Reimbursement for Pay-per-View Event?

[STC]

^Yes, you would think so, but I understand FIOS is the same as well as some others. These cable co's don't set their head end to force the pair as part of their decryption routine. It's a variable they can decide whether to enforce or not.

It's great for the end user for moving a card around different tuners at will.

[shortcut3d]

Can you point to references of people talking about Weak Signal erroneously being reported by extenders when it's known not to be a weak signal?

What error message does the Echo give when it drops audio/video when you're watching recorded content? Does that too give the same "Weak Signal" error, or is it something else?

Given how extenders work, I can't imagine that they--on their own--would give the standard WMC "Weak Signal" error.

There are several threads I found through google search. The reasons vary from hard drive to network, not the tuner or signal in these cases.

Unfortunately, I could not test on the HTPC because its a headless unit accessible only by RDP.

I do not have an STB because like many, WMC has a cost saving component to it by returning the STB.

It was also very brief, but led to the bigger issue which seems to be missed. I could not get audio and picture to return together. I had to restart the Echo so many times to get both video and audio. Each time I restarted, I had one or the other. So much time expired that I missed the title fight. Point being, the signal was fine since I was no longer receiving the the Weak TV Signal and seeing clear video OR audio, but never both (usually black screen with sound only).

[adam1991]

I understand what you're saying, but do understand that the threads you found may be meaningless. I'm not disputing your audio/video issues, but if you saw "Weak Signal" errors come through the Echo, it's not the fault of the Echo. The Echo, as an extender, is simply displaying a remote desktop session (albeit with a couple of extra features). The *only* source of a "Weak Signal" error would be the HTPC itself.

As for audio/video issues, again are you sure that didn't come from the cable company? You never had the opportunity to go to the "headless unit" as you call it; therefore, how can you know that all of your Echo restarting wasn't for naught? How can you know where the problem lay?

You say, "the signal was fine since I was no longer receiving the the Weak TV Signal and seeing clear video OR audio, but never both (usually black screen with sound only)"'; how can you *possibly* know for a fact that "the signal was fine"? Oh, the tuner wasn't displaying "Weak Signal" anymore, sure; that doesn't mean the cable company was delivering, over that signal, digital bits that could be decoded into something you would consider actual programming that you could watch.d

And no one, not Ceton or anyone else, would have any diagnostics that would tell you anything.

It starts with the cableco. We've all had digital hash and weird issues that originated from the source. That a tuner card delivered the digital hash to the HTPC isn't a problem with the tuner card, and that an extender delivered the digital has to a remote TV isn't the fault of the extender.

[shortcut3d]

I understand what you're saying, but do understand that the threads you found may be meaningless. I'm not disputing your audio/video issues, but if you saw "Weak Signal" errors come through the Echo, it's not the fault of the Echo. The Echo, as an extender, is simply displaying a remote desktop session (albeit with a couple of extra features). The *only* source of a "Weak Signal" error would be the HTPC itself.

As for audio/video issues, again are you sure that didn't come from the cable company? You never had the opportunity to go to the "headless unit" as you call it; therefore, how can you know that all of your Echo restarting wasn't for naught? How can you know where the problem lay?

You say, "the signal was fine since I was no longer receiving the the Weak TV Signal and seeing clear video OR audio, but never both (usually black screen with sound only)"'; how can you *possibly* know for a fact that "the signal was fine"? Oh, the tuner wasn't displaying "Weak Signal" anymore, sure; that doesn't mean the cable company was delivering, over that signal, digital bits that could be decoded into something you would consider actual programming that you could watch.d

And no one, not Ceton or anyone else, would have any diagnostics that would tell you anything.

It starts with the cableco. We've all had digital hash and weird issues that originated from the source. That a tuner card delivered the digital hash to the HTPC isn't a problem with the tuner card, and that an extender delivered the digital has to a remote TV isn't the fault of the extender.

I will restate how I know it's the Echo. I had a ticket open for a long time with Ceton because the Echo exhibits this problem on recordings. So once the Echo is playing audio and video, I rewind to the beginning and there are no issues with the recording. Because the recording is clean that eliminates the HTPC, tuner, network (since the tuner is networked). The Echo just randomly decides not to display video or play audio after starting a recording or starting live TV.

