Dual Tuner Colossus

Help with tuners from ATI, Hauppauge, AverMedia and more.
seanfi

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#41

Post by seanfi » Wed Dec 18, 2013 4:24 pm

wpjonesnh wrote:@seanfi - While I have my wife giving Barnabas1969's explanation due consideration, I found that I cannot get my IR Server Suite configuration to work properly with WMC. IS this what you are using and if so could you post or PM me your configuration on how you got yours working correctly?

Thanks and Regards
I'm changing channels on the stb via the network using the tool in the how to. So glad to be rid of ir blasters.

barnabas1969

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#42

Post by barnabas1969 » Wed Dec 18, 2013 7:10 pm

Wendell,

I used to use IR Server Suite, and found it to be much too buggy, and totally unsupported (the developer "retired" and the rest of the Media Portal team is apparently too busy to give it any time). I switched to Event Ghost and have never looked back to IRSS.

EDIT: I should mention that I have never used a Colossus or HD-PVR with a cable box, so my comment above doesn't apply to your situation exactly. However, I have found that EG is much better than IRSS. As seanfi mentioned, it's much better to use LAN control, RS-232, or Firewire if the cable/satellite box has that capability.

barnabas1969

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#43

Post by barnabas1969 » Wed Dec 18, 2013 7:29 pm

Wendell,

I'm curious... how much do you pay for the box rental every month? You have two boxes, right? It shouldn't be a difficult sell with the wife. The savings each month (rental cost of the boxes vs rental cost of a CableCARD), plus the resale value of your Colossus cards will pay for the CableCARD tuner pretty quickly, and you'll be done with the IR blasting headaches.

wpjonesnh

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#44

Post by wpjonesnh » Wed Dec 18, 2013 7:57 pm

barnabas1969 -> I am actually paying $16.00 a month for both boxes. Pretty much have her convinced. I think it's just boiling down to her frustration now when the channels don't switch. Patience is the key with this one.

barnabas1969

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#45

Post by barnabas1969 » Wed Dec 18, 2013 7:58 pm

Are they DVR's, or just plain old cable boxes?

wpjonesnh

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#46

Post by wpjonesnh » Wed Dec 18, 2013 9:27 pm

Just plain old cable boxes.

barnabas1969

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#47

Post by barnabas1969 » Wed Dec 18, 2013 9:32 pm

Well then, the payback period will be close to my example in a previous post. Selling the two colossus cards will just about pay for a new tuner. Then, the savings in box rentals will pay for the larger HDD over time. You'll be getting more tuners too, and fewer headaches... especially if you go with the HD HomeRun Prime tuner.

jgoo9410uk

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#48

Post by jgoo9410uk » Sun Mar 23, 2014 3:41 pm

Could someone please help me i can't seem to get two hdpvr tuners coming up in device manager i have regetited the limit to value 0 but this won't make 2 tuners appear, as far as i can gather this is because the application that runs to make this first tuner appear hasn't got anything in it saying to make two appear, i saw there was mention of a batch file to fix this but i couldn't locate the batch file from the link provided, i assume it has been removed. if someone could supply me with this file or help me out with another way of getting 2 hdpvr tuners in device manager at the same time it would be much appreciated.

wpjonesnh

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#49

Post by wpjonesnh » Mon Mar 24, 2014 1:27 pm

Go back to the first page and re-read the directions there. Did you run the following command from within the Hauppauge directory:

Code: Select all

"devcon.exe install_hcw49swt hcw49swt.inf HCW49SWT"
That command still needs to be run after editing the registry and making the required change there.

Regards.......

itprotj

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#50

Post by itprotj » Thu Apr 24, 2014 10:19 am

Hi guys, I've just been following through your instructions and have successfully got dual colossus tuners coming up in Windows Media Center.
The next step I am having problems with but I'll try to explain as best as I can.

