HDHomeRun - Dual ATSC or QAM to Ethernet Box - Page 4

GP,

Check SD's forums for my last post for your decoder issue. As far as mapping QAM, I selected "Digital Cable" in Sage and all my local HD's were in that lineup. I'm using "Analog Cable" (my syntax is probably off as I'm not at home) for my PVR500's.

P

Same here, it works just as it's supposed to. Running Sage ver.6x

Can't beat the price for a dual ATSC/QAM tuner device.

This thread title still needs to be changed to reflect the QAM ability of the HDHR.

update: The plug-in for BTV has made a lot of progress

1) both tuners are now supported.
2) the pid-filtered saved video file plays fine in both BTV and with network media players


known issues/limitations:
1) the combination of 2 tuners and back-back recordings has a bug. all other scheduling combinations seem to be fine.
2) QAM cable PIDs & RF channel info still needs to be manually entered

Where can I find the plug-in for BTV? I can't find anything over at the Silicon Dust forums.

we have BTV two tuner operation working now.
i just posted the plugin link on the silicon dust forum.

you need the BTVNegotiator plugin which is updated in the BTV 'development discussion' section, version 3.30b or later.

here is the link on silcon dust, that points to the BTV link:

http://www.silicondust.com/forum/vie...?p=11453#11453

since this was a BTV user-community plugin and not a Snapstream project, the development discussion was happening at the BTV user forum.
the silicondust/snapstream effort has yet to materialize so we took things into our own hands, since the HDHR product is such a perfect hit on our need for QAM.

the two threads at the btv forum of interest are:

http://forums.snapstream.com/vb/showthread.php?t=25620
(look towards end of thread for hdhr related stuff....note that this thread has numerous other features not related to hdhr)

http://forums.snapstream.com/vb/show...&highlight=qam
(again, the latter part of the thread is most relevant, as it initially started as an effort to use qam on dvico fusion tuners, which branched off into its own thread when focus moved to hdhr)

If anyone is interested, I've got the HDHomerun working with gbPVR. (It supports both tuners and can also support multiple devices.)

There is a small issue where it does not clear the timeshift buffer file but I will have that fixed in a day or two.

vladd, Yes I'm interested. Can you please let me what i need to do, my unit should be here in a week. TIA

no problem richlow. you will need:
1) gbPVR of course.
2) the ExternalRecorder plugin for gbPVR
3) VLC

By the time you get your unit, I will have instructions and my program complete (getting ready to work on it right now)

I'll PM you when I get it uploaded to my server.

Very interesting device. I, like many others, will await the MCE application development with much anticipation.

Ditto that. As soon as I hear of a functioning MCE beta, I am pulling the trigger.

I am so close to pulling the trigger, it is difficult to stop. I'm in the MCE usergroup on Silicon Dust and can test the solution on both MCE 2005 and Vista MCE. There hasn't been any new developments yet...

Does that mean they have a beta going, but you can't test it because you don't have the hardware? Or you are aso waiting until they release the beta?

Count me as very interested as well (but for vista mce only).

I do have one question though.... (and i know its a feature that has been discussed) but having 2 types of service in mce. Because the way I understand things this device only tunes atsc/qam. So my "analog" cable channels wouldnt tune? I currently have a pvr-500 MCE that tunes my basic 2-70 channels and I would like to keep that "basic" service and add the unencrypted qam (since I know all of my hd content is unencrypted sans movie channels). so is the 2 service guide the only way I would be getting both qam and analog cable working?

I am very interested in this product though because the more I hear about ocur and cablecard the more im losing faith in it ever working like we want (from the copy protections mce is being forced to use to not allowing oem builders to get one, etc). So this would be a nice stopgap until cablelabs gets their stuff together and puts out a good solution for us.

Im more or less stuck with mce because of the extender concept (and 360 especially). My actual mce box is nothing but a server (which gets extended to my devices around the house) and sage doesnt work with the 360 so if I moved there I would have to buy even more equipment (which I would like to avoid as much as possible)

jagouar,

You will need to keep your 500 if you want to tune analog cable channels. The hdhr can't do it. Even if it could tune analog cable channels, there is no hw mpeg encoder so mce can't use it.

I don't really understand your "2 service guide" thing. The way mce handles digital channels is by adding the digital channels starting at channel 1000. There is only one guide. Your 360 will be able to watch either the analog cable channels or the digital channels.

I've been using the HDHomeRun to tune analog cable channels. I don't really know what you are referring to.

My cable service (Charter Communications, Madison, WI) is the extended basic package. It is not the 'digital' cable package. I get all the basic cable channels and the extended programs, which I think are all analog. They all work fine with the HDHomeRun.

No you haven't. Any stations you are tuning with the HDHomerun are digital stations.


If you are saying that you get more than the OTA broadcast stations on your QAM (usually local network affiliates), then you are lucky and in the minority. Regardless of what stations you happen to receive, they are all still digital if you are tuning them with the HDHomerun.

