Latest Ceton InfiniTV 4 Info Thread - Page 7

I've only had the card up and running for a couple of days so far and just noticed this yesterday so I figured I'd see if this was a an issue others encountered and resolved first. I plan to contact them if all else fails.

I see no studdering and I have WIn7 32bit with 4 GB RAM. Maybe it is a 64bit thing...

I encountered the same problem initially (64bit-4GB RAM) and ultimately traced it to overheating. My Ceton card was too hot to touch. I fixed the problem via a crude-but-effective 80mm fan mounted internally that blows over the card.

Well I am using Win7 64 bit.. I just checked the card and currently its at 56 degrees which is fine because they say under 65 degrees.. I will check the temps while watching a premium channel. They really should have included a fan with this thing for $300-$400 if it runs this hot.

I've ran my Ceton on both 32 and 64 bit w/ the only issue on HBO being the 29/59 bug which was fixed by changing dynamic range in nvidia control panel to 0-255.

My first Ceton wouldn't even work if reached 50C(only happened on really hot days in the late afternoon), but 56C is normally fine but that still seems high, I'm usually only only reaching 48C and my Ceton is even in my server now w/ the air cooling 22 drives prior to even getting to MB(I do have a couple of 70mm fans mounted above the Ceton and my RAID controllers to aid in heat transfer).

Well I'm happy to report I'm playing all the premium channels just fine right now only using 1.6 gigs of ram and about 10-15% CPU. After built my system, I had updated my Intel Graphics Drivers to the newest version and got the BSOD so I did a System Recovery and moved on to the next thing. Apparently I forgot all about it and never updated to a prior version that does work. I can only assume that is what fixed the problem.

I just got all over this deal. Now to get a multi tuner cablecard from COMCAST...ugh.

I noticed it was hot and setup a fan to blow over the card from the get go. That could easily be the issue.

Ahhh, I had a similar thing happen to my card about an hour after I got it! The housing on the back just fell off into my hands.

I have been trying to get in touch with Ceton and the retailer that sold it to me (electronics Castle) and NOBODY is returning my phone calls or email!!!

I really want to finish my machine but I currently have a broken Cetin Infinitv4.

Can somebody here please tell me a good way to get a hold of Ceton?

Help!!! The same thing happened to me but I haven't been able to get a hold of a soul for 3 days!!! How did you get into contact with Ceton? Phone #? Email?

actually, if you can handle the rental for the second cable card. A Ceton 4 and an HD Prime 3.. will give you what you are looking for. If you also have and HD Homerun doing ATSC it would be almost impossible to not have a tuner available for any scenario. I don't have a house full of people all accessing different PC and extenders at the same time so I am getting along fine with the Ceton 4 and an HD Homerun...

The Ceton needs a very solid signal... I am feeding it much better than my Tivo ever got and it still is not rock solid. I am surprised franky they have not released new drivers and firmware in months.. this product is not that mature.

I could just get another Ceton if it can still be had for $268 shipped. Newegg's presale price for the HDHRP 3 tuner is $257 shipped, so it would cost little more to get an extra tuner (sort of: I recognize I'd still have the expense of a rackmount case plus PC internals with enough oomph to handle 8 Ceton tuners).

Note that Ceton did release a firmware upgrade since my initial install ~ 45 days ago. I noted and applied it while doing my last setup for a new CC last week.

That app doesn't seem to work on client machines.

So like I've mentioned I'm almost certainly going to buy this tuner next month, I was wondering since this has been out for awhile now if there are any prominent bugs that people are seeing? Also does anybody use the ceton with jriver media center?

I have submitted at least 3 tickets. I get no confirmation email, no phone call, i have no idea if they are even there.

Does anybody know of another way to contact the company?

Assuming the participants on JRiver's forum are correct, it appears that JRMC does not support the Ceton. http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=62924.0

Personally, I think JRMC will have to support it at some point to be a completely viable media center, especially since it is not free.

I haven't heard anything back from them for a post I made Mon morning. Being an early adopter and also being one of the people that's had a lot of problems w/ their Ceton I can tell you that they can be very inconsistent on how quickly they respond, I've seen them get back in just min on a Sun night while other times it took days after me posting several messages. Their responses go both ways too, as I've had some that it's obvious the person didn't even read what has been discussed and done.

I have almost identical setup and no issues. I'd also make sure you have newest drivers and firmware on the ceton. There have been several firmware updates. If you get a stutter on hd audio channels only (like audio stutter then crash ) then there is a solution for that..... Two ways. Either a: break ms's audio out and let freebie handle it or disable 'allow applications to take exclusive control' on your audio device. Yes, that means ac3 (non truehd) will pass as lpcm, but it would solve the issue.

i would bet money that jriver will never officially support the ceton due to the drm requirements. Even sage which is the next best (better?) alternative to WMC doesn't officially support the ceton and requires a hack that basically uses WMC to transfer recordings over to it. Basically the only officially supported game in town is WMC and will probably remain so for the foreseeable future.

