Ceton Infinitv4 Installed! Pix! - Page 2

Got my card installed and working. I'm using it in gateway sx2840 and card wouldn't fit into x1 slot. Had to use x16 slot for the card to fit. x1 slot required removal of dvd drive. Also the bracket of the card is a bit off so when the card is installed it doesn't sit completely in the PCIe slot without a bit of maneuvering.

So far everything is running smooth except my MCE lost its sleeping ability. It now decides to bluescreen after going to sleep. Still trying to track down the issue. So far minidump file is pointing to USB timeout issue. Weird thing is that only thing that got installed is ceton tuner so I'm guessing its the unused TA service that is causing the problem.

Without the sleep issue, everything else is running smoothly. Quality is as good as my Tivo. Gateway box so far is handling the job very nicely. Although with constant activity its running a bit hot. Need to figure out how to cool it down.

Here are few pictures of the card

So I just fired up full blown recording and have to say its awesome

6 tuners going at once. 2 HDHomerun and Ceton

That is so awesome, wow!

Yes I did, but since I have an OCUR ready motherboard, I ran into this issue.

I read about others having the same issue at TheGreenButton, so I was prepared for it.

For me it was a non-issue, since I was having FiOS installed at the same time. A truck roll was definately needed for that.

However, I fully agree with you. If they are going to send a tech and charge you for an install, that tech should do the install.

Spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday wrestling with MicroSoft and Comcast, but finally got past the problems they caused and have the InfiniTV4 doing its thing. It is a great HTPC device.

About the only thing that gives me pause is, do I REALLY want some stranger working on MY HTPC?

I do not think so...she is mine alone to enjoy messing with!

Yeah, no avoiding the truck roll on that one for sure.

I'm getting my Ceton installed tomorrow by Verizon. They required a truck roll and the earliest appointment I could get was the 25th. I received my Ceton card on the 14th so I've been a little anxious. The extra time came in handy because I decided to update my Win 7 install from 32-bit to 64-bit and I kept running into problems, including a nasty virus I picked up from a bootleg partitioning program that hosed my BIOS. I must have done at least four complete installations, including all of the codec and driver installs as well as every other bit of software on my HTPC. I also reflashed the mobo BIOS several times. I won't jinx it by indicating how the last install went but I think I'm finally ready for the CC setup.

I'll be curious to see what happens when the tech arrives because the automated confirmation call I got from Verizon indicated that I was getting a complete FIOS installation that could take from 4 to 6 hours. I found this interesting because I've had FIOS since February of 2007.

I've had Verizon out to install CableCARDs on two other occasions. The first was when they did the initial FIOS installation and the 2nd time was about 7 months later when I acquired a 2nd S3 Tivo. Both installs went smoothly. The first tech had actually set up several Tivos prior to mine so he was already a CableCARD vet. Aside from some fat-fingering by someone at the home office when attempting to activate the cards, everything went fairly well. The 2nd install was a piece of cake.

Based on what I've seen from past installations, setting up a CableCARD just amounts to transferring data displayed on the TV screen during setup into the tech's laptop that connects to the home office. Once the data has been entered it's simply a matter of activating the card. I don't see how it would make one bit of difference what type of device the CableCARD is being installed in. Any tech that's installed a CableCARD in any device should have no problems setting one up with the Ceton tuner. The only difference I can see is the actual process for getting the data to display on the TV. With the Ceton, you have to go through the TV signal setup, which may not be obvious to someone that's never worked with Media Center before.

Got mine installed today. I was switching over from 3 ATI tuners and the whole thing went very smoothly.

I powered down the PC, installed the Ceton card with cablecard and coax, and unplugged the ATI tuners. Then powered up the PC and followed Ceton's instructions for installing their software and the required FIOS-related firmware update.

I then called Frontier and asked them to re-init one of my cablecards. He asked me why and I told him I moved it into a different device. That was enough to get him to do the right thng -- he went through removing the info from his system, and then asked for the 3 IDs. Within 30 seconds I could see the pairing was complete. (Note that -- deviating from the instructions a little -- I did the pairing before firing up Media Center to re-run TV signal setup.)

Ran through Media Center TV signal setup, which found 4 tuners and completed without incident. All my channels just worked immediately after that, so apparently on Frontier FIOS there is no delay, for example, getting the channel map loaded down into the cablecard.

Now I have to figure out how to return 2 cablecards to Frontier. That's tomorrow's task.

Got the CableCARD installed yesterday. Verizon gave me a window between 8AM and 12 noon. The Verizon tech called me at home at 11:50, even though I had specified my cell phone as the primary contact number. Fortunately I was home for lunch so I was there to take the call. He arrived about 5 minutes later (he was supposed to give me a 20-30 minute heads-up so I could drive home from work).

I asked the tech for the card and he surrendered it without a fight. I plugged it into the Ceton and fired up the HTPC. I was pleasantly surprised when I began the TV signal setup in Media Center when it took me right to the CableCARD setup. I had previously gone through the entire setup with another CableCARD that I had but never activated. I was even able to download the guide data for my FIOS network. According to the Ceton instructions this can't be acomplished until you've activated the CableCARD. Apparently, this is not the case.

With the preliminary scans and other portions of the setup already taken care of, activating the CableCARD was a piece of cake. The tech and I were both confused when he said he was being prompted for a POD entry when he truied to activate the card. He disappeared back into his truck with his laptop and emerged about 15 minutes later. I finished going through the CableCARD setup screens and went straight to the program guide. I selected HBO from the guide and it came in right away. Overall, the installation went very smoothly.

