Topic: Problems with one OTA channel that works fine in HDHomerun (Read 13820 times)

thane108 · « **on:** December 06, 2014, 06:25:16 pm »

I'm having a strange issue with one OTA channel that works fine with other viewers. I'm using HDHomerun dual.

This just started. Channel 7.1 KBNZ in Bend Oregon has always worked but stopped working today. All my other channel work find with JRiver.

I can view this channel using HDHomerun View. It also works using windows media player (the default viewer in HDHomerun). JRiver just shows a black screen - no error messages.

I updated HDHomerun - and I reinstalled JRiver. I rescanned in HDHomerun. I rescanned in JRiver.

Is this a channel config issue? It's configured (automatically - I didn't change anything) as follows:

7-1 CBS

Channel number 71

I40.211221795.microsoft.com

Attributes:
Not a member of a group

Major Channel: 7
Minor Channel: 1
Physical Channel: 7

CountryBumkin · « **Reply #1 on:** December 07, 2014, 07:50:38 am »

The stuff you are listing all looks normal. When you try to view (on the computer with the TV Tuner card) the channel can you "right click" on it (or "direction right" on remote) and bring up the "signal strength meter"?

thane108 · « **Reply #2 on:** December 07, 2014, 08:14:21 am »

It indicates qualilty 98 strength 100 then no signal.

This reminds me of a problem I had with microsoft media center. MMC wouldn't load channels if their database didn't match information embedded in the signal. So if the local broadcast didn't follow a protocal MMC wouldn't "tune" the channel.

Puzzling as this channel works find on HDHomerun's viewer - and HDHomerun shows it as a stable quality signal.

thane108 · « **Reply #3 on:** December 07, 2014, 11:28:23 am »

I tried to view the channel on my laptop (client) and got the following error message:

Failed to oper or parse file (hr=0x800004005)

Does that shed any light?

Yaobing · « **Reply #4 on:** December 07, 2014, 01:39:22 pm »

Quote from: thane108 on December 07, 2014, 11:28:23 am

I tried to view the channel on my laptop (client) and got the following error message:

Failed to oper or parse file (hr=0x800004005)

Does that shed any light?

Not much

The client could not play because the server does not have any data.

Puzzling...

thane108 · « **Reply #5 on:** December 07, 2014, 02:33:07 pm »

Should I rebuild the database perhaps?

Not sure how to do that, but I'm migrating to a new build this week so perhaps I should just practice patience and acceptance . . .

thane108 · « **Reply #6 on:** December 11, 2014, 09:05:16 am »

I built my new system this week and did a clean install of JRiver and still have the issues with the one channel I noted when starting this thread.

So - I guess I can say for certain that it isn't my system or the JRiver database, etc. - it seems it must be a problem with the stream for the problem channel. As I noted, I can view this channel using HDHomerun's viewer.

Should I go back an try an earlier version of JRiver to see if JRiver updates have caused the issue? I think I've narrowed it down to either updates in JRiver or some change in the over-the-air broadcast stream that JRiver doesn't like. (I mentioned earlier that I used to have this type problem when using Microsoft Media Center - something about coding within the stream that didn't match a database that MMC referenced.)

Have there been changes to JRiver in the manner that it handles over-the-air streams?

JimH · « **Reply #7 on:** December 11, 2014, 09:22:56 am »

You can hand edit the frequency if you can find out what it is. Try an Internet search.

thane108 · « **Reply #8 on:** December 11, 2014, 09:31:03 am »

Would I do that at tools-options-television-advanced? And then change the channel number?

Is that where I would manually tune the frequency?

Thanks

JimH · « **Reply #9 on:** December 11, 2014, 09:33:38 am »

In the TV options, you can edit channels.

thane108 · « **Reply #10 on:** December 11, 2014, 09:40:09 am »

I apologize for being dense and/or anal.

So - tv options - advanced - edit channels - then change the channel number?

I'm just trying to clarify that adjusting the channel number adjusts the frequency.

