Hi guys -
I had been posting in the Ceton Echo forum about building out a pretty large scale setup (ultimately ten extenders) for my father-in-law. We finally did the first four (and HTPC) yesterday, and have no major issues ... other than a select few certain channels are throwing the "Video Error: Files needed to display video are not installed or are not working correctly" error. ESPNU and DIY are among them. Does anybody have a suggestion as to what to check, when it only applies to certain channels? My first thought was that maybe it was a pairing issue with the CableCards (two HDHRPs) but now I'm thinking it's something else.
Unfortunately, I'm the only troubleshooter and it means a focused trip to my in-laws (hopefully with solution in hand) to fix it. We had enough work (with wiring) that I didn't get to this by the end of the weekend, in order to gather some more details.
Thanks for any insight!
Video Error - Certain Channels Only
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dabretty
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sbaeder
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is this "live" or recorded? I have gotten this sometimes on recorded playback, but it is mostly due to the HTPC (low powered e-350 AMD) being "busy" enough to not get to the file in the time that media center wants. If I wait a bit and try again, it usually opens the file fine. So what are the symptoms of what is doing what at the time this happens...Maybe those channels (in live mode) take loonger to "tune in" - i.e. is there switched video (SDV) involved - while that isn't necessarily a pairing issue - you did say cable card is involved...
So, give more details here (i.e. cable system, what is the htpc, since if you have all the extenders going to ONE PC, that one might get "too busy"...(even if CPU isn't maxed out, there could be other bottle necks - even networking from the two separate HDHRPs -i.e. hardwired, switches, and WIFI???)
So, give more details here (i.e. cable system, what is the htpc, since if you have all the extenders going to ONE PC, that one might get "too busy"...(even if CPU isn't maxed out, there could be other bottle necks - even networking from the two separate HDHRPs -i.e. hardwired, switches, and WIFI???)
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dabretty
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Thanks for the response. To answer your questions, it does this for both live and recorded TV, for certain channels only, across all extenders plugged in so far (one Xbox 360, three Echos). That's why I initially thought it was a Comcast issue (headend for the new CableCard not setup properly for these channels?) at first, but it just didn't make sense because most of the other channels are okay. We don't have SDV here. My setup - a few miles away, but also with Comcast - has never had this issue.
I'm going to try to get over there tomorrow night and dig in a little bit more. My gut instinct is it's something to do with a video driver not being up-to-date, possibly causing issues on the PlayReady side of things. Why that would manifest itself with certain channels only doesn't make sense to me, but I'll try to get some more details on it.
I'm going to try to get over there tomorrow night and dig in a little bit more. My gut instinct is it's something to do with a video driver not being up-to-date, possibly causing issues on the PlayReady side of things. Why that would manifest itself with certain channels only doesn't make sense to me, but I'll try to get some more details on it.
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werds
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Just saw this thread and my first thought was that it may be a PlayReady issue. Might be a driver gone flaky but my first finger point would be at PlayReady update gone wonky. Doing a reset of PlayReady DRM should quickly fix that issue - but if you have any DRM'd recordings you will lose the ability to see themdabretty wrote:Thanks for the response. To answer your questions, it does this for both live and recorded TV, for certain channels only, across all extenders plugged in so far (one Xbox 360, three Echos). That's why I initially thought it was a Comcast issue (headend for the new CableCard not setup properly for these channels?) at first, but it just didn't make sense because most of the other channels are okay. We don't have SDV here. My setup - a few miles away, but also with Comcast - has never had this issue.
I'm going to try to get over there tomorrow night and dig in a little bit more. My gut instinct is it's something to do with a video driver not being up-to-date, possibly causing issues on the PlayReady side of things. Why that would manifest itself with certain channels only doesn't make sense to me, but I'll try to get some more details on it.
I used the instructions in this thread here to fix a similar issue http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... f=5&t=3760
My only question that I missed, was you mentioned this behavior is on the extenders did you verify that you see the behavior on the main htpc?
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IownFIVEechos
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Since you are using the Homeruns. I would run the Silicondust TV software and tune to the channels in question. Then I would use a DLNA device (buy the $2 app if they are encrypted channels) to tune to the channels. If those two things work you know you have a media center issue.
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dabretty
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Thanks for the suggestions, all good stuff and I will hopefully find out more tonight.
werds - Thanks for the link, that will likely be my first stab at it tonight. While I haven't tried it directly on the HTPC itself - which is headless - a scheduled recording fails on these channels (obviously not involving the extenders at all).
IO5E - thanks for the great idea. My wife's S4 has that app - which is somehow of no interest to her ?! - and that totally provides a great debug point as you mention (isolation of the WMC variable).
werds - Thanks for the link, that will likely be my first stab at it tonight. While I haven't tried it directly on the HTPC itself - which is headless - a scheduled recording fails on these channels (obviously not involving the extenders at all).
IO5E - thanks for the great idea. My wife's S4 has that app - which is somehow of no interest to her ?! - and that totally provides a great debug point as you mention (isolation of the WMC variable).
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barnabas1969
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Your error message, "Video Error: Files needed to display video are not installed or are not working correctly" is usually associated with a well-known little bug in Media Center.
