Latest Ceton InfiniTV 4 Info Thread - Page 85

Hey guys, I have the ceton running to my computer via usb and live tv looks great on my tv. I'm connected via a GB switch to my xbox (wired) and when I stream live tv through media center on the xbox it looks terrible.

I have a realtek PCIe GBE family controller card, do I need to adjust the settings on the nic card? Do I need to enable jumbo packets or something. I know that there is an issue with the streaming, not sure if it is on the PC side or the xbox side.

If anyone knows how to help please respond.

I run two ceton PCIe in my box so my experience will not totally match yours...but I will offer a guess and say WMC won't know the difference.

The driver install unlocks the tuner limit within WMC so I would say it goes about its usual business and it won't know the difference.

I recently moved and got FIOS here. The installer didn't think I would need the low-pass filter, and I went in the channel map to find the higher frequency channels I thought it might interfere with and it didn't. Turned out that was wrong though.

The default configuration of the Actiontec router is 1GHz MOCA for the connection to the ONT, 1150MHz for the LAN (to talk to set top boxes or bridges). You would think if there was going to be interference it would be from the 1GHz channel. As far as I can tell that was fine. However, with the LAN MOCA enabled in order to use a MOCA bridge upstairs, I got interference with QAMs 49-51 (375-387Mhz), 1/3 of the MOCA frequency, so its some kind of harmonic issue which the filter blocks. I think FIOS is actually sending the same signal everywhere (why else do we have so many QAMs wasted on Pacific time zone channels?), which means if you have this you will have problems with Travel HD, Lifetime HD, FX HD, Fox Business HD, Fox News HD, and EPIX HD. It wasn't breaking other channels for me, but apparently was making them tune slower -- switching channels is about 3x faster with the filter installed!

If you are able to do without MOCA, make sure you disable it for BOTH the LAN and have the internet connection switched to ethernet. (or just disconnect the coax from the Actiontec).

did anyone else have the ceton software say there was a firmware update available? It went through the install procedure, restarted, but the ceton software reports the old firmware version. I also didn't have to rerun the tv tuner setup.

Do not turn on Jumbo Frames - it will likely make things worse. Make sure your PC is running SP1 for Windows 7. Also update your NIC drivers to the newest version. Lastly, try uninstalling (not disabling) any non-Microsoft Firewall/Internet Security software that you have installed.


The tuner interface (USB, PCIe, etc) is abstracted from WMC and you can mix and match InfiniTV units without issue.


Also keep in mind that the STBs also use MoCA. Also, it's generally not the MoCA traffic itself that causes problems, but the MoCA beacons (which are very high-powered, I believe +60dBmV)


1.1.7.2 is our official, non-beta release, and the diagnostic utility should now be offering it. If you already installed 1.1.7.2 while it was in beta, there is no need to reinstall it - it is the same version.

Thank you for your help. I am running SP1 my NIC drivers are updated and I don't have any firewall except for windows firewall running.

Could it be anything else?

I am ASSUMING that in addition to firewall software, he also means any non-Microsoft anti-virus software. So if you have anything other than Microsoft Security Essentials running, I would uninstall it and install MSE. I have been very pleased with MSE.

Thank you for the tip, I've done that as well. I'm really confused as to why it isn't working. The signal is great on my tv, but once I stream it to the xbox it's terrible.

I concur.

rencjm- what GB switch are you using?

netgear GB prosafe plus 5-port

Do you have another switch you could try - even if an old 10/100? Also, have you tried changing ports and locations of the network drop to eliminate possible cable issues?

I did change the cables, I think I might try cabling right into the xbox (bypassing the switch) this would eliminate the switch as an issue.

Thanks for your help, if you can think of anything else please let me know.

I still run AVS on my machines, and while I don't run into any operational/compatibility issues, it's definitely starting to seem more and more like bloatware these days. I don't run a firewall through Windows (at least I'm pretty sure I've got Windows Firewall disabled), but what are your thoughts on switching over to MSE from AVS? I'm kind of in the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" camp but I'm open to suggestions.

Also, fwiw, I'm looking at 37 days uptime at this point with no missed recordings (save for a days worth a while back due to a TA issue). PCIe, hardware ver 4884, firmware 1.0.9.5. As it stands right now, I'm experiencing zero problems, and unless there's a pressing reason to upgrade the firmware, I think I'm best to keep it as is. If anyone's got questions, I'm happy to answer them and help if I can.

