Latest Ceton InfiniTV 4 Info Thread - Page 54

Anyone with the USB rebooting issue probably shouldn't get too excited about the beta firmware ... I hope it will improve things for you, but I can confirm it doesn't help in my case. I'm running an InfiniTV USB on a newly built PC, and get the reboot about twice a day. Last night it decided to reboot with 5 minutes left in "once upon a time"; luckily my office PC also records that show using a HD HomeRun (clear QAM); otherwise I would have really heard it from the wife!

I see two issues, I'm not sure if they have the same root cause or not. One is the already documented "reboot" issue about twice a day (where you hear the USB disconnect/reconnect sound) ... on my system TV resumes about 45 seconds after this. The other issue is Media Center will show either "Service Unavailable" or "Subscription Required" while watching TV. I do NOT hear the USB disconnect/reconnect, and simply pressing "Stop" and re-tuning the channel gets TV back.

I do have a ticket open with Ceton and have submitted multiple logs. I also purchased the PCIe version to potentially replace the USB, but haven't installed it yet (mostly because I'm dreading another phone call to Cox trying to get the new cableCard paired). I'm a little disappointed to read some people having issues with the PCIe version as well ??! I thought that one was close to rock solid at this point ...

I have the InfiniTV 4 PCIe version of the CableCard Tuner. I've had it since it first came out. It is rock solid, and the latest released version of the driver/firmware appears to be very reliable. I can't speak about the network tuner feature because I have no use for that. What I can say that it is able to tune and record programs reliably on my HTPC. The TA has been working really well at this point.

The only remaining issue I have is COX needs to come out and take out a non powered splitter that they put in. I removed one that they had installed inside the house which improved signal strength once it was removed, but the other needs to go because there are a few channels that are weak and the card thinks that there is no signal for those channels. If the card is paired properly and you have a good signal coming into your home then you should be fine.

Thanks for that reassurance. I think I'll go ahead and put the PCIe version in on Wednesday and move the USB version to a different PC (where I can continue to try out any new firmware waiting for a fix).

I wish it was documented somewhere exactly what signals need to be sent to correctly pair a cableCard for each provider. Then we could just tell the CSR what to send rather than continually calling and playing the CSR lottery looking for one that is CableCard savvy (only took me 4 calls last time). I think the signals for Cox are INIT - CCV - REFRESH, but I'm not positive, nor do I know the order/timing ... hopefully my call won't be too painful on Wed.

The InfiniTV Driver makes it really easy to see the CC go through authentication. Just minimize WMC and bring up the Ceton applet and watch it. You should be able to see the CC come online. I did that, and it made the CSRs life much easier because I could tell her what signals have been recieved and authenticated. It actually took two calls for me because she failed to attach all the tiers I subscribe too. Once that was done, I could receive all the channels that I pay for.

Last time I called I had all green checks and two red "X"s on that screen ... one said "CableCARD is not yet receiving messages" and I forget the other. The first 3 CSRs were sending "hits" and "stronger hits" before raising their version of the white flag ... "well, it could take up to 20 minutes to go through, call us back in 20 minutes if it still isn't working"

Once I got to the 4th CSR, he claimed to have done "hundreds" of CableCARDs, and I guess he wasn't kidding because those two red Xs became green checks immediately. I asked him what he did and I know for a fact he said he sent a "refresh" (and mentioned a lot of CSRs don't do that), and he also sent one other signal but I can't remember what he said.

I've had the PCIe version for more than a year. I got the USB version when it came out, and had the reboot issues start a few weeks after I got it. But the PCIe version has never been solid for me either. Even the PCIe periodically decides not to record a show (or has a "partial" recording) because of messages about tuner conflict or tuner unavailable messages. Sometimes it can go several weeks without those messages, and sometimes it will fail to record around half of those shows I have scheduled for a week. None of the recent beta firmwares have helped.

Ceton does not seem to be putting a high priority on fixing these issues. I think they are putting most of their effort into their new products. I am seriously considering ditching Ceton and going back to a TiVo, now that they have 4-tuner TiVos. My old TiVo really was rock solid.

By the way, I have had good experience with Cox cablecard pairing recently. Just call their cablecard pairing hotline, 888-556-1193. I usually choose the option (cannot remember the exact name) about help with an already installed unit instead of pairing a new unit. I think that usually gets me to their more experienced personnel.

