969USB-0.mpgbuf) displays.

Any ideas?
Did you add the appropriate lines to your Sage Properties file according to the Nextcomm websight (http://nextcomwireless.com/R5000/sagetv.htm)??

Did you add the appropriate lines to your Sage Properties file according to the Nextcomm websight (http://nextcomwireless.com/R5000/sagetv.htm)??

Yes. I double checked to make sure. Any other ideas?

Anyone using an XP netbook for R5000 recordings?

I'm using a nettop, sort of. It's an Intel Little Falls 2 mini-ITX motherboard with an Atom 330 processor (BOXD945GCLF2). Processor only consumes 4 watts, but the stupid chipset consumes 30+. So far it seems to work ok for capturing, but it would be too slow to use for anything more than web browsing and light office apps. It's fine for my purposes, capturing from the R5000-HD and running a B**T*****t client. It also supports S3 sleep, which is very nice. When in standby it almost shuts down completely, even all the fans and LEDs go off, but wakes up within a couple seconds. Power draw is supposed to be just 2-3 watts while in S3 sleep.

An Ion-based board would supposedly consume half the power, and I would have bought one but they were backordered everywhere.

I'm using a nettop, sort of. It's an Intel Little Falls 2 mini-ITX motherboard with an Atom 330 processor (BOXD945GCLF2). Processor only consumes 4 watts, but the stupid chipset consumes 30+. So far it seems to work ok for capturing, but it would be too slow to use for anything more than web browsing and light office apps. It's fine for my purposes, capturing from the R5000-HD and running a B**T*****t client. It also supports S3 sleep, which is very nice. When in standby it almost shuts down completely, even all the fans and LEDs go off, but wakes up within a couple seconds. Power draw is supposed to be just 2-3 watts while in S3 sleep.

An Ion-based board would supposedly consume half the power, and I would have bought one but they were backordered everywhere.

Thanks. I wanted to simplify things, perhaps with a netbook, but I've pretty much decided to use an older XP mini-tower for R5000 captures. I'll double it up with HDHomerun and maybe an old MyHD card. The extra horsepower of the older dual core system (and RAID0) should allow me to do some serious capture with the 3 devices in the fall.

Does anyone here have a modified HDD200?

I'm trying to decide between having a DCP501 modified or the HDD200. The HDD200 is much cheaper to ship as it's lighter, and costs less to modify. About the only reason I can see to have the DCP501 modified is that the R5000-HD module would be the newer model, and could be put into a Dish Network receiver if I have to change services.

Any feedback from current owners? Thanks. :)

Anyone found a way to display Closed Caption with their R5000 recordings? My R5000 mod is in a HDD200 and I'm using SageTV and the HD200 for viewing.

I found I can't select satellite 'GB' in SageTV. The R5000 app is either ignoring the request or is unable to send it to the 4DTV. Anyone else had this problem?

Hmmm, come to think of it, there isn't a 'B' key on the remote, so there may not be an IR code for it. I guess the fix would be to take some unused satellite that I can select and point it to GB's orbital slot, then remap GB channels to this satellite.

Does anyone here have a modified HDD200?

I'm trying to decide between having a DCP501 modified or the HDD200. The HDD200 is much cheaper to ship as it's lighter, and costs less to modify. About the only reason I can see to have the DCP501 modified is that the R5000-HD module would be the newer model, and could be put into a Dish Network receiver if I have to change services.

Any feedback from current owners? Thanks. :)

I had my HDD201 modified rather than my 922 4DTV receiver. In my case, I have an old 920 receiver I keep around as a backup (my 922 has died a couple of times) and I wanted to be able to switch to it if necessary.

Well that didn't work. The receiver has to know the channel exists on the satellite. So I'm back to square one. How do you tune satellite 'GB' via the IR-blaster using R5000?

Not sure how do it with other devices but the PVR can do it. It selects the satellite to the right or left on the 4DTV satellite list and then outputs a right or left arrow command to get to the GB.
John

I am thinking of having the R5k mod done to a 211. Must one use SageTV or will this work with BeyondTV. Is the media program mainly for scheduling recordings? My plan is to archive to DVD-R-DL and BR disc with MultiAVCHD and edit out ads with VideoReDo. Anyone using these programs to do it in a similar manner? Is there better software for doing the editing and burning to DVD/BR disc?

Thanks

I am thinking of having the R5k mod done to a 211. Must one use SageTV or will this work with BeyondTV. Is the media program mainly for scheduling recordings? My plan is to archive to DVD-R-DL and BR disc with MultiAVCHD and edit out ads with VideoReDo. Anyone using these programs to do it in a similar manner? Is there better software for doing the editing and burning to DVD/BR disc?

Thanks

Unless things have changed fairly recently, you won't be able to edit Dish signals with VideoRedo. It's an MPEG4 editor, not MPEG2.

Unless things have changed fairly recently, you won't be able to edit Dish signals with VideoRedo. It's an MPEG4 editor, not MPEG2.

By signals do you mean the transfer stream that is recorded? Do you know from experience it will not work? What can be used to edit the .ts that is recorded with the R5k and does it actually record a MEPG4 stream?:(

By signals do you mean the transfer stream that is recorded? Do you know from experience it will not work? What can be used to edit the .ts that is recorded with the R5k and does it actually record a MEPG4 stream?:(

As far as I know, all Dish broadcasts are now MPEG4. I've recorded lots of Dish programming, and I used to use VideoRedo to edit the MPEG2 streams. Now, however, those broadcasts are MPEG4, and there is no MPEG4 version. They've been saying they'll have one. but they won't give a time frame for when it will be ready. The good part of this is that MPEG4 signals are more efficient. More films will fit in their entirety on a DVD. Some movies will even fit on a single layer disc. The bad is that there's no program with VideoRedo's slick interface and ease of use for editing the streams. If I'm wrong about that, I'd love to know about it.

I've actually not done much recording lately, so I'm not aware of what most people are using to edit MPEG4. I've tried a few programs, but nothing comes close to VideoRedo. Also, I've pretty much decided to store my recordings on an UnRAID server rather than transferring them to DVD. With the questionable life span of DVDs, I think it's safer. They're also immediately accessible from the server, so I don't have to go hunt them up on disc.

The bad is that there's no program with VideoRedo's slick interface and ease of use for editing the streams. If I'm wrong about that, I'd love to know about it.

You are not wrong! :)

There's Transport Stream Packet Editor ( http://www.bitstreamtools.com/ ), but the interface, compared to VRD, is poor. It does work, however.

What are the resulting files when one records with the R5000 mod? Are they ts, m2t or what? Has anyone tried this editing program by AVS4You:

http://www.avs4you.com/AVS-Video-ReMaker.aspx

Is there anyway to get a recording so I can see what works and how well. If someone could mail me a disk with say a half hour show I would be more than willing of course to pay shipping and replace the disk.

Thanks

Another 50 bucks for a program that it sounds like just works and nothing more is a bit to much for me.

Anyone using an XP netbook for R5000 recordings?

Almost... I have a small computer running an Atom N330 processor and it works great.

Unless things have changed fairly recently, you won't be able to edit Dish signals with VideoRedo. It's an MPEG4 editor, not MPEG2.

Are there issues, loss of quality with converting the stream to MPEG2 and then editing it?

Are there issues, loss of quality with converting the stream to MPEG2 and then editing it?

