HDHomerun Prime Owners Thread - Page 21

I think Silicondust has a cable card activation support forum. I was twice blown away with the FiOS robot whan activating my CC; no problems. One on an initial install and the second was moving it between a Hauppaug and Silicondust.

Got my Prime installed a couple days ago and no problems what so ever! Real easy. I do have a question. My computer uses a Intel Q6600 4Gigs of RAM and an Nvidia 8800GT. Will adding RAM help keep pixelation at bay when doing several things on the computer at the same time (ie:surfing the net and streaming to an Xbox and recording all at the same time)? Thanks.

My set up is wired to a gigabit router. It seems the more work I do and the more tuners turn on the pixelation gets worse. I'm gonna add some RAM and see if that doesn't fx it.

Pixelation and blocking are typically resolved with router or NIC settings. Your router should also have multicast and multimedia QoS enabled. Intel NICs are also recommended. Others have used unmanaged gigabit switches for the HDHomeRun Prime and HTPC.

Another counter intuitive group of settings are the Offload settings in your NICs advanced settings. These should all be disabled. Letting Windows 7 network stack handle these settings is more consistent although CPU utilization may be slightly high. On an iCore system it will not matter. Consistency and timing of the network packets is much more important.

My prime is working great over my gig network with my buffalo router and a couple of trendnet switches.

I've had my HDHRP for about 4 months now and it's becoming a real love/hate relationship. The WAF was at an all-time low for the first few weeks until all the bugs were worked out. Then we had smooth sailing for 2 1/2 months and all was good on the home front. Now out of the blue I'm getting the dreaded 'No Tuner Available'. I did the usual fixes (reboots all around, reinstalls, etc) but now only 2 of the 3 tuners are being recognized, when they are recognized at all. It's frustrating enough to troubleshoot with limited time. It's even more frustrating when the misses can't watch tv. I think I've tried most of the tips in this thread. Anyone have an idea why things suddenly went south? Nothing has changed in the hardware or software department.

Fixed! All the settings checked out correctly. The problem started when I set up the Olympic event recordings. It was recording lots of shows and two of them were corrupted. When I deleted those two last night the Delete message triangles disappeared from the recorded show thumbnails. Thanks for the suggestions.

Guy

I get the occasional "No Tuner Available" then I click okay and it tunes the channel in question. This is most likely an issue with the TA. I got Charter to update the f/w on my Cisco TA to F1601 and the problem is way less frequent. SilconDust is working on a f/w update but their last few betas have been, well let's say more like alpha's. I think they're close now. The thing is that they are trying to do something with the prime to fix a problem with the TA where it reports that the channel isn't tuned but the prime doesn't try to tune it again. The problem mostly occurs if you are using two tuners and that third one doesn't get the signal right away from the Cable Company. This is my understanding of it anyhow. I'm not using this on a bunch of TV's though.

It is not necessarily an issue with the TA, I see 'no tuner' every once in a while on Comcast with no TA and no tuners currently in use on the Prime. This is on a lightly used WMC/extender setup, btw, with just a few series recordings scheduled (and no conflicts). I have no idea what causes it but a reboot fixes the problem, guess I'll have to check the SD diag log next time it happens. I'm running the current (April) fw, not the betas.

I also receive no tuner available errors on a weekly basis using Comcast. The warnings are very consistent and happen every Thursday during prime time. Initially, I thought it was a result of the recent betas, but I found the Prime is not hanging or losing network connectivity like it was in betas before 20120524beta1. It appears to be a WMC issue, which SiliconDust support has told me the drivers and software have not changed since 20120405 official release. I just pulled the trigger and upgraded to 20120802beta1 to see if I get more stability. I would have stayed at 20120405 official release, but upgraded troubleshooting a pixelation / blocking issue that ended up being related to LTE interference in the same band as my premium channels.

@shortcut3d - I'm using 20120405 as well and have not experienced a loss of network connectivity. I use Fios with their 75/25 internet package thru a gigabit switch and my house is wired with cat6. I'm pretty sure it's not a connectivity or speed issue. Ultimately I ran the HR's windows repair and I got a signal again. I love the HR as I currently use it on 3 tvs in my home, but it can be maddening at times.

I have recently bought some Intel NICs to replace the integrated realtek nics on my htpcs mobos. What settings do you recommend for the Intel NICs to be set at? I have a lot of pixelation/blocking on my htpcs and all of them use the integrated realtek nics. I will be installing the intel nics this weekend hoping that it will help to resolve the issue. I have my entire setup as wired with a gigabit router (DIR-655) and unmanaged switches (2xGS108).

NOTE: Only change the default settings if you're having issues. Makes sure to check your router settings first and enable multimedia QoS and UPnP multi-cast. Also, make sure you create exceptions for ehrecvr service in virus scans. You can also create an exception for the recording location. In addition, make sure the recording drive is properly functioning and has a defrag plan (larger block size for formatting helps reduce fragmentation).

NIC Settings:
Disable all power saving settings and energy efficient modes. These are typically 802.11az modes. Set IEEE power saving to maximum performance.

Set Ethernet at wire speed and set the speed to gigabit or auto.

Enable any multimedia QoS settings.

Disable all offload settings. These settings move processing of the Windows Internet stack from the CPU to the NIC when enabled. Certain configurations get better results doing the reverse.

