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Latest Ceton InfiniTV 4 Info Thread - Page 131

post #3901 of 4509
11/29/12 at 6:47pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by gsr View Post

WMC doesn't support automatically switching the resolution to whatever the source content is, so native output isn't possible in this case.

Thanks for the clarification. The more I learn of these little nuances, I am starting to appreciate the usefulness of my Moxi whole-home DVR solution, and am not sure if I am going to keep the InifiniTV 4. I just don't have a lot of time to invest in troubleshooting and tweaking, but maybe I am over-reacting.

Mark
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post #3902 of 4509
11/29/12 at 8:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by giomania View Post

Thanks for the clarification. The more I learn of these little nuances, I am starting to appreciate the usefulness of my Moxi whole-home DVR solution, and am not sure if I am going to keep the InifiniTV 4. I just don't have a lot of time to invest in troubleshooting and tweaking, but maybe I am over-reacting.
Mark
It really shouldn't take much time to get a WMC system up and running, but there are going to be pluses and minuses to any option as NONE of the available options is perfect. I've had my WMC system up and running prior to the InfiniTV shipping to test it out with OTA tuners and since the InfiniTV cards arrived and it has required minimal maintenance during that time. It isn't perfect, but it's the best fit for my needs and getting it up and running really didn't take much effort. YMMV.
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post #3903 of 4509
11/30/12 at 10:27am
I'm sorry if this has been answered, but we are up to 131 pages and I'm not sure what best to put in the search term to narrow it down.

I just bought an InfiniTV 4, and will hopefully be getting the cablecard within a week or so from Comcast in the Sacramento area. Going to try to install it within the next 2 weeks to play around with it, but I plan on getting an SSD drive in January and then do a fresh install. Will this be an issue with the card, does it create some sort of specific link to your computer setup? I'm not worried about losing record once (or whatever it is called) programs, but I just want to make sure I can do a fresh install in a month and not have any issues.

Thank you.
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post #3904 of 4509
11/30/12 at 10:31am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Xilpaxim View Post

I'm sorry if this has been answered, but we are up to 131 pages and I'm not sure what best to put in the search term to narrow it down.
I just bought an InfiniTV 4, and will hopefully be getting the cablecard within a week or so from Comcast in the Sacramento area. Going to try to install it within the next 2 weeks to play around with it, but I plan on getting an SSD drive in January and then do a fresh install. Will this be an issue with the card, does it create some sort of specific link to your computer setup? I'm not worried about losing record once (or whatever it is called) programs, but I just want to make sure I can do a fresh install in a month and not have any issues.
Thank you.

No you'll be fine. The recordings are tied to the pc that created them, but it won't matter when you install your new SSD and reinstall Windows, because you'll be starting from scratch. smile.gif
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post #3905 of 4509
11/30/12 at 11:13am
What is the smallest htpc case that will fit the infinitv and a 2.5 hdd? Also what about with a dedicated graphics card?

Thanks.
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post #3906 of 4509
11/30/12 at 1:20pm
I purchased this case

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Brand-NEW-APEX-MI-008-250W-Mini-ITX-Case-/200708342703?pt=US_Computer_Cases&hash=item2ebb2643af

I have Blu Ray drive, 640GB 2.5 HD, 1 ssd, and ceton infinitv card. It's a tight fit but it works pretty well.
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post #3907 of 4509
11/30/12 at 1:48pm
If you're looking for mini-itx (so you'd only have one slot for the ceton card if you're going PCIe) I have this case and it fits 2 2.5 ssd/hdds and a slim optical drive with the PCIe infinitv just fine.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129081
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post #3908 of 4509
11/30/12 at 2:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by djn2004 View Post

What is the smallest htpc case that will fit the infinitv and a 2.5 hdd? Also what about with a dedicated graphics card?
Thanks.
You'd need two PCI slot openings on the case, minimum. Either a Shuttle type computer, or this would be my first choice: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112364
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post #3909 of 4509
11/30/12 at 3:11pm
Native output is a pain in the butt anyway.... On my friend's cablevision box it does that and it lags the TV as the TV switches modes. If you have a 1080p TV, best to have the output to 1920x1080 60hz. If 720p TV, 1280x720 60hz. The video card driver does great with scaling. Much better than the crappy cable boxes!