[erkotz]

Ceton support closed my ticket on this issue because they could not identify anything wrong in Ceton Diagnostic Utility or Echo Diagnostics. I am amazingly disappointed in Ceton support and the constant fallback on an HTPC issue. In fact, I've removed all applications, cleaned the registry, folder structure, etc. to basically a default WMC installation, which did fix the crashing issue. Yet Ceton remains quite on an absolutely unreliable product that is stuck in a beta state.

Can you please send me your ticket number? I looked at tickets for your user account, and didn't see a ticket that mentioned this issue. I also asked all our support staff and no one recalled it. I also searched for some key words and didn't find it, either.

[shortcut3d]

Ceton support closed my ticket on this issue because they could not identify anything wrong in Ceton Diagnostic Utility or Echo Diagnostics. I am amazingly disappointed in Ceton support and the constant fallback on an HTPC issue. In fact, I've removed all applications, cleaned the registry, folder structure, etc. to basically a default WMC installation, which did fix the crashing issue. Yet Ceton remains quite on an absolutely unreliable product that is stuck in a beta state.

Can you please send me your ticket number? I looked at tickets for your user account, and didn't see a ticket that mentioned this issue. I also asked all our support staff and no one recalled it. I also searched for some key words and didn't find it, either.

Sent PM with first and last name and the email address the ticket was opened under.

[erkotz]

Ceton support closed my ticket on this issue because they could not identify anything wrong in Ceton Diagnostic Utility or Echo Diagnostics. I am amazingly disappointed in Ceton support and the constant fallback on an HTPC issue. In fact, I've removed all applications, cleaned the registry, folder structure, etc. to basically a default WMC installation, which did fix the crashing issue. Yet Ceton remains quite on an absolutely unreliable product that is stuck in a beta state.

Can you please send me your ticket number? I looked at tickets for your user account, and didn't see a ticket that mentioned this issue. I also asked all our support staff and no one recalled it. I also searched for some key words and didn't find it, either.

Sent PM with first and last name and the email address the ticket was opened under.

I just searched under the email you provided and it only came up with the tickets I had already looked through earlier. The only one with any activity in the last 5 days is about pixelation and doesn't mention PPV at all. Can you please provide the ticket # in question.

[shortcut3d]

Ceton support closed my ticket on this issue because they could not identify anything wrong in Ceton Diagnostic Utility or Echo Diagnostics. I am amazingly disappointed in Ceton support and the constant fallback on an HTPC issue. In fact, I've removed all applications, cleaned the registry, folder structure, etc. to basically a default WMC installation, which did fix the crashing issue. Yet Ceton remains quite on an absolutely unreliable product that is stuck in a beta state.

Can you please send me your ticket number? I looked at tickets for your user account, and didn't see a ticket that mentioned this issue. I also asked all our support staff and no one recalled it. I also searched for some key words and didn't find it, either.

I just searched under the email you provided and it only came up with the tickets I had already looked through earlier. The only one with any activity in the last 5 days is about pixelation and doesn't mention PPV at all. Can you please provide the ticket # in question.

The ticket was closed prior to the PPV issue. However, the same issues continue to happen. The main issue is no picture OR no audio after starting a recording or live TV. HBO is the most frequent cause of the problem. It takes several reboots to get Echo back to normal. The ticket also referenced performance issues with the spinning blue circle. This has greatly improved after removing all WMC plugins per guidance from support. However, it's still displays the blue circle far more than with the HDHomeRun Prime, so I think it's also partially related to the InfiniTV6 ETH. The pixelation was chalked up to the new InfiniTV6 ETH, which is probably correct.

Basically, after sending in logs and diagnostics the recommendation was uninstall plugins. I saw improvement and the last request was to revert to an older firmware, which is not acceptable so ticket closed. The no picture OR no audio was never resolved.

Hope this helps catch you up. Thanks for looking into this.

[Sammy2]

Which product are you talking about then? The echo or the ETH?

[shortcut3d]

Which product are you talking about then? The echo or the ETH?

The two are inherently linked together because of WMC. The Echo does not handle fault tolerance well. The ETH causes bad video, so the Echo crashes and has a difficult time recovering. Also, I think the ETH drivers are causing issues with WMC and the Echo drivers.

[blueiedgod]

How do you watch PPV with a tuner card?

You call it in, the old fashined way, via a telephone.

[blueiedgod]

How do you watch PPV with a tuner card?