Yaobing · « **Reply #11 on:** December 11, 2014, 10:07:12 am »

For ATSC channels, there is really not much editing to. In particular, if you freshly scanned the channel on a new system, and MC picked up the channel, it probably picked up the correct parameters. 7, 1, 7 seem to be the correct three values, according to wikipedia article on KBNZ.

You can try rolling back MC to an earlier version to see if you can rule it in or out. Do you use Red October HQ? Try changing that option. Since this is the only channel you are having problem with, it is likely that something in the broadcast has changed.

thane108 · « **Reply #12 on:** December 11, 2014, 10:13:27 am »

Thanks for the clarification - I see the edit button now that would let me change those 3 values.

I'll contact the station for clarification and have a go at adjusting the values. If that doesn't work I'll re-install 19 and test the channel.

Would I need to uninstall 20 to run 19?

Yaobing · « **Reply #13 on:** December 11, 2014, 10:20:17 am »

No, you do not need to uninstall MC20.

thane108 · « **Reply #14 on:** December 11, 2014, 10:50:13 am »

Thans

The tech notes at the station stateed the following: Scan for 7.1, or manually tune to 177 MHz.

I tried editing JRiver to 1 7 and 7 - didn't think that would work and it didn't. The major channel is 7, but what the heck.

On to version 19.

thane108 · « **Reply #15 on:** December 12, 2014, 10:38:27 am »

I guess I'm going to give up on this one - I can't find a way to view that one channel in JRiver. Sad - I won't be able to record a couple of my favorite programs.

I've tried everything I could imagine - clean install of JRiver, clean install of HDHomerun, tried several different application settings in HDHomerun (including JRiver, of course), contacted the station to confirm that frequency in JRiver is correct, tried version 19 of JRiver . . . I surrender.

Seems so odd because I can view the station on my PC using the HDHomerun viwer and VLC media player. And I can view all my other HDHomerun stations on JRiver. It's just that one station.

It has to be something between HDHomerun and JRiver. Somehow JRiver is unable to process the signal for that one station from HDHomerun. I'm guessing that the station is including some information in its stream that doesn't bother my other applications but is not compatible with the way JRiver processes the signal.

Darn it - I'm stumped!

muzicman0 · « **Reply #16 on:** December 12, 2014, 11:10:11 am »

I had a similar issue with a HDHomeRun Prime...I contacted SiliconDust for support, and they gave me some information that I passed on to the people at JRiver, and the issue was fixed quickly.

I suggest contacting SiliconDust and getting some info from them.

muzicman0 · « **Reply #17 on:** December 12, 2014, 11:12:00 am »

here is a link to the thread with my issue:

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=91985.0

thane108 · « **Reply #18 on:** December 12, 2014, 12:20:00 pm »

Thanks for the suggestion - it's good to know that someone out there has had a similar problem and it's not just the universe punishing me for bad karma of some sort.

I'll follow up with Silcondust and then hope JRiver can find a fix.

thane108 · « **Reply #19 on:** December 15, 2014, 04:30:48 pm »

Silicondust looked at a sample of the stream and reports: "Not seeing anything wrong in the HDHomeRun logs. Channel is tuned correctly and streaming without issue. You'll want to contact JRiver's support."

I ran a log file in JRiver - attached.

Could you take a look at this and let me know if there is a fix?

Thanks!

Yaobing · « **Reply #20 on:** December 15, 2014, 05:31:33 pm »

I will take a look at the log.

thane108 · « **Reply #21 on:** December 15, 2014, 09:03:34 pm »

Thanks!

Yaobing · « **Reply #22 on:** December 16, 2014, 01:42:12 pm »

Unfortunately, the log does not reveal anything useful.

It just shows that, after MC submitted a tune request to the tuner, nothing came back. MC waited for 20 seconds, but Microsoft's BroadcastEvent event never came. To us, this behavior is just as if there is no signal (but I know, there is signal).

And I wonder why the signal strength fluctuates badly:

Quote

It indicates qualilty 98 strength 100 then no signal.

