Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[bblue]

I have both of these HD sticks and their latest drivers.  Both work fine in WMC on the same computer.

As of the scan fix on MC 18.180 the Pinnacle now goes through all the motions of scanning (it didn't used to), but finds no channels (analog or QAM on a cable feed).  Options were set for one analog driver and for one of the two digital drivers for digital, QAM.  The other digital driver was disabled.  (I tried the reverse as well).

The Elgato Eye TV Hybrid fails the scan with a message about being unable to build a graph.  It may be that the Hybrid just isn't one that is supported (I couldn't find any references to it here).  But as far as I can see, the Pinnacle should be working.

Any info on either of these issues?  This is on Windows 8 on a portable MSI GT-442 OND computer.  I tried both USB2 and USB3 ports.

--Bill

[JimH]

Build 180 fixed a problem like that.  Double check the version you have installed and reboot.

[bblue]

Build 180 fixed a problem like that.  Double check the version you have installed and reboot.

I'm using the correct MC version.  Before 180 the Pinnacle stick wouldn't scan at all.  Now it scans for channels (both analog and QAM digital) but finds nothing.  Everything looks normal during the scan except it doesn't see any channels.

--Bill

[Yaobing]

Please email me a log.  yaobing at jriver dot com

[bblue]

Please email me a log.  yaobing at jriver dot com

On its way.

--Bill

[Yaobing]

Regarding QAM channel scanning, did you try other frequency configurations (your log shows using QAM HRC+3)?

[bblue]

Regarding QAM channel scanning, did you try other frequency configurations (your log shows using QAM HRC+3)?

As of your message, no.  A technician at Cox Cable told me they were using HRC3 so I didn't try others.  However, I went ahead and tried all of them. 

1. None of the HRC's saw anything

2. All of the others (IRC and both variations of QAM) saw a full set of channels from a scan.

3. But none of the channels seen as a result of a scan in any of those formats could actually be received.  The response was always "No Signal"

4. The analog side still doesn't show any results.  There should be about two dozen there, and around 40+ on the digital side.

5. I'm sending a log of this whole series of tests.  Maybe it will have some clues.

--Bill

[Yaobing]

I noticed in your previous log that you chose "Antenna" for analog channels.  It should be "Cable".  Try that and see if it makes any difference.

[bblue]

I noticed in your previous log that you chose "Antenna" for analog channels.  It should be "Cable".  Try that and see if it makes any difference.

I usually have it set for cable.  It must have slipped by me that time.  ... Unless some operation sets it back and I don't realize it.  Will check.

--Bill

[bblue]

I noticed in your previous log that you chose "Antenna" for analog channels.  It should be "Cable".  Try that and see if it makes any difference.

@Yaobing,  have you discovered any issues in the most recent Log file I sent you?  Still dead in the water here.

Thanks.

--Bill

[Yaobing]

I did a big change in QAM support.  It will be out in public in a few days.  Hopefully it will bring some good to your situation.

[JimH]

It's public now:

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=80682.msg549221#msg549221

[bblue]

I did a big change in QAM support.  It will be out in public in a few days.  Hopefully it will bring some good to your situation.

I like the new layout on 187.  It makes more sense now.

A couple of suggestions in the scan selection window, currently:

Digital
High Quality, Over The Air, Clear QAM

Analog
Lower Quality, Not Available in U.S.A.

Change to something like:

Digital
High Quality: ATSC (Over The Air); Cable Clear QAM

Analog
Low Quality: NTSC; Cable Only.  Not Available Over The Air in U.S.A.


Unfortunately there is no improvement here on the Pinnacle HDTV SE Stick (801e).  During analog cable scanning, no channels are found, and digital QAM scanning, no channels are found in any mode, HRC, HRC+3, IRC, QAM Standard or QAM Extended.  I'm sending a log of these scans to you shortly.

This time around I tried the scans after shutting down the Windows Media Receiver Service.

Let me know if you'd like me to try anything else.

--Bill

[Sandy B Ridge]

This time around I tried the scans after shutting down the Windows Media Receiver Service.

One thing that helped me when I was having scanning issues was to completely disable windows media center in windows options, and reboot (sometimes two or three times and do a complete cold shutdown rather than restart [I know it doesn't really make any sense, but seemed to work occasionally!]).

Another time I reinstalled the tv card drivers after disabling windows mc (and rebooting) to get it working.

This was ages ago and on an old version of MC (16 or 17 - I can't remember exactly), and my card is DVB-S/T so your mileage may vary! I haven't had any scanning problems since steering clear of Win MC and mediaportal which both have a 'background TV service'. However my setup is completely different.

[aside]
I had some issues with the DVB version of the EyeTV Hybrid(an early one), I think because there are no 'official' drivers for it because it is a Mac product. Windows does download some drivers for it, but I fear that it was a 'best fit' rather than ideal driver. I already had another internal tv card by then, so I didn't persevere with it. The US version is likely completely different though, so this comment is likely useless to you!
[/aside]

[Yaobing]

Regarding analog channels, I can not find anything wrong from the log (except that no channels are found).  Are you sure your cable provider still has analog channels?  My provider (comcast) has switched completely to digital.  No more analog.  The log of scanning for analog channels would just look like what you had.

