No Signal and other problems after SDV enabled

[Steinyj]

OK I have a Ceton InfiniTV 4 PCIe version. I will say this. When I first got this card which was before Charter changed to SDV it worked perfectly with no problems at all. However it seems that since Charter went to these tuning adaptors, I have been having nothing but problems. In a nushell, I just cannot get channels and it is all of them to come in consistently. Honestly, things have been so bad, I have hardly watched TV on my PC for months. However I recently started trying to get this thing back working again and I am having a heck of a time.

I was using the latest stable release of the drivers and software but then I saw that Ceton has some Beta software out and I thought what the heck I I will give it a try. I think the most current Beta software is dated 10/23.

So here is where I am at today. First thing I did was I thought maybe the Beta software is just not stable enough yet and unstalled all the software I had. I then re-installed the latest stable release. Went through the TV signal setup and that did not seem to work. In fact, I could not even get Windows Media Center to find my tuner. So I went back to the latest Beta release.

After I installed the latest Beta release and went through Windows Media Center setup, it looked like things were going to go ok. Went to Live TV and lo and behold, I got a channel. Started going through the channels and it is working. Yes!. So I am watching TV for maybe 10-15 minutes and I change to the next channel and get the message No TV Signal again. And things were doing so well. I did a little google search on the message and found someone who suggested going into the control panel under Admin Tools and clicking on Services. And then going to Ceton Tuning Adaptor Services and restarting that even though it says started. I do that and within a few seconds, the channel comes back. I then start scrolling through the channels and that appears to have solved the problem. Yes. So I watch a channel for another 10-15 minutes and go to change the channel and get that No TV Signal again. Oh no. So back into services, restart the Tuning Adaptor Services once again and it is back to working ok. Start going through channels and now I get a blank screen with no error on it all. Just black. I close down Window Media Center, restart the Tuning Adaptor Services, restart Windows Media Center and now it says Channel Unavailable SDV Error:1. I keep trying to restart the Tuning Adaptor Services and no channels are coming in.

Honestly I am a little at my wits ends. Does my card have a problem? Does the Cable card have a problem? Is it a Windows problem? Is it a Ceton software problem? Or is it some combination of one or all of these things? Is it the Tuning Adaptor from Charter? I do not know the answer. But I do know this, I should not be having this much trouble with this item.

I am thinking this is what I am going to try. I am going to submit a support ticket to Ceton and see what happens there. I am going to give it a week and if there is no resolve to this, I am going to take the card out and look at another product. Hopefully it does not come to that and if I do end up yanking the card, I hope I do not end up bashing it with a hammer just to take out some frustration. I am looking into the Home Run Prime 3 tuner. I was going to try to get this working and then get my wife hooked on it and then maybe get rid of the TIVOs that we have. But I have to have a product that works solidly or my wife would never go for it.

If anyone has any solid suggestion as to what to do it would be appreciated.

[TeddyR]

Some things to try:

- Definitly open a ticket with Ceton so that it can be tracked.

- The latest beta drivers/software and firmware do have some fixes for SDV especially for Cisco/SA devices. Make sure to update the card and not just the driver. Note that during the update you do have to COMPLETELY shut down the PC and NOT just reboot for the firmware to correctly apply.

- If you have any AV/Spam/Security software other than MS Security Essentials, uninstall it completely and install MSSE. Several AV software have issues with media Centre. (ESP AVG)

- If its a Cisco TA, and the TA is blinking 8 times pause, then blinks 8 times again repeating, then call Charter and have them send a provisioning/authorization hit to the TA. You will need the serial # from the back of the TA. In some areas if the TA is disconnected and misses an authorization message it will go into "brick mode" and even though it is "authenticated" it must be "reauthorized" to tune correctly.

