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HDHomerun Prime Owners Thread - Page 27

post #781 of 1465
1/6/13 at 8:30am
Why not just use an antenna if you are only going to tune the major networks anyhow? Or are you including the Cable/Satellite networks in that statement? For me, I like Palladia and a few others in that tier and they are all copy protected. I don't subscribe to the typical movie channels like HBO but am still stuck with copy protected content.
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post #782 of 1465
1/6/13 at 10:17am
I am not sure, will check to see if there is such a setting in my xbox.

what I did was using the remote, there was a key called "media center", all what it does is first boot xbox, and then automatically launch MC. I'd guess it's the same thing.

My HTPC is old, a build from 3 years ago and have only 2G DDR2 memo, no SSD. Am planning to get an SSD for system.

Though it seems even before the MC launch screen appear, it takes about 1 min.

Your 52 sec is not too bad. though using an HTPC is much fast, as it takes little time for the HTPC to wake up from sleep state.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Multimediashtick View Post

Do you have the xbox setup to boot into WMC automatically? Ram on the host computer is factor in speed of boot. When I doubled the ram from 2 to 4GB on my old main HTPC it made a great difference in opening and channel changing speed for the xbox. My new HTPC allows my xbox to boot in 54 seconds including time to a tuned channel [3.4 GHz processor and 8 GB 1600 DDR3 ram and an SSD for OS and programs]. Maybe Sammy2, shortcut3D or foxbat121 can comment on xbox vs echo boot speed.
With fios [and comcast] you can share all recordings except those made on copyonce channels or in their case the premium channels so another PC may not be out of the question. Also consider the boot time of a computer to having a channel tuned.
To let you know I have essentially both situations going at the same time for over a year now. My livingroom TV has an xbox and my old HTPC which serves as a storage device for music primarily. The only annoying thing for me with the PC is it is only on about once a week and the guide always seems to need to be updated on start up. In the past I would transfer recordings I wanted to save from my older HTPC to this unit. My new HTPC has 2TB drive and is dedicated to TV only for now, will not worry about archiving for a while.
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post #783 of 1465
1/6/13 at 10:42am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sammy2 View Post

Why not just use an antenna if you are only going to tune the major networks anyhow? Or are you including the Cable/Satellite networks in that statement? For me, I like Palladia and a few others in that tier and they are all copy protected. I don't subscribe to the typical movie channels like HBO but am still stuck with copy protected content.
Not sure if you addressing this to me but, if so, just to clarify, I *am* tuning in channels beyond the major networks *currently*, but I'm *thinking* about moving down to a major-network-only package. If I was to decide to cut down my cable package, the reason why I would probably still decide to keep the absolute basic package vs trying to tune it in via antenna is because I don't consider the antenna method reliable enough in my area. I can tune some channels in, while others seem problematic. I will admit that I haven't tried it in a while, so maybe I'll give it a try again. But you can get the major-network-only package for about $20.50 (plus various taxes and fees), which seems like a reasonable price to pay to get a solid signal.
Edited by srauly - 1/6/13 at 4:07pm
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post #784 of 1465
1/6/13 at 3:04pm
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Edited by roadrunner251 - 1/6/13 at 3:09pm
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post #785 of 1465
1/7/13 at 9:22pm
This Cablecard activating is for the birds. Comcast cannot seem to fix or even tell me why I can't get all my channels. I tried it with the Hauppauge 2650 and now with the Prime. The Prime won't even give me a successful activation reading. My bill just went up $20 this year but they can't do better by me. Any ideas on how to troubleshoot this myself of what to tell Comcast to check for?
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post #786 of 1465
1/8/13 at 4:49am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Feng Zhang View Post

Installed my HDHR Prime yesterday with my FIOS Cable Card, Win 8 pro with Media Center. It's a quite smooth process, the activation of the cablecard was very easy. And video quality is great, I can't see any difference between this and my FIOS DVR.
One thing that really bothers me, is just how long it take for my xbox 360s to power up and get ready for watching TV. I have xbox 360s in my basement and my HTPC in my living room. I counted, it took 2.5 minutes!!! for xbox to power up and launch MC extender. That's so painful. .
How do you guys deal with that? I don't think I can bear that.
I guess one way of dealing with it is to keep xbox on, it seems it will consume ~70W power in idle state. Not most green approach.
I am also considering getting another HTPC, but then I can't share the recording between living room & basement.
Would love to hear your experience.

