Latest Ceton InfiniTV 4 Info Thread - Page 9

Ok so I have a weird setup. My htpc will stream live Tv to my xbox in the bed room

My xbox will be on wireless N and my htpc can go wireless N or powerline Ethernet? What are your thoughts?

I almost jumped on that offer but after reading this thread and the issues with tuner sharing decide to back down and wait for the prime 3 tuner. At $269 it was a compelling price compared to 3 tuner, but add shipping it was $284 and it starts to be less compelling + issues with network tuner. Undoubtedly even the prime when it hits will probably have issues...

That's probably solid thinking. If the Prime works as advertised with 3 dynamic tuners and there's no major WMC issues (big if), then it may be more useful than 4 static tuners depending on your setup.

I'm one of those struggling with getting consistent results from the Ceton Network Tuner Sharing. Well basically only have the issue of WMC losing the tuner and it not coming back without manual intervention. I've re-installed the drivers for the umpteenth time and double-ran the setup like someone suggested. So far so good for the last 36 hours. Even rebooted primary PC with the Ceton card to test whether or not it would come back. It worked, so I'm very cautiously hopeful I'm past that issue.

Otherwise I'm pretty happy with the Ceton and have no regrets jumping on the lower price and canceling my Prime pre-order. Will be interested in seeing how well the Prime operates when it comes out though.

You should be good. You're red X is probably gone . . . Not that Ceton shouldn't have got this to work a bit more smoothly. Who knows, could be M$ fault.

My setup has been completely trouble free once I got past that initial weirdness.

The best thing about the Ceton is it is INTERNAL. Who needs yet-another-box to try and shoehorn in the entertainment center. Buy a full-size HTPC and stuff everything in there.

I hope the InfiniTV4 can do dynamic tuner allocation with a software upgrade, we'll see.

Anyone have any tips for "black crush"

I have AMD 6670, Catalyst 11.5(a), the blacks when watching Live TV are pretty poor in WMC. When watching Movies or MKV files in MPC-HC the black levels are great. How can I improve the black levels on live TV?

Comcast delivered Cablecard today (no self-installs until FCC mandates kick in on 2011-08-01)...however, I was pretty easily able to get the install feel waived. Its supposed to be $39.99...it was quickly waived down to $9.99...when I escalated to get clarification on the Cablecard rental cost I he waived the fee all together. That's the good news...the bad news is the monthly cost here is $8.50/m which is ridiculous as that's the same fee as if I have a digital adapter (HD or standard def).

Basically, I'm told the first Cablecard *and/or* digital box you have is $8.50/m is free. Since I already have a digital box and two Motorola HD/DVRs the Cablecard is NOT free. My plan is to ditich all the Comcast provided equipment, but can't do that till I can prove to the boss that it works. Interestingly, the only Cablecard fee on the Comcast Atlanta website says it's $1.50/m...when I brought that to the attention of the supervisor...he says that page is out of date and didn't include the "outlet fee" that was charged in addition to that....now he says it's all combined into this more "convenient" $8.50 fee.

Regardless...tech shows up with the Cablecard..it WAS an M-card so I was hopeful...however card would not even physically fit into the Ceton Cablecard slot....with a bit of man-handling it WOULD go in but only when inserted the WRONG way (e.g. with serial numbers on the *left* side). I had to really strain to pull the card out once I got it in...I look at it closely and it is actually phyisically mangled/bent up. When I laid the card on a flat surface, you can clearly see that it was slightly bent...my theory is that somebody decided it was a good idea to transport the thing by sticking it in their back pocket and sitting on it...geesh. I'm lucky I didn't damage my equipment.

Of course tech only brought one card so had to cancel appt. and re-schedule for Friday. If I didn't work from home I'd be livid. And OBTH...tech had absolutely no idea what the Ceton was. Get on the stick Comcast.

How do you know? Did you check for bent pins on the Ceton cablecard slot?