Anytime you convert from one codec to another you lose something, although the loss may not be that noticeable, especially if you choose a larger bitrate. Of course, MPEG4 is more efficient, so you'll end up with an MPEG2 file that's considerably bigger. I'm waiting for VideoRedo to support MPEG4 and not worrying about it now. I'm storing my files on my UnRAID server and I'll edit later.

so you'll end up with an MPEG2 file that's considerably bigger. I'm waiting for VideoRedo to support MPEG4 and not worrying about it now. I'm storing my files on my UnRAID server and I'll edit later.

How big are the MPEG4 files? I'm am accustom to 6 to 10 GB files for a 1 hour show with MEPG2. Are the MPEG4 files that much smaller? It would be nice if VideoReDo would do a little upgrade but the development seems to be stagnate if not at a stand still so I don't hope for anything there. I was told over a year ago that it would support avi soon.

How much hard drive space do you have? I'm recording 30 or 40 GB a week now so HD storage would be a bit to costly, I have been saving to DVD-R-DL in ACVHD format (or BR-R for stuff over 1 hour) and am very happy with the results even if there is some loss.

Steve

How big are the MPEG4 files? I'm am accustom to 6 to 10 GB files for a 1 hour show with MEPG2. Are the MPEG4 files that much smaller? It would be nice if VideoReDo would do a little upgrade but the development seems to be stagnate if not at a stand still so I don't hope for anything there. I was told over a year ago that it would support avi soon.

How much hard drive space do you have? I'm recording 30 or 40 GB a week now so HD storage would be a bit to costly, I have been saving to DVD-R-DL in ACVHD format (or BR-R for stuff over 1 hour) and am very happy with the results even if there is some loss.

Steve

Dish's MPEG4 files are much smaller than the MPEG2 files I used to capture. For example, I've captured some of the Star Trek original movie broadcasts from Dish in MPEG4 HD at about 4GB for the whole film - give or take a few hundred megabytes. Often a film will fit on a single layer DVD (as a regular file or as AVCHD). Hour long TV shows come in at a little over 2GB with commercials.

As for the cost of storage, single layer DVD has the advantage in terms of price right now, at about $.05/GB. DVD DL is much more than that, maybe $.30/GB. You can get a 1TB drive for $100, so hard drive storage costs about $.10/GB tops (less, since you can get a 1.5TB drive for $130). I prefer having my HD files available to me all the time, rather than trying to hunt them up on disc. I'm also concerned about the long term stability of recordable media, since the life of the discs may only be a few years. Of course, no medium is completely safe, but I use UnRAID to store my HD files. It has the added security of RAID, and the ease of use, low cost and immediate accessibility of hard drive storage. If one of my hard drives fails, I just plug in a new one. The array rebuilds itself and nothing is lost. I have about 20TB of storage right now across 2 UnRAID servers, and I'm slowly replacing my 500GB SATA drives with 1.5TB ones. The 2TB drives are already starting to drop in price, so they'll probably be my drive of choice in a few months. The nice thing about UnRAID is that I can have drives of any size in the array. You lose one drive to parity (needed to restore the array if a drive fails) and it has to be the same or larger than any other drive in the array. Small price to pay for the security RAID gives you. I've yet to lose anything on my UnRAID servers, but I've lost files to disc (DVD and CD) and disk (hard drive) failures.

I have generally been storing my H.264 recordings as TS files on DVD+R disks (UDF 2.5) and playing them back on the SONY PS3. The PQ is good and all the "trick play" (i.e., FF/Rew and skip features) work well. If I could find a hardware decoder that could stream H.264 recordings with usable trick play, I might consider moving to a network server. One forum member suggested the SageTV HD200, but it would be nice to have confirmation from other members that this decoder works well with R5000 files.

Looks like the way to go. I haven't looked into the at all so I have some study and research to do. What is you whole setup (if you don’t mind) and what would I need to do this? Also are you using SageTV or what to record from the dish receiver? How many R5k’s do you have installed?

Thanks great info. got my mind going and my pocketbook hiding.

Steve

I have 2 R5000 modded VIP 211's and I use the standalone DVR and PVR apps from Nextcom to record to two separate PC's. I do not use SageTV at all. I get my guide free from TitanTV.

I have generally been storing my H.264 recordings as TS files on DVD+R disks (UDF 2.5) and playing them back on the SONY PS3. The PQ is good and all the "trick play" (i.e., FF/Rew and skip features) work well. If I could find a hardware decoder that could stream H.264 recordings with usable trick play, I might consider moving to a network server. One forum member suggested the SageTV HD200, but it would be nice to have confirmation from other members that this decoder works well with R5000 files.

I've done some Blu-ray folders from captured Dish recordings (tsMuxer), then converted them to iso's (using IMGBurn). From there, I mount them (using Virtual Clone Drive), and they play back with all the trick play functions in PowerDVD, just like Blu-ray discs. I use a Media Center remote so I can access FF, REW, stop, play, etc., directly from within PowerDVD (skipping the Vista Media Center interface). This is an easy way to create a single file on a hard drive/network drive. tsMuxer creates chapters automatically, so I can skip through the file quickly with the remote.

I have 2 R5000 modded VIP 211's and I use the standalone DVR and PVR apps from Nextcom to record to two separate PC's. I do not use SageTV at all. I get my guide free from TitanTV.


So you need 2 separate receivers for 2 R5K's? You can't install two in the same receiver if it has 2 tuners?

So you need 2 separate receivers for 2 R5K's? You can't install two in the same receiver if it has 2 tuners? AFAIK, you can use a single computer to capture from multiple VIP211's, but I am not aware of Nextcom installing 2 mods on a two-tuner VIP722 and VIP622 DVR. I would not want to mod a DVR, because the mod would likely interfere with the normal way I would want to use the DVR.

Does the 211 have one or two tuners?

The 211 has one tuner.

I've done some Blu-ray folders from captured Dish recordings (tsMuxer), then converted them to iso's (using IMGBurn). From there, I mount them (using Virtual Clone Drive), and they play back with all the trick play functions in PowerDVD, just like Blu-ray discs. I use a Media Center remote so I can access FF, REW, stop, play, etc., directly from within PowerDVD (skipping the Vista Media Center interface). This is an easy way to create a single file on a hard drive/network drive. tsMuxer creates chapters automatically, so I can skip through the file quickly with the remote. Thanks for sharing how you play the files. I am reluctant to use a software decoding solution, because to my eyes, software decoding has been consistently inferior to hardware decoding. It could be that I am not using the right software or video card. The differences between hardware and software decoding on 1080i telecined recordings from the R5000 have been particularly obvious to me.

The 211 has one tuner.

The 211 has one OTA tuner and one satellite tuner. You can add a hard drive to a 211 to turn it into a 2-tuner DVR. I've done that, too. I don't schedule recordings with the DVR very often, because of the opportunity for conflicts with the R5000, but it's nice to have DVR functions accessible while watching.

Thanks for sharing how you play the files. I am reluctant to use a software decoding solution, because to my eyes, software decoding has been consistently inferior to hardware decoding. It could be that I am not using the right software or video card. The differences between hardware and software decoding on 1080i telecined recordings from the R5000 have been particularly obvious to me.

I'm quite happy with software playback with a Radeon 4850 video card. I use it frequently with my Sharp XV-Z20000 projector, for both captured file playback and Blu-ray playback (with PowerDVD). Of course, there's the added advantage of HD audio playback over HDMI with Blu-ray.

I use a TVIX M4100 to stream R5000 files from my network. The PQ is very good, but trick play on the TVIX is sub-par. The PS3 has not worked very well for streaming, either.