My Xboxes both boot into WMC within 45 seconds with Win7 and a Prime, so my guess is that there's something going on with your PC or your network. Around 45 seconds is pretty typical, and I agree that you shouldn't leave them on all the time.
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post #787 of 1465
1/8/13 at 4:57am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Afroteddy View Post

This Cablecard activating is for the birds. Comcast cannot seem to fix or even tell me why I can't get all my channels. I tried it with the Hauppauge 2650 and now with the Prime. The Prime won't even give me a successful activation reading. My bill just went up $20 this year but they can't do better by me. Any ideas on how to troubleshoot this myself of what to tell Comcast to check for?

If you change from the 2650 to the Prime you need to have the Host ID for the card re-provisioned.

Here is step by step instructions on properly pairing a CableCARD and tuner from Charter. I presume Comcast would be similar if not the same.
Quote:
The first part is making sure that equipment is in the proper order. It must go like this: CableCARD in outlet A, Tuning Adapter in outlet B. If the customer has additional CableCARDs, then the next CableCARD goes in outlet C, followed by Tuning Adapter in outlet D. Repeat these steps until all CableCARDs are accounted for. Then it goes DVRs, HD Boxes, Standard Boxes, Cable Modems, and lastly MTAs.

If we are activating a Scientific Atlanta card for the first time we need to get the Host ID. Once that is added, the following hits must be sent: CCV Hit, RHT Hit, and a Standard Hit to the card. Wait 60 seconds in-between each hit. Then a Standard Hit to the Tuning Adapter. After this point, sometimes it is necessary to powercycle by unplugging for 60 seconds. Lastly, if the card isn't locking on, then it's time to roll a tech.

If a customer removes their CableCARD and inserts it into another device, the Host ID must be updated. This can be a real pain because not a lot of people have access. The advisor will probably have to contact their supervisor to find someone who can delete the old Host ID and update it with the Host ID from the new device. After that's done, send the same round of hits as stated above.

If a CableCARD just randomly stops working, I like to verify the Host ID just to be safe. Then I try the hits one at a time. If that fails, it's time to roll a tech.
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post #788 of 1465
1/8/13 at 6:45am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Afroteddy View Post

This Cablecard activating is for the birds. Comcast cannot seem to fix or even tell me why I can't get all my channels. I tried it with the Hauppauge 2650 and now with the Prime. The Prime won't even give me a successful activation reading. My bill just went up $20 this year but they can't do better by me. Any ideas on how to troubleshoot this myself of what to tell Comcast to check for?

Getting Comcast to set up the Cablecard can be a huge pain in the rear. Are you missing premium channels? I would wager you get all the channels that are already being broadcasted in ClearQAM. I had the same problem when I first got my card from them. I was on the phone a number of times trying to get it pair properly. Finally got someone on the phone that had a clue about the cards and they discovered that while the card was provisioned, and the proper signal sent to it to activate it, my account information was not setup properly for the card.

Essentially they have to tie the card to your account. Call them back and tell them to triple check your account settings to make sure they have the card properly setup within your account information.

I once even had a similar thing happen with a cable box I had picked up at the local office. Got most of the channels but not all of the channels. They discovered that the box I had was not tied to my account, hence the reason why I couldn't get all my channels. Same thing happened with my cable card.

Since I've gotten it straightened out with them I haven't had a single problem with the card in over a year.
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post #789 of 1465
1/8/13 at 9:40am
I posted this to the WMC thread and haven't gotten an answer yet so I thought I would try here since I see some discussing this exact topic:

Anyone else using Xboxes as front end devices and WMC having problems with the auto-run feature? I've got three Xbox 360's at various locations to serve up video via WMC and two of them do ONLY media center duties for me so they are set to automatically boot into WMC. This worked flawlessly until the most recent update a month or so ago and no neither one will boot into WMC. They just go tot he dashboard and I have to manually launch WMC even though in settings it still shows that it will launch into WMC. Every once in a blue moon one of them will go ahead and boot up into WMC as it's set but it's a rarity and I can't seem to find anything that is different when this happens. It appears to be a software bug and I'm curious if anyone else is experiencing this.
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post #790 of 1465
1/8/13 at 10:06am
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeremyhelling View Post

I posted this to the WMC thread and haven't gotten an answer yet so I thought I would try here since I see some discussing this exact topic:
Anyone else using Xboxes as front end devices and WMC having problems with the auto-run feature? I've got three Xbox 360's at various locations to serve up video via WMC and two of them do ONLY media center duties for me so they are set to automatically boot into WMC. This worked flawlessly until the most recent update a month or so ago and no neither one will boot into WMC. They just go tot he dashboard and I have to manually launch WMC even though in settings it still shows that it will launch into WMC. Every once in a blue moon one of them will go ahead and boot up into WMC as it's set but it's a rarity and I can't seem to find anything that is different when this happens. It appears to be a software bug and I'm curious if anyone else is experiencing this.