One thing you will probably find and it has been hinted at in a post above.. the Ceton may actually work better from a client or extender than from the PC with the card in it. I have not really figured that out yet.

As I pointed out before, it is very touchy regarding signal quality. It can perform perfectly for hours.. other days it will freeze on a channel and you will have to change to another channel than back. That could happen 4 or 5 times in an evening. My brother lives in another part of our area and has a lot more trouble.

Tonight for example I ran 5 hours and only noticed one single audio/frame drop. I could further streamline my feed but I am afraid the signal will get to hot. I am as high as +1 dB as it is. 36.x dB SNR. That should be good enough for any tuner.. I am sure the Ceton is actually seeing some momentary drop in the signal quality when it freezes then I can tell from the internal diagnostic pages.. but it must be very minor because the Tivo feed was down more than 10 dB and the SNR was more like 32 dB SNR before.. and the whole things was way more robutst.

I am not saying the Tivo never hung on Crapcast's signal.. it just did not happen very often and it did it with much more grace. I never sent anything even close to a +1 dB signal to the Tivo.. it might have cooked it from what I read.

There are some timing issues with current drivers/firmware apparently or it would not work so much better on a client or extender.

I now have very good grade AC current from a UPS to the pc powersupply as well as to the cable drop amp and the 1gb ethernet switch. The OS is on SSD, that combo of things and my hot signal made a tremendous difference particulary when you got out to a client or extender where TV runs very smoothly..

When Comcast is loaded down though, particularly around dinner hour... the Ceton can have its trouble. It was not usable on the same feed the Tivo was getting. I had a cheap drop amp at the time and ran the Tivo and Ceton side by side. I was able to AB test them even changing the last cable drops and amp ports. The Tivo would be fine (not stutter at all) and the Ceton would freeze or jump to a blue screen.

I sent one trouble ticket on a weekend to their support group and they were in contact first thing the following Monday AM. The solution they provided was both right and wrong. It fixed one box with the issue and not another. I had figured it out by the time they got back to me anyway..

I am not complaining at all. I just see where it could be very far from an appliance.. you could get lucky and have it work well without special efforts. In my case I really had to throw the kitchen sink at it and I am still not sure I don't need to remove that last passive splitter between the Ceton and the pole. I might move one of the Motorola Broadband Drop amps I now have to where the passive splitter is outside the house. The question is how much (high) and how good does the signal really need to be for these things anyway?

The Sage hack is at the mercy of your local cable provider. One accidental update of a file on the cable company's server and it everything is marked with copy protect flags and Sage is broken completely. Who will complain if it happens, not anyone with a cable co STB... they will never know. Just a few Tivo guys who move stuff around and the dozen folks in your area who have a Ceton? That won't get the cable company to fix the flags.. besides it might be on purpose not by accident. Either way you could not count on any solution that is not DRM aware and compliant.

I have seen Sage with the Ceton and it works fine on the channels with no flags. I like Sage and if it had the DRM support to assure it would be working tomorrow when I woke up, I would invest heavily in it.

I've had my Ceton tuner running for a couple of months without a hitch.. 1 HTPC on one TV and an 2 X-boxes as extenders on the other 2 TV's.

Decided to try the Network tuner utility yesterday so I could have a tuner on my Office PC.. Well, this works great on my HTPC and office PC, but the X-Boxes get hosed with no way to assign tuners to them.

Tried a bunch things and the best I could get is to have an X-box only able to watch the same channel as the HTPC. Leaving tuners unassigned doesn't help, the X-boxes won't take them.

Finally gave up, uninstalled the Network Tuner Utility and reset everything. Is this as designed? There's still no way to share tuners between a mix of PC's and Extenders? Has anyone gotten a similar setup to work?

Basically just want:

Tuner 1 - HTPC
Tuner 2 - Office PC
Tuner 3 - Xbox 1
Tuner 4 - Xbox 2

I just can't get it working

The Xboxes are extenders for Media Center. You cannot assign the tuners to them. You need to assign the tuners to the Media Center server that the Xboxes are extending.

I did try that.. Assigned 3 tuners to the HTPC (with the xboxes extending) then one to my office PC. The Xboxes still couldn't get a tuner.

Edit.. Messed with everything again this morning.. I've got it working by assigning 3 tuners to the HTPC, but I'm still getting occasional random "no tuner available to satisfy request" errors when there should be tuners available (nothing recording or anything like that).. Many reboots of devices/switches seems to have everything stable for the moment. I'll give it a few days.

thanks!

I just got my Ceton card today and plan to build my HTPC later tonite. Quick question....how will the channels show up via my Ceton?

On my DVR box that I rent from Cox....NBCHD is channel 1004
On my TV in the bedroom with no box.....NBCHD is channel 13-3
On my PC in the dinning room with a 2250......NBCHD is channel 13-3

So when I use a cable card with Windows Media Center 7......will I get the nice 1004 channel.....or still be stuck with XX-X channels?

Channel mapping will be the same as the Cox box