Both Colossus cards have a HDMI connection which plugs into 2 Separate Foxtel Boxes. I have also reflected those settings in the Hauppauge Device Control program. I need media center to let me add in a custom Channel lineup (Failing that I can manually add channels in) then changing between channels blasts an IR signal to each appropriate foxtel box.

I've got this far currently:

In Media Center I've gone through and chose satellite (DVB-S), I choose both tuners and fairly quickly the channel says "Scanning done!". I'm left with both tuners enabled but no channels exist which I figure is fine considering I'ts just a video feed I have plugged in and not an antenna. Unfortunately I cannot find any way to add in a channel lineup of any sort leaving me with a blank guide and no way to add channels!.
Thats when I thought, I'll try using "Digital Cable" as the source, rebooted and went through TV Setup again. This time I was forced to choose a satellite dish during the setup for some reason so I chose any old one (Think it was Aurora) and on doing that it added a list of channels into the guide. Seeing as the HDMI is just providing a video feed I went into any old channel and it showed me a live feed from one of my Foxtel boxes! I'm getting closer to what I need!

I'm not sure what the proper way of setting this up so far but in using the Digital Cable option it has got me closer to what I want to do.
I've also been following some other instructions (http://www.pcmediacenter.com.au/forum/t ... -tv-guide/) that help get foxtel working and it seems they go through a "Step top box" proceedure but for the life of me I can't get to that screen during TV Setup.

If I wish to stay with the Digital Cable way, I'm stuck at the point that I need to somehow delete then add the correct channel lineup in.
Following that how are channel changes processed? Does Media Center use the IR blaster ports on each colossus card and sends the channel number to the appropriate foxtel boxes?
In the Hauppauge Device Control Program both have IR blaster set to use default.

Any help please

wpjonesnh

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#51

Post by wpjonesnh » Thu Apr 24, 2014 11:56 am

The easiest way to fix your channel lineup is to stop all the media center processes and delete the guide database file
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\eHome\mcepg3-0.db
This will allow you to go through the tv setup again and add the correct channel lineup. As far as blasting goes, you will need to use an app like IR Server Suite to do your blasting for you, technically the hauppauge cards can only allow one card to to the blasting even though you may have multiple cards installed. While I could never get it work flawlessly, there are many how to's out there on how to do it. this is just one of them:
http://www.techlifeweb.com/how-to-set-u ... ia-center/

Regards.....

itprotj

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#52

Post by itprotj » Thu Apr 24, 2014 12:09 pm

wpjonesnh wrote:The easiest way to fix your channel lineup is to stop all the media center processes and delete the guide database file
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\eHome\mcepg3-0.db
This will allow you to go through the tv setup again and add the correct channel lineup. As far as blasting goes, you will need to use an app like IR Server Suite to do your blasting for you, technically the hauppauge cards can only allow one card to to the blasting even though you may have multiple cards installed. While I could never get it work flawlessly, there are many how to's out there on how to do it. this is just one of them:
http://www.techlifeweb.com/how-to-set-u ... ia-center/

Regards.....
Hmmm Deleting the database file doesn't seem to make a difference. I've found people also use http://1geek1tool.com/guidetool/ Would this be worthwhile getting?

Thanks for the IR Blaster link, I've got it saved. Hopefully it works with both tuners, Fingers crossed.

wpjonesnh

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#53

Post by wpjonesnh » Thu Apr 24, 2014 12:17 pm

You can try the guidetool. Couldn't hurt as it is free and a small donation will unlock the advanced options. I am surprised to here deleting the file didn't work though. Once that is deleted WMC should force you to go through the live tv setup process again.

itprotj

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#54

Post by itprotj » Thu Apr 24, 2014 12:23 pm

wpjonesnh wrote:You can try the guidetool. Couldn't hurt as it is free and a small donation will unlock the advanced options. I am surprised to here deleting the file didn't work though. Once that is deleted WMC should force you to go through the live tv setup process again.

