SageTV not 'seeing' HDHR

[drvnbysound]

I have posted this over on the STV forum, however there has been MUCH less traffic over there since the Google purchase, not to mention that the Google moderators must approve every post entry before it is displayed online. That said I wanted to post here as well in hopes that someone else may be able to assist with troubleshooting, and also to have it documented somewhere other than the STV forum (which who knows how long it will be around).

I am attempting to add a HDHR tuner to my STV setup and am having similar issues as others have discussed here - STV is not seeing the HDHR.

I have the latest version of STV installed (7.1.9.256), and the latest version of HDHR software (20120128). I am currently attempting to add Digital Cable channels (Comcast). I have run the HDHR software, scanned the channels within the HDHR software, matched channel names and numbers to Zap2it, and verified that it does generate the .scn files in the STV folder. I have also deleted and re-generated them a number of times. I have also uninstalled the HDHR software, and reinstalled it (though apparently files are left behind, because all settings were saved after re-installation). Also, .frq files are also listed, but after viewing them, it seems that they only have information from other countries (e.g. UK, Sweden, Australia, etc); I am not sure if this is correct....

In the end, I continue to get the following message from STV, "No video capture devices were found. Please install a video capture device to use with SageTV." As shown in this screen capture (also shows that the .scn and .frq files are in the folder):

Also, currently only care to add ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox channels (planning to add HD-PVR's for other channels). When scanned with HDHR software they are listed with the digital channel nomenclature (e.g. 13.1). I changed these to match the Zap2it channel number for each channel respectively (e.g. ABC (WMBBDT) = 13.1 = 431). Should I be converting these to reflect the Comcast channel numbers, or leave them as the digital channel numbers?

 

[electron]

Can you verify that your Windows firewall isn't blocking anything, and if possible, just disable it all together while retrying to add the tuner? Also, is the HDHR on the same network segment? I would also try Windows Media Center if you have it installed, or MediaPortal.

 

[drvnbysound]

I did try turning off Windows Firewall all together... no change in results.

I may need to play with the network configuration a BIT, but I really didn't think that would be much of an issue since the STV server could see the HDHR through the HDHR setup portion. The HDHR is directly connected to my router, while the STV server and (2) HD-200's are connected to a unmanaged switch, which is also tied to the router.

I can certainly give WMC a shot, just to confirm there are no issues...

.... the heartache in setting up a STV system when it's no longer officially supported. I have run into a couple of 'issues' where I wanted to do different things (e.g. install a plugin that was not in the official STV plugin manager; STVi) and instructions didn't seem to be well documented for a COTS product that I thought it was - I started to document and make my own 'guides' for those things as I go along. Once fully setup and I ensure that they are documented correctly, I would certainly be open to share them.

 

[electron]

I hear you on the SageTV official support, I just went through the same thing. I personally am just keeping the system running 'as-is', and am waiting anxiously for the new Ceton Echo/Q platform.

Also, are you running SageTV as a service? If so, as a regular user, or using the system account (not sure if it matters tho)?

 

[drvnbysound]

It is running as a service... there is only one user account (Administrative permissions) setup on the computer.

 

[electron]

What about installing the trial of SageTV on another machine (VM would work), and see if it has the same problems? This would show if it is a problem with that machine, or a network/HDHR configuration issue.

 

[drvnbysound]

Will give that a shot when I return home... I have played with VMware Server (free) some on the machine, so I initially thought about wiping everything and starting with a fresh W7 installation again... just looking for alternative solutions before I resort to doing so.

At one point I was thinking of having STV on a VM, primarily for backup purposes and how easy it is to rebuild a VM if necessary. In the end, it seems too troublesome with both HD-PVR's being USB (if machine has to restart, VMware Server host needs to grant permission to the clients), not to mention possible reduction in I/O of HDDs, so I figured I would just use the machine solely as a STV server and not deal with trying to run it as a VM.

 

[electron]

I actually put some serious thought into moving SageTV onto my ESXi server as well, but in the end, decided it was not worth the hassle. I would need to get a faster NAS (using QNAP TS419P), and probably take a performance hit. Instead, I just purchased a new motherboard with a cheap but really fast AMD CPU, and am very happy with this setup. Now that SageTV is a dead project, I am glad I went that direction.