I have had two R5000's for a while, but they were hooked up to two different PC's. I want to change my setup and have them both attached to a single PC. I downloaded and installed the "multi recorder" version, but whenever I paste in the two validation codes I have for the two receivers, I get a message telling me the codes are not valid. I know these are the correct validation codes and I can install individually each receiver with the single recorder version.

Are there additional steps I need to take. I did try uninstalling, rebooting and reinstalling R5000, but with no luck. I should mention I use the SageTV version. I did try both the final release and then the beta "e" version, but experienced the same issues.

Thanks!

I use a TVIX M4100 to stream R5000 files from my network. The PQ is very good, but trick play on the TVIX is sub-par. The PS3 has not worked very well for streaming, either.

My PS3 hardwired to a gigabit network works without a hitch using TVersity for both recorded content and bluray rips.

My PS3 hardwired to a gigabit network works without a hitch using TVersity for both recorded content and bluray rips.

Blu-ray folders or Blu-ray iso's?

I am sure many of you are curious to know what has Nextcom Wireless so busy doing since the last software/driver release back in August 2008. In fact, they have been so busy, they barely had time to respond to support emails. Are they releasing a completely reworked driver and application package (Version 1.0) supporting:

- Windows 7 (64 bit & 32 bit)
- Windows 7 Media Center
- Vista (64 bit & 32 bit)
- Vista Media Center
- Linux

Afterall, the R5000 only works correctly on legacy 32 bit Windows OS's from 2 generations back/

Below is a copy of the inquiry made to Nextcom Wireless Support and their official response back. I guess it depends how their response if interpreted, but it looks to me either they are aggressively working on something pretty big, or they're just sucking us on until they sell the last of their original inventory and close shop. I'm curious to know what you guys think. I personally think the latter is true (but that's just me). Below is an exact copy of the correspondence:



To Whom It May Concern:

The R5000 user community would appreciate the professional courtesy for an official reply back regarding Nextcom Wireless’s commitment to provide R5000 drivers and dependable software that’s fully compatible with Microsoft’s current and upcoming operating systems and Media Center software in the near future:

Windows Vista (32 bit)
Windows Vista (64 bit)
Windows 7 (32 bit)
Windows 7 (64 bit)
Vista Media Center
Windows 7 Media Center

The last OS that the R5000 worked reliably on was Microsoft’s legacy OS: Windows XP (32 bit only) which isn’t available anymore on new PCs.

We will post your official response on this AVS Forum thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=449402) (Please note, a non-response is also a response as well.)

Thank you for your effort to provide a quality up-to-date product,
-MKA
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Thank you for your inquiry. Our software development is ongoing in these areas however we cannot make any commitments as to what may be available or when. We advise you to check our website periodically for the latest news and updates. Whereas we do have plans to release new software in the not too distant future there is no official release date nor has support for any particular product been finalized.

R5000-HD Support

Has anyone tried Windows XP virtualized in Windows 7 with the R5000?

If anyone has, I'm curious how bad of a performance penalty is running 32bit XP VM under 64bit Win 7. There's already a pretty big lag when waiting for a a/v stream to start, changing channels, etc.

Has anyone tried Windows XP virtualized in Windows 7 with the R5000?

My PS3 hardwired to a gigabit network works without a hitch using TVersity for both recorded content and bluray rips.I'll have to try streaming with the PS3 again. The last few times I tried to stream with the PS3 using Tversity, I could not get the TS files to play over the network at all, even though I could see them in the PS3 menu. Those same files played fine on the PS3 when transferred to DVD+R's.

Has anyone tried Windows XP virtualized in Windows 7 with the R5000?

I couldn't get it to work (VMWare Workstation 6.5.1). It doesn't matter though, as I needed a low-power machine I could leave on 24x7 and dedicate to R5000 and B*****rent duties so I built yet another new PC around an Intel mini-ITX motherboard and Atom 330 processor. I do have to copy the files over to my Core i7 box for editing, but at 50MB/sec, it's not too bad.

I have generally been storing my H.264 recordings as TS files on DVD+R disks (UDF 2.5) and playing them back on the SONY PS3. The PQ is good and all the "trick play" (i.e., FF/Rew and skip features) work well. If I could find a hardware decoder that could stream H.264 recordings with usable trick play, I might consider moving to a network server. One forum member suggested the SageTV HD200, but it would be nice to have confirmation from other members that this decoder works well with R5000 files.

If you remux the elementary streams into an MKV container, any of the NMTs (PCH, DragonTech IOBox, etc.) work fine. Whether or not you find the video quality acceptable is another question. I've started to value convenience over that last bit of picture quality, so if I'm missing something, it doesn't bother me that much anymore. I stopped burning video to DVDs for archival purposes years ago, maybe around the time I got an IOData Linkplayer 2.

It works fine for the most part as advertised 99.9% of the time. A few quirks you just need to learn to work around or plan for (though some are a real pain). Of course, the quirks normally hit you when the rare - one time only stuff comes on :(

Can you give some examples? I am thinking about buying the R5k mod. but I have this problem with buying something broken and to here there is no plan for fixes makes me like the idea of buying it even less. That is unless the problems are minor.

I do have to copy the files over to my Core i7 box for editing, but at 50MB/sec, it's not too bad.

What are you using to edit and what interface is giving you 50MB a sec?

If you remux the elementary streams into an MKV container, any of the NMTs (PCH, DragonTech IOBox, etc.) work fine. Whether or not you find the video quality acceptable is another question. I've started to value convenience over that last bit of picture quality, so if I'm missing something, it doesn't bother me that much anymore. I stopped burning video to DVDs for archival purposes years ago, maybe around the time I got an IOData Linkplayer 2.I'm sure that the PQ of the NMT streamers will be fine; it's the trick play performance that I am concerned about. I would prefer not to have to remux the files to get acceptable decoding with trick play. I am curious to know what application is used to remux from TS to MKV. If the NMT boxes work, then it's possible that MKV containers will play well on the TVIX boxes, too.

I'm sure that the PQ of the NMT streamers will be fine; it's the trick play performance that I am concerned about. I would prefer not to have to remux the files to get acceptable decoding with trick play. I am curious to know what application is used to remux from TS to MKV. If the NMT boxes work, then it's possible that MKV containers will play well on the TVIX boxes, too.

Remuxing into an MKV is not necessary to play the movie, 99.5% of the time. I do have a couple files (out of several hundred) which do not play properly, and remuxing into a TS does not eliminate the problem.

Time seek in an MPEG-2 TS is just not 100% reliable or accurate on the NMTs. And things like PTS wraparound really confuse it. The PS3 has no problem with the same files that are problematic on the NMT. The solution for me was to remux into an MKV container. I just use mkvmerge with a GUI interface to remux. The NMT cannot fast-reverse an MKV, but the +/- 30 second keys, along with accurate and reliable time-seek are sufficient for me. And the NMT gives a better user experience (when combined with YAMJ), and is cheaper (potentially a factor when you're putting one of these at every TV in the house), so that' why I've settled on them.

What are you using to edit and what interface is giving you 50MB a sec?

I'm using TSPE (Transport Stream Packet Editor, www.bitstreamtools.com) to edit. For a movie where all you're doing is chopping off the beginning and ends it doesn't matter that it can't do frame accurate editing. I will upgrade my VideoRedo when the H.264 capable version is out, but even when I've been forced to use TSPE to cut out commercials the results have not been bad. Just a little break-up around the cut points, but really not unacceptable, unless you're really picky.

50MB/sec is what I get when copying over the network from my Atom-based R5000 capture machine to my Core i7 main PC. When copying from a faster machine I can sustain 75MB/sec. Obviously this is gigabit Ethernet, but I'm not using jumbo frames.