I think so as well but I have been unable to find that thread. I do not think the main topic was on the intel nic but ended up talking about them midway through. My efforts in trying various search keywords has been to no avail.

I was hoping it would be in an FAQ or something but no luck on that either.

This is sort of interesting..,. I am running a HDHR3-CC on a GS 108T switch. My main HTPC is still using the MBO 's Realtek 100MB port. Outside of configuring my router for fixed IP address, I haven't had to tweek any setting on the switch. Just for $hits and giggles I have stressed my network with multiple HD recordings and playback between HTPC's to see if break the network. I have one HTPC record while playing back a previously recorded program from another HTPC. Doing that, I am also able to record yet another program all at the same time; all with out even a burp. It just fricking rocks...yeah baby...

Is is possible, that you have a crappy network cable? i.e dropped packets.

The network cables have been tested so I know they are good and I know that is not the issue. Some people do not have issues and some do. I already have the Intel Nics so might as well install them as these have been recommended by many over at the SD forum to use.

I'll try the settings shortcut3d suggested for a start.

My experience has been much like yours...

I have a Prime (CC) and a Dual (QAM) sitting next to a D-Link DIR-825 dual band router up on the second floor. My main Media PC is on the first floor connected wirelessly via a DAP-1522 5GHz bridge. Distance between the router and bridge is only 10' but through the floor/ceiling. I also have a second Dual (OTA) sitting right next to the HTPC on the first floor (wired connection via the DAP). I routinely record and/or watch three simultaneous HD shows across the 5GHz link with no noticeable artifacts (adding a fourth outbound HD stream to the wireless DOES introduce stuttering and blocking on all four streams).

In an extreme test, I have had the PC simultaneously recording three HD streams across the 5GHz link plus two HD programs from the local OTA Dual.... while also simultaneously streaming a previously recorded show from the media pc upstream to the router over 5GHz, then sending it back out over the 2.4GHz link to my notebook. The media PC is using its stock on-board Realtek gigabit interface with default settings.

The only network issues I've ever had is that, initially, it took a while to sort out some UPnP issues. Otherwise, the network setup has been solid since December when I set up the Prime.

I'm going to try the Echo beta wirelessly with a bridge going from a wirelessN/gig router in my office to a bridge in my kitchen which is about 15 feet. I have the HDHR Prime as a tuner but SiliconDust doesn't have an extender. Of course I am also going to try it via ethernet.

This is sort of an off the hip observation..Please don't flame. Ever since I converted my HTPC's to SSD; I have gained some real stability and a happy wife. It's not uncommon for my wife to get five streams of recording going all at once.

I have tested my SSD as the recording drive and it even minimized the 29/59 frame rate problem. An SSD is total overkill for a recording drive. It does make an awesome cache drive for Media Browser.

As far as stress testing, I have recorded 6 and played back 2. My recording drive is a 2.5" 1TB Western Digital Scorpio Blue 5400RPM. The NIC is a Broadcom NetXtreme gigabit connected to an unmanaged gigabit Netgear ProSafe gigabit switch. The network utilization never exceeds a few percent over gigabit. Memory is not an issue either. I have 8GB but could easily get away with 4GB. I will not even venture to discuss CPU since I have a 2.7GHz Dual-Core Intel i7 it's super overkill.

The math...

Each HD tuner requires a maximum 20Mbps or 2.5MB/s
Gigabit switch capable of 1000Mbps x 80% = 800Mbps or 100MB/s
Hard drive Storagemark HTPC minimum 28MB/s sequential maximum 118MB/s 2MB random 59MB/s

Gigabit could handle 40 CableCARD HD streams 100 / 2.5 = 40
2.5" 5400RPM Hard Drive could handle 11 CableCARD HD streams 28 / 2.5 = 11.2

Based on these conservative calculations, network problems have to be related to quality not throughput. These calculations assume the least favorable scenario.

Note: Storagemark results would be performance in a similar multitasking workload to the stress test above. Sequential maximum is representative of a single recording. 2MB random is somewhere in between.

Whiteboy714.....I use the SSD for the OS and applications (i.e Firefox). I use a POS (piece of $hit) WD 1TB Green drive's for recording. Before I got my GB swtich, I was about ready to install a1GB NIC, I was experiencing pesky "tuner not avilable" errors that were related to UPnP issuies. That is when I figured out my router wasn't forwarding some HDHR multicast frames between mixed speed NIC's. (100mb to 1GB). The Netgear Switch handles the mixed speeds without any problems; now I am a happy camper...

You can slap a SSD into a E5300 Pentinum and have a decent HTPC...

It's great to use a SSD for the OS and software, but don't use it as your recording drive. You mapped the recording location to your WD drive but you also should remap the "TV buffer" off the SSD's drive to the WD as well. The TV buffer will eat the life out of the SSD faster then anything else. I used a symbolic link to redirect the buffer to my standard hard drive.

*edit .... In case you don't know how to do this, here's a quick how to from a google search...
http://experts.windows.com/w/experts_wiki/changing-the-location-of-the-live-tv-buffer.aspx

*edit2 ... After i read that, i seen a link to how to use RAM for your TV buffer. If your system has a lot of ram (8gigs or more) check this out...
http://experts.windows.com/w/experts_wiki/using-a-ram-drive-for-the-live-tv-buffer.aspx
Edited by Pringals - 8/9/12 at 9:32am

Thanks. I have an SSD and totally forgot about the TV buffer.