CountryBumkin · « **Reply #23 on:** December 16, 2014, 03:26:05 pm »

Quote from: thane108 on December 07, 2014, 08:14:21 am

It indicates qualilty 98 strength 100 then no signal.

The Strength = 100 is misleading. I think you need to rely only on the Quality measurement (which is good in your case).

For example:
1) I have a channel that says "no signal" but the Quality = 5 and the Strength = 80. There is no picture or audio (just blank screen) as expected. You would think a strength of 80 would be pretty good.

2) On a channel that works well, the meter display shows "Resolution 480i, Quality 100, Strength -20".
The measurement for strength = "-20" is surprising.
So it appears that a strength of "-20" is Good, and "80" is bad. So maybe your "100" is even worse.

From an earlier post http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=91542.0

Yaobing · « **Reply #24 on:** December 16, 2014, 03:30:02 pm »

Yeah. I should have said "I wonder why the signal quality fluctuates so much".

thane108 · « **Reply #25 on:** December 16, 2014, 03:49:22 pm »

I sent a samplet to Silcondust and they found some technical issues. They are going to contact the local channel.

This is the sample I sent to Silcondust if you have a chance to take a look.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0tfNwhYv5TKNThJVzhoOHByX1U/view?usp=sharing

Silicondust wrote:

Re: No signal on one channel in JRiver
Postby jasonl » Tue Dec 16, 2014 2:40 pm

Got it. There are a couple things technically wrong with the broadcast. I'll send an email off to the people at KBNZ I talked to last time they had a problem.

Yaobing · « **Reply #26 on:** December 16, 2014, 04:48:14 pm »

Good to know.

This confirms my initial suspicion that there is something wrong with the broadcast itself.

thane108 · « **Reply #27 on:** December 16, 2014, 09:29:29 pm »

Latest from silicondust is as follows:

Re: No signal on one channel in JRiver
Postby jasonl » Tue Dec 16, 2014 6:03 pm

Per the station engineer, they had some equipment problems and they're operating on a backup system right now. They're expecting to get the replacement equipment tomorrow and it should be back working once they get it set up.

Question - does this sort of thing happen often? Do you end up having to write a "fix" if the station is not responsive?

Just asking - it is very irritating. I spent hours tracking this down - all a waste if the station had responded to an early email asking if there were issues on their side.

Yaobing · « **Reply #28 on:** December 17, 2014, 10:34:30 am »

This is the first such case we have encountered (but I can not rule out the possibility that some previously inexplicable problems might be similar).

thane108 · « **Reply #29 on:** December 17, 2014, 01:53:31 pm »

Here are the details from Silicondust - I'm sharing with the thought it might be of use to JRiver development.

Re: No signal on one channel in JRiver
Unread postby jasonl » Wed Dec 17, 2014 11:10 am

The TSID in the PAT doesn't match the TSID in the TVCT. Per ATSC specs, those numbers are required to match. Most stuff doesn't care if they don't, but apparently JRiver does. WMC does too. It's one of the more common problems in ATSC broadcasts, because the numbers need to be set in two different devices, so if a station ever has to replace equipment or if the configuration ever gets lost, it's easy to forget to set one, and they might not notice it until some random hardware or software fails to tune it and someone starts looking at the stream.

Yaobing · « **Reply #30 on:** December 17, 2014, 02:44:42 pm »

Thanks for sharing the info.

thane108 · « **Reply #31 on:** December 22, 2014, 12:18:52 pm »

For a temporary fix I installed mediaportal on an old computer on my home network - it is able to tune and record the problem station. Not as "picky" as JRiver.

Hopefully the station engineer will get around with fixing their settings and I can avoid the complexity of running two media servers.

Two questions:

1) Is there any chance that JRiver would adjust the programming to be more forgiving of problem stations. I realize that there are probably all sorts of reasons JRiver went with the existing approach, but I thought I would ask as the station seems less than cooperative and a search of the forums suggest this sort of thing crops up now and then.

2) My current solution means that I have to keep my second PC running so it will record from the problem station. Is there any reason I couldn't just move mediaportal over to my main PC and run the software concurrently with JRiver? The only issue that jumps out at me would be potential conflicts with the remote control - which I think I can resolve. Any other issues?