BTW, question... if my provider has a change on the channel list, such as deleting ,adding, or changing the number of a channel.... is that supposed to automatically propagate to WMC's channel list? If not, that is quite stupid, as providers tend to change things without notice sometimes!
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post #3910 of 4509
11/30/12 at 3:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by robnitro View Post

Native output is a pain in the butt anyway.... On my friend's cablevision box it does that and it lags the TV as the TV switches modes. If you have a 1080p TV, best to have the output to 1920x1080 60hz. If 720p TV, 1280x720 60hz. The video card driver does great with scaling. Much better than the crappy cable boxes!
BTW, question... if my provider has a change on the channel list, such as deleting ,adding, or changing the number of a channel.... is that supposed to automatically propagate to WMC's channel list? If not, that is quite stupid, as providers tend to change things without notice sometimes!

The changes do propogate to the guide data, but it can take a little while for the changes to propogate into the guide data, but it's usually fairly quickly in my experience. The problem is you can sometimes get caught short when you're in between guide updates and a change happens then.
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post #3911 of 4509
11/30/12 at 5:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by djn2004 View Post

What is the smallest htpc case that will fit the infinitv and a 2.5 hdd? Also what about with a dedicated graphics card?
Thanks.

You don't really need a dedicated graphics card, for the most part, intel HD works fine for HTPC usage, but that's your call, I'm running an older I3-550, but added a card for 3d , but if you want a really cool, small HTPc case,with a single PCI card slot, I purchased this one a couple months ago, little pricey but your not going to find a smaller case with a PCI slot that's usable.

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1407043/realan-e-i5-e-i7-mini-itx-case-builds/30#post_22623660
Edited by dbailey75 - 11/30/12 at 9:20pm
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post #3912 of 4509
12/1/12 at 10:32pm
I also see the 1.2.2.6 beta fw update, but am unsure whether to try it or not... The way the betas are now, I can't save the old version as a file backup... and I don't know if the software would allow me to roll back.

I will wait for now unless I hear good things. I only updated to 1.2.2.1 originally because I heard good things.
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post #3913 of 4509
12/2/12 at 5:43am
Quote:
Originally Posted by giomania View Post

I researched the old PC yesterday, and am thinking it is not worth it to upgrade (see specs below), as I would need to buy RAM (~ $100 for 4MB) and a video card; I have bigger hard drives already.
What I would really like to do is to build a combination NAS / Media PC, and get rid of my two Netgear ReadyNAS boxes, but I don't know if it makes sense or is possible to do. In this scenario, I would want to install at least 8 of the drives from the NAS devices into the case, and I see there are cases out there to support that. I have Macs in the house, so also need AFP support for those, and it looks like WHS will not do that natively from my brief research yesterday.
Whatever PC the Ceton card goes into will be outside my HT in the basement, and the HDMI cable and any necessary IR extension cables would run through conduit into my rack area, and then into my HDMI distribution system serving three display devices. So that means I do not require a nice looking or super-quiet HTPC case.
Last, to provide me with the same functionality as the Moxi / Mate system I currently have, I would only need one extender in the Master bedroom.
I guess I need to do some research on the appropriate path forward. Any input would be appreciated.

Inspiron Desktop 530 MiniTower
Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 (2.20GHz)
300W Power Supply
1 GB DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz (4 DIMMs)
320 GB SATA Hard Drive (7200RPM), 16 MB Cache
DUAL IN-LINE MEMORY MODULE..., 512MB DDR2, 667M, 64X64, 8, 240, 2RX8

Mark

Update: I installed Windows 8 Pro (purchase details below) on the old PC noted above, and it seems to be working fine performing one task at a time. I had some doubts if this was going to work, but it was a cheap experiment. I am waiting for Microsoft to send me the product key for Media Center so I can install that add-on. Then I have to decide if I should spend the $60 to upgrade the RAM, (I only have 1MB in that old machine) as the Ceton needs at least 3MB. Also, I might have to upgrade the power supply if I am going to eventually put in another HDD and an HDMI video card, as it is only 300W.