I was talking about having the analog channels and atsc/qam channels in the same guide. I thought you could only have "one provider" in the guide at a time. But I dont have a ATSC tuner at all because I live in an area that only had 2 channels (but local cable co has them all) OTA (and I didnt think it was worth having a new card for just 2 hd channels) but qam is a different story. so if the mce guide will play nice with my 500 and one of these boxes thats all i need. I just assumed it wouldnt work like that.

jagouar,

mce allows cable and atsc channels in the same guide (this is how I use it). It remains to be seen how the hdhr will handle qam channels in mce.

We'll have to wait until nick releases the driver (if there actually is a driver) for mce. He stated that the hdhr will be supported in mce via upnp. I'm unclear as to how this will actually work because I've never seen mce mention upnp tuners as being supported.

I'm anxiously awaiting mce support though, because I'd love to replace my 2 avermedia a180s.

And I would love to add HD recording to my mce

Its good to know atsc and cable can play nicely in the same guide..... thats one less thing to worry about.

Please forgive I'm still a little new at how channel information is gathered, mapped, and used...

Yes, it remains to be seen how channels can be mapped in seamlessly. I'm also curious how, in fact, it will handle channels that come up as X.y. Let me give you an example:

If I connect my cable up to my Samsung DLP (has all 3 kinds of tuners in it) and scan for channels, I get a whole range of channels. The cable versions of my local broadcast HD channels looks like this: 81.1 (KCPQ / FOX-HD) on my TV. No single listing service I've seen (including comcast's own lists) show this channel as 81.1. Instead it's listed as something like 113.

Furthermore, the built-in TV Guide shows no information for this channel's programming. I've tried every zip code and choice I can make in the TV.

Is this going to complicate things somewhat?

Nope, no hardware yet and no beta yet. I'm sorta waiting for Silicon Dust to move forward a little before plunking down the money. These folks seem really dedicated to getting it to work, and I would love to see it happen for MCE. My sole purpose is to ensure the MCE experience is as seamless as possible.

They could use the TVCT thats coming through the qam stream to remap the channel to the corresponding ATSC channel. Here is the info from what is 71.1 on my cable. As you can see, it is my OTA 11.1.

-------------------- Begin TS Info -----------------

Program Association Table
PAT Version Number: 9
Transport Stream ID: 32863 (0x805f)
PMT PID 48 (0x0030) - Program 1 WHAS-DT
Terrestrial Virtual Channel Table
Channel 1
Service Name: WHAS-DT
TSID: 32863 (0x805f)
Channel Number: 11.1
Carrier Frequency: 0
Modulation Mode: ATSC (8 VSB)
Source ID: 5

------------------ End TS Info ---------------------------

I'm not familiar with the guide in MCE but I assume this would work, albeit only for channels that have the TVCT.

I see that your cableco is sending bogus information about the modulation, "ATSC (8VSB)", in the TVCT. So it seems that relying upon any data there would be a tenuous proposition.

I don't know how/if MCE is different... In Sage, when I choose my provider's "Digital Cable" for the HDHR lineup, the network HD channels are in the 400's. Using either the command line or GUI version of the HDHR app, a QAM scan will show the actual channel it's on...CBS-HD in my case shows as 44.1 for example. In the Sage lineup I choose "Remap" and type in 44-1. Works perfectly.

P

Actually, it's not bogus. That is the modulation mode of the terrestrial broadcast.
According to the ATSC standards, it is to be in the TVCT if it is being rebroadcast in a different modulation. That field can have one of 5 types ( see Page 39 ).

QAM is not listed as one of the types. Cable uses CVCT but pass along the TVCT with it which is where the 8vsb modulation is listed. That is the way I understand it.

Maybe someone with more knowledge can explain this better (or correct me if I am wrong).

That is basically what I did for GB-PVR as well, but I don't know that SD has planned for MCE. As soon as they release the beta I will build an MCE machine an check it out tho.

Actually, it is bogus. QAM is listed--it's called SCTE_mode_1 (64QAM) and SCTE_mode_2 (256QAM), as google will tell you. The TVCT data should reflect the modulation of the signal they accompany, not that of the corresponding OTA signal!

I stand corrected. Thanks TPeterson.

I did some more searching after your reply. Am I correct now in understanding that the cable company is supposed to rewrite the PSIP data from the TVCT into the CVCT and not pass the original TVCT in order to be compliant?

That is my understanding and it seems to be the practice at Comcast in the San Francisco area. Here the PSIP data are all modified to conform to the cable data structures and actual transmission conditions, and do not reflect the signal's OTA properties. Since this is evidently not FCC-regulated I don't know to what extent it depends on individual cableco interpretation of SCTE standards. E.g., one OTA station has been carried with no PSIP at all for over a year now.

Any progress on the MCE App yet?