Can you give some examples? I am thinking about buying the R5k mod. but I have this problem with buying something broken and to here there is no plan for fixes makes me like the idea of buying it even less. That is unless the problems are minor.

Now that I've figured out how to capture recordings that are on my 211's EHD, missing those one-time-only broadcasts isn't a problem. I set the timer both on my PC, and on the receiver. Having a recording set on the receiver insures that the receiver is on and the correct channel is tuned (the most frequent problem I encounter), and having a backup copy of the recording on the EHD that I can capture to the PC is extra insurance in case the PC doesn't record for some reason (a much less frequent problem).

You could also always capture to the 211's EHD first, and then transfer manually to the PC afterwards.

I need some help!

I have been running the R5000 on a StarChoice box for over a year now. I used to get the app crashing a lot and I worked with David and he managed to give me a version that no longer crashed.

But now, in the last 2 weeks, it has started to fail to record 90% of my shows. What happens is that it records for a while (Oh, I am using SageTV) and produces a -0 file, then for some reason it stops recording. There are no errors produced and then it starts recording again and produces a -1 file. It does this over and over again depending on how long the show is. Each time it loses approx 1 minute of recording.

I just watched it happen as I was getting ready to post. It recorded 23 minutes of the show just fine, then for some reason it stopped recording. Sage thought it was still recording, but the UI of r5000-hd showed that it stopped and didn't provide any sort of error message. And then I am guessing that Sage realized that it has stopped recording and told it to record again.

Has this happened to anybody?

I am guessing that it might be related to the speed of my disks. Because the recording was going well and then I started a file transfer from my mac to the fileshare that represents the recording disk. About half way through the xfer the recording stopped. The disk is a 7200 seagate (7200.10 500GB) drive. It is SATA. When I transfer from the file server (windows xp) over gigabit ethernet to my mac pro, I get about 20-30MB/s. I can do that while streaming via Sage using an HD extender. But if I do two file transfers over gig ethernet to the mac pro from the fileserver, the xfer rate drops to 5MB/s.

I am going to try moving the R5000 to another machine, but if anybody has any idea of how to tell why the R5000 program is stopping the recoding that would be great.

Oh and I have defragg'd the disk using Diskeeper 2007.

Thanks
Greg

Most people just have an just an old, old bare bones PC running in the background; and, have their new machines (ie Windows 7 64bit) as their desktops. There's no advantage to try to get the R5000 to work under a 64bit OS performance-wise. Also, it doesnt really make much sense to set it up as a virtual machine shared with other VM's on the same PC; unless you absolutely can't tollerate the idea of having more than one physical PC :)


Given the problems I am having with the R5000 running on my current server, I am considering moving it to another machine to see if that helps.

What I started wondering about was file paths. If Sage tells the R5000 to record a show to e:\pvr files\ I assume that the R5000 will record that show to the local e:. But then it needs to get transfered back to the sage server. How are people handling that?

Thanks
Greg

I have been doing a bit more digging. It turns out that I have had SageTV logging turned on since the time I was debugging the crashing problem. I took at look at the log of the messages that Sage sends to the R5000. It appears that for some random reason, Sage tells the R5000 to stop, then it immediately tells it to start recording again.

I think this is new behaviour since I upgraded to sageTV 6.6. I guess I should roll back.

here is the snippet of the sage log.

My question to you guys is: are any of you running SageTV 6.6 with the R5000?


21:00:00 Ping from Sage
21:00:00 Raw string: START StarChoiceR5000-100254C Digital TV Tuner|543|2501114400882|e:\pvr files\Sage Recordings\iCarly-iWantMyWebsiteBack-5092835-0.ts|Great

21:00:00 START rec'd from Sage
21:00:00 Sat: , Channel: 543
21:00:00 Profile used: 100504EAB‡@ZÉ

21:00:00 Recording launch from SageTV: CH 543-0, e:\pvr files\Sage Recordings\iCarly-iWantMyWebsiteBack-5092835-0.ts...Set timer and exiting
21:00:00 Sage recording fired after 0 delay
21:00:07 Raw string: GET_FILE_SIZE e:\pvr files\Sage Recordings\iCarly-iWantMyWebsiteBack-5092835-0.ts

21:00:07 GET_FILE_SIZE of e:\pvr files\Sage Recordings\iCarly-iWantMyWebsiteBack-5092835-0.ts rec'd from Sage
21:00:07 Sent filesize: 0

... [edited out redundant lines] ....


21:24:37 Raw string: GET_FILE_SIZE e:\pvr files\Sage Recordings\iCarly-iWantMyWebsiteBack-5092835-0.ts

21:24:37 GET_FILE_SIZE of e:\pvr files\Sage Recordings\iCarly-iWantMyWebsiteBack-5092835-0.ts rec'd from Sage
21:24:37 Sent filesize: 613102592
21:24:37 Raw string: NOOP

21:24:37 Ping from Sage
21:24:37 Raw string: GET_FILE_SIZE e:\pvr files\Sage Recordings\iCarly-iWantMyWebsiteBack-5092835-0.ts

21:24:37 GET_FILE_SIZE of e:\pvr files\Sage Recordings\iCarly-iWantMyWebsiteBack-5092835-0.ts rec'd from Sage
21:24:37 Sent filesize: 613102592
21:24:37 Raw string: STOP

21:24:37 STOP rec'd from Sage
21:24:37 Raw string: START StarChoiceR5000-100254C Digital TV Tuner|543|2501117355670|e:\pvr files\Sage Recordings\iCarly-iWantMyWebsiteBack-5092835-1.ts|Great

21:24:37 START rec'd from Sage
21:24:37 Sat: , Channel: 543
21:24:37 Profile used: 100504EAB‡@ZÉ

21:24:37 Recording launch from SageTV: CH 543-0, e:\pvr files\Sage Recordings\iCarly-iWantMyWebsiteBack-5092835-1.ts...Set timer and exiting
21:24:37 Sage recording fired after 0 delay
21:24:47 Opening ts file for SageTV: e:\pvr files\Sage Recordings\iCarly-iWantMyWebsiteBack-5092835-1.ts
21:24:52 Raw string: GET_FILE_SIZE e:\pvr files\Sage Recordings\iCarly-iWantMyWebsiteBack-5092835-1.ts

21:24:52 GET_FILE_SIZE of e:\pvr files\Sage Recordings\iCarly-iWantMyWebsiteBack-5092835-1.ts rec'd from Sage
21:24:52 Sent filesize: 1828864

... [edited out redundant lines] ....

21:29:52 Raw string: GET_FILE_SIZE e:\pvr files\Sage Recordings\iCarly-iWantMyWebsiteBack-5092835-1.ts

21:29:52 GET_FILE_SIZE of e:\pvr files\Sage Recordings\iCarly-iWantMyWebsiteBack-5092835-1.ts rec'd from Sage
21:29:52 Sent filesize: 110501888
21:29:59 Raw string: NOOP

21:29:59 Ping from Sage
21:29:59 Raw string: STOP

21:29:59 STOP rec'd from Sage
21:29:59 Closed ts file for SageTV: e:\pvr files\Sage Recordings\iCarly-iWantMyWebsiteBack-5092835-1.ts
21:30:00 Raw string: NOOP

21:30:00 Ping from Sage
21:30:08 Raw string: NOOP

21:30:08 Ping from Sage
21:34:59 Streaming stopped due to inactivity
21:35:09 Raw string: NOOP

I'm using SageTV 6.6.2 with R5000's. I coincidentally upgraded a couple of days ago. I didnt notice any change in reliability after upgrading. My shows from last night, "Entourage", "Hung", "Robot Chicken", "Family Guy" all recorded from various R5000 boxes and channels on the same machine.