Comcast came out for try number two today with the Cablecard..this time with an M-card...a non-bent M-card. To my amazement this card would NOT fit in the slot at per Ceton's PDF instruction guide either...e.g. pointing the serial number side of of the card *away* from the coax port. However, if I flipped the card around (e.g. so that serial numbers *faced* the coax port) it fit easily and was properly detected.

I strongly suggest you just open up the Ceton utility and select the Diag tab...just leaving it there the card would step through the first 3-4 phases until it was waiting for the 'authorization' step...within 3-4 minutes of the tech calling in the HostID and other ID numbers to provisioning I had all green on the diag screen.

I *thought* I was going to have to do another cable scan (argh 45 minutes), but since I was busy I let the tech leave (who was great btw)...I didn't realize until tonight that I was not tuning many channels beyond local stations...I was getting a most of the standard def channels (lifetime, cnn, etc..), and getting local HD stations, but NOT hidef lifetime, discovery, cnn, etc... and NOT Encore. The channels that were NOT coming in would show a black screen for 5-10 seconds and then switch to a Media Center 'Subscription needed' screen.

I was amazed...called Comcast tech...got someone on the line within a minute or two, explained the problem...she sent an 'initialize' signal to the Cablecard...within another couple of minutes all the missing stations started to come in one by one. She indicated all new boxes (or cablecards) need to have this init signal sent the first time they are used...confused why this is not a part of the install process by the tech...but whatever.


BTW: Recording 4 HD streams, box is pulling 50-52W (as per Kill-a-watt)..and this is with a temporary 2.5" Sata hard drive which I hope to eliminate.


So there you go...success.

I just have one question. I just received my Ceton in the mail the other day. I won't be able to install the CC until next week. Is there anything I can do before that time? Can I install the card and run all the software beforehand or do I have to wait until I have the CC in hand?

you can install it, get the firmware updated, drivers, etc...'m not 100% sure but you might be able to pull in some clear qam channels without the CC if you want to just play around with the live tv in media center....the one thing i would be careful with is the mini RF dongle. it is very delicate and can be damaged if handled too often.

I would like to build an HTPC using a Ceton InfiniTV 4.
Here are my major hurdles at the moment:

• SDV on many channels we would watch/record
• Cisco TA, Current 2-Tuner limit, FW update from Cox expected Aug 1st
• CopyOnce on every digital channel except locals

Questions:

• How reliable is unattended tuning and recording with WMC and a Cisco TA?
• How user friendly is using the HTPC vs a Cable Co DVR?
• Learning curve for the household that is not tech savvy?
• Is it possible to output to both integrated mobo HDMI and an S-Video card simultaneously? To transfer CopyOnce recordings to a DVD Recorder.
• Software to output to S-Video Card in the background?

Equipment:

• What is a good HTPC Case for the Ceton InfiniTV 4 which appears to overheat fairly easily. Prefer an AV style 15"-17" wide Case type.
• Is a Sandy Bridge i3 Build with 4GB Ram sufficient for the Ceton InfiniTV 4 w/ SDV TA?

Has anybody here who

1) uses network tuning
2) Ceton InfiniTV4
3) Kaspersky AV

noticed that it breaks network access? I just had to re-image my Windows 7 SSD (thank goodness for a software install strategy with periodic backups!) to recover from installing Kaspersky AV. Funny thing is, it was on the HTPC previous to the Ceton install. But when I recently reinstalled I put Ceton in before Kaspersky. Broke the network connection.

I guess I could try again, with a good disk image at the ready. Kind of a PITA. Anybody else have this experience?

That is a whole other philosophical argument, and I have already taken the other position (RAID6 with 18 TB, video card with games, sound card for stereo, etc). It has worked out pretty well, but I have learned to keep backup images of the OS drive in case a bad bit of software tries to bork things. I have two PCs in the house (three if you count my internet phone Asterisk PBX, but it is an Atom), don't really want to add more.

Any recommends for Ceton-friendly AV? I've heard good things about NOD32.

