Ceton InfiniTV 4 - Owner's Thread

[adam1991]

I've gotten that once or twice, randomly. A restart of Media Center (not the whole computer) sets it straight.

[Diverge]

I've gotten that once or twice, randomly. A restart of Media Center (not the whole computer) sets it straight.

I've tried that and even rebooted. My system is doing it all the time.

Right now I'm recording on a SD channel so I can watch the live football game on the HD channel.. sucks.

[STC]

Something to do with the fact it is embedded?

[Diverge]

Something to do with the fact it is embedded?

It worked fine on my previous system, so it should work unless I didn't install a driver or something.

[Diverge]

I figured out what is causing the problem, after setting recordings back to my OS drive. The problem is FlexRAID. I also found someone else with the same problem on the FlexRAID forums http://forum.flexraid.com/index.php/topic,969.0.html

[snappjay]

I will be getting my iTV4 in the mail tomorrow. Very excited to ditch, what I call, the "DOS-box" DVR. I stopped by the cable office and picked up my cable card, so I'm ready to go.
My only question is about signal strength. The cable installer made "live" every coax in our house (6 outlets) so if we want to move the DVR from room to room, we can.
I will also be splitting the coax behind the HTPC to feed both the iTV4 and the Hauppauge 2250.

Should I be worried about signal strength for the iTV4? If so, I can disconnect a few of the rooms from the splitter that are for guests/storage.

[erkotz]

I will be getting my iTV4 in the mail tomorrow. Very excited to ditch, what I call, the "DOS-box" DVR. I stopped by the cable office and picked up my cable card, so I'm ready to go.
My only question is about signal strength. The cable installer made "live" every coax in our house (6 outlets) so if we want to move the DVR from room to room, we can.
I will also be splitting the coax behind the HTPC to feed both the iTV4 and the Hauppauge 2250.

Should I be worried about signal strength for the iTV4? If so, I can disconnect a few of the rooms from the splitter that are for guests/storage.

Maybe. It depends on a number of factors (incoming signal strength, size of splitter, passive/active splitter, etc). If you disconnect outlets to increase signal strength, you will need to change the splitter out for a smaller one, otherwise it won't matter.

[snappjay]

I will be getting my iTV4 in the mail tomorrow. Very excited to ditch, what I call, the "DOS-box" DVR. I stopped by the cable office and picked up my cable card, so I'm ready to go.
My only question is about signal strength. The cable installer made "live" every coax in our house (6 outlets) so if we want to move the DVR from room to room, we can.
I will also be splitting the coax behind the HTPC to feed both the iTV4 and the Hauppauge 2250.

Should I be worried about signal strength for the iTV4? If so, I can disconnect a few of the rooms from the splitter that are for guests/storage.

Maybe. It depends on a number of factors (incoming signal strength, size of splitter, passive/active splitter, etc). If you disconnect outlets to increase signal strength, you will need to change the splitter out for a smaller one, otherwise it won't matter.

Thanks for the help. I didn't know that connecting 1 TV to a 10 way splitter will still only get you 1/10th of the signal, even if there is nothing else connected.
By the way, we are talking about a NINE way splitter (he wanted to make sure we were covered if we ever had any more lines dropped) with 6 coax plugged up. It isn't powered or anything, so I assume it's a "passive" style splitter.

Knowing this information, I think I will simply get a 3 way splitter and 2 way splitter from home depot. That should cover HTPC, kitchen, cable modem, then HTPC split to 2250 and iTV4. This is probably the minimum WAF I can get away with.

[erkotz]

Are you sure it's not powered? Many amplifiers use a remote power injector, and power is fed over coax. It's rare or a spliter to be that large and not powered.

[choliscott]

I didn't realize that many (that didn't have any sort of power adapter attached) was being powered I will say that the Motorola signal booster works wonders, with a decent splitter connected to it.

Are you sure it's not powered? Many amplifiers use a remote power injector, and power is fed over coax. It's rare or a spliter to be that large and not powered.

[ahwman]

Hello everyone!
Longtime lurker, first time poster.

I assembled my media pc about a year ago.
Win 7 sp1 x64/ Intel Q6600/ 6 gb ram/ EVGA GT430/ 2: pcie Ceton Infinitv.
My cable tv system requires no tuning adapters.
All works practically flawless except for 3 or 4 times a week when it resumes from sleep, there are no tuners found.
I mean even the Ceton diagnostics software sees no tuners.
They are visible in Windows device manager and shown to be working properly.
A reboot is required for them to be detected and all is then ok, until the next time it happens.
The WAF is now damaged!
I have no other issues with sleep or resuming.
I'm using Cetons latest firmware and drivers.
I submitted a ticket to Ceton along with the Ceton diagnostic log file.
Their answer was to not use sleep but instead use away mode.
I don't use extenders or stream to anywhere else in my home.
I would prefer to use sleep to lower my utility bill.