Thanks!

muzicman0 · « **Reply #32 on:** December 22, 2014, 01:14:59 pm »

You would most likely end up with Tuner conflicts as well.

thane108 · « **Reply #33 on:** December 23, 2014, 08:38:21 am »

Can you clarify "tuner conflict" for me?

Are you thinking I might try to record more than two channels at the same time as the two programs wouldn't coordinate, or are you concerned that there might be software conflicts as the two programs access the tuners?

The latter would be more of a concern for me.

Thanks

muzicman0 · « **Reply #34 on:** December 23, 2014, 09:40:16 am »

On my HDHomeruns, any time I have tried to use multiple programs, on one PC, or multiple PC's, then I run the risk of both applications trying to access the same tuner at the same time, and one of the applications will not respond.

I have gotten around this to an extent by reversing the priority of Tuners on one application...

simple way to test is to watch live TV in both applications to see if both will tune at the same time.

thane108 · « **Reply #35 on:** December 23, 2014, 10:15:18 am »

Thanks - will do.

thane108 · « **Reply #36 on:** January 01, 2015, 12:38:04 pm »

FYI for anyone having trouble tuning a channel. Problem: You can tune most/all over-the-air channels - just not that one channel. Errrg!

Judging from my own experience and a review of various forums the problem is most likely on the station side and can't be addressed from any setting in JRiver. Unless you can convince the station to correct an incorrect setting on their end you won't be able to tune the channel with JRiver (or Microsoft Media Center).

Other programs will tune the problem station - for some reason they don't reference the station setting that is creating the issue within JRiver. (JRiver - it sure would be nice if you could provide a fix as the local stations may not be responsive to requests to correct the setting). See the note above from Silicoandust regarding the station setting.

I've set up freeware MediaPortal on another PC on my homegroup. MediaPortal is a pain to setup but once you get it working it will tune the problem station. I set up recordings on the problem station and then add the directory to the watched directories in JRiver (on a separate PC).

I've tested this a couple of times and haven't run into any problems. I have the HDHomerun dual tuner. I haven't tested when both computers are accessing the tuner at the same time - I'll post later when I try that.

This works well with a gigabyte router and gigabyte ethernet switch on a home network. I think the speeds would be OK on an older, slower router as well.

Kind of a nuisance to set this all up, but good fun from a tinkering point of view. I would prefer that the station fix the problem or that JRiver provide a patch to forgive the station error - but all's well that ends well.

Yaobing · « **Reply #37 on:** January 01, 2015, 12:59:20 pm »

Unfortunately we are still dependent on Microsoft solution. If Microsoft is strict about the issue, there is nothing we can do.

thane108 · « **Reply #38 on:** January 01, 2015, 01:06:15 pm »

Thanks - and you guys do a great job - love the product - so don't take this as a criticism. And after all, the bottom line is that this is a problem with the station.

That said - I'm curious - what role does Microsoft in this?

Just wondering why a variety of software programs can tune the station - just not JRiver and Microsoft Media Center.

Probably over my head, but I would be interested.

astromo · « **Reply #39 on:** January 01, 2015, 01:19:55 pm »

Quote from: thane108 on January 01, 2015, 01:06:15 pm

Thanks - and you guys do a great job - love the product - so don't take this as a criticism. And after all, the bottom line is that this is a problem with the station.

That said - I'm curious - what role does Microsoft in this?

Just wondering why a variety of software programs can tune the station - just not JRiver and Microsoft Media Center.

Probably over my head, but I would be interested.

I'm intrigued as well because I recall that (I think) MC19 was recoded to remove reliance on the M$ SDK or something along those lines. So, the comment from Yaobing was somewhat of a surprise.

thane108 · « **Reply #40 on:** March 08, 2015, 01:52:26 pm »

The problem OTA is working now. I'm assuming that the local channel fixed the issue based on the analysis by Silicondust.

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Author Topic: Problems with one OTA channel that works fine in HDHomerun (Read 13820 times)