The tech had never done an installation in an HTPC and he was not all that familiar with Media Center. I gave him a quick tour and showed him a Blu-Ray being streamed from my server. I then took him upstair and showed him FIOS via one of my media extenders. Needless to say, he was more than a little impressed by the time he left.

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/vzdirect

Just FYI..... The forum above has a verizon direct forum. Most of the time they can deal with cable card issues there that don't even require you to call in....

Sweet, thanks!

I don't have Verizon... but good to know for those that do. DSLReports does have a similar section for my provider but they still require a roll for the initial install.

That's not W7 Media Center on your TV - is that your DVR?

I recognize that. It's Media Browser with the default theme. A new version was released yesterday (v2.2.8.0) and a number of the plugin themes are being updated today.

Is anyone using the Ceton Infinitv4 in a Micro-ATX case?

question does the ceton fit in the same slot as the graphics card?

It is Media Browser. LOVE it. I would not be without it.

It can, yes. It only needs a 1X slot and graphics cards are 16x, but they downlevel themselves automagically.

The only issue you have to watch out for is that some onboard graphics chips will turn themselves off if they detect the graphics slot is in use.

I'm using NMedia 2000B

Lisa

Just got my Ceton installed, and cablecard authenticated by FIOS. It took a trip by tech support to do it, since the phone method or even the installer computer didn't do it.

I'm loving it, including the WMC interface. And I was able to easily transfer a show from the HTPC to the video folder on my networked laptop, and have the program play without a hitch in my laptop MC. Woohoo. )

But I do have a few, probably dumb questions on using the card to best advantage.

1: How do you 'watch' more than 1 channel at a time? I can record up to four programs simultaneously, no problem, but if I'm watching MSNBC and then tune to CNN, and then back to MSNBC -- the buffer is completely lost. The tuner acts as if I hadn't been tuned to MSNBC for an hour before switching channels. Is there some trick to get one program to 'pause' while I go to another channel, go back again and then 'resume'? Even my FIOS Motorola DVR could do that easily.

2: Is there really no buffer at all if I watch a program for a few minutes and *then* click 'record'? My DVR would record right back to the buffer (at least 45 minutes) in that case. Would a 'fix' if so be to set my record option to record, say, 10 minutes early for each program?

3: Under Tasks > Settings > TV > Audio > Dolby decoder setting -- the mode is set to 'night mode' and the other options (theater and normal modes) are grayed out. Is this because even though I've got HDMI out from the PC in to the TV - I've got optical out from the home theater system in to the PC? I can easily change modes using the sound system, so it's not a really big deal, but it's just bugging me because I can't figure it out -- LOL

Also, under audio I only have Analog TV audio (main and sap) -- so I'm not sure how to get the MC to recognize the home theater system. Maybe when I unhook the DVR and only have the HTPC, TV and sound system???

Seeing that Thanksgiving is upon us, let me give thanks to anyone who can answer these questions.

Lisa

Oops -- forgot to ask: Do I need to download and install the HWIMAGE update on Ceton's site for FIOS users? Everything seems to be working fine for me (so far) and I thought I read somewhere it was only for folks with Frontier FIOS because they had turned off "Copy Freely".

When I look at all four tuners . . . they all have copy freely on them.

Thanks again for the help!

Lisa

Lisa,
Unless I am mistaken, your first two gripes have been the biggest two wishlist items for MCE enthusiasts for years and Microsoft has not done anything about it. We continually hope the next upgrade to MCE will have those features.

Sorry I can't help you on the rest of your post.
GeoffQ

Geoff,

Thanks for the quick reply -- though it's certainly not what I hoped to hear. Hard to believe in the 21st century MS is still mired in the last.

Lisa

I would update it, just to be on the sure side. Verizon is slowly rolling out the encryption update.

As an aside, I ran into an interesting issue just recently.

When I first got the InfiniTV4, Ceton did not know they needed the 860MHz Low Pass Filter installed on FiOS setups. I did have corruption on two channels that I noticed, only on the HD versions. Since I did not actually watch those channels, I did not care.

However, the corrupton was later found on several other HD channels...and that is when I noticed the info from Ceton about the LPF.

So...I called and had a Verizon truck roll. The guy installed the LPF on the box on the wall inside the house, where it normally is installed. Did not help. He replaced cabling, the inside box on the wall, still nothing. I noticed that when he put the LPF on the line going out of the box I lost Internet.

On a whim, I told him to put the LPF on the output of the splitter, heading towards the Ceton Tuner (the other output went to the Internet Router).

BAM! ALL corruption gone.

Figured I would let everyone know...save you all some pain.

Hi everyone:

I have a quick question about Ceton's recordings. I don't know if I'm going with a Ceton or a SD cablecard tuner but the recording behavior should be the same. My plan is to have initial recordings saved to a local drive. Is this information correct:

- Material flagged "copy freely" will NOT be encrypted, can be edited, moved/played to other PCs etc.

- Material flagged "copy once" can be recorded, but will be encrypted and can only be viewed on that machine (or an extender). It cannot be editted. Can you move one of these recordings to a networked server? Or is it trapped on the local machine?

- Material flagged "copy never" cannot be recorded.

Thanks for your time,
Chris