HDHomeRun - Dual ATSC or QAM to Ethernet Box - Page 17

You're right, placing the HDHR and MythTV backend on the same subnet is the most common setup, and that is what I have.

Where the subnets become an issue is when I want to stream directly to my MacBook Pro into VLC. I want to do this for testing, channel discovery, or just casual viewing. My wireless is a different subnet, firewalled form the rest of my network. It may also not be too unusual for someone to have their servers on one subnet and PCs on another, for the same reasons one might want to do that in a business environment. You might assume your children's PC is dangerous and likely to be compromised by any number of viruses and want to wall it off from the important stuff.



It actually DOES work across subnets, other than the broadcast discovery stuff. I just tested it with my MacBook. I sent the hdhomerun commands from my Linux server on the same subnet, and then I set the broadcast target to my MacBook's IP on a different network: " hdhomerun_config FFFFFFFF set /tuner0/target 192.168.252.69:1234". The video does work, it's just a clunky setup. It could be easily improved by using a www interface to get input, and kick off the commands locally on the linux server. OR, the utilities could be enhanced to optionally allow IP addresses.

It won't be 70Mbps...The max payload that this device will serve up is for a TS from a 256-QAM source; ~38.8Mbps. The TS payload for a 8-VSB source will be half that. In addition, in either case, what is sent across the network is going to be lower (much lower in the case of 256-QAM, and less so in the case of 8-VSB) due to the device perfoming PID filtering.

So given the worse case scenario (256-QAM), you can already cut the 38.8 in half because it will be a multiplex of two 19.4 streams, and then filtering should reduce this even further.

The issue is the same regardless of UDP or TCP, the only problem is that the hdhr tools use a broadcast IP address to find the tuner device, any routing issues are the same.

As for the ability to stream HD between subnets, even cheap consumer devices can easily handle 10-19.3Mbps throughput (19.3 being the theoretical max of a single ATSC HD stream). Since the hdhr does filtering, the amount of data is likely to be around 15Mbps. But, even in a worst case scenario of sending a full QAM channel of two multiplexed HD streams, we're talking 38Mbps - still easily within the performance of modern devices (I'm not sure where your 70Mbps estimate comes from).

I am currently watching an HD stream across a relatively low end firewall / vpn device. The router is easily able to handle it. The 802.11G connection doesn't have much headroom, but it's working pretty well. If/when I upgrade to 802.11N, the bandwidth shouldn't be much of an issue either.

I am guessing that the 70Mbps was for both tuners sending unfiltered QAM channels... Not really the typical use, but...

Jafa just replied on the hdhomerun forums, and the command-line apps actually DO accept IP address as a parameter. You don't need to use the auto-discovery.

I just tested it form my MacBook, and it works great across subnet boundaries, with the standard Unix tools and VLC.



Now, I think users of the Windows apps are still stuck with only discover mode. And, I think MythTV only uses discovery, but that is not a big deal for most situations.

I finally got around to trying the hdhr after getting it a few weeks back. Had to stop playing Gears long enough to do it. Works great on my laptop running Vista but have to plug ethernet in. Tried using the MCE tuner extender but the configure button is greyed out. So I can't try it on my MCE computer. It already has a ntsc\\atsc tuner inside. Just trying to add 2 more hd tuners. Then I can get rid of my cable dvr.

Indeed, not typical. Given today's programming choices not even likely anytime soon. But it does highlight the issue of network planning.

If you jump in assuming you're going to dump a freight train of data, highly dependent on accurate and timely delivery, without having a decent network underpinning it you're in for a rude surprise. If not right away, soon, like when the video recording program stops just as it's attempting to record your favorite show...