For something as important as TV server functionality, I ALWAYS create a full image backup of a fully working OS/SageTV/drivers after making sure everything works; then, if something breaks, I revert back to the full image. if its still broken (knock on wood that its not), its hardware.

I have been doing a bit more digging. It turns out that I have had SageTV logging turned on since the time I was debugging the crashing problem. I took at look at the log of the messages that Sage sends to the R5000. It appears that for some random reason, Sage tells the R5000 to stop, then it immediately tells it to start recording again.

I think this is new behaviour since I upgraded to sageTV 6.6. I guess I should roll back.

here is the snippet of the sage log.

My question to you guys is: are any of you running SageTV 6.6 with the R5000?


21:00:00 Ping from Sage
21:00:00 Raw string: START StarChoiceR5000-100254C Digital TV Tuner|543|2501114400882|e:\pvr files\Sage Recordings\iCarly-iWantMyWebsiteBack-5092835-0.ts|Great

21:00:00 START rec'd from Sage
21:00:00 Sat: , Channel: 543
21:00:00 Profile used: 100504EAB‡@ZÉ

21:00:00 Recording launch from SageTV: CH 543-0, e:\pvr files\Sage Recordings\iCarly-iWantMyWebsiteBack-5092835-0.ts...Set timer and exiting
21:00:00 Sage recording fired after 0 delay
21:00:07 Raw string: GET_FILE_SIZE e:\pvr files\Sage Recordings\iCarly-iWantMyWebsiteBack-5092835-0.ts

21:00:07 GET_FILE_SIZE of e:\pvr files\Sage Recordings\iCarly-iWantMyWebsiteBack-5092835-0.ts rec'd from Sage
21:00:07 Sent filesize: 0

... [edited out redundant lines] ....


21:24:37 Raw string: GET_FILE_SIZE e:\pvr files\Sage Recordings\iCarly-iWantMyWebsiteBack-5092835-0.ts

21:24:37 GET_FILE_SIZE of e:\pvr files\Sage Recordings\iCarly-iWantMyWebsiteBack-5092835-0.ts rec'd from Sage
21:24:37 Sent filesize: 613102592
21:24:37 Raw string: NOOP

21:24:37 Ping from Sage
21:24:37 Raw string: GET_FILE_SIZE e:\pvr files\Sage Recordings\iCarly-iWantMyWebsiteBack-5092835-0.ts

21:24:37 GET_FILE_SIZE of e:\pvr files\Sage Recordings\iCarly-iWantMyWebsiteBack-5092835-0.ts rec'd from Sage
21:24:37 Sent filesize: 613102592
21:24:37 Raw string: STOP

21:24:37 STOP rec'd from Sage
21:24:37 Raw string: START StarChoiceR5000-100254C Digital TV Tuner|543|2501117355670|e:\pvr files\Sage Recordings\iCarly-iWantMyWebsiteBack-5092835-1.ts|Great

21:24:37 START rec'd from Sage
21:24:37 Sat: , Channel: 543
21:24:37 Profile used: 100504EAB‡@ZÉ

21:24:37 Recording launch from SageTV: CH 543-0, e:\pvr files\Sage Recordings\iCarly-iWantMyWebsiteBack-5092835-1.ts...Set timer and exiting
21:24:37 Sage recording fired after 0 delay
21:24:47 Opening ts file for SageTV: e:\pvr files\Sage Recordings\iCarly-iWantMyWebsiteBack-5092835-1.ts
21:24:52 Raw string: GET_FILE_SIZE e:\pvr files\Sage Recordings\iCarly-iWantMyWebsiteBack-5092835-1.ts

21:24:52 GET_FILE_SIZE of e:\pvr files\Sage Recordings\iCarly-iWantMyWebsiteBack-5092835-1.ts rec'd from Sage
21:24:52 Sent filesize: 1828864

... [edited out redundant lines] ....

21:29:52 Raw string: GET_FILE_SIZE e:\pvr files\Sage Recordings\iCarly-iWantMyWebsiteBack-5092835-1.ts

21:29:52 GET_FILE_SIZE of e:\pvr files\Sage Recordings\iCarly-iWantMyWebsiteBack-5092835-1.ts rec'd from Sage
21:29:52 Sent filesize: 110501888
21:29:59 Raw string: NOOP

21:29:59 Ping from Sage
21:29:59 Raw string: STOP

21:29:59 STOP rec'd from Sage
21:29:59 Closed ts file for SageTV: e:\pvr files\Sage Recordings\iCarly-iWantMyWebsiteBack-5092835-1.ts
21:30:00 Raw string: NOOP

21:30:00 Ping from Sage
21:30:08 Raw string: NOOP

21:30:08 Ping from Sage
21:34:59 Streaming stopped due to inactivity
21:35:09 Raw string: NOOP

For something as important as TV server functionality, I ALWAYS create a full image backup of a fully working OS/SageTV/drivers after making sure everything works; then, if something breaks, I revert back to the full image. if its still broken (knock on wood that its not), its hardware.

Yes I do too. I did do a full backup. I will give it a day or two to see if Sage responds. If they don't, I will revert back. I just didn't tie the two events together until now because I have had such a bad experience with the reliability of the R5000-HD program in the past. I assumed the problem was with it.

Greg

I had another thought so I looked at the Sage log from the R5000 again. It turns out that Sage told the R5000 to stop and restart the file because R5000 told Sage that the size of the file was the same for 6 requests in a row. I am assuming that Sage figured that the recording was stuck and decided the best thing to do was to restart the recording.

Greg

This might actually be a signal strength issue. The restart behavior is new in 6.6, which, i believe to be a good thing, but it may be reacting to a preexisting problem you've had, that was just unnoticed before.

Also, If you DO plan to move the R5000 to another PC.. You should think of changing your SageTV recordings paths to use UNC names (\\Server\VidStorage1). This way any recording device, or client, will all see the files from the same perspective.

This might actually be a signal strength issue. The restart behavior is new in 6.6, which, i believe to be a good thing, but it may be reacting to a preexisting problem you've had, that was just unnoticed before.

Also, If you DO plan to move the R5000 to another PC.. You should think of changing your SageTV recordings paths to use UNC names (\\Server\VidStorage1). This way any recording device, or client, will all see the files from the same perspective.

My signal strength is high 80s or low 90s every time I check it.

Are you saying that the R5000 box is going to save the file across the network to a mounted drive? Is that going to be fast enough?

Greg

I stream sage recordings across my network nearly constantly. Obviously gigabit would be preferred, but a 100Mbit connection should be plenty for the cable recordings, that averate about 10-15mbps

I just watched it happen as I was getting ready to post. It recorded 23 minutes of the show just fine, then for some reason it stopped recording. Sage thought it was still recording, but the UI of r5000-hd showed that it stopped and didn't provide any sort of error message. And then I am guessing that Sage realized that it has stopped recording and told it to record again.

Has this happened to anybody?


I've had a similar problem. I use Sage and 2 R5000 modded Dish VIP211 boxes. It used to happen a lot more, and hasn't happened much since I updated to Sage 6.5.19 beta, but that could just be random chance. I haven't bothered updating since that beta.

I used to get a lot of one hour shows where the data just seemed to stop anywhere between 30 minutes to 55 minutes into the show. Sage would keep thinking it was playing, i.e. the bar keeps progressing, but there is no data, no audio or video.