Windows 8 Purchase Details: I had purchased a laptop a few months ago, so I went for the $40 Windows 8 Pro upgrade deal and free Windows Media Center add-in they are offering. Thanks to changes in Microsoft's licensing agreements, Windows 8 Pro purchased via this offer can be installed on any PC with an upgrade-eligible OS or as a system-builder Personal Use License, not just the one recently purchased.

Mark
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post #3914 of 4509
12/2/12 at 11:21am
I know it's tough to get past the old "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" idea, but I'm wondering if it's time to upgrade my card's firmware. I bought one of the early releases (HW version 4884) and have been sitting on firmware version 1.0.9.5 for a very long time. I have had minimal to no issues, and those that I have had I've been able to attribute to Windows or hardware issues elsewhere in the computer. The utility is telling me the latest available firmware is 1.1.7.2, and I'm just curious if it's worth the upgrade. That is, are there more/better features available? Any major bugs fixed that I may not have encountered up to this point? Any other reason to upgrade other than "just because?"

As an aside, I'm also curious if anyone has difficulty with Windows not updating Guide Data on a regular basis. I've told it many times to automatically update, but I've found time and time again that I'm down to my last day or two of guide listings and it still doesn't update unless I do it manually. Any thoughts on that?
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post #3915 of 4509
12/3/12 at 4:21am
It's always advisable to run the latest firmware as it will contain all of the current bug fixes. If you have the Ceton diagnostic utility installed it will check your cards firmware and drivers and allow you to upgrade them via the GUI. If not, then download the latest driver installation package from the Ceton website, uninstall your current Ceton app and install the latest and then upgrade the firmware from there. Note that if you upgrade the firmware you'll have to rerun WMC setup for the TV signal.
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post #3916 of 4509
12/3/12 at 5:11am
Quote:
Originally Posted by captain_video View Post

It's always advisable to run the latest firmware as it will contain all of the current bug fixes. If you have the Ceton diagnostic utility installed it will check your cards firmware and drivers and allow you to upgrade them via the GUI. If not, then download the latest driver installation package from the Ceton website, uninstall your current Ceton app and install the latest and then upgrade the firmware from there. Note that if you upgrade the firmware you'll have to rerun WMC setup for the TV signal.
It's always a tough call as the latest firmware can also contain the latest bugs along with the current bug fixes wink.gif. If everything is working well, it's tough to argue that anything should be done to it.
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post #3917 of 4509
12/3/12 at 7:01am
Just wanted to say that I've entered in to the amazing world of WMC extenders with my first Xbox 360 S (black Friday special, of course). This is being used with the USB InfiniTV4 on my main HTPC with Win8 Pro.

It worked like crap over wifi (main unit has a wifi PCI card + xbox wifi), so I decided to drill some holes and run a Cat5e cable to the xbox and put the main unit right next to the router and plug in using Cat5e. The performance difference was like night and day. I fired up the network graph tool on the extender software and I was holding at max for 5 minutes straight. Good stuff.

The only thing I've noticed so far..
- The xbox seems to have a darker tinted picture for some reason... I turned up the brightness on the TV, but I just found that odd. I can't find a brightness setting on the xbox, but it might be in one of the setting menus.
- The IR port on the xbox seems to have a narrower "catch area" than the HP USB MC IR port on my main machine. I used to be able to get a signal from my Harmony 900 to my HTPC from anywhere on the couch. With the xbox, I have to stretch my arm to the middle of the couch. I will probably hook up the Harmony 900 RF shooters to solve this one.
- Thank goodness for extender auto start... WAF+.
- General remote input lag... half a second or so. Not too bad...
- I was shocked by how much heat the 360 puts out simply being in extender mode. I have it laying down right now. I'll try vertical to see if that helps the heat escape.

Other than that, everything is great. My wife likes the cleaner look of the xbox over the HTPC in the living room. I like that I have one box for Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, and hopefully Skype in the future (we bought the Kinect package for the kid). My only fear now is Microsoft will pull extender support for the xbox in some future release. I'm simply basing this on the new black "slim" xbox media remote controller without the "Green Button" compared to the older white one.
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post #3918 of 4509
12/3/12 at 10:29am
Does it matter if I put the InfiniTV 4 card into a PCIe x1 or x4 speed slot?
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post #3919 of 4509
12/3/12 at 10:32am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Xilpaxim View Post

Does it matter if I put the InfiniTV 4 card into a PCIe x1 or x4 speed slot?