Would you be able to tune to an analog channel if you manually add one?

[Yaobing]

I noticed something in your log that may be a clue.

What modulation does your cable provider use for QAM channels?  QAM256, QAM64 etc.  We try some of different values.  It seems when we use QAM256, we get an error immediately (not in previous builds though), "invalid argument".  We then try QAM128 and QAM64 in turn.  We do not get an error, but the signal is poor, and not locked.

[bblue]

[aside]
I had some issues with the DVB version of the EyeTV Hybrid(an early one), I think because there are no 'official' drivers for it because it is a Mac product. Windows does download some drivers for it, but I fear that it was a 'best fit' rather than ideal driver. I already had another internal tv card by then, so I didn't persevere with it. The US version is likely completely different though, so this comment is likely useless to you!
[/aside]

FYI, there are new, specific Windows drivers available now on the Elgato website for the Hybrid.  Unfortunately, I've never gotten it to work with MC even with those drivers.

--Bill

[bblue]

Regarding analog channels, I can not find anything wrong from the log (except that no channels are found).  Are you sure your cable provider still has analog channels?  My provider (comcast) has switched completely to digital.  No more analog.  The log of scanning for analog channels would just look like what you had.

Would you be able to tune to an analog channel if you manually add one?

I'm sure our provider (Cox Cable) supplies analog channels, yes.  My wife uses and older TV and a ReplayTV DVR, both of which are some 12+ years old and know nothing about QAM.  They are directly connected to the cable.  No STB.

I tried adding a couple of analog channels manually.  If I indicate that the channel type is 'cable', but not a QAM selection, and put in any valid analog channel number, I get a "cannot make graph" error.  If I select the cable entry at the bottom of the list (don't recall the name) as the type, it says there is no available tuners.  But if I tell it Antenna and put in a valid analog channel number, it complains briefly of a location error, then proceeds to display the channel correctly, with audio.

The problem with this to actually use 'antenna' in a scan is that the frequency space between 6 & 7 are used for cable's higher numbered channels.  So they wouldn't be known (without some mapping).

It looks like the 'cable' selection for scanning isn't using the right frequency-channel relationships for Cox.

I'm out of time right now, but will try some QAM manual entries later tonight.

--Bill

[bblue]

I noticed something in your log that may be a clue.

What modulation does your cable provider use for QAM channels?  QAM256, QAM64 etc.  We try some of different values.  It seems when we use QAM256, we get an error immediately (not in previous builds though), "invalid argument".  We then try QAM128 and QAM64 in turn.  We do not get an error, but the signal is poor, and not locked.

It looks like most are QAM256, by this chart: 

http://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/lineup_web/US:92020#sidebyside

But there doesn't seem to be enough information in the chart to fill out the entry template for QAM channels in MC.  You can get the base frequency by hovering over the channel number, but it's still not enough.  Since I've never seen an entry there that works, I'm not sure what is necessary.  I did try a few things, but got nowhere.  Can you give me an example of how those fields should look based on the chart info?

--Bill

[Yaobing]

It will be difficult without making some changes in the program first.

For now, here are some of the parameters:

Column "Type" shows Modulation.

Column "Channel" shows two numbers, the first one is Physical Channel, the second one is called "Program Number".  Program Number is current not on the MC's Add channel tool, so you can not enter it.

Column "Virtual" has two types, the type with two numbers (such as 97.3) corresponds to an OTA ATSC channel.  The two numbers are Major channel and Minor channel.  These currently can be entered on MC's Add Channel tool.  The second type in Virtual column is simply "virtual channel number".  This currently can not be entered in MC either. 

Frequency is not found on the page.  MC's tool requires frequency.  This is the tricky part.  If you do not know the frequency, you are stuck.  I will have to change MC tool so it will accept -1 for frequency.  If you want to try it, you can find approximate frequency in one of the xml files under "TV/ATSC" subfolder in MC's installation folder.  The frequencies are listed according to physical channels, starting with physical channel 1. 

Example:  To enter this channel manually:     qam64     97-4    97.3      NetOps1

Physical channel: 97
Program Number: 4 (ignore for now)
Major channel: 97
Minor channel: 3
Frequency: the 97th entry in one of the xml files.
Modulation: select 64QAM from list
Symbol rate: leave it at 0

[Yaobing]

I'm sure our provider (Cox Cable) supplies analog channels, yes.  My wife uses and older TV and a ReplayTV DVR, both of which are some 12+ years old and know nothing about QAM.  They are directly connected to the cable.  No STB.

I tried adding a couple of analog channels manually.  If I indicate that the channel type is 'cable', but not a QAM selection, and put in any valid analog channel number, I get a "cannot make graph" error.  If I select the cable entry at the bottom of the list (don't recall the name) as the type, it says there is no available tuners.  But if I tell it Antenna and put in a valid analog channel number, it complains briefly of a location error, then proceeds to display the channel correctly, with audio.