The recovery is new in Sage. It's supposed to detect when an encoder stops providing data and restart it. However, I've only seen 1 halt happen (during live tv) since updating to 6.5.19, and it didn't auto recover. I have the halt duration set to 60 seconds, the default, and it didn't auto recover after waiting for 4 minutes.

I don't have any solution to offer you, but I just enabled the Sage log for the R5000. I'll keep my eye out and post back if I get any more info.

When this happens to you guys, when you open up the DVR app interface (if it hasnt crashed or hung yet) do you see that the buffer meter is stuck at full? Are you using Vista? Do you watch TV on the same machine that has the R5000's hooked up to it? I had to use the R5000 proxy app made by one of the guys on this thread to force the app to work correctly.. maybe it will also prevent your stuff too. If you would like to find more about the proxy app just look through the recent pages on this thread.

I've had a similar problem. I use Sage and 2 R5000 modded Dish VIP211 boxes. It used to happen a lot more, and hasn't happened much since I updated to Sage 6.5.19 beta, but that could just be random chance. I haven't bothered updating since that beta.

I used to get a lot of one hour shows where the data just seemed to stop anywhere between 30 minutes to 55 minutes into the show. Sage would keep thinking it was playing, i.e. the bar keeps progressing, but there is no data, no audio or video.

The recovery is new in Sage. It's supposed to detect when an encoder stops providing data and restart it. However, I've only seen 1 halt happen (during live tv) since updating to 6.5.19, and it didn't auto recover. I have the halt duration set to 60 seconds, the default, and it didn't auto recover after waiting for 4 minutes.

I don't have any solution to offer you, but I just enabled the Sage log for the R5000. I'll keep my eye out and post back if I get any more info.

When this happens to you guys, when you open up the DVR app interface (if it hasnt crashed or hung yet) do you see that the buffer meter is stuck at full? Are you using Vista? Do you watch TV on the same machine that has the R5000's hooked up to it? I had to use the R5000 proxy app made by one of the guys on this thread to force the app to work correctly.. maybe it will also prevent your stuff too. If you would like to find more about the proxy app just look through the recent pages on this thread.

- I run client server. R5000 aps run on server, in background started at boot so I can't see the interface. I do not playback on server.

- All clients and servers are Vista.

- I use the proxy, but I modified it a little bit to work around some problems with startup. I got the source from the developer and modified it so it doesn't return from the start command until the file has actually started growing. Without this mod, I would get a lot of R5000 app crashes at startup when clients would try to start playing the file too soon. Otherwise, the proxy functions the same.

Oh okay. I can't think of anything in sageTV that change cause recordings to stop part way sometimes. It sounds like a system resource issue or a hardware failing issue; nothing specific to the sageTV app. I would look at very basic things (again); such as pagefile, what apps are running in memory, disks, disk controller or network latency/bandwidth (if recording to NAS). This might also be related to why you needed to compensate for your setup's responsiveness by modify the proxy app. I'm guessing you played with the below setting before modifying the proxy app:

seeker/fast_mux_switch=false
videoframe/fast_file_switching=false

- I run client server. R5000 aps run on server, in background started at boot so I can't see the interface. I do not playback on server.

- All clients and servers are Vista.

- I use the proxy, but I modified it a little bit to work around some problems with startup. I got the source from the developer and modified it so it doesn't return from the start command until the file has actually started growing. Without this mod, I would get a lot of R5000 app crashes at startup when clients would try to start playing the file too soon. Otherwise, the proxy functions the same.

seeker/fast_mux_switch=false
videoframe/fast_file_switching=false

Yep, played with those. I *think* the reason I had to modify the proxy is because I use UNC paths and network clients. I don't think I ever had that problem before I started using UNC. I could maybe fix my problem if I went back to local paths. I switched to UNC with the intent of using comskip at some point, but never got around to it.

Yep, played with those. I *think* the reason I had to modify the proxy is because I use UNC paths and network clients. I don't think I ever had that problem before I started using UNC. I could maybe fix my problem if I went back to local paths. I switched to UNC with the intent of using comskip at some point, but never got around to it.

I don't use UNC paths and this his happening to me on every recording. Well, ok maybe 19 out of 20 recordings fail.

Greg

Oh okay. I can't think of anything in sageTV that change cause recordings to stop part way sometimes. It sounds like a system resource issue or a hardware failing issue; nothing specific to the sageTV app. I would look at very basic things (again); such as pagefile, what apps are running in memory, disks, disk controller or network latency/bandwidth (if recording to NAS). This might also be related to why you needed to compensate for your setup's responsiveness by modify the proxy app. I'm guessing you played with the below setting before modifying the proxy app:

seeker/fast_mux_switch=false
videoframe/fast_file_switching=false

So I did track down that Sage put in a change (mentioned above) to monitor the size of the file being written. When that file stops growing for more than 1 minute, Sage stops the recording and starts it again. I found the property and set it to 5 minutes. Sure enough, it now waits 5 minutes.

I had thought it might be a signal strength issue, but I hooked the svideo out of my HD receiver into my PVR250 and recorded the options screen that shows the signal strength while I was recording on the R5000. Sure enough the signal strength stayed constant at 95 when the R5000 stopped writing the file. All the while, BTV was writing its Live recording file to the same disk that the R5000 was writing to. So given that, it really seems like a bug in the R5000 program or maybe the hardware.

BTW, this test proved that the output out the svideo port continued uninterrupted during this interruption on the usb stream.

I emailed the R5000 support email address and got a response asking for log s. Luckily I had restarted everything last night and had a fresh set of logs with a single recording in it that showed the issue happening. I have sent them off as well as a description of my experiment. I am waiting for a response.

Hopefully they can figure out what is happening because my system is useless right now. :(

Greg

Hi.
I'm from the company DVBLogic. We are developing a plugin to support R5000HD in Windows Media Center. We need testers to verify the work R5000HD and Windows Media Center (Vista TVPack or Win7). Who is interested in this, write me in PM.
Thanks.

Wow. If it works reliably, there are going to be a lot of people interested I'm sure. Im not sure if VMC/7MC has extender support like sageTV's HD-200 (in respect to DVR functionality). I have no idea if the xbox360 can have the same interface as VMC/7MC. I'd like to be able to just buy a $200 little box and be able to do everything on it that I can do on the VMC/7MC itself.

Hi.
I'm from the company DVBLogic. We are developing a plugin to support R5000HD in Windows Media Center. We need testers to verify the work R5000HD and Windows Media Center (Vista TVPack or Win7). Who is interested in this, write me in PM.
Thanks.

To test you need to have a STB R5000HD. Software DVBLink I send by email. Unfortunately I have no R5000HD device and I can not do the tests.

My signal strength is high 80s or low 90s every time I check it.

Are you saying that the R5000 box is going to save the file across the network to a mounted drive? Is that going to be fast enough?

Greg

I have SageTV server and the R5000-HD app running on XP with all file access over a gigabit network to a NAS and it works extremely reliably.

I have heard of issues trying to run the R5000-Hd app under vista and windows 7, which is why they are doing that driver rewrite. For best fresults, I would stick with XP for this application.

I have SageTV server and the R5000-HD app running on XP with all file access over a gigabit network to a NAS and it works extremely reliably.

I have heard of issues trying to run the R5000-Hd app under vista and windows 7, which is why they are doing that driver rewrite. For best fresults, I would stick with XP for this application.

My experience with XP was identical to vista on the same machine. Same problems. Not saying that my problem is the same, just another datapoint.

