Sending my ETH6 back for RMA :-(

[barnabas1969]

All of my channels are copy-protected except my locals. I can tune a copy-protected channel immediately after waking the PC. When I had an InfiniTV4, I had to wait a minute or two before I could tune a channel. The problem went away immediately when I switched to the HD HomeRun PRIME.

That's quite interesting... any other HDHRP users out there have the same experiences? Not discounting you experience Barnabus, just curious if it may be environment related. If I had to complain about anything, it would be that.. but usually I'm surfing the guide first and it's active by the time I tune.

Actually, I had a fairly long thread comparing my experiences between the ITV4 and the HDHRP. I'm pretty sure that several other users replied that they too had similar improvement in things like the spinning circle (which prevented me from even looking at the guide or the list of recorded TV), the delay after resuming from standby before the tuners would do anything, and the slow tuning (which some people say has been fixed by a newer firmware on the ITV4).

[richard1980]

I'll agree that barnabas is biased toward the HDHRP, but I will disagree that "most of these problems have been usually attributed to another factor and not the Ceton product". I seem to recall the main reason barnabas switched to the HDHRP was to resolve the single-line pixelation problem with the InfiniTV 4. IIRC, barnabas came to the conclusion that the problem was with his network. Maybe it was. But I know damn well that's not the problem with my system, as I have no network and still experience the single-line pixelation issue. Additionally, I experienced the issue on two completely different motherboards.

Additionally, barnabas has pointed out other flaws with the InfiniTV that do not exist with the HDHRP. Overall, I am of the opinion that both products work well, but it may be that the HDHRP is just better in some respects. However, I can't say that definitively because my experience has been limited to the InfiniTV 4. Until I find myself in possession of an HDHRP, my opinion isn't exactly fair.

[foxwood]

It is worth pointing for anyone who is perusing this forum, and this thread in particular, that there are many of us who don't experience any of these persistent problems with the InfiniTV4.

I've had mine since August 2010. Maybe 3 or 4 times since then I've had recording failures due to "tuner not found" errors. By my reckoning, that makes it far more reliable than the cable-co DVR that it replaced, where missed recordings were just part of life. The PC that it's in get's rebooted once a month for Windows updates, and I decided to disable sleep for WAF reasons - the system idles at about 60 watts, and the 2 Linksys extenders run at 5-8 watts each.

The big downside? I now watch more TV than I used to, and still end up deleting stuff without watching it

[grinchy]

Actually, I had a fairly long thread comparing my experiences between the ITV4 and the HDHRP. I'm pretty sure that several other users replied that they too had similar improvement in things like the spinning circle (which prevented me from even looking at the guide or the list of recorded TV), the delay after resuming from standby before the tuners would do anything, and the slow tuning (which some people say has been fixed by a newer firmware on the ITV4).

I believe I remember your post about it; it seemed relatively unbias at the time. It's been probably over a year since you had am iTV4, no? I do remember your issues you had with it - though IMO, most of the problems you had are more/less resolved with the PCIe at this point with later FW's since you had it; the issues in this thread seem more related to the ETH so I'm not sure if it's truly the same... probably history repeating itself with a new product.

I haven't ever been locked with the spinning circle (but others have...) - again, it's maybe 2-3 seconds but I can still access guide, or whatever. The iTV4 used to be really, really slow in tuning. Now, it's about 3-4 seconds per tune which is around the same speed I had from the cable co - from what other SD users have said, the HDHRP may still tune a bit faster though; I've always wondered if that's HW issue or what.

On the wake up - well at least it seems possible that the delay may not be required and could be fixable? The ETH6 really is the closest product that could be compared to the HDHRP so a bit of a bummer there's still that 1-2min delay on wakeup. I used to think it was b/c the HDHRP was always "on" and therefore recovered quicker on a PC wakeup - I suppose that's not necessarily the case with the ETH6.

I'm still very content with the iTV4 though... it's as reliable as it needs to be.

[tad]

I'm so glad I stuck with my hdhr prime instead of going with the new 6-tuner from Ceton. My original hdhomerun has been nearly rock solid for ~6 years (save for a bum power supply) and my prime has been solid for almost 2 years. I've literally had to power cycle it only about 2x a year.