That is very strange. I have tested 4 Xbox 360s, included two old ones and two slims, all with the latest dashboard update, and they boot directly into WMC just fine.
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post #791 of 1465
1/8/13 at 12:26pm
Weird. I can't figure out what would be causing this on two different xboxes.
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post #792 of 1465
1/9/13 at 12:29pm
Does HDHR Prime apply firmware updates automatically or is it manual? I am asking because I am hearing that a software update is coming in Q1 (DLNA etc) and I really don't want to change what I currently have because everything is rock solid.
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post #793 of 1465
1/9/13 at 12:30pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by lockdown571 View Post

That is very strange. I have tested 4 Xbox 360s, included two old ones and two slims, all with the latest dashboard update, and they boot directly into WMC just fine.
+1 For me they work fine as well
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post #794 of 1465
1/9/13 at 12:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by cnewsgrp View Post

Does HDHR Prime apply firmware updates automatically or is it manual? I am asking because I am hearing that a software update is coming in Q1 (DLNA etc) and I really don't want to change what I currently have because everything is rock solid.

Manually.
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post #795 of 1465
1/10/13 at 5:38am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sammy2 View Post

Manually.

Isn't there a setting where it can be automatic? I thought there was on prior versions, or is that just to be notified of updates? Mine is manual--that's all I know for sure. I don't even think I get notifications.
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post #796 of 1465
1/10/13 at 5:43am
There's been no notifications because there's been no f/w updates except the beta updates. I use the Prime every single day and have no CableCo STB so I want to stay with the stable f/w until the bugs are worked out and the beta f/w is updated to stable.
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post #797 of 1465
1/10/13 at 6:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sammy2 View Post

There's been no notifications because there's been no f/w updates except the beta updates. I use the Prime every single day and have no CableCo STB so I want to stay with the stable f/w until the bugs are worked out and the beta f/w is updated to stable.

I'm more like cnewgroup. I'll update if I have an issue, otherwise I'll stick with the beta which has been working flawlessly.
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post #798 of 1465
1/10/13 at 7:25am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Karyk View Post

Isn't there a setting where it can be automatic? I thought there was on prior versions, or is that just to be notified of updates? Mine is manual--that's all I know for sure. I don't even think I get notifications.

If you installed the beta software, and when you launched the beta software (hdhomerun_setup.exe or something like this), it will automatically update the firmware.
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post #799 of 1465
1/10/13 at 7:27am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Karyk View Post

I'm more like cnewgroup. I'll update if I have an issue, otherwise I'll stick with the beta which has been working flawlessly.

Which one is that? I've read on the SD beta forum that the 12262012 f/w is good but the 01042013 wasn't so good. I'll stick with the 04052012 for now.
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post #800 of 1465
1/10/13 at 7:58am
Quote:
Originally Posted by netant View Post

If you installed the beta software, and when you launched the beta software (hdhomerun_setup.exe or something like this), it will automatically update the firmware.

Yes, I probably should have been referring to updated software.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sammy2 View Post

Which one is that? I've read on the SD beta forum that the 12262012 f/w is good but the 01042013 wasn't so good. I'll stick with the 04052012 for now.

I'll have to look, but it's probably something within 2-4 months of the release of the Prime, so it might be something from around the April period.
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post #801 of 1465
1/10/13 at 8:05am
The 04052012 f/w is the "official" release and not a beta release. It works mostly well.
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post #802 of 1465
1/10/13 at 8:18am
I don't know which version I'm on right now, but mine is not as rock solid as I'd like. My old TiVo HD was definitely pretty rock solid. I don't know if my problems are more related to the HDHomeRun Prime, my WMC 7 server, other devices (e.g., XBox 360's) holding onto tuners, or possibly even my cable signal, but I do occasionally need to reboot the Prime. More recent issues resulted in getting an error on my WMC 7 server (which is also my bedroom "client" - the XBox 360's are used in other rooms) which indicate that it can't detect a signal. Again, rebooting the Prime and closing/restarting WMC seems to fix it up. I've thought about trying to set up a scheduled nightly reboot of WMC, to see if that improves stability, but so far it's been more of a minor annoyance.