- If you are in an area that uses cisco TAs see if the firmware on the TA is 1501 or later (latest is 1601). If you have fw 1402 then you may definitly have a problem since 1402 is known to have SDV issues. By now from what I understand most areas should have already updated... If not it might be painful finding someone that knows what to do to get the TA firmware updated... In the past there was a forum on "community.charter.com" with a umatter2charter rep that had someone that knew what to do... If it is still on 1402, the ticket with ceton may help since they may be able to contact Charter on your behalf to get it updated...

- If you have Cisco VPN adapter installed, remove it completely. The "Deterministic Network Enhancer" feature used by it can cause issues with the network card/tuner communications.

On my main HTPC device I use SD tuners that have been pretty stable (may have to reboot it once in a while), and I do have an ITV4 on my backup HTPC. Each device has its different and annoying quirks...

[barnabas1969]

Check your signal levels on the Tuning Adapter (TA). There is a separate page in the InfiniTV's internal website that shows the TA's signal levels.

The TA's receive/downstream signal strength should be between -10dB to +10dB, with Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) close to 35dB (higher is better).

The transmit/upstream signal strength should be between +25dB to +50dB. It should be somewhere in the middle of this range for best results. My cable guy told me that the "sweet spot" is 40dB.

The transmit signal on the TA is very important. If it is not good, the TA will not always communicate successfully with the cable company's plant.

[mdavej]

I had exactly the same problem. Turned out to be failed play ready updates. HERE's the update I had to run in order to finally get the play ready update to complete successfully.

One additional thing with Charter is you have to get your card and adapter authenticated via the umatter online support people. It's impossible to do over the phone and nearly impossible with the tech they might send to your house. Get that sorted first.

EDIT: Charter's Umatter online support team is now defunct. You have no choice but phone support now and ultimately a truck roll.

[erkotz]

It sounds to me like your TA isn't provisioned properly, has a signal issue, something like that. I would recommend you open a support ticket with us and we will get it sorted out. As others have mentioned, I would recommend that you use our beta software and FW.

[Steinyj]

OK, thanks for all the replies. My first step was to uninstall AVG. Everything seems to be working channel wise. I hope it was really that easy but honestly stuff like this should not be happening.

I am pretty sure my Tuning Adaptor is a Motorolla MTR700 so the comments about it being a Cisco TA I assume would not apply. Although I did call Charter before I started this thread to make sure the TA and everything was all paired up correctly and to send a hit to where ever they send the hits to just to make sure.

In regards to updating the firmware as well as the software. I am not sure exactly how to update the firmware. My assumption is/was when I installed the latest software, firmware should/would be part of the package and update accordingly. If I need to go through some other method to update the firmware, please let me know. My firmware is 1.2.1.1 and hardware is 6408.

Went through checking my signal levels on the tuning. This is interesting and not sure what it all means. On tuner 1, the signal strength is -47.1 and signal to noise is 0. On tuner 2, the signal strength is -6.4 and signal to noise is 37.0. On tuner 3, the signal strength is -6.3 and the noise is 37.2. And on tuner 4, the strength is "not tuned for both". Not sure what to make of all that, but that is what it is showing.

Someone mentioned a Playready issue. I did have that update Playready problem. Found a could of online solutions that did not work. Went to Mircosofts site and downloaded Playready and installed it outside of Windows Media and that seemed to fix it as I am not getting that error any longer.

Like I said, after removing AVG, the channels all seem to be coming in. I have been going through channels for the past few hours. They all come in, although some are a little slow to come in but not a big deal. Recorded 1 show. Got a couple more shows scheduled to record. I am going to try to record 2 shows at once see how it goes, then move to 3 shows, see how it goes, and then move to 4 shows at once recording. I will say this, I am much happier that I can watch one channel and record one show at this point.

Thanks for the help so far. If anything I have said is of concern let me know.

[erkotz]

Antivirus could cause the issue, however is the problem persists, I would open a support ticket with us.

[Steinyj]

Well, so far so good. Was able to record 4 shows at once. I hope it stays that way. Thanks to all that helped.

Antivirus could cause the issue, however is the problem persists, I would open a support ticket with us.