What driver rewrite? I just know they were rewriting the DVR app; which was kind of an indefinite on-going process.

I have SageTV server and the R5000-HD app running on XP with all file access over a gigabit network to a NAS and it works extremely reliably.

I have heard of issues trying to run the R5000-Hd app under vista and windows 7, which is why they are doing that driver rewrite. For best fresults, I would stick with XP for this application.

To test you need to have a STB R5000HD. Software DVBLink I send by email. Unfortunately I have no R5000HD device and I can not do the tests.

I don't understand. The Nextcomm folks already have an app and driver that talks to WMC. What does yours do differently?

I think their's actually works. I dont know of anyone on this thread that ever managed to get it working with WMC.

I don't understand. The Nextcomm folks already have an app and driver that talks to WMC. What does yours do differently?

I think their's actually works. I dont know of anyone on this thread that ever managed to get it working with WMC.

:) They seem to support SageTV as well, so maybe if you are having problems in Sage you should look at that driver as well.

I think what they are offering might be an intermediate app (proxy) which sits between the R5000 app and WMC; so WMC sees the cablebox as a regular WMC USB QAM TV tuner. I think we still need to use the old clunky Windows XP DVR app that the R5000 people offer for the beta DVBLogic product.

I think the 32bit driver provided by the R5000 people is fine for XP/Vista/Windows7. It should be equally as reliable on all three. It's the DVR app that causes problems for people under Vista (and possibly Windows 7); particularly when trying to watch TV on the same machine that has R5000 cableboxes attached to it. Using the proxy app by Hugo in this thread forces the DVR app to behave. All 4 of my R5000 boxes recording almost non-stop 24/7 are solid. THANKS HUGO!!

WMC sounds very appealing to me because of the quality and features of the plugins available. However, it will probably never have the diverse extender support that sageTV has (HD-200, placeshifter, mac, liniux clients, etc).

:) They seem to support SageTV as well, so maybe if you are having problems in Sage you should look at that driver as well.

Well, yesterday I tracked down the post with the R5000HDProxy in it.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=15579338&postcount=2082

This solved the problems I was having with the R5000 software stopping part way through.

If anybody is having any problems with the R5000 recording, you really should check out the proxy program. It works very well.

Greg

Yeah, I dont think people realize that this utility is required to use in many cases (forcing the R5000 software to work correctly). I, sure as heck, couldnt use my R5000 boxes without it. I wrote a script to hide the command line windows for the proxy too and quietly putting the R5000 apps in the Windows system tray. Glad you got it working.

The funny thing is Hugo gave his code to the R5000 people to integrate into their app. Instead of fixing the problem immediately; they decided to just not relaase software anymore despite all the complaints and multiple email request.. They actually wouldnt even admit there was a problem until Hugo cornered them into admiting the problem. You should email R5000 support and ask them why they havent fixed this problem in the past year.

Well, yesterday I tracked down the post with the R5000HDProxy in it.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=15579338&postcount=2082

This solved the problems I was having with the R5000 software stopping part way through.

If anybody is having any problems with the R5000 recording, you really should check out the proxy program. It works very well.

Greg

Their support was responsive at first, then they went silent when I kept feeding them information. I asked them a couple days in a row if they had any updates.

Once I get through the weekend with all recordings working perfectly (half way through and batting 1000 right now), I will email them telling them that the problem seems to be a race condition in their code because if it responding to all the GET_FILESIZE and point them at the proxy code (yet again, but the sounds of it). I think I saw somebody mention that they probably have a resource leak because the handle leak keeps going up. If that is the case, it might be prudent to restart it once a month or so.

Greg

The resource leak issue is fixed with the proxy. I dont like rebooting my server unless absolutely necessary (for security patches, etc); especially on stable machine. However, the resource leak for me (if not fixed by the proxy app) would flood my memory within a day or two of aggressive recordings on all 4 R5000 boxes.

Their support was responsive at first, then they went silent when I kept feeding them information. I asked them a couple days in a row if they had any updates.

Once I get through the weekend with all recordings working perfectly (half way through and batting 1000 right now), I will email them telling them that the problem seems to be a race condition in their code because if it responding to all the GET_FILESIZE and point them at the proxy code (yet again, but the sounds of it). I think I saw somebody mention that they probably have a resource leak because the handle leak keeps going up. If that is the case, it might be prudent to restart it once a month or so.

Greg

We are starting today the alpha testing of our product - DVBLink for R5000HD. This product connects R5000HD-equipped settopboxes to MediaCenter.

Who are interested in this http://dvblogic.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=3879

Any chance of you guys over there at DVBLogic creating a proper service based driver for all r5000 usage?

Who are interested in this http://dvblogic.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=3879

Maybe you discussed this before, but what does it mean when you say, "The r5000hd.exe has a limitation of 15 minutes working time. It is enough for the first alpha, but we are currently working together with Nextcom to create a fully functional trial version with prolonged working time."

Does this refer to a recording time limit?

R5000HD.exe to our site specially designed version for DVBLink. For alpha1 Nextcom made version R5000HD.exe with limited time work. This will be enough for debug DVBLink. For beta or release will be made fully functional version R5000HD.exe.

Hi everybody,

I am taking over the discussion here from my colleague "realman_dvblogic".

We at DVBLogic work together with nextcom to create DVBlink compatible product for r5000hd-equipped settopboxes.
For those who might not know - DVBLink is a digital streaming connectivity platform for Windows MediaCenter. It takes digital stream from a custom source - dreambox, Hauppauge HDPVR, IPTV, satTV card etc. - and presents it to MediaCenter as a virtual tuner. As such user gets full MediaCenter functionality for this source - liveTV, time-shifting, timer recordings, guide listings etc.
DVBLink for R5000HD will feature the same functionality for r5000hd stbs. Our software should be better comparing to NextCom's own MediaCenter integration in the following points:
- switching between channels with different resolution (SD and HD) is seamless and does not require restarting MediaCenter
- Better timer recording robustness because of the previous point
- less audio/video artifacts
- Additional DVBLink goodies - upnp server, guide a la carte and - soon - signal transcoding and network server

We have released lately the first Alpha of our product. The goal of this alpha is to test the basics of product functionality - channel changes and streaming. We need some statistics to say that it works and we can move further. This is exactly where we need your help.

Please feel free to try the alpha and report your findings. I will be happy to answer all your questions here or on our forum at dvblogic.com.

You might consider also posting on the AVS - HTPC forum; explaining what it does; if you need more alpha testers. Glad to see finally taking on Windows Media Center for the R5000; as there are probably a lot of people interested in this who are used to WMC. I am curious, will you product still require the R5000 DVR helper app and 32bit Windows driver?

Hi everybody,

I am taking over the discussion here from my colleague "realman_dvblogic".

We at DVBLogic work together with nextcom to create DVBlink compatible product for r5000hd-equipped settopboxes.
For those who might not know - DVBLink is a digital streaming connectivity platform for Windows MediaCenter. It takes digital stream from a custom source - dreambox, Hauppauge HDPVR, IPTV, satTV card etc. - and presents it to MediaCenter as a virtual tuner. As such user gets full MediaCenter functionality for this source - liveTV, time-shifting, timer recordings, guide listings etc.
DVBLink for R5000HD will feature the same functionality for r5000hd stbs. Our software should be better comparing to NextCom's own MediaCenter integration in the following points:
- switching between channels with different resolution (SD and HD) is seamless and does not require restarting MediaCenter
- Better timer recording robustness because of the previous point
- less audio/video artifacts
- Additional DVBLink goodies - upnp server, guide a la carte and - soon - signal transcoding and network server

We have released lately the first Alpha of our product. The goal of this alpha is to test the basics of product functionality - channel changes and streaming. We need some statistics to say that it works and we can move further. This is exactly where we need your help.