As far as I know, it doesn't matter at all. In fact, you can put it in a 1x, 4x, or 16x without any performance gains or losses.
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post #3920 of 4509
12/3/12 at 10:33am
Quote:
Originally Posted by snappjay View Post

Just wanted to say that I've entered in to the amazing world of WMC extenders with my first Xbox 360 S (black Friday special, of course). This is being used with the USB InfiniTV4 on my main HTPC with Win8 Pro.
It worked like crap over wifi (main unit has a wifi PCI card + xbox wifi), so I decided to drill some holes and run a Cat5e cable to the xbox and put the main unit right next to the router and plug in using Cat5e. The performance difference was like night and day. I fired up the network graph tool on the extender software and I was holding at max for 5 minutes straight. Good stuff.
The only thing I've noticed so far..
- The xbox seems to have a darker tinted picture for some reason... I turned up the brightness on the TV, but I just found that odd. I can't find a brightness setting on the xbox, but it might be in one of the setting menus.
- The IR port on the xbox seems to have a narrower "catch area" than the HP USB MC IR port on my main machine. I used to be able to get a signal from my Harmony 900 to my HTPC from anywhere on the couch. With the xbox, I have to stretch my arm to the middle of the couch. I will probably hook up the Harmony 900 RF shooters to solve this one.
- Thank goodness for extender auto start... WAF+.
- General remote input lag... half a second or so. Not too bad...
- I was shocked by how much heat the 360 puts out simply being in extender mode. I have it laying down right now. I'll try vertical to see if that helps the heat escape.
Other than that, everything is great. My wife likes the cleaner look of the xbox over the HTPC in the living room. I like that I have one box for Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, and hopefully Skype in the future (we bought the Kinect package for the kid). My only fear now is Microsoft will pull extender support for the xbox in some future release. I'm simply basing this on the new black "slim" xbox media remote controller without the "Green Button" compared to the older white one.

I have the same issue with the darker image through the xbox 360 as an extender. It's much brighter directly through the PC using the same hdmi port of the TV. The volume is lower when using the extender as well (I'm running everything through a receiver using hdmi for the audio).

The old style xbox 360s with the 100 Mbps NIC have the same problem if your media center PC has 1 Gbps NIC. I had to enable flow control on my PC and my managed switch to get a steady connection.

I noticed the same issue with the IR on the new xbox 360s. I have to be almost in front of it for it to work.

The remote lag is even worse if you have a logitech harmony one. The harmony one has a slight delay for some reason. My 880 is pretty fast compared to the one.
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post #3921 of 4509
12/3/12 at 10:43am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Xilpaxim View Post

Does it matter if I put the InfiniTV 4 card into a PCIe x1 or x4 speed slot?
No, any slot that is x1 or larger will work fine. The only caveat is we have seen a few motherboard that assume any card inserted in an x16 slot is a video card and disable onboard video, however this is uncommon, and you should not experience this with an x4 slot.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kcr6419 View Post

I have the same issue with the darker image through the xbox 360 as an extender. It's much brighter directly through the PC using the same hdmi port of the TV. The volume is lower when using the extender as well (I'm running everything through a receiver using hdmi for the audio).
The old style xbox 360s with the 100 Mbps NIC have the same problem if your media center PC has 1 Gbps NIC. I had to enable flow control on my PC and my managed switch to get a steady connection.

Do you have SP1 installed? I believe SP1 fixed this.
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post #3922 of 4509
12/3/12 at 11:22am
Quote:
Originally Posted by erickotz View Post

Do you have SP1 installed? I believe SP1 fixed this.

Eric, the video brightness and volume issue or the nic flow control issue or both? I'm guessing the nic issue.

I am fully patched including sp1 and some hotfixes but I dont believe sp1 was around yet when I first started using media center with the Xbox extender. I'll have to try turning off flow control to see what happens.
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post #3923 of 4509
12/3/12 at 11:29am
If we're talking about the brightness issue, I'm running Win8 Pro, latest beta drivers from Ceton. All hotfixes and updates from Windows Update.
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post #3924 of 4509
12/3/12 at 12:19pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Xilpaxim View Post

Does it matter if I put the InfiniTV 4 card into a PCIe x1 or x4 speed slot?