I don't believe anyone here mentioned it, but it looks like SiliconDust is coming out with new versions of its boxes that will do on-the-fly transcoding to MP4 format. When I first read it, I got pretty excited, since that's a native format that iOS devices can play back, but after thinking about it some more, I suspect that it might only be beneficial for live TV streaming to your iOS devices, since WMC would still (I assume) only be able to deal with the MPEG2 stream. If WMC could natively record to MP4 (or take these SiliconDust MP4 streams), that would be great.
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post #803 of 1465
1/10/13 at 1:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by netant View Post

If you installed the beta software, and when you launched the beta software (hdhomerun_setup.exe or something like this), it will automatically update the firmware.

Is there some way to turn off auto update assuming I am on beta firmware?
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post #804 of 1465
1/10/13 at 3:41pm
Lately I'm getting a lot of "this program was not recorded because no tuners were detected", but a couple of hours later, when the show is repeated, it gets recorded!

What has changed is that I had to move to care for my mom. I had set up a Prime and cable card for my sister who also lives there, and its been working fine for months.

I'm now on her home network, and I've set up my PC and my Prime and gotten a second cable card for it. Its mostly working fine. In fact, I now have four tuners available due to there being two Primes on the same network.

But I'm sometimes getting the above issue.

I'm certain my sisters system is not recording with four tuners at the same time, so I really don't know what's going on.

On another topic, what do people recommend for a good quality four way splitter?

Thanks.

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2
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post #805 of 1465
1/11/13 at 8:48am
How to know that hdhomerun running in my Country (Bangladesh)? I have regular cable network..may be it is analogue connection.
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post #806 of 1465
1/11/13 at 10:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by scsc168 View Post

I just tried my new HDHomeRun Prime yesterday. I don't have my cablecard yet, so i just tried it w/o the card and hook up to my timewarner cable. I followed the instructions, and the HDHomeRun configuration found a whole bunch of channles. I can view all the channels in HDHomerun Quickview. Then, I went into WMC to configure. The WMC was trying to scan channels too. At around 60% of channel scanning, I saw it had found over 60 channels. However, then it reached around 94%, all of a sudden all the channels are gone. At the end (100%), it only retained 1 channel.

Has anyone encounter this problem before? Is this a issue with the HDHomeRun Prime or WMC?


Is the 1-channel issue limited to WMC or is the same issue in QuickTV? Did you try re-running WMC setup?

I had no idea that the HDHomeRun Prime was able to tune channels without a CableCard. There is a ClearQAM tuner in the Prime?
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post #807 of 1465
1/11/13 at 11:21am
Quote:
Originally Posted by vivatech View Post

Is the 1-channel issue limited to WMC or is the same issue in QuickTV? Did you try re-running WMC setup?

I had no idea that the HDHomeRun Prime was able to tune channels without a CableCard. There is a ClearQAM tuner in the Prime?
The Prime contains QAM tuners (needed for all digital cable channels). "Clear" just means they are unencrypted and don't need to be authorized with a CableCard.
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post #808 of 1465
1/11/13 at 11:35am
I believe TimeWarner is one of the only cable companies who have started removing Local broadcast stations from the "Clear" status

Comcast still allows local (and I think local HD) through unencrypted in my region. Funny I found this out by plugging the coax cable into the TV in a room without a cable box and ran a channel scan. There are around 12 ClearQAM channels for me

Edit: Vladd, thanks for the help with NPVR. Minimal decoder selection increased channel change speed dramatically
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post #809 of 1465
1/11/13 at 11:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark_Slayer View Post

Edit: Vladd, thanks for the help with NPVR. Minimal decoder selection increased channel change speed dramatically
Great! I kept forgetting to ask if you got that resolved.
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post #810 of 1465
1/11/13 at 11:58am
Quote:
Originally Posted by vladd View Post

Great! I kept forgetting to ask if you got that resolved.

Finally, and followed up over at npvr forums

Since it is somewhat related to this thread (and I'm an HDHomerun Prime owner) here goes . . .

The hdhomerun config has several preformatted "application" options. The one most of us used in the past was Windows Media Center

Now that Frodo is in RC stage, hopefully more people start using it

If using the prime with NPVR, you rerun the hdhomerun setup and choose a different application. The funny thing is that it works with NPVR, GB-PVR, and XBMC

Yes there is a preformatted "XBMC" option in the pulldown. In my experience this allowed me to tune a channel quicker in XBMC's NPVR addon

However channel change using pageup/pagedown is still not working at all. When that is smoothed out, I'll get to completely unhitch the wagon from WMC (unless Comcast starts changing their CCI flags)
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