Since the only sleep issue is with the Ceton tuners, I tend to believe the problem is with their hardware, firmware, or drivers.
Anyone with any ideas or opinions?
A couple of SD HDHR Primes as replacements is looking better all the time.
I'm waiting for a deal like we saw a month or so ago.
I missed that window hoping myself or Ceton could correct the problem.

Please PM me your ticket #. I would like to look into this.

Ticket PM'd:)

I'm having this exact same issue. I'm hoping for a fix soon as keeping my machine running 24x7 in my bedroom isn't an option because of noise and wasted electricity...

[ahwman]

@KScott, I have had 4 Ceton InfinitTV4 tuners to sample over time and one of them wouldn't work after sleep cycles that were over 30min or so (I don't remember the exact minimum sleep time frame and I can't access the old Ceton ticket system for details). Doing another sleep wake cycle would always fix it (didn't need a reboot). Ceton didn't see how it was the tuner because these issues are typically computer related. But since I had other Ceton tuners that worked fine, I knew it was the tuner.

For me if I disabled and re-enabled the card in device manager it would fix the issue (have you ever tried that?) or the the card didn't show up in the device manager a scan for new HW changes would fix it. So what I did was write a script that I had run on every resume to check for the Ceton device with and error <>0 and if it had and error it would disable and enable the ceton card or if the card didn't exist it would scan for new HW changes. Then scheduled this script for resume event (I recommended at the time that Ceton upgrade the driver to add this fix too) . This got me by for 3 months until Ceton RMA'd the card.

The script also logged messages in the event log so I could track how often the Ceton tuners needed to be restarted.

I will share the script here for you and others to improve your WAF (Ceton feel free to add this to your driver):

Code: Select all

' Tuner Missing or in error state on resume FIX
'
' Script intended to run on Computer resume from Task Scheduler
' use command line arg "eventlog" to use the windows  event log for logging (good for using from task scheduler).
'
' Author WhatHappend of thegreenbutton.tv
'  Date  03/27/2010
'
'* Wait 2 seconds before Running
wscript.sleep 2000
'
' Function for logging messages
Function LogMsg( level, message )
 If WScript.Arguments.Count > 0 Then
    If WScript.Arguments(0) = "eventlog" Then
       WshShell.LogEvent level, message
    Else
      Wscript.Echo message
    End If
 Else
   Wscript.Echo message
 End If
End Function
'
'
'*** Setup variables
Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Dim found_tuner
found_tuner = false
strComputer = "."
' Get Card Ven ID from Device manager Device Details tab this is a pattern match, so just the beggine before "&"
cardVenID = "PCI\VEN_1B7C" 
likeCardCenID = "'" & Replace(cardVenID,"\", "\\") & "%'"
' Path to Devcon quoted.
devconPath = """E:\Devcon\Devcon.exe"""
'
'*** Locate Tuner PNP Driver
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")
Set colItems = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Select * from Win32_PnPEntity WHERE PNPDeviceID LIKE " & likeCardCenID )
'
If colItems.Count > 0 Then
  '*** Found Tuner
  Set objItem = colItems.ItemIndex(0)
  '*** Mark that a tuner was found 
  found_tuner = True
  '*** See the tuner that was found has a error code (<>0) and needs to be restarted
  If objItem.ConfigManagerErrorCode <> 0 Then
    WshShell.Exec(devconPath & " disable "& cardVenID)
'   WScript.Echo "Disable Done"
    wscript.sleep 500
    WshShell.Exec(devconPath & " enable "& cardVenID)
'   WScript.Echo "Enable Done"
    '*** Log that tuner was found with error on resume
    LogMsg 1, "Tuner Found Not Working on Resume -- Error Code: "&objItem.ConfigManagerErrorCode
  Else
    
    '*** Log tuner was found working after resume.
    LogMsg 0, "Tuner Found Working on Resume -- Error Code: "&objItem.ConfigManagerErrorCode
  End If
Else
   '*** If no tuner is Found do a rescan for Pnp Hardware
   WshShell.Exec(devconPath & " rescan")
   'WScript.Echo "Rescan Done"
   '*** Log that tuner was missing on resume
   LogMsg 1, "Tuner Missing on Resume"
End If

Thank you for providing this script. Could you please highlight exactly what changes must be made for it to run on my system? I'm just not sure going through the code what I must alter to make it work with my system...