[barnabas1969]

I'll agree that barnabas is biased toward the HDHRP, but I will disagree that "most of these problems have been usually attributed to another factor and not the Ceton product". I seem to recall the main reason barnabas switched to the HDHRP was to resolve the single-line pixelation problem with the InfiniTV 4. IIRC, barnabas came to the conclusion that the problem was with his network. Maybe it was. But I know damn well that's not the problem with my system, as I have no network and still experience the single-line pixelation issue. Additionally, I experienced the issue on two completely different motherboards.

Additionally, barnabas has pointed out other flaws with the InfiniTV that do not exist with the HDHRP. Overall, I am of the opinion that both products work well, but it may be that the HDHRP is just better in some respects. However, I can't say that definitively because my experience has been limited to the InfiniTV 4. Until I find myself in possession of an HDHRP, my opinion isn't exactly fair.

No, it turned out to be the video adapter.

[barnabas1969]

I've literally had to power cycle it only about 2x a year.

Me too. About every 6 months, I have to pull the power plug on the HDHRP. Since I have two of them, I'll start seeing a group of three messages telling me that there was a problem tuning a channel. This always means that one of the HDHRP's is hung. I still don't miss any recordings because the other HDHRP will take care of them. Of course, if all the kids are trying to watch live TV, they would notice if one of the HDHRP's was hung.

It's really the only problem I ever experience with the HDHRP. And, it's no worse than the Scientific Atlanta DVR I used to have. I had to power cycle it a couple of times a year too.

[shortcut3d]

I've literally had to power cycle it only about 2x a year.

Me too. About every 6 months, I have to pull the power plug on the HDHRP. Since I have two of them, I'll start seeing a group of three messages telling me that there was a problem tuning a channel. This always means that one of the HDHRP's is hung. I still don't miss any recordings because the other HDHRP will take care of them. Of course, if all the kids are trying to watch live TV, they would notice if one of the HDHRP's was hung.

It's really the only problem I ever experience with the HDHRP. And, it's no worse than the Scientific Atlanta DVR I used to have. I had to power cycle it a couple of times a year too.

When I had the HDHRP I scheduled a task to do this on a weekly, then moved to monthly basis at 4 AM on Sunday as preventative maintenance. The commandline options were nice to have for the HDHRP.

[EZEd]

I'm so glad I stuck with my hdhr prime instead of going with the new 6-tuner from Ceton. My original hdhomerun has been nearly rock solid for ~6 years (save for a bum power supply) and my prime has been solid for almost 2 years. I've literally had to power cycle it only about 2x a year.

Yep I'm the same way, only subbing in Ceton ITV4 and now 6ETH instead of HRPrime. I just have not personally experienced these problems as others have. I'm sure there were HRPrime customers that had similar bad experiences when that device was first introduced. That is my only point. Any new product requires wringing out to get it stable. The QC for any product is going to be all over the map (some good, some bad) until the kinks are worked out. I used the ITV4 for 2 years and now the 6ETH for about a month and a half and haven't had any issues caused by those devices. My issues can all be squarely laid on TWC Dallas, their Motorola TA device and the CSR/provisioning people who don't seem to know which switches to flip to give me all of my channels that come with my subscription package. I do believe if we could just eliminate the TA from the equation things would get a lot better. I also wish we could get consistency amoung cable providers on the use of CCI flags. TWC sets everything copy once except the locals. I really would like to see them take lessons from Comcast and Verizon in that regard but that's on to another story...

[richard1980]

I'll agree that barnabas is biased toward the HDHRP, but I will disagree that "most of these problems have been usually attributed to another factor and not the Ceton product". I seem to recall the main reason barnabas switched to the HDHRP was to resolve the single-line pixelation problem with the InfiniTV 4. IIRC, barnabas came to the conclusion that the problem was with his network. Maybe it was. But I know damn well that's not the problem with my system, as I have no network and still experience the single-line pixelation issue. Additionally, I experienced the issue on two completely different motherboards.

Additionally, barnabas has pointed out other flaws with the InfiniTV that do not exist with the HDHRP. Overall, I am of the opinion that both products work well, but it may be that the HDHRP is just better in some respects. However, I can't say that definitively because my experience has been limited to the InfiniTV 4. Until I find myself in possession of an HDHRP, my opinion isn't exactly fair.

No, it turned out to be the video adapter.

Alright, I messed that one up. But that still doesn't change the fact that you have identified several problems that are directly attributable to the InfiniTV itself.

[barnabas1969]

I'm sure there were HRPrime customers that had similar bad experiences when that device was first introduced. That is my only point. Any new product requires wringing out to get it stable.