Putting devices like this, along with extenders or other PCs that want to play back video, onto a low-end switch is asking for trouble. But seeing as how gigE switches can be had for $60/retail it's not like you're going to break the bank upgrading the network to handle the load. Remember, it's not just port speed that's important when it comes to switches, it's about how much total throughput, on ALL ports, the unit can sustain.

also, truth be told, switches or bridges don't HAVE to pass every datagram they get. they are layer 2 devices, remember. their job is 'best effort' delivery and layer3 (IP routing) is what sits on top (making a logical hier out of a physical one) and its not until you get to layer4 (tcp or udp+app) that you get reliability!

yes, today switches TEND to not drop frames and be near real-time. but they are allowed to drop and still be a proper ethernet frame device. anyone who designs for layer4 type reliability but bases it on a layer2 model, well, gets what he deserves

Yes, good points on network design. But, this little box will be pushing 15-30Mbps (one or two HD streams). It will take a pretty poor gigabit switch to not hold up to that load. And, even cheap junk will have no problems with a single occasional HD stream - such as viewing a program on your laptop with VLC.

Try using the HDHR with MCE2005 and a congested switch. MCE has a nasty tendency to decide it's "lost the signal" and not recover gracefully. Not a good thing when you're depending on it to record something important. There's a good bit of blame to be pointed at MCE for this but having insufficient network bandwidth doesn't help.

I definitely found things to be more reliable (less unreliable?) when using the 100mb connection the HDHR wants into a gigE switch and into a gigE port on the MCE machine. This while the MCE machine also transfers programs to a fileserver (also with a gigE card).

I don't know if this is a meaningful info, but this is the UGLY network configuration I have and it's been working fine. (I think I might have posted this before, but I'm getting senile...)

HDHomeRun -> 10/100 netgear switch -> buffalo 10/100 wireless router -> another baffalo 10/100 router -> MCE2005

Was able to record dual HD channels with out any issues, with standard internet traffic occurring at the same time. I have additional HDHomeRuns but haven't gotten a chance to set them up. Obviously, this isn't the best network configuration, but there was a reason I did it this way. I had a computer on the same switch as the HDHomeRun, but was unable to get it to work there, because there is a Fusion card installed in it. So I quickly installed the drivers on the other computer which is 3 network devices away and it worked fine. I'll probably try to put the 2nd HDHomerun in the same spot as the first and see I can record 4 shows across this ugly network... Oh, I don't know if this matters either, but some of the wiring is actually CAT3, so this network is even uglier then it appears...

Just thought I'd share what's worked for me and my ugly network...

edit: item sold, nm.

-sol

So I installed my second HDHomeRun on my messed up network described above and I created 4 recording at the same time on a single MCE. 3 of them were HD, the 4th was a digital, but not HD, because I didn't have another HD show on at the time. Looks like all 4 shows recorded with out any glitches.

From a cable perspective, I'm using a motorola signal booster coming into the house, then it's split 4 times, then from one of those splits it's split another 4 times, then from there, split another 4 times. That's when the cable is put into the 2 HDHomeRuns.

Hopefully, this should give people a perspective on what can be done...

Unit works as advertised. Local Cable co. has encrypted all but the local HD Channels since I last recorded via firewire.

Edit - Item sold to another user - thx.

I fumbled around with the virtual server setup and finally got it working. All is good now.

I got mine working on vista laptop. Recorded fine. Last 2 nights only got 10 seconds of recording. Checked last night and said channel not available. Also got it working on my htpc with mce. Using built in tuner and tuner 1 of the hdhr. Hopefully it is fine. One odd thing though. I was trying to set it up via remote desktop but media center couldn't find it. Last night I was working off of it directly and it was finding it and let me install it.

Will the HDHR co-exist with an ATi AIW Radeon 9600 Pro and ATi's MMC without any problems?

Are they pretty quick to process orders? If I order one from the Seattle area today and choose ground shipping, would I have it up and running in time for the NCAA men's BB conference tournaments next weekend? The reason I ask is my alma mater's team is having the best season they've ever had and I want to have trouble-free archiving of their games that are in HD.

Might I be best off just running down to the local CompUSA and getting a Hauppauge HVR-1600 or HVR-950?

I have an AIW 1900 and no problems. I don't use MMC though.