Hmm okay I think I understand, I'll follow the IR guide, rename the channels and see if they IR blast correctly... I seem to have bad luck with things working first go so I'll soon see.
Thanks, I'll keep you updated.

wpjonesnh

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#55

Post by wpjonesnh » Thu Apr 24, 2014 12:28 pm

Also keep in mind that if you can get IR Server Suite to work you won't need to do any channel renaming. I almost forgot to mention that you will need a usbuirt to make all of this work as you cannot use the blasters on the Colossus cards (limitation by Hauppauge). It's $50.00 though. You can check it out at http://www.usbuirt.com The usbuirt is a multi zone blaster.

itprotj

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#56

Post by itprotj » Thu Apr 24, 2014 12:33 pm

itprotj wrote:
wpjonesnh wrote:You can try the guidetool. Couldn't hurt as it is free and a small donation will unlock the advanced options. I am surprised to here deleting the file didn't work though. Once that is deleted WMC should force you to go through the live tv setup process again.

Hmm okay I think I understand, I'll follow the IR guide, rename the channels and see if they IR blast correctly... I seem to have bad luck with things working first go so I'll soon see.
Thanks, I'll keep you updated.
Ohh I think I've got something similar to what you linked

http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/threa ... sp3.70912/

Second picture from the top in that link is what I have. Supports 2 blasters. Should that be fine?

wpjonesnh

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#57

Post by wpjonesnh » Thu Apr 24, 2014 12:38 pm

Should work. Good luck! Will keep my fingers crossed for you.

itprotj

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#58

Post by itprotj » Sat Apr 26, 2014 6:10 am

Spent a fair few hours and got everything seemingly running but had two issues that prevented me from progressing
Only 1 IR Blaster would function leaving me with only one tuner that actually IR Blasted :(. You were right about that one haha, Looks like Hauppauage needs to do a bit more development on their Colossus MCE tool.
With the tuner that actually IR Blasted I was using IR Server Suite and could see the blaster attempting at least to change channels but couldn't quite get it right. I have had this issue in the past and it was resolved by adjusting the frequency of the IR which the program IR Server Suite doesn't support meaning its useless for Foxtel boxes.

EDIT:
I was just going through my millions of tabs and found someone who uploaded a tutorial of such, Luckily it got cached by Web Archive.
http://web.archive.org/web/201307270504 ... 03542.aspx

It mentions one bit that I did not do which could have been responsible for it not working:
**Configure Hauppauge Device Central** "Start" type "HDPVR MCvSetup".. You'll see the program appear... Click on it! Configure Each tuner according to the picture. Make sure you know the IP address of you DirecTV set top boxes. On the second tuner change the "DeviceID to 1"
A couple of posts down however another bloke posts saying
I'm trying to use both internal blasters, but I only manage to get only one blaster to work. The second one is doing nothing. Any ideas?
Looking like other people are in the same boat as me. It begs the question however how did the original poster get two Blasters working!? hmm.

wpjonesnh

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#59

Post by wpjonesnh » Sat Apr 26, 2014 2:03 pm

Sorry to hear you kind of struck out. I didn't go back to the original post but if memory serves me correctly, Hauppauge gave that person some beta files to use. I did contact them when I was trying to get it working and they refused to help me which is why I ended up biting the bullet and purchasing a infiniTV card and switched to a cablecard. I'm with Time Warner and I lost my On Demand by doing this and they have all their premium channels DRM protected though. That forced me to pick up a couple of used XBox 360's to use as media extenders in the other rooms but at least I have 6 tuners through the infiniTV card (and yes all of the channels are accessible through a nice little tool called Tunasalad32 which ups the tuner limit in WMC to 32 tuners).

itprotj

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#60

Post by itprotj » Sun May 04, 2014 5:26 am

Ah well it was worth a shot! hopefully development at Hauppauge continues. Thanks for all your help!

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