Thanks for sharing this, even though its not what I wanted to hear


My SiliconDust HDHomeRun is also rock solid ... given that fact maybe the HDHomeRun PRIME is what we should be looking at if we don't want to ditch HTPC for Tivo ?


Thanks for that tip, I'll give it a try!

Actually, I should correct myself when I said that the PCIe was "never" solid, I remember it being quite reliable for the first 6 months or so. But for the last 6 or 8 months, I have had periodic problems with no tuner available or tuner conflicts. It is so unpredictable that I am frequently checking the recording history in WMC to see if a recording was okay, or "partial". I always have to check WMC recording history before starting to watch a program, because it is frustrating to be watching a program and then have a 1 minute dropout right in the middle.

I just checked the newegg reviews of the HD Homerun Prime. Just looking at reviews from this month, it seems there are issues:



I'm starting to think that some of the issues I have seen with my InfiniTV's (not the USB unit rebooting, obviously) are WMC's fault. Not that that helps us much, since there is little chance of Microsoft fixing WMC bugs. Although maybe the issues started after a Windows update or driver update from sometime last year, since I don't remember any issues before the middle of last year. I may try one more time, doing a clean install of Windows 7 and not doing any updates, then testing for a month to see if the issues go away. If not, I think I am going to get a 4-tuner TiVo instead.

Good luck with the 4-tuner Tivo. It is currently doing spontaneous reboots, so it isn't really much better. I've had a premiere for 2 years now and the menus are still not completed and it is still super slow. I've been through 3 replacements over that time period. Seems like both products are not perfect, which is why as soon as the 6-tuner is released from Ceton I'm switching away from Tivo.

I am looking seriously at purchasing a Ceton 4 Tunner but am not sure which type?

PcIe or usb

Looking for pro's and cons of each interface.

Can some of you who have experience with them make some recommendation?

Please elaborate on choice that you made.

Thanks
Rew

I recently purchased a PCIe version and have been extremely happy with it. I'd go internal over USB with just about any product unless there's a benefit to going external for you.

For example, if you're case is too small or cramped perhaps USB would be better.

I am definitely leaning that direction especially since some seem to have ghostly issues with the usb version.

I had original looked at the HDHomerun Prime but after Ceton's latest anouncement on Q and Echo, it has me rethinking, since I think there may be better compatability using their equipment and I really like what they have presented so far! But of course that is in the future.....

Thanks
Rew

If you're building your own HTPC, I doubt your choice of tuner will make a difference in how well things work with the Echo.

As with Mike, I would only go with a USB tuner if the PCIe version couldn't be used with my system (case too small, no PCIe slots available, etc.) or I wanted to be able to easily move it between different PC's (though I can't really fathom why I would want to).

Thanks Guys, for the Help!
You pretty much confirmed what I was thinking.


Rew

Barring a tuner having a completely broken hardware encoder and making non-valid MPEG (which should be a non-issue on all digital tuners) Echo should work equally well with tuners, regardless of brand. Of course, we would prefer you buy our tuner...

There will be some Q-specific features on Echo, but basic extender functionality will work with all Win7 MCE boxes

I have not seen a single post from people with an Elite with the latest firmware who have had any reboot issues. That was apparently solved with the firmware update from last year (November?). The recent update (last week) is also supposed to have helped the speed.

The latest update doesn't appear to help with speed at all on the premiere. In fact it seems slower to me then the last update. Maybe it helps more with the Elite, though I've still seen posts in the tivo forums that it is still experiencing problems with the latest 20.2 update.

I've been looking and I haven't see any such posts. How about a link?

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb...d.php?t=477833

At the end some are reporting the random reboots fixed with 20.2 and others are not. I hope they fixed it, but they still have yet to fix speed issues or even complete the UI in 2 years, so my faith in them isn't much anymore.

Thanks for the link. So it seems TiVo is not solid either.

Hmmm, when you said you were going to get the 6-tuner Ceton, did you mean an InfiniTV? Or were you talking about the "Q" standalone DVR?

I guess the Q would be an option for me, if it is solid. I guess it is less likely to suffer from bugs than a Windows-add-on like the InfiniTV, since Ceton would have complete control of all hardware and drivers in the Q, whereas an InfiniTV has to rely on whatever hardware and drivers it is used with.

I wonder if Ceton would let me return my InfiniTV USB that always reboots for credit towards a Q. I'm afraid the Q is going to be expensive, but I guess you save compared to a TiVo with no monthly fees.