Shipping time was reasonable. A day or two at most for me.

Were you firewire recording from your cable box? If so, it's possible you were recording encrypted channels that were being decrypted by the box, because what really controls whether you can firewire capture or not is the CCI flag, not whether it was encrypted or not.

I've been able to firewire capture non-local HD (ESPNHD, DiscoveryHD, INHD, etc) for over two years, but I have no expectation of those channels ever being delivered to me unencrypted. One of the reasons I'm interested in the HDHR at all is that our local cable company doesn't do anything to ensure that our local HD programming isn't encumbered by the CCI=0x02 (copy once) flag. This flag has prevented me from being able to record our own local FOX-HD and CBS-HD (until most recently) programming via firewire for over 6 months now. As much as I appreciate being able to firewire "copy" encrypted programming, it's been very frustrating that I haven't been able to do the same with our local OTA programming from the same cable that we're paying over $100/month for.

If you need a guarantee of being able to copy premium content that is encrypted over cable, the R5000-HD might be your best option.

I don't want anything to go wrong, because my team (WashSt) hasn't even been to the NCAA tournament since the early 80s and who knows if they'll ever get there again - LOL.

I can currently firewire capture our local CBS-HD off our cable DVR because they just switched CCI from 0x02 to 0x00 a couple weeks ago, but it had been at 0x02 (no PC capture) for the last 6 months so I don't want to take any chances that they might switch it back before the NCAA tournament is over. I need this to be a "slam dunk" - no pun intended.

Here's my situation:
I've been running a home network since the mid-90s and presently have broadband coming out of a Comcast Cable Modem that splits into phone, internet, and digital cable. Internet goes into an old Netgear RT-314 that's been hacked to a Zyxel Prestige 314 with more advanced firmware that acts as the DHCP server and firewall. Three ports (in addition to the defaults) are opened for 3 ReplayTVs (static IPs) to participate in IVS (Internet Video Sharing) and I'm using a Keyspan bi-directional USB 4-port Print Server. In addition, I'm using a Netgear FS605 5-port switch and a Linksys WRT54G that's only being used as an additional switch and wireless access point. There are 4 Windows XP Pro SP2 PCs on this home network.

Given the above setup, is it a pretty sure bet that setting up the HDHR for flawless HD recording will truly be a slam dunk? (assuming I'll connect the PCs in question and the HDHR into the same switch, of course)

I've never used an installation of BTV, MythTV, SageTV, or really anything other than ATi's MMC. Do I need one of them? Will it make use a great deal easier?

Thanks for any help.

Tim

This is why I stopped using firewire recording, because CSI was causing the firewire recording to cancel. In my area, ESPNHD, INHD, DiscoveryHD are not recorable via firewire. So I don't have anything to gain from firewire anymore...

As long as CBS is sent in the clear for your cable provider. Can you tune it via a qam tuner on an HDTV? If so you can use the HDHomeRun.

Yes you do need software. If you have Windows XP with Media Center on any of those computers, then you have the software already (but need an analog card).

I believe some people use VLC, but Sage or XP with MCE is your best bet.

Other options are GB-PVR and Media Portal. Both are free windows-based programs and both work with the HDHomeRun.

Not "pretty quick", I'd say LIGHTNING QUICK! Of course, I AM in North Carolina, but I think it might have been delivered the day before I ordered it.*

--Dale--

* plus or minus a couple of days

Much success with Vista Media Center and QAM?

Yes there are users who use it in Vista and 64-bit. You should look at the Silicondust forum for more information.

Russ

MCE Drivers are now out of beta!

I ordered mine yesterday, and it's arriving today. Do you need a crossover cable to hook it directly into the PC? I read a post yesterday on silicondust indicating you could just use any old cable.

David

Any cable will work but you'll need to run a DHCP server. Just follow the steps listed in this thread: http://www.silicondust.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2797 and good luck.

You can use any cable. The port on the HDHR is auto sensing.