Please feel free to try the alpha and report your findings. I will be happy to answer all your questions here or on our forum at dvblogic.com.

I am curious, will you product still require the R5000 DVR helper app and 32bit Windows driver?

The DVBLink solution still requires r5000hd helper application. However this application is specifically updated for our purpose so that we can use in the same way as SageTV does - with faster channel changes and transferring th stream via shared memory interface.
We may consider running this application as a service at the later stages of the product.

We may consider running this application as a service at the later stages of the product.

Really, for what the R5000HD.EXE app does, it should definitely already BE a service from nextcom. It should be started at boot-up, and if it loses the box for some reason, reinitialize itself. This should be considered a standard feature.

Of course, the REAL end-game for this would be a BDA driver wrapper for the R5000. THAT would finally fix almost all teh issues with the R5000, and probably get me on the hook for 2 more DiY kits...

I approached Nextcom about adding support for GBPVR. Basically, I was going to write my own BDA driver which wrapped the helper application and it would work with any TV application that used BDA drivers. Unfortunately, since I don't have Dish/DTV yet, the startup cost was going to be way too high for me. It probably would have been worth it in the end but Nextcom did not seem interested at all.

I approached Nextcom about adding support for GBPVR. Basically, I was going to write my own BDA driver which wrapped the helper application and it would work with any TV application that used BDA drivers.

This is exactly what DVBLink does. As such it works with any application that understands BDA drivers - MediaCenter, GBPVR, DVBViewer, SageTV etc.

This is exactly what DVBLink does. As such it works with any application that understands BDA drivers - MediaCenter, GBPVR, DVBViewer, SageTV etc.

Great. I may have missed it but is there any idea on the cost for the DVBLink driver yet? I know a lot of GBPVR users who may be interested.

If it can just keep the R5000HD program from crashing, I'd be intersted (sage user).

This is exactly what DVBLink does. As such it works with any application that understands BDA drivers - MediaCenter, GBPVR, DVBViewer, SageTV etc.

Have you thought about doing this for cablecard as well?

Ok - I've done a fresh install of Windows 7 RC and have now attempted to install the DVBLink product. Step one of the installation documentation says to "Install R5000HD". I use the R5000hd.exe that came with DVBLink software and it doesn't seem to install anything - it just runs the r5000hd.exe dvr app and gives me a USB Error indicating that the USB device driver for the R5000 isn't installed. It also doesn't install any software to they system.

Should I install Nextcom's software first and then replace the R5000hd.exe file with DVBLink version? I attempted that with Nextcom's generic version and got the same USB Error after I replaced the Nextcom file with the DVBLink one. Should I use the MCE version of Nextcom's software instead? Please clarify - thanks.

I think you need to modify the driver .inf file for it to work for Windows 7 (the hack needed for the driver to work on Vista). Try the attached inf (should replace the inf file paired up with the driver file NxtcmUSB.sys). This should take care of the USB error message you see when you start the R500HD.exe app; as your driver installation isn't complete yet. You definitely need the DVBLink's version of the R5000HD.exe app for it to know to talk to the DVBLink software.

Ok - I've done a fresh install of Windows 7 RC and have now attempted to install the DVBLink product. Step one of the installation documentation says to "Install R5000HD". I use the R5000hd.exe that came with DVBLink software and it doesn't seem to install anything - it just runs the r5000hd.exe dvr app and gives me a USB Error indicating that the USB device driver for the R5000 isn't installed. It also doesn't install any software to they system.

Should I install Nextcom's software first and then replace the R5000hd.exe file with DVBLink version? I attempted that with Nextcom's generic version and got the same USB Error after I replaced the Nextcom file with the DVBLink one. Should I use the MCE version of Nextcom's software instead? Please clarify - thanks.

I think you need to modify the driver .inf file for it to work for Windows 7 (the hack needed for the driver to work on Vista). Try the attached inf (should replace the inf file paired up with the driver file NxtcmUSB.sys). This should take care of the USB error message you see when you start the R500HD.exe app; as your driver installation isn't complete yet. You definitely need the DVBLink's version of the R5000HD.exe app for it to know to talk to the DVBLink software.
I'll have to give that a try. I've been using the R5000-HD since last November and never had that error message before. I only get the USB error with DVBLink's R5000HD.exe file. I've used the three flavors from Nextcom - generic, Sage, MCE and none have given me the usb error. I've never hung in there long enough to make them work with Sage or MCE - I've just done my recording manually or through TitanTV. I recently wanted to fight through it again because I'd really prefer a more integrated solution. When I saw DVBLink's post, I jumped on it - it's got to be better than Nextcom's solutions.

Once you get it working, it doesnt matter how it works.. so long as it's reliable and as quick as possible.

For me, I have mine put together with gum and shoestring using hugo's proxy app (opening 4 command line windows (one for each device) and automatically hiding the windows using CMDOW.exe). Nobody would ever know looking at the windows desktop that there's all that junk running in the background since everything is hidden.

I'll have to give that a try. I've been using the R5000-HD since last November and never had that error message before. I only get the USB error with DVBLink's R5000HD.exe file. I've used the three flavors from Nextcom - generic, Sage, MCE and none have given me the usb error. I've never hung in there long enough to make them work with Sage or MCE - I've just done my recording manually or through TitanTV. I recently wanted to fight through it again because I'd really prefer a more integrated solution. When I saw DVBLink's post, I jumped on it - it's got to be better than Nextcom's solutions.

There is a typo in the installation and configuration manual indeed. Sorry about that.
r5000hd.exe from dvblink zip is the application itself - e.g. not the installation executable. So you need to install NextCom own software first (does not really matter which flavor it is) and then copy DVBLink's r5000hd.exe over. This should do the trick. You may not be able to use it in a usual way, but it should work with DVBLink for r5000hd.
Run DVBLink's channel configuration dialog, insert several channels (2-3 will do for a start), synchronize them in MediaCenter and try changing them to see whether you can see picture.

Thanks!

So, this brings up some questions from me.. is ANYONE using the R5000 with Vista or Win7 successfully? I get BSOD's whenever I try it, even on a completely clean install. DVBLink, I saw your comment about modified .inf files, and tried that, but it does the same thing. Is anyone else having this problem?

Thanks

There is a typo in the installation and configuration manual indeed. Sorry about that.
r5000hd.exe from dvblink zip is the application itself - e.g. not the installation executable. So you need to install NextCom own software first (does not really matter which flavor it is) and then copy DVBLink's r5000hd.exe over. This should do the trick. You may not be able to use it in a usual way, but it should work with DVBLink for r5000hd.
Run DVBLink's channel configuration dialog, insert several channels (2-3 will do for a start), synchronize them in MediaCenter and try changing them to see whether you can see picture.

Thanks!
Okay I will try a different version to see if that will work better.

Any help with the USB error? See my previous post.

So, this brings up some questions from me.. is ANYONE using the R5000 with Vista or Win7 successfully? I get BSOD's whenever I try it, even on a completely clean install. DVBLink, I saw your comment about modified .inf files, and tried that, but it does the same thing. Is anyone else having this problem?

Thanks

I use it on Vista with my 2 Dish Vip211s with SageTV mostly successfully. Just the occasional stopped recording, but no bluescreens.