Yep, and I "wrung out" my ITV4 for about a year (maybe longer?) before I switched to the HDHRP. To be honest, I only bought an HDHRP as a test to see if the macroblocking problem was unique to the Ceton ITV4 (it wasn't). My intention, when I bought the first HDHRP, was to return it after the test. Before using the HDHRP, I felt like the Ceton ITV4 was fine. But, I fell in love with the HDHRP because it was better than the ITV4 in several ways (even before getting the signals on my home's coax network perfectly clean).

And then, I "wrung out" the Echo for four months before I sent it packing back to Ceton.

The thing is, Ceton was the first kid on the block with the ITV4, and Silicondust made a product that "just worked" before Ceton did. Sure, there were HDHRP users who had problems when the product was first released. Luckily, I came along to the Silicondust party after the problems were fixed. But... you can't ignore the fact that Silicondust started later than Ceton, but still delivered a stable product before Ceton.

Then, Ceton released the Echo... which was a miserable failure. Their "beta" wasn't even ready for an "alpha". In my experience, a "beta" product has full functionality and has been tested by a small group in an alpha test before it is released to a larger group in beta. The beta test is to expand the test to a larger audience who may do things the developer didn't think of... the beta is supposed to catch the LITTLE problems that were missed in alpha. The Echo beta was a barely-working device that lacked even basic functionality. The "finished" product was almost ready for a beta. If you ask me, based on what I read on this site about the Echo, it's still not quite "beta". It still doesn't do what Ceton said it would do at release... and it still doesn't perform even as well as the Linksys and HP extenders for some users (some claim that it works better). It's now been approximately nine months since the beginning of the official beta, and some (many?) people are still waiting for the Echo to work at least as well as other extenders. Ceton promised that it would be the "best extender ever". Far from it.

Ceton is long on promises, and short on delivery.

I'm definitely critical of Ceton now, but I really wasn't before I bought the HDHRP... and I got especially critical after I bought the Echo. The user (and moderator) STC will be happy to point out how biased I am... but I prefer the word "jaded". I paid $525.00 for the Ceton InfiniTV4, and I was happy to pay the price premium to be on the bleeding edge. The ITV4 was impressive at the time. It had some bugs, but it was the only game in town. Then, when I tried the HDHRP, my eyes were opened. I still didn't dislike Ceton at that time, but I chose the HDHRP because it was better.

I even bought the My Media Center app from Ceton (fka "Ceton Companion"). I like it, but I'm still waiting for the promised ability to stream recorded TV via the app... which is something they promised very early on (before the Echo).

When the Echo came around, that's when I REALLY became critical of Ceton. It was just crap.

[fiteclub]

I will add to STC's post and say that I have had no significant problems with the InfiniTV4PCI. All the issues that I have had can be traced to either a bad cablecard or bad TA. I will also say that despite what barnabas says about the HDHR Prime, it is NOT problem free. Just review posts over at the silicondust forums.

[grinchy]

I even bought the My Media Center app from Ceton (fka "Ceton Companion"). I like it, but I'm still waiting for the promised ability to stream recorded TV via the app... which is something they promised very early on (before the Echo).

I know this is off topic, but when did Ceton "promise" streaming ability? They've confirmed its on their backlog/roadmap but never gave an ETA - I wouldn't necessarily file that as a promise; semantics, perhaps, though I certainly don't feel they committed to it and never delivered it.

[blueiedgod]

The thing is, Ceton was the first kid on the block with the ITV4, and Silicondust made a product that "just worked" before Ceton did.

ATI was first kid on the block. Ceton was me too, and SiliconDust was me three....

Not knocking SiliconDust, I am still using the original SDHR-Duals that are almost 10 years old now.

ATI DCT was rock solid, but single tuner, and AMD dropped support for it. So, Ceton InfiniTV4 was a very welcomed upgrade to the two ATI DCT's. For 2/3rd the cost of two DCT's one got 4 tuners, and only needed to rent a single CableCard.

I paid $430 for it, and waited 6 months to get it, but it was well worth the money and the wait. It has paid it self over a number of times since. Sure there were firmware issues initially, but it was still worth it. Yup, I am on the original ITV4, the big board.

The best mod for the ITV4 was putting a 60 mm fan to blow on it. Haven't had any issues since I did that. It seems to me that most of the ETH6 issues can probably be resolved with a $3 fan, as well.

[shortcut3d]

The thing is, Ceton was the first kid on the block with the ITV4, and Silicondust made a product that "just worked" before Ceton did.