You guys are awesome! I got it installed this past Saturday. I had a problem where I wasn't getting all 4 tuners from the card and channels were coming in and out. It wasn't showing up at all. Then I found out that I was receiving a low signal from Comcast. They fixed it on the splitter end. But Comcast knows nothing about the tuner, so DON't ASK! I also had to reinstall the drivers for the card to work again because it was freezing in WMC Also its very easy to put the card in the wrong way.

And this card does indeed let you watch 3d TV.

I do have 1 question, I know its meant to work with Media Center, but i'm a XBMC guy. Is there any way to make this work with all of the features of Windows Media Center?

I get an occasional skip, like every few seconds, when watching TV on the ceton card. Video is generally smooth, and the skip is hardly noticeable. Sometimes it seems consistent every few seconds and sometimes it is complete random. Any clues as to what this could be?

Win 7x64
8gig ram
Core i5-2500
Amd 6670

Im running my htpc at 59.98Hz not 60.0Hz

AFAIK, you cannot. It requires the protective encryption methods that 7MC provide...and right now only 7MC provides them.

Most likely it's the 29/59 bug. I've also noticed consistent corruption on encrypted
channels. Hopefully a fix for both will surface some day.

I get the same. I notice it but the wife doesn't so right now it's not a huge deal.

I have learned one thing after spending a week with the Infinitv...make sure to assign the Ceton an IP address yourself instead of letting the router do it for you.

Do you mean assign a static IP to the PC itself (that the Ceton is in)? Or does the card actually get an IP somehow assigned to it? Other than that webpage which defaults to 192.168.200.1.

Assign a static IP to the card itself when doing tuner sharing.

I think old age may be getting to me. I used this guide to set up my tuners:

http://www.missingremote.com/guide/s...t-htpc-systems

I didn't even bother to read the top of the page that talked about the new guide and the Tuner Wizard software here:

http://www.missingremote.com/guide/c...s-multiple-pcs

Could have saved myself a lot of trouble if I had read that.

I had only noticed this slightly in the past on some CBS and HBO shows we watch, but last night on the True Blood season opener it was almost unwatchable.

I hadn't heard specifically about 29/59 bug until googling the problem today, so I have some troubleshooting and verification to do first that I am in fact seeing the 29/59 bug. Does anyone who has dealt with it know the best/recommended settings to minimize the issue? I know disabling pretty much all "enhancements" in CCC is recommended, which I have done to no avail. I was wondering about the specific display setup within WMC where you can pick a resolution/refresh rate or let it detect automatically.

My system:
i3-540/h55
ATI 5670
Ceton

From the thread on the (former) greenbutton sounds like many people have this problem with the ATI 5xxx series cards, especially the 5670.

Has anyone looked into http://www.vidabox.com/

Its a full home automation. I think its a fail with everything going wireless, but they have the right idea if they target the right folks.

I'm looking for a cool media center remote (just like this) what do you guys use. or whats hot out there. I have a ipad and iphone.

so far i have the poor man way of having automation

TV- Samsung app
receiver- Denon app
XBMC- XBMC app
lights, power- Vivint app (www.alarm.com)

Thats all for now.

Personally, I do both. The mini-port bridge in network adapters should have the static IP address you want the host PC to have. Then you have to connect to through the web interface to to the ceton card to give it a static IP. Trick is, you'll need to know the address of the ceton to connect to, which will start out default at 192.168.200.1, but after WMC will likely be the first address in the DHCP range your router hands out. And you'll need to know this address to connect and set it static . Unfortunately, WMC setup appears to cause it to default to DHCP so you have to change it back (ceton card) again.

Perhaps that is what the link at the missing remote refers to? I definitely prefer static IP, but the Ceton card and WMC are somewhat resistant to doing this, although it can be done.

Could some of the current Ceton InfiniTV users chime in on this? I was wondering what shows on Comcast have the flags turned on and the programs you have been unable to record. Also can you edit the recordings with editing software like VideoReDo?

Thanks,

Steve

Does that preclude streaming the recorded content as well?

Sometimes, Verizon flags the NFL games as Record Never - meaning you cannot even DVR them. I think it is probably a mistake...but if I am going to be away from home for a Steelers game, I record it in both HD and SD...for the SD never has any protection on it.