I meant the pcie 6-tuner InfiniTV whenever it gets released. I would have totally gone for the Q if I had not already spent money on building a htpc 6 months ago.

Yeah having full control over the hardware and software probably helps a ton with stability.

The monthly fee is part of the reason I'm switching. $20 a month for 2 Tivo's and that is on the old plans that no longer even exist. So if I upgraded my 2 Tivo HDs to the newer hardware that monthly fee would only increase. I upgraded my 3rd Tivo back when the premiere was originally released and it has been the worst Tivo ever. Sure you can go lifetime and that saves you money if you keep it over 2 years and you don't have any hardware problems, but it is still pretty expensive.

I also had problems also with partial recordings. This week I was able to detect the problem was due to a codec pack I had installed. Whenever I would play a video file in Media Center, it would cause the recordings to stop with a message about a weak signal.

I kept thinking it had to due to with a wiring problem since it kept stating weak signal. It was actually K-lite mega codec pack. I uninstalled it and installed Shark007's codec pack and I have not had a partial recording for more than a week.

Come back in a month and let us know if you have had any more problems. I have had things work fine for 2 or 3 weeks, then for no apparent reason, an entire week will come where less than half of my recordings are completed without issues.

Anyway, I don't have any codec packs installed. The only thing of that nature I have is LAV filters, but I was having these same issues long before I installed LAV filters.

Bad choice, IMO. You are at least as likely to have problems with that as you are to have spontaneous reboots with a TiVo.

I wonder how much Microsoft has to pay for the Zap2It guides to be maintained, and if there is any chance that Microsoft may decide to stop paying for Zap2It in the future.

I guess I'm in the minority, I have had very few issues with the PCI-E Tuner. I get the occasional recording warning when I turn on my client PC, but the program is usually recorded anyway, I can only assume that Media Center did not provide enough time for the turner to respond. Some time's I'll have a 60 minute recording for example that show's up as being one minute long, but the entire program was recorded despite the the information provided by MCE. This is maybe a once maybe twice a month occurrence, but since the recording are there, its really a minor annoyance. I'm using Magic WOL whs addin on my WHS to wake my client in the morning, I have a script to shut it down around midnight, and I'm running MCE standby tool to manage the the S3/4 Sleep. I'm running the WHS V1 connector to archive recordings to the WHS on both the client and the host.

I haven't figured out how to use WOL for the Host yet, so it's still running 24X7 and I do manual reboots as needed. I've realized that I need to get Harmony 700 for macros, my host PC is always muted when It resumes from standy, maybe thats S2, but I've configure my 650 remote mute button to MCE and kept the volume tied to the tv, so that works.

I was using the old drivers from August up until december, upgraded, still running strong.

Good Luck

I have this problem too, but that issue existed for me even prior to having any cableCard tuners. The real annoying part about that is that you can't fast forward in any of the "1 minute" recordings so you'd be forced to watch the whole thing with commercials. I usually re-schedule to record another airing, or try to watch online when this happens. Probably only happens once every two months or so for me.

Regarding my Ceton USB saga ... I successfully switched over to the PCI-e version yesterday and was able to activate the CableCARD with Cox relatively painlessly (only 2 calls / 10 minutes!) So far so good, but I don't even have a 24 hour sample size yet

I'll be moving my Ceton USB to an office PC where I will continue to work my ticket with Ceton. After they provide a firmware that fixes it (if they do), I'll have to decide whether I want to Ebay it or put it back in the main HTPC and go with 8 tuners

Ok need some help.

Last night put the second pci Ceton card into the computer. Installed fine, WMC sees it, etc. etc.

So I go to activate. Given the last activation I knew this would be a fiasco. Fortunately I saved the phone number and extension of a Comcast employee that actually knows what he is doing. So after the first call that was futile I call this guy up and apologized for bugging him.

So we start through this. Basically the last item on the diagnostics is not checked. The "send an INIT signal" one. He then tells me to go to 192.168.200.1 (which surprised me that he new about that) and wanted the unit ID.

Now this is where I need help. It was late at night, so maybe I missed something viewing that screen. But how do you view the diagnostics of the second card?

I'm at work and not looking at the screen right now, but as I recall there is a drop down at the top of the screen when you first open the diagnostic tools. Your two InfiniTVs should both be listed, and you select the one you want to inspect. Then from the "Devices" tab, launch the web page.

Correct - each card should have its own IP address.