I dunno, maybe switch to that channel in WMC?

Seriously, if that would have happened to me I'd have turned on the STB and switched my receiver to that input.

It's one of the reasons I'm still keeping my STB.

$10/month x 12 months = $120/year just for the occasional PPV event? Why not just call the provider and request PPV event?

[mldenison]

I don't watch PPV. I'm only keeping the STB for when my computer goes down or my Ceton cards have a problem - like occasional bouts of pixelation with the latest firmware.

[Sammy2]

Since switching from Uverse to Charter last year I have not used a provider's STB or had one in my possession.

[scyto]

Which product are you talking about then? The echo or the ETH?

The two are inherently linked together because of WMC. The Echo does not handle fault tolerance well. The ETH causes bad video, so the Echo crashes and has a difficult time recovering. Also, I think the ETH drivers are causing issues with WMC and the Echo drivers.

maybe but you seem to be describing two issues, one is that a stream generates a weak signal (watched live or recorded). that is your tuner and media center at fault. The second is that if you have an issue with a stream the echo doesn't handle it well. First you need to fix you ROOT issue of poor signal. In terms of echo error handling I suggest you find a non-protected WTV file that reliably causes the issue and supply it to ceton and a few of us to test. I have had ZERO lockup issues with my ceton, even on the very occasion a recording has a weak signal error.

your assertion that ETH drivers are causing issues with echo drivers show you fundamentally have flawed understanding of drivers in windows and how the media center subsystems work, stop asserting what you think the issue is and focus on the symptoms and how to reproduce.

[adam1991]

I understand what you're saying, but do understand that the threads you found may be meaningless. I'm not disputing your audio/video issues, but if you saw "Weak Signal" errors come through the Echo, it's not the fault of the Echo. The Echo, as an extender, is simply displaying a remote desktop session (albeit with a couple of extra features). The *only* source of a "Weak Signal" error would be the HTPC itself.

As for audio/video issues, again are you sure that didn't come from the cable company? You never had the opportunity to go to the "headless unit" as you call it; therefore, how can you know that all of your Echo restarting wasn't for naught? How can you know where the problem lay?

You say, "the signal was fine since I was no longer receiving the the Weak TV Signal and seeing clear video OR audio, but never both (usually black screen with sound only)"'; how can you *possibly* know for a fact that "the signal was fine"? Oh, the tuner wasn't displaying "Weak Signal" anymore, sure; that doesn't mean the cable company was delivering, over that signal, digital bits that could be decoded into something you would consider actual programming that you could watch.d

And no one, not Ceton or anyone else, would have any diagnostics that would tell you anything.

It starts with the cableco. We've all had digital hash and weird issues that originated from the source. That a tuner card delivered the digital hash to the HTPC isn't a problem with the tuner card, and that an extender delivered the digital has to a remote TV isn't the fault of the extender.

I will restate how I know it's the Echo. I had a ticket open for a long time with Ceton because the Echo exhibits this problem on recordings. So once the Echo is playing audio and video, I rewind to the beginning and there are no issues with the recording. Because the recording is clean that eliminates the HTPC, tuner, network (since the tuner is networked). The Echo just randomly decides not to display video or play audio after starting a recording or starting live TV.

Fine, but this has nothing to do with your talk about "weak signal". Are you still trying to blame that on the Echo?

[shortcut3d]

Which product are you talking about then? The echo or the ETH?

The two are inherently linked together because of WMC. The Echo does not handle fault tolerance well. The ETH causes bad video, so the Echo crashes and has a difficult time recovering. Also, I think the ETH drivers are causing issues with WMC and the Echo drivers.

maybe but you seem to be describing two issues, one is that a stream generates a weak signal (watched live or recorded). that is your tuner and media center at fault. The second is that if you have an issue with a stream the echo doesn't handle it well. First you need to fix you ROOT issue of poor signal. In terms of echo error handling I suggest you find a non-protected WTV file that reliably causes the issue and supply it to ceton and a few of us to test. I have had ZERO lockup issues with my ceton, even on the very occasion a recording has a weak signal error.

your assertion that ETH drivers are causing issues with echo drivers show you fundamentally have flawed understanding of drivers in windows and how the media center subsystems work, stop asserting what you think the issue is and focus on the symptoms and how to reproduce.

