No channels found with HDHomeRun

[dennit]

Ah. I'm not sure if the latest HDHR software will work with 1.2.13 because it addresses the new PID filtering in GBPVR 1.3.7, so you may need to drop that back as well. The QAM.ini manager won't affect OTA at all. OTA uses all.ini

Mind if I ask: What is the "new PID filtering in GBPVR 1.3.7?"

[whurlston]

Alternatively, you guys could try setting the application to "Media Portal" in the HDHR Setup and then try a scan in GBPVR 1.2.13 with the center channel qam.ini

[whurlston]

Mind if I ask: What is the "new PID filtering in GBPVR 1.3.7?"

1.3.7 now has native PID filtering for the HDHomeRun. Prior to 1.3.7, the entire 38Mbps QAM stream was being sent from the HDHR. Now, GBPVR filters to just the program that you are viewing/recording so at the most you are only sending about 15-19Mbps across your network for each channel (SD channels are much less). This required different registry entries set by the HDHR software than what they were setting previously when you selected "GBPVR" as the application in the HDHomeRun Setup. The new version of the HDHR software now sets the registry entries that allow the GBPVR 1.3.7 native PID filtering to work.

If you previously used my PID filtering program, you no longer need it with GBPVR 1.3.7 and the latest HDHR software.

[Gort10]

The Media Portal alternative worked (mostly). Tuner0 completed a perfect scan, Tuner1 got 90% through the scan before config.exe froze. But at that point I had found most of my channels anyway though it didn't create a Digital Cable.xml file. Whurlston, thank you very much for your help. I would never stumbled on to the Media Portal workaround. I hope it works for Jsytta also.

[whurlston]

The "Media Portal" setting just sets the same registry entries for the HDHR as the old "GBPVR" setting prior to 20081109 so it should work for him. I just wasn't able to test it since I have GBPVR 1.3.7 on everything.

The Digital Cable.xml is actually produced by the HDHomeRun Setup's lineup scan and saved to a Silicondust folder. It has no effect on GBPVR though so it's not really necessary. It just helps me troubleshoot sometimes.

[Jsytta]

Jsytta, I just noticed that you are also running GBPVR 1.2.13. You'll probably either need to drop back to the last release of the HDHR Software (not the betas) or upgrade to GBPVR 1.3.7

whurlston,
I'm using 1.3.7 exclusively, with the 12/09 HDHR firmware, and I've not used the PID filtering program. Are you recommending that I try setting the application to MediaPortal first (instead of reducing the cable line amplification)? If I'm using 1.3.7 with MediaPortal selected do I also need TUNING_SPECIAL=1 uncommented?

Also, you stated that:

The Digital Cable.xml is actually produced by the HDHomeRun Setup's lineup scan and saved to a Silicondust folder. It has no effect on GBPVR though so it's not really necessary. It just helps me troubleshoot sometimes.

Is that exactly true? When you do a GBPVR channel scan it picks up the guide names from the HDHR from what I assume is the Digital Channel.xml file. Is this correct or are the guide names stored in the HDHR device itself?

Thanks

[whurlston]

whurlston,
I'm using 1.3.7 exclusively, with the 12/09 HDHR firmware. Are you recommending that I try setting the application MediaPortal first (instead of reducing the cable line amplification)? If I'm using 1.3.7 with MediaPortal selected do I also need
TUNING_SPECIAL=1 uncommented?

According to the logs you posted yesterday, you were using 1.2.13:

Code:

2008-12-10 15:53:58.671    VERBOSE    [1]    getValue: /settings/Version : [color=Red]GB-PVR v1.2.13[/color]

Did you upgrade to 1.3.7 since then? If so, post a fresh set of logs with a new scan. The Tuning_Special line tells GBPVR to get the tuning parameters from qam.ini instead of all.ini (OTA settings). It does other stuff for AverMedia tuners as well but they have no effect on the HDHR.

Also, you stated that:


Is that exactly true? When you do a GBPVR channel scan it picks up the guide names from the HDHR from what I assume is the Digital Channel.xml file. Is this correct or are the guide names stored in the HDHR device itself?

Thanks

Yes that's true. GPVR gets the names from the raw PSIP data in the channel stream. The info from Digital Cable.xml is injected into the stream when using ATSC/Remap (in the HDHR setup) but otherwise it is not ignored by the HDHR's BDA drivers.

[Jsytta]

whurlston,
Thanks for all of your help and sorry for the confusion of the different gbpvr versions. I'm testing solutions on 2 different machines, one with 1.2.13 and one with 1.3.7 to try to isolate the problems. Both are at 1.3.7 now.

I tried 1.3.7 with a center freq generated qam.ini file, setting the application set to MediaPortal and GBPVR, both found many channels... finally. Both however crashed in the middle of the scan. (AppName: config.exe, ModName: hdhomerun_bda_x86,ax). I wonder if its because most of the SD qam channels are unencrypted, and it's too many for one scan.

It looks like the center freq qam.ini is the key to this puzzle.

I've also found out about the missing PSIP data:

If your cable provider does not include channel names in the PSIP data (most don't except for maybe the local channels) then GBPVR assigns a name based on the channel or frequency and the program number. It then appends "Unknown". It will also append "(AC3)" if the stream has an AC3 audio track. You can have multiple audio streams in a channel and if you do, you will see multiple entries: one for each audio stream.

With 100+ stations, mapping looks like quite a job. Would it be possible to somehow correlate the channels with Unknown*'s with the channel information from Digital Cable.xml?

Thanks,
Jsytta

[whurlston]

Make sure you set the application to "GBPVR" when using 1.3.7. This will allow the PID filtering to work and cut down the network traffic.

Normally, only unencrypted channels would have the "*" next to them but it's currently not working.

I have plans to write a utility that will compare the channels found in the GBPVR scan with the ones in the Digital Cable.xml and set the names, possibly remove all the extras but I've got a lot on my plate at the moment.

You can compare them manually yourself. Let's say your SPROUT channel is listed as Unknown in the GBPVR scan, your Digital Cable.xml has the following:

Code:

<Program>
    <Name>SPROUT</Name>
    <Enabled>true</Enabled>
    <Modulation>qam256</Modulation>
    <Frequency>747000000</Frequency>
    <ProgramNumber>4</ProgramNumber>
  </Program>

In the GBPVR scan, this would probably show up as "745250.4 Unknown*"
The way I get this is the <Frequency> / 1000 - 1750. Divide the frequency by 1000 to get the BDA tuning frequency (Windows thing, couldn't tell you) and then subtract the 1.75MHz. The ".4" comes from the <ProgramNumber> value.

You can also edit the scan.cache files and change the names.

[Jsytta]

Great, I'll take a look at editing the scan.cache file.

Any ideas on config.exe crashing during the scan, when the HDHR application is set to gbpvr?