Cable card tuners and HDHomeRun

Discussion of getting WMC to work on Windows 10 (unsupported)
SpencerC

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Cable card tuners and HDHomeRun

#1

Post by SpencerC » Sat Jul 30, 2022 3:09 am

For those of us with a cable card tuner and Windows 10, we've all pretty much given up on WMC. I switched to the HDHomeRun DVR solution. The interface lacked many things that WMC had, that it was a hard switch for me. One of the biggest things it lacked was no grid guide. Over time the interface has gotten better and now...........now they have implemented the grid guide! Just thought you guys should know if you are considering their DVR solution.

-SpencerC.

Space

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#2

Post by Space » Sat Jul 30, 2022 3:24 am

Still no recording of CopyOnce protected programming I assume?

SpencerC

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#3

Post by SpencerC » Sat Jul 30, 2022 7:40 pm

still no recording of DRM

choliscott

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#4

Post by choliscott » Sun Jul 31, 2022 6:49 pm

Another solution is Emby, which has its own DVR, but also doesn't record/view DRM.

If you have a Ceton, you can use it with Cetonproxy

Burger23

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#5

Post by Burger23 » Sun Jul 31, 2022 7:03 pm

I examined HDHRs new Grid Guide. It has potential, for sure. But is no way near a finished product. I tried to scroll forward 3-4 days (using the Forward key on my keyboard), to see grid- and it always crashed.: "Type error: Unable to get property filter of undefined or null reference"

billmich

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#6

Post by billmich » Thu Aug 04, 2022 12:54 pm

I was in same boat as you a month ago, and decided that Channels DVR was my best option.

sorahl

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#7

Post by sorahl » Fri Oct 28, 2022 6:31 pm

i am still holding on to WMC running win 8.1 using my ceton and cable card. I know my days are numbered but I just really can't bear to give up the functionality. Its stupid I know but I really love my set up. I"m even getting ready to build a new mediacenter PC....and keep it running win 8.1
starting to feel like Rick on The Walking Dead... no where to go but to keep going on..

thegreat3d

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#8

Post by thegreat3d » Fri Nov 11, 2022 6:28 pm

I still keep 2 Windows 7 PC's around just for Media Center so I can keep my Cable Card and WMC. WMC was an app before its time and should have never been decommissioned. Nobody wants a cable box with today's TV's. Using your computer and a network is kinda geeky but they could have made this soooo much better and many would have loved it.

JanSiegrist

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#9

Post by JanSiegrist » Wed Dec 28, 2022 8:50 pm

Greetings all, I've also tried (and keep trying) WMC alternatives - NextPVR, Plex, and the HDHR software from SD. NextPVR seems a bit buggy but does work. Plex with the $ 5.00 per month option to record seems usable, I've not 'yet' paid for the HDHR recorder version (35 per year) - really don't like the interface or the 'lags'.
My end-game is to cut-the-cord so I could use WMC on Win10 which does see my HDHR Flex 4k (OTA) tuners - just not my cable-card ones sadly.

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#10

Post by JanSiegrist » Fri Dec 30, 2022 5:26 am

I'm not giving up quite yet, I've been doing some research on the registry setting after WMC installs on Win10 (1909) my setup has 2 HDHR Prime devices with 3 cablecard tuners each and one HDHR Flex 4K OTA device with 4 ATSC tuners. When WMC installs it does infact install the Prime tuners in the registry settings but does not show them in the interface. The HDHR 4K flex device installs and works perfectly. I'm currently comparing a Win7 WMC registry with one from Win10. Since WMC does install the Flex 4K device Ok, and have the Prime registry entries in place - I'm sure I'll eventually find the trigger or missing parts.

technodevotee

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#11

Post by technodevotee » Sat Dec 31, 2022 12:52 pm

additional thoughts from viewtopic.php?f=97&t=14105#p149980

have you tried the steps on MDL

Code: Select all

From an elevated command prompt in 14393:

1) go to C:\Windows\ehome
2) ehprivjob.exe /v /DRMInit
3) ehprivjob.exe /v /OCURActivate
4) ehprivjob.exe /v /OCURDiscovery
5) from regedit, check out (or better yet, export) the HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Service\ehPrivJob key -- Particularly what is the value of DRMInitResult that ehprivjob is writing to the registry?

When it fails, an error code is stored there, which we may be able to look up.

JanSiegrist

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#12

Post by JanSiegrist » Sat Dec 31, 2022 11:26 pm

To technodevotee
It's nice you mention ehPrivJob - that is exactly the area that I was planning on working on using export / import. I'll check out the other files as well.
Do you know the name and location of the WMC db file that is used for tuners? Also what triggers epg123 to do the cablecard tuners ? My setup in epg123 is currently set for both ATSC tuners and cablecard channels, when run on a Win7 box it correctly displays both but the same epg123 when deployed on Win10 just shows the ATSC tuners - which by-the-way works perfectly.
and thanks so much for the info!
Jan

technodevotee

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#13

Post by technodevotee » Sat Dec 31, 2022 11:38 pm

As far as I know, the tuner scan is only performed during configuration of live TV.

I don't know where the information about supported tuners is held - I have always assumed it is hard-coded.

Out of the people I know of who are still interested in keeping WMC going, Gary is probably the most knowledgeable about the inner workings of it.

Unfortunately, it seems that most of the people on MDL who created the original installers have moved on to other things but there are still a few on there who might be able to help.