The problem with this to actually use 'antenna' in a scan is that the frequency space between 6 & 7 are used for cable's higher numbered channels.  So they wouldn't be known (without some mapping).

It looks like the 'cable' selection for scanning isn't using the right frequency-channel relationships for Cox.

I'm out of time right now, but will try some QAM manual entries later tonight.

--Bill

Analog tuning uses Microsoft's DirectShow API.  Frequencies are not really involved.  All you need to tune is a channel number.  If it requires further tweaking to tune, something is not right with the driver.

To manually enter a Cable channel, select "Cable" from the Type list on "Add Channel" tool.  The only other boxes shown would be Name and Channel.  Enter a name ("Cable 5" for example) and a channel number (5 for example). If you get "no tuner is available to play this channel" error, check to make sure the tuner is set to Cable, not to Antenna.  Your description seems to suggest maybe you had your tuner accidentally set to Antenna.

[bblue]

It will be difficult without making some changes in the program first.

For now, here are some of the parameters:

Column "Type" shows Modulation.

Column "Channel" shows two numbers, the first one is Physical Channel, the second one is called "Program Number".  Program Number is current not on the MC's Add channel tool, so you can not enter it.

Column "Virtual" has two types, the type with two numbers (such as 97.3) corresponds to an OTA ATSC channel.  The two numbers are Major channel and Minor channel.  These currently can be entered on MC's Add Channel tool.  The second type in Virtual column is simply "virtual channel number".  This currently can not be entered in MC either.  

Frequency is not found on the page.  MC's tool requires frequency.  This is the tricky part.  If you do not know the frequency, you are stuck.  I will have to change MC tool so it will accept -1 for frequency.  If you want to try it, you can find approximate frequency in one of the xml files under "TV/ATSC" subfolder in MC's installation folder.  The frequencies are listed according to physical channels, starting with physical channel 1.

Frequency is shown by hovering over the CHANNEL field.  I use KFMBDT as my test, so the frequency is 627Mhz.  The entry box in MC doesn't indicate whether that is entered in Hz, KHz or MHz, so I used KHz (and tried the others) based on the xml file contents in the TV/ATSC subfolder.  So the entry was 627000.  Of note, the only 627000 entry for channel 91 occurred in the HRC+3 xml file.

Example:  To enter this channel manually:     qam64     97-4    97.3      NetOps1

Physical channel: 97
Program Number: 4 (ignore for now)
Major channel: 97
Minor channel: 3
Frequency: the 97th entry in one of the xml files.
Modulation: select 64QAM from list
Symbol rate: leave it at 0

The symbol rate seems to default at 27500.

In any event I tried this format and all other permutations of physical channel.program number and major channel-minor channel entries based on your example, but for KFMBDT and no matter what, got the same results each time:

Digital TSRenderStreamsToWriter - failed to build upperstream graph
Unspecified error

Also, I noted when going back to the TV section advanced, to edit an existing entry, after accepting it and the summary display showing correctly, when you double click on that channel, get the error and then look at the database entry in Playing Now, the changes made while editing the channel were not reflected.  It was necessary to create a new entry each time for the different tests, and then Playing Now's database entry would show the right information.

To make sure that WMC was not holding a device, I disabled the WMC receiver service and also checked MC's TV-Action-Status display which showed all devices as idle.

--Bill

[bblue]

Analog tuning uses Microsoft's DirectShow API.  Frequencies are not really involved.  All you need to tune is a channel number.  If it requires further tweaking to tune, something is not right with the driver.

To manually enter a Cable channel, select "Cable" from the Type list on "Add Channel" tool.  The only other boxes shown would be Name and Channel.  Enter a name ("Cable 5" for example) and a channel number (5 for example). If you get "no tuner is available to play this channel" error, check to make sure the tuner is set to Cable, not to Antenna.  Your description seems to suggest maybe you had your tuner accidentally set to Antenna.

In the case of Cox Cable, the analog channels 2-6 & 7-13 NTSC, standard frequencies, the same as OTA.  So when I test, I test it both ways, because both should work the same.  In 18.0.188 neither work.

However, manually I can enter analog channels.  If the analog tuner config is set for cable and the analog add-channel sequence is also set for cable,  or if both are set to antenna,  I get this error

put_CountryCode failed.  Cannot setup TVTuner.  Code: 0x80070057

But it does receive the channel with audio.  However, the frame update is only once per every 5-10 seconds.

If the analog tuner is configured for antenna and the analog add-channel sequence is set up for cable, or the reverse, this error shows

Cannot Run Graph
Unspecified Error

And there is no reception at all.

It looks like the the antenna/cable switch in the tuner config and that in the analog config are controlling the same 'switch' in the tuner which was intended for two RF inputs, an antenna and a cable connection.  As long as both the tuner and the analog config in MC are set the same, either cable or antenna will receive channels manually, though somewhat flawed with the low frame rate.

But no combination of settings will receive any channel during a scan.  Only manual entry.

--Bill