I have mine in an x16 slot as it is a mini ITX motherboard with only one slot.
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post #3925 of 4509
12/3/12 at 12:47pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by gsr View Post

It's always a tough call as the latest firmware can also contain the latest bugs along with the current bug fixes wink.gif. If everything is working well, it's tough to argue that anything should be done to it.

I would go with the latest firmware. I know the isn't broke don't fix it problem, but the newer firmwares have solved a lot of issues. And as a bonus, channel changes are much quicker.
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post #3926 of 4509
12/3/12 at 1:29pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by WideNine View Post

I would go with the latest firmware. I know the isn't broke don't fix it problem, but the newer firmwares have solved a lot of issues. And as a bonus, channel changes are much quicker.

FWIW, all of my cards are running the latest beta (or something newer, but there aren't any known regressions in the latest beta). To be honest, lack of time is the main reason the latest beta has not gone to non-beta. That will happen as soon as everyone has time to stop and breathe.
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post #3927 of 4509
12/3/12 at 3:08pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by w1retap View Post

I just setup my InfiniTV4 tonight.. it was super easy and works great so far.
I have the InfiniTV4 being hosted in my WHS 2011 box, then I just used the network bridge to bind it with my NIC so it is distributed across the network to my 4 HTPC's. Installed the Ceton Network Tuner software on the HTPC's and it only took a few seconds for all the channels and guide to load. smile.gif

Was it really that easy? I've been contemplating this for almost two years. How is the network traffic. Does it slow your network down a lot? I have one dedicated HTPC with a ceton infinitv 4 pci-e card and silicon dust prime 3 channel through a network connection.

I'm assuming that you connected the tuning adapters directly to the WHS box and not the client?

Do you have less problems with the card? What do you think the advantages are?
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post #3928 of 4509
12/3/12 at 3:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by teknokill View Post

Was it really that easy? I've been contemplating this for almost two years. How is the network traffic. Does it slow your network down a lot? I have one dedicated HTPC with a ceton infinitv 4 pci-e card and silicon dust prime 3 channel through a network connection.
I'm assuming that you connected the tuning adapters directly to the WHS box and not the client?
Do you have less problems with the card? What do you think the advantages are?
\\I also have 4 extenders.
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post #3929 of 4509
12/3/12 at 7:16pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by teknokill View Post

Was it really that easy? I've been contemplating this for almost two years. How is the network traffic. Does it slow your network down a lot? I have one dedicated HTPC with a ceton infinitv 4 pci-e card and silicon dust prime 3 channel through a network connection.
I'm assuming that you connected the tuning adapters directly to the WHS box and not the client?
Do you have less problems with the card? What do you think the advantages are?
- Yes, it was very easy. The whole setup process probably took 20 minutes.
- The network isn't slowed down any that I notice.. I'm running a 24port Zyxel gigabit switch. Even with 4 streams going at once I'd probably still have over 900Mbits of network speed left.
- I'm not using tuning adapters. I have Comcast HD cable.
- The advantage for me is, I have the Ceton in my WHS server which is on 24/7. (~250w with an Intel i5 and 17 hard drives) Powering up and powering down a box with a Ceton may present problems for some people, acquiring the signal and auth every time. My HTPC's are always in sleep mode unless I'm watching TV or have a scheduled recording, in which case they will wake up. It saves electricity, makes my computer room quieter, and gives off less heat. Everything in my house is located in my computer room with all the HTPC's rackmounted, then I just do HDMI-->CAT6 and USB-->CAT6 to the TV's.
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post #3930 of 4509
12/4/12 at 12:18pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by snappjay View Post

If we're talking about the brightness issue, I'm running Win8 Pro, latest beta drivers from Ceton. All hotfixes and updates from Windows Update.

You can try setting up the graphics for the XBOX in WMC. Open WMC on the XBOX go to tasks/settings and there is an option to set up the video output. I dont remember the exact headings as I did this over 4 months ago. My suggestion is to Calibrate the TV to either your HTPC or XBOX and not switch for a particular tv if you want the best settings, or create two profiles on your tv, one for each.
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