Do this:
Go to the Windows Control Panel. Open the "Sound" applet. Set Windows sound to stereo, 2.0. Now, open Media Center on the PC (not on the extender), go to the Settings strip, and find the "Setup your speakers" wizard. Go through that and tell it that you have 5.1 or 7.1 speakers (if you actually have a surround receiver connected to the PC).
If you DO NOT have surround speakers connected to the PC, then do the opposite... tell Windows that it's 5.1, and tell Media Center that it's 2.0. The main thing is don't set them to the same type of speaker arrangement, or it causes this error on copy-protected channels.... even on extenders.
Do this:
Go to the Windows Control Panel. Open the "Sound" applet. Set Windows sound to stereo, 2.0. Now, open Media Center on the PC (not on the extender), go to the Settings strip, and find the "Setup your speakers" wizard. Go through that and tell it that you have 5.1 or 7.1 speakers (if you actually have a surround receiver connected to the PC).
If you DO NOT have surround speakers connected to the PC, then do the opposite... tell Windows that it's 5.1, and tell Media Center that it's 2.0. The main thing is don't set them to the same type of speaker arrangement, or it causes this error on copy-protected channels.... even on extenders.
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dabretty
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Thanks Barnabas, I saw that somewhere else but dismissed it as probably not applying to me ... but clearly it could.
Quick update - I may have another issue (this "Video Error" one) downstream, but when I got a chance to play with it last night it became clear pretty quickly that the CableCard was not paired properly. This was clear once I walked in the door and all of the TVs happened to have "To activate service ..." (blue background) windows open, and my in-laws saying that they've just been dismissing (clicking OK) on them as they appear.
So I'm attempting to tackle this first (obviously). I spent two hours on the phone with Comcast, no dice yet. For some reason, national Comcast has never been able to pair any of my own CableCards in the past (for either InfiniTV4, HDHRP). My market (Albuquerque) apparently has a very different/older architecture on the headend side of their system, so it's always taken local people to perform the pairing. Of course there's no direct way to get a hold of a local person, it's a matter of letting the national people fail a dozen times before they contact a local person. Isn't Comcast great?
I'll update this thread once we get past this pairing issue, and I'll see if the video error remains. Thanks for your suggestions guys.
Quick update - I may have another issue (this "Video Error" one) downstream, but when I got a chance to play with it last night it became clear pretty quickly that the CableCard was not paired properly. This was clear once I walked in the door and all of the TVs happened to have "To activate service ..." (blue background) windows open, and my in-laws saying that they've just been dismissing (clicking OK) on them as they appear.
So I'm attempting to tackle this first (obviously). I spent two hours on the phone with Comcast, no dice yet. For some reason, national Comcast has never been able to pair any of my own CableCards in the past (for either InfiniTV4, HDHRP). My market (Albuquerque) apparently has a very different/older architecture on the headend side of their system, so it's always taken local people to perform the pairing. Of course there's no direct way to get a hold of a local person, it's a matter of letting the national people fail a dozen times before they contact a local person. Isn't Comcast great?
I'll update this thread once we get past this pairing issue, and I'll see if the video error remains. Thanks for your suggestions guys.
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barnabas1969
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The "files needed to display" error is almost certainly what I said. It will only take you a few minutes to try it. It sounds to me like you need to fix both problems.
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dabretty
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Updating this a bit.
Comcast has royally messed up this from (1) pairing to (2) billing side. Basically, on Friday I hooked up their old HD cable box - working fine two weeks ago, and in a "to return pile" basically - and found that the same channels not available in the WMC environment (displaying that "video error") were also no longer available on the cable box. Somewhere, in the activation and pairing process of the CableCards, the billing side apparently was messed up. I didn't resolve this with Comcast yet, because we were working on the pairing side. The HDHRP is still showing "none" for CableCard validation, and WMC periodically pops up a "to start service, call" message box that can be dismissed - which tells me that pairing is incomplete. After talking to Comcast-India and the Phillipines for about five hours, I finally have someone in Denver working on this issue for me. They were asking for things like "a data ID", etc, which are not available in my setup. As mentioned before, Albuquerque apparently has a more antiquated headend. I was out of town the last two days, and Comcast has made no more progress (yet). This is particularly frustrating as I've never had the "national" guys solve anything, and the regional guys don't have much luck until there's a "truck roll." Frustrating.
Comcast has royally messed up this from (1) pairing to (2) billing side. Basically, on Friday I hooked up their old HD cable box - working fine two weeks ago, and in a "to return pile" basically - and found that the same channels not available in the WMC environment (displaying that "video error") were also no longer available on the cable box. Somewhere, in the activation and pairing process of the CableCards, the billing side apparently was messed up. I didn't resolve this with Comcast yet, because we were working on the pairing side. The HDHRP is still showing "none" for CableCard validation, and WMC periodically pops up a "to start service, call" message box that can be dismissed - which tells me that pairing is incomplete. After talking to Comcast-India and the Phillipines for about five hours, I finally have someone in Denver working on this issue for me. They were asking for things like "a data ID", etc, which are not available in my setup. As mentioned before, Albuquerque apparently has a more antiquated headend. I was out of town the last two days, and Comcast has made no more progress (yet). This is particularly frustrating as I've never had the "national" guys solve anything, and the regional guys don't have much luck until there's a "truck roll." Frustrating.