Thanks so much!

[WhatHappend]

Thank you for providing this script. Could you please highlight exactly what changes must be made for it to run on my system? I'm just not sure going through the code what I must alter to make it work with my system...

Thanks so much!

I don't think any changes are required. What issues are you having?

[ahwman]

Thank you for providing this script. Could you please highlight exactly what changes must be made for it to run on my system? I'm just not sure going through the code what I must alter to make it work with my system...

Thanks so much!

I don't think any changes are required. What issues are you having?

I'm just not sure what to save the script as - .bat or something else? Do I then simply place it in a folder and then point the new task to it?

Thanks so much for your help,
Chuck

[snappjay]

I just want to throw this out there. My InfiniTV4 USB is working wonderfully.

I have it hooked up to a Win8 Pro custom built machine (intel mobo, Clarkdale i3, onboard graphics) with the newest beta drivers. Also have the newest Ceton Companion working great with our iPad and iPhones.
I may be in the minority here, but switching from internal PCIe to USB fixed everything for me. I couldn't get the cablecard paired for more than a week or so with the internal, but it works A-OKAY with the USB version.

Now that we are using the Xbox 360 as the main machine from a headless HTPC, WAF is through the roof. She loves the sleek look of the 360 when compared to the ATX tower case chillin on our entertainment stand.

As ebay would say, A+++ would buy again.

[Bryan]

Just wanted to add my praise as well. I have the PCI-Express version and couldn't be happier. We're not too hardcore so four tuners is perfect, and since I got it in May I can only think of one hiccup. I like to think my system is pretty awesome, but the Ceton is really the crucial part.

[WhatHappend]

Thank you for providing this script. Could you please highlight exactly what changes must be made for it to run on my system? I'm just not sure going through the code what I must alter to make it work with my system...

Thanks so much!

I don't think any changes are required. What issues are you having?

I'm just not sure what to save the script as - .bat or something else? Do I then simply place it in a folder and then point the new task to it?

Thanks so much for your help,
Chuck

Sorry for not replying earlier (Didn't see your response until now). The script was originally intended for those that were already familiar with scripting and creating system tasks.

I have just created a Wiki to help you and others understand how to use it here: http://experts.windows.com/w/experts_wi ... esume.aspx

[evident]

hi, long time lurker first time poster here, although i wish my first post wouldn't have been out of frustration. I just had new fios service installed last week and I built a fresh brand new HTPC with the infinitv. I initially did a self install of my cablecard, everything seemed to activate ok (checkboxes on all of the diagnostics) but would get the "Service is unavailable" error. they sent out another cablecard, same problem. Finally, they sent out a tech who installed a third cablecard and I got great service and no problems. The tech told me that the first two cards never got activated correctly, and that second card "was from out of state and refurbed" so it never was able to activate correctly in my state. he also installed a low pass filter for me when i asked him to, since i saw many others here having problems when none was installed.


so i thought everything was great. fast forward 10 days later (today) i get the dreaded Service is unavailable message in WMC. I open up the diagnostics too land everything seems to show up all green. i re-run the digital cable advisor, and set up tool in WMC, and refreshed the tuners in the diagnostics tool, but still same problem. i called up verizon to try and send a hit signal and all that but nothing seemed to work. they now want to send me out another cablecard and told me that if i wanted them to send a truck out it would cost me $80! i'm literally about to pull my hair out with this issue.

I did 2 things today that I think may have screwed with my cablecard, but i'm not sure. so maybe you guys can tell me. My wife called verizon and asked to change our land line phone number. I have no idea how this could inpact the cablecard other than the fact that it affected our verizon account. second is that i installed a SD card reader into my HTPC. ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820132016 ) to be exact. however, even when removing the sd card reader i now get that error. is there any way possible that me installing that onto my pc would have de-paired my cablecard to the infinitv?

[ahwman]

Thanks so much. I followed your directions to the letter and though the event viewer shows that it ran successfully, it hasn't seemed to help - not sure why.

[WhatHappend]

Thanks so much. I followed your directions to the letter and though the event viewer shows that it ran successfully, it hasn't seemed to help - not sure why.

By event viewer what do you mean? What did it show exactly?

I updated the wiki to help you understand what will be logged for each resume cycle. Please read the update and report what you are seeing logged.

Also, I think I need to add some more directions to the wiki.

When you are done setting up the task, edit the tasks properties and select "Run whether user is logged on or not" & "Run with highest privileges", also make sure you Change the User to a user with Administrative permissions.