I'm not in the beta(had previous public firmware installed), and the version that was available was indeed 1.1.7.2. I selected download/install firmware, it went through the update process, asked to reboot, rebooted, and then still reports the old firmware. Did this on both of my tuners. I'll try again tonight.

Could someone give me a quick breakdown on pros/cons of having an infinitv4 in a local vs. remote box? I am doing some reconfiguring, possibly downsizing my htpc, and want to know if it's a good idea to move my ceton out of the htpc to another box on the network. The htpc is at my primary viewing area and has a gigabit connection, and I don't have any other boxes that would regularly use the ceton recordings/tuners, at the moment. I know that I'd need to assign tuners out from the new ceton location to the remote htpc, (might share one to my laptop though I realize I could do that anyway, regardless of where the ceton lives), and that I'd have to deal with drm issues. What else? I've already moved my storage out of my htpc to a network drive. Should the ceton go with it? Thanks everybody.

I'm hoping readers with network tuner sharing can answer a couple of questions for me concerning setup and recording storage.

I just built a new HTPC (win7 x64 bit) and have two new Ceton PCIe tuner cards I'll install in it. This HTPC will double as my main playback system in the living room and media server for other HTPCs clients throughout the house (though I'll only use one client in the bedroom in the near-term). I want to assign four tuners to the HTPC server and another two to the bedroom client (also running win7 x64 bit). I've downloaded the network tuner setup guide from Ceton and basically understand it, but should I install both cards at once then assign four tuners to the local host and other two to the client, or install one card at a time and assign four tuners locally without the network setup option followed with the network option for two tuners via the second card after the first is up and running?

Concerning TV recording storage, the server HTPC has plenty of hardrive space, so Ideally I'd like all recordings (local or client) to be saved to the server. Is this possible or do clients have to have their recordings stored locally? If all recordings can be saved to the server, can (should) separate folders be setup for the various HTPCs, or do all recordings have to be stored on a single drive or folder?

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

One little caution about that. I had installed 1 card and a month later added a second. I had to completely uninstall all the ceton drivers and reinstall before it unlocked the tuner limit.

Close. You should install the 1st InfiniTV card, setup Network Tuner usage first for it how you want and then install the 2nd InfiniTV and do not run the Network Tuner again on the host. This leaves InfiniTV #2 as a local device (i.e. not bridged) which in my opinion is a better setup for local usage only as it doesn't involve the network bridge.

There is a limitation in the current Network Tuner Wizard that if you run it on the host it is all or nothing. So if you select the tuners via the Network Tuner Wizard it will bridge the InfiniTV and use as a non-local InfiniTV. While this works it is not ideal, at least in my opinion. In this scenario both InfiniTV #1 & #2 will be bridged with your network card.

That is a interesting option A. I have been trying to get the latter setup working and have not been able to successfully bridge 2 tuners and share at once. I will pull one card out tomorrow install and share one then add second dedicated to just the main htpc.

Sorry I haven't gotten back to you sooner on your issues, I've been sick w/ pneumonia. Let me know how this setup works for you.

No problems. Appreciate the input now.

ceton came back and said this...

We want to apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you. We have received similar reports from a few customers and we are investigating the cause of this problem. We do have a workaround one our customers came up with and it seems to remedy the problem. The issue seems to appear when the infiniTV USB is setup in network tuners and the Xbox 360 is paired/synchronized to the host system where the infiniTV USB is attached. The customer found that if he paired the Xbox 360 with one of the network tuner client machines the stuttering went away. We would suggest trying this setup yourself to see if the stuttering is fixed by moving the Xbox 360.


I'm not really sure what they are saying to do here.

I don't have this setup, but from reading that it seems pretty simple to what they are saying.

Setup:
1) HTPC system A - Tuner Host
2) HTPC system B - using network shared tuners from system A
3) Xbox w/ media center extender setup for system B (not A).

so I need 2 systems?

I must have missed something. Which driver is it that unlocks the WMC tuner limit?

Thanks!

What network card do you have? I'm guessing a Realtek?

Just the standard driver install package they have on their site. No more need for tuner salad.

yes, I have a realtek PCIe GBE family controller card.

Are you on the latest driver from Realtek? Most Realtek cards do not do a good job with TCP offloading while "under stress".

Try adjusting the flow control before changing your Extender setup, see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929707