As I'm sure you know, cable cards stopped working when MS brought out the Anniversary Edition because they removed WMC, WMDRM and some other DLLs that were connected with it. I have skimmed through MDL and the main discussion about cable cards starts at about page 350. The general consensus seemed to be that it wasn't fixable but so much time has passed, maybe it is time for a new pair of eyes to look into it.

Who knows, you might spot something they didn't.
Last edited by technodevotee on Sun Jan 01, 2023 8:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

JanSiegrist

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#14

Post by JanSiegrist » Sun Jan 01, 2023 1:13 am

to technodevotee
Well, after almost 30 years as a software engineer working in the health-care arena I'm used to: It just won't work -or- nobody else has figured out how to do that...
If I can find all the pieces I'm sure I could 'kluge' something together that will work - I'm not 100% certain of the DRM part but installing the tuner and being able to tune non DRM channels - I'm sure that can be done. It may take 'faking' some return values and worst case a hack to a .dll or exe, and of course registry settings.
I'm going to keep digging - stay tuned...
Regarding the tuner listing on both my Win7 and Win10 systems epg123 appears to install a fresh database. Prior to running EPG123 (not the client) - I have no channel listings in either my Win7 or the Win10 systems after initial setup.

Jan

technodevotee

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#15

Post by technodevotee » Sun Jan 01, 2023 10:13 am

Here's something interesting: https://forums.mydigitallife.net/thread ... st-1278485

Unfortunately, I haven't found where or how she 'already fixed that'. T-S was banned from MDL some time later and never came back so we can't ask her but there's another post later where crash2009 (who I believe is a member of TGB) said he had used her fix and was testing with some encouraging results. Maybe he can help?

edit: this may help: https://forums.mydigitallife.net/thread ... st-1270301

Other posts list the stuff that was removed in the anniversary update.

One specific DLL that is mentioned as having been removed is MSDRI and I can confirm that it exists in 1511 but not 1703

good luck

JanSiegrist

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#16

Post by JanSiegrist » Mon Jan 02, 2023 5:04 pm

to technodevotee
My approach to this is kind of a back-door solution, I know it will be very difficult to get WMC to automagically install the HDHR Prime (cablecard) tuners, however I may be able to import everything I need from a working Win7 machine. To that end so far by installing a bunch of registry entries from a working Win7 machine I was able to get the WMC guide to show cable card channels (with no data) and when editing the channel be able to tune it via show preview. I'm sure I'll eventually get to a point where I can tune cable card channels.
As far as an install goes I may be able to put together something using MS PowerShell which I'm familiar with - it's a VERY ugly language but it is very powerful with the stuff you can do with it. Again - stay tuned...

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Hi-Def_PCs

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#17

Post by Hi-Def_PCs » Mon Jan 02, 2023 7:52 pm

Happy New Year,

I recently bought a Ceton 4 tuner PCIe cable card just in case I add cable TV to my Win 7 WMC-DVR, so this thread caught my eye. As I read through it and other TGB posts, one theme has risen to the top. Nearly everybody with Win 8 or above has complaints or troubles with WMC. From features missing that Win 7 WMC had, or having to reinstall WMC after each Windows 10/11 feature update (actually a side-by-side OS re-install) and more. In my opinion, staying with an unsupported operating system IS the lesser of the two evils. My first laptop came with Windows 95, which I upgraded to Windows 2000. Since XP had hardware requirements greater than my laptop had, I rode that horse until all the browsers no longer supported 2000 and had stopped working. That is the position I will take with my current Windows 7 WMC-DVR build. When the Recorded TV HD add-in can no longer open a browser to search for missing poster art, I will then consider an alternative build or DVR solution. Besides, I have 5 other computers to play on with the latest OS Microsoft or Apple thinks we all need installed. They can remote into my DVR too. I do not want only one do-it-all machine, nor do I want to try to build one. Just my opinion.

Cheers My Friends!

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StinkyImp

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#18

Post by StinkyImp » Tue Jan 03, 2023 5:04 pm

Hi-Def_PCs wrote: Mon Jan 02, 2023 7:52 pmWhen the Recorded TV HD add-in can no longer open a browser to search for missing poster art...
There was a time period when RTVHD was totally unsupported by anyone. During that time I found it was trivial to manually update RTVHD and keep the wife (WAF) happy for a few years (until it was resurrected).

Don't give up on RTVHD just because it loses it's auto-magic functions. ;)

JanSiegrist

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#19

Post by JanSiegrist » Tue Jan 03, 2023 5:43 pm

To Hi-Def_PCs
I hear ya on just keeping a Win7 machine going for WMC and I may in-fact do that. I was hoping to put one master Media-Center machine together with a number of different apps - unfortunately HDHR's latest HDHR app for their tuners does not work on Win7 due to lack of the latest .Net - that was the main reason for going to Win10. I was also perfectly fine with freezing a Win10 at 15xx to gain the cablecard functionality but again the latest HDHR app will not run due to the lack of the latest .Net
So... I may have to live with 2 media center machines - we'll see - I've still got some things I'm playing with but 'It's a complex world' :) somebody famous said that...
Happy new year to everyone.
Jan

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garyan2

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#20

Post by garyan2 » Tue Jan 03, 2023 5:58 pm

If using CableCARD on Win10 1511 with HDHomeRuns, you can install an older version of tuner drivers. https://drivers.softpedia.com/get/TV-Tu ... 0826.shtml

The highest version of .NET Framework supported on 1511 is 4.6.2.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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