I don't appreciate your tone. Ceton has repeatedly started all Echo troubleshooting with NIC driver updates, so your logic is flawed. Any driver can cause a conflict with another.

I have been working with Ceton on both fronts since the Saturday of the ETH release. I've sent multiple diagnostics, wire shark dumps, re-wired, etc. under their guidance. I corrected all event log errors, which were irrelevant to WMC and most are documented as erroneous not having any effect on Win7.

I have a ticket open with Ceton to fix the issues with the ETH and I'm currently trying the beta. And to eliminate any further doubt, the signal is perfect and I even connected to the main drop for testing with Ceton.

Switching tuners from SD to Ceton has caused media center to slow down significantly. I use a headless HTPC and this symptom is shown on the Echo. I connected the HTPC and its also apparent on the HTPC, but the Echo seems to magnify the problem.

Your suggestion of finding a non-protected WTV file that has the problem will not work. The only channel that frequently has this problem is HBO. There are other posts with problems with HBO as well. So far only one PPV event has shown this problem and I'm not willing to order another show or event to test for Ceton's sake. If you want to Paypal me the funds for beta testing I'll be more than happy. As far as broadcast channels go, I have had the issue randomly, but after power cycling (several times) the Echo it handles it fine. Also the issue crops up at different points in the recording. To add to that, I can go to the other Echo that has been powered off and it will play just fine at power on. I'll try swapping the Echo locations (different brand LCDs, but same cabling down to the surge protector).

[shortcut3d]

I understand what you're saying, but do understand that the threads you found may be meaningless. I'm not disputing your audio/video issues, but if you saw "Weak Signal" errors come through the Echo, it's not the fault of the Echo. The Echo, as an extender, is simply displaying a remote desktop session (albeit with a couple of extra features). The *only* source of a "Weak Signal" error would be the HTPC itself.

As for audio/video issues, again are you sure that didn't come from the cable company? You never had the opportunity to go to the "headless unit" as you call it; therefore, how can you know that all of your Echo restarting wasn't for naught? How can you know where the problem lay?

You say, "the signal was fine since I was no longer receiving the the Weak TV Signal and seeing clear video OR audio, but never both (usually black screen with sound only)"'; how can you *possibly* know for a fact that "the signal was fine"? Oh, the tuner wasn't displaying "Weak Signal" anymore, sure; that doesn't mean the cable company was delivering, over that signal, digital bits that could be decoded into something you would consider actual programming that you could watch.d

And no one, not Ceton or anyone else, would have any diagnostics that would tell you anything.

It starts with the cableco. We've all had digital hash and weird issues that originated from the source. That a tuner card delivered the digital hash to the HTPC isn't a problem with the tuner card, and that an extender delivered the digital has to a remote TV isn't the fault of the extender.

I will restate how I know it's the Echo. I had a ticket open for a long time with Ceton because the Echo exhibits this problem on recordings. So once the Echo is playing audio and video, I rewind to the beginning and there are no issues with the recording. Because the recording is clean that eliminates the HTPC, tuner, network (since the tuner is networked). The Echo just randomly decides not to display video or play audio after starting a recording or starting live TV.

Fine, but this has nothing to do with your talk about "weak signal". Are you still trying to blame that on the Echo?

Yes, because the Echo fails to recover like an Xbox 360. I recently moved into a new home completed in April 2013 and Comcast installed the system on the SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime 6CC (which required an extra splitter that doesn't exist in the ETH setup). The installer verified the signal was almost perfect and I'm typically at -0.5 dBmV and 38dB. Previously, I had severe signal issues in my previous apartment in 2011 requiring an amp for the Prime 6CC. The Xbox 360 always resumed nicely and never did this black screen audio only.

And yes I blame Ceton for the Weak TV signal because I've been troubleshooting the ETH since two days after receiving it for pixelation, which was not there using the Prime.

What seems to be missed, is the black screen audio only problem is not a result of Weak TV signal. It just happens. Weak TV signal just guarantees it will happen.

[shortcut3d]

It appears the black screen audio only may also happen on the Xbox 360. There is a post on the SD forums. Also, there are posts of erroneous Weak TV signal caused by AMC/HBO recording simultaneously. The hypothesis is its a WMC DRM issue that temporarily prevents the tuner lock. No solution as of yet. So there's definitely evidence that Weak TV Signal messages can have nothing to do with the signal strength.