ATI was first kid on the block. Ceton was me too, and SiliconDust was me three....

Not knocking SiliconDust, I am still using the original SDHR-Duals that are almost 10 years old now.

ATI DCT was rock solid, but single tuner, and AMD dropped support for it. So, Ceton InfiniTV4 was a very welcomed upgrade to the two ATI DCT's. For 2/3rd the cost of two DCT's one got 4 tuners, and only needed to rent a single CableCard.

I paid $430 for it, and waited 6 months to get it, but it was well worth the money and the wait. It has paid it self over a number of times since. Sure there were firmware issues initially, but it was still worth it. Yup, I am on the original ITV4, the big board.

The best mod for the ITV4 was putting a 60 mm fan to blow on it. Haven't had any issues since I did that. It seems to me that most of the ETH6 issues can probably be resolved with a $3 fan, as well.

I have a big issue if a consumer needs to modify hardware to get it to work reliably or meet performance expectations. It's completely unacceptable to design and build a device that needs active cooling and ship it with passive cooling. I heard people recommending a cooling fans for the external tuners as well, ETH included. That's just poor design if its required.

SiliconDust released the 6CC rack mount that had an optional cooling fan for tight mounting situations. Never once did I need to install a fan. However, SD provided official documentation for installing a cooling fan. Not sure, but I see a big difference there between SD and Ceton.

[barnabas1969]

I even bought the My Media Center app from Ceton (fka "Ceton Companion"). I like it, but I'm still waiting for the promised ability to stream recorded TV via the app... which is something they promised very early on (before the Echo).

I know this is off topic, but when did Ceton "promise" streaming ability? They've confirmed its on their backlog/roadmap but never gave an ETA - I wouldn't necessarily file that as a promise; semantics, perhaps, though I certainly don't feel they committed to it and never delivered it.

You're correct. They said that it is "on the roadmap". It must be a really long road. And they drive too slow for me.

[barnabas1969]

When I said that Ceton was the first kid on the block, I meant that they were the first non-OEM (meaning consumer-available), and they were the first multi-tuner (CableCARD).

[blueiedgod]

The thing is, Ceton was the first kid on the block with the ITV4, and Silicondust made a product that "just worked" before Ceton did.

ATI was first kid on the block. Ceton was me too, and SiliconDust was me three....

Not knocking SiliconDust, I am still using the original SDHR-Duals that are almost 10 years old now.

ATI DCT was rock solid, but single tuner, and AMD dropped support for it. So, Ceton InfiniTV4 was a very welcomed upgrade to the two ATI DCT's. For 2/3rd the cost of two DCT's one got 4 tuners, and only needed to rent a single CableCard.

I paid $430 for it, and waited 6 months to get it, but it was well worth the money and the wait. It has paid it self over a number of times since. Sure there were firmware issues initially, but it was still worth it. Yup, I am on the original ITV4, the big board.

The best mod for the ITV4 was putting a 60 mm fan to blow on it. Haven't had any issues since I did that. It seems to me that most of the ETH6 issues can probably be resolved with a $3 fan, as well.

I have a big issue if a consumer needs to modify hardware to get it to work reliably or meet performance expectations. It's completely unacceptable to design and build a device that needs active cooling and ship it with passive cooling. I heard people recommending a cooling fans for the external tuners as well, ETH included. That's just poor design if its required.

SiliconDust released the 6CC rack mount that had an optional cooling fan for tight mounting situations. Never once did I need to install a fan. However, SD provided official documentation for installing a cooling fan. Not sure, but I see a big difference there between SD and Ceton.

If end consumer does not like tinkering and wants something that works out of the box, and is locked down, that is what Apple is for. But, Apple does not think you should be watching TV, they would rather you purchased previously aired episodes from them. That is how they make it "work out of the box"

Both Ceton and SD probably work just fine for 90% of the people out there. And the 10% of the people that it doesn't work either end up sending it back or fix it them selves. We built the "dvr" our selves, what's another $5 fan?

[wackychimp]

Wow, I went on vacation for a few days and this thread BLEW UP!

As I'm looking at my options I'm wondering: How is the service at SiliconDust? If I have similar problems are they going to be responsive?

Thanks all...

[mcewinter]

Silicondust offers great service. They have their own forum and are very active on it. Their software has a box to check for "debugging" and all you have to do is contact them with your device ID and they can help you troubleshoot.