Problems with Network Recorder & Ceton InfiniTV

[ElihuRozen]

I am having trouble getting Network Recorder working with my Ceton InfiniTV. What kinds of things can I do to troubleshoot? How do I verify each piece: SageDCT - Network Recorder - NPVR. I am able to record 4 shows at once with Windows Media Center, so I know the card works. The SageDCT Configuration communicates with the card when I try on the Test pane. When I try to watch something in NPVR, I get a black screen. When I tried to record something & then watch it on an NMT, it didn't work either. I opened the 4 ports for the card in Windows Firewall. I also created entries for NRecord.exe, NextPVR.exe & SageDCT. I have attached my zipped up Logs directory, my NetworRecorder.xml and the output from the SageDCT Configuration program. (NRecord.log.3 is my attempt to watch channel 50 & then record MythBusters.) At this point I have only one of the tuners configured in NPVR.

Juast as a reminder this is a new install of Windows & NPVR. I have been using NPVR on XP for ages, but couldn't find any drivers for the Ceton for XP.

[mvallevand]

The NetworkRecorder is talking to SageDCT so you need to send the SageDCT logs. I think you need to be set logging to verbose in SageDCT and they are in stored %ProgramData%\SageDCT\

Martin

[mvallevand]

That comment was for LiveTV, looking at the MythBuster logs, it did record something. Are you using a recent version of mvpmcx2?

Martin

[ElihuRozen]

Thanks for the quick reply. Set logging to verbose. Tried to watch channel 50 using Tuner 1 - port 6970. Attached log.

[mvallevand]

That's different, that one is streaming too, so I will go back to the version of mvpmcx2 question. In your first set of logs you were trying channel 50 mapped to channel 20 and it wasn't growing . Now you are capturing 550 on 550 and it was growing.

Martin

[mvallevand]

I was also going to ask you to cut a 20MB chunk of MythBusters but you deleted it.

2012-03-11 22:15:00.186 [DEBUG][6] -removing: D:\Data Files\Recordings\MythBusters\MythBusters_20120311_13001400.ts

You might need to upload a sample to mediafire or dropbox if it plays black in NextPVR and on the NMT. Those SD channels will be best.

Martin

[ElihuRozen]

It seems to be working now, mostly. Thanks for the help, but I think I was wasting your time with my stupid mistakes.

When I added the channels for the tuner, the numbers on the right column in the Device details started at 1 and were consecutive. The actual channel numbers should start at 2 and start skipping numbers when they get to double digits. That is why channel 50 mapped to 20. When I went through and changed them all in the Device screen, my changes were not stored. I hadn't verified my changes were saved. There is no channel 20, so it failed when I tried to record 50.

Channel 550 is the HD version of channel 50. Verizon does that for almost a channels, add 500 for the HD version. By default, I have TV Listings display the HD versions of channels. So, I was inconsistent in my testing depending on if I used TV Listings or TV Guide.

I have NMT's I use for both TV's. The NPVR server itself has just a 17" monitor, is somewhat under-powered and no speakers. I use it only for configuration and settings recordings. I had never touched any settings for renderers or decoders. I think it wasn't able to display the HD stream when I successfully recorded it & I thought that it was that the stream was bad.

I manually edited the database to fix the tuning string for all the channels that were incorrect. I wonder if I couldn't change them with the Settings program because I had bulk mapped them in with the HDPVR ones.

I think some channels might not have the copy bits set correctly. I should have tested more channels before bothering you.

So, hopefully others can learn from my mistakes. Thanks for the great plug-in & the help.

Note to self, things I still have to do:
Go through and verify each channel's copy bits. Contact Verizon for any that are wrong.
Add the three other tuners.
Determine if the channel changing timing is adequate for WAF. I might need to keep one cable box for the main TV.
Follow your advice in a separate thread and generate the timing info after each recording.
Configure the power settings. I had XP waking & hibernating perfectly. Windows 7, not so much.
Start using the new mvpmcx2.

[mvallevand]

It seems to be working now, mostly. Thanks for the help, but I think I was wasting your time with my stupid mistakes.

Glad you got it's never a waste of time, CableCard doesn't work (and SageDCT) here in Canada, so I need the occasional post to help me remember how it works!

I manually edited the database to fix the tuning string for all the channels that were incorrect. I wonder if I couldn't change them with the Settings program because I had bulk mapped them in with the HDPVR ones.

Did you do them one at a time or Import from XMLTV or Schedules Direct. If you imported they should have had the matching tuning channel, unless you imported an OTA listing.

So, hopefully others can learn from my mistakes. Thanks for the great plug-in & the help.

Ultimately babgvant should be thanked for SageDCT too, perhaps it's worth a note on the SageTV forums.

Determine if the channel changing timing is adequate for WAF. I might need to keep one cable box for the main TV.

Looking at your SageDCT logs earlier, I noticed that the response was quite fast

2012/03/12 23:14:03.53 : RTP Start - Settings: RTP: 192.168.200.2:5012 RTCP: File D:\Data Files\LiveBuffer\live-550 USAHD-5349.ts - True
....
2012/03/12 23:14:04.79 : ProcessMessage 6970: GET_FILE_SIZE D:\Data Files\LiveBuffer\live-550 USAHD-5349.ts
2012/03/12 23:14:04.79 : SageDCTTuner 6970 Send: 2368988

Your NetworkRecorder.XML delay setting is 2 seconds, if you aren't going to be playing on the PC, because the NMT already has a bit of a delay you might be able to shave a half second or even a second off that delay.

Martin