Sending my ETH6 back for RMA :-(

[IownFIVEechos]

Without question the HDHRP is a superior product. DNLA enough said?

[STC]

^ To you possibly. To myself (and many others not).

DNLA Digital Living Network Alliance
DNLA Discovery Networks Latin America
DNLA Discovery of Natural Latent Abilities
DNLA Danish National Library Authority
DNLA Dalia & Nathaniel Lichfield Associates (UK)
DNLA Downtown New London Association (Connecticut, USA)
DNLA Development of Natural Latent Abilities
DNLA Delaware Nursery and Landscaping Association

[IownFIVEechos]

One other reason, it works flawlessly. Especially over a network with multiple extenders as well as Media servers. It is solid and F/W is released in a timely matter.

[STC]

I have four tuners per CC, three extenders, including an Echo. I have no problems sharing a tuner to another PC and do not need firmware updates as my device functions 100% without issue all the time.

[IownFIVEechos]

You have also shown that you are not an average user. Your skills are obviously above and beyond what the normal user is. Stop smiling!

[barnabas1969]

I have four tuners per CC, three extenders, including an Echo. I have no problems sharing a tuner to another PC and do not need firmware updates as my device functions 100% without issue all the time.

I'm still running my HD HomeRun PRIME tuners on the firmware that was available when I bought them back in April-May 2012. I have no reason to update the firmware because I'm not having any trouble... and I have no need for DLNA in the tuner.

[blueiedgod]

I have four tuners per CC, three extenders, including an Echo. I have no problems sharing a tuner to another PC and do not need firmware updates as my device functions 100% without issue all the time.

I am just curious, how were you able to get CableCard support in Canada? I have family members in Canada (GTA area) who want system like ours, but I was under impression that there were no CableCards in Canada. They are with Rogers now, but are considering switching to Bell Fibre.

[EZEd]

Another more than satisfied Ceton user here...I went with the Ceton InfiniTV4 back when both they and the HDHRPrimes were first coming out. HDHRPrimes at that time were reporting having the same problems that 6ETH customers are reporting now. So I chalk these up to growing pains of a new product in uncharted water (will likely be fixed in time). My ITV4 was seemingly working fine, no reboot problems, no dropped signals etc. My issues were TA related. In so doing to fix the (what turned out to be) TA problems I tried to update the ITV4 firmware and broke it...it wouldn't take the firmware load. Ceton offered to RMA. Instead I decided to trade in the ITV4 and get the 6ETH. It was an easy drop in replacement and has worked like a champ since install. I installed the beta firmware on first setup to get tuner pooling and have had no issues. ETH6 is shared to two other PCs and two other Linksys DMAs in the house. All work well together. I only wish TWC Dallas was as reliable and CCI flag free as the Ceton products.

[shortcut3d]

Again, I feel the need to balance the books. There are many of us (including myself) that do not have problems with the infiniTV (I own the ITV4PCI, so cannot talk directly about the ITV6USB).

To highlight why I am saying this is because it seems that any poster with a Ceton problem here, receives a reply from barnabas to say he had problems with Ceton too and the poster should move to a HDHRP.

It has often been noted that most of these problems have been usually attributed to another factor and not the Ceton product, which incidentally, an external factor was one of the major root causes of barnabas' ITV4 problems.

I had no problems with my HDHR Prime and foolishly went to Ceton for 6-tuners with one CableCARD. It's clear Ceton is the problem. The biggest BS is the wait cursor / wait 30-60 second for tuners blamed on Microsoft.

It's actually rather frustrating that so many are will to cover for Ceton and make blanket generalizations about everyone's use case. This is a PC environment not iOS, so by definition there will be a wide variety of configurations. Its just wrong to always place blame on the consumer.

For the record, Ceton did not have a resolution to my issues and eventually stopped blaming my setup and threw in the towel.

I have to agree with barnabass on this one.

[shortcut3d]

Another more than satisfied Ceton user here...I went with the Ceton InfiniTV4 back when both they and the HDHRPrimes were first coming out. HDHRPrimes at that time were reporting having the same problems that 6ETH customers are reporting now. So I chalk these up to growing pains of a new product in uncharted water (will likely be fixed in time). My ITV4 was seemingly working fine, no reboot problems, no dropped signals etc. My issues were TA related. In so doing to fix the (what turned out to be) TA problems I tried to update the ITV4 firmware and broke it...it wouldn't take the firmware load. Ceton offered to RMA. Instead I decided to trade in the ITV4 and get the 6ETH. It was an easy drop in replacement and has worked like a champ since install. I installed the beta firmware on first setup to get tuner pooling and have had no issues. ETH6 is shared to two other PCs and two other Linksys DMAs in the house. All work well together. I only wish TWC Dallas was as reliable and CCI flag free as the Ceton products.

One thing already stated was SD release firmware fixes much faster than Ceton. More importantly, they acknowledge the issue and update the community on progress. The worse firmware SD released caused severe pixelation, and they released daily firmware updates that improved for three days until the issue was resolved. The big point is the ETH should be a next generation product, but is not really release ready. Ceton is now in the habit of releasing beta products to consumers.

[grinchy]

I think STC was referring to the iTV4 PCIe specifically. My experience mirror STC's on the PCIe - very good and reliable. Seems clear the ETH6 is still having some growing pains; I'm anxious to see the iTV6 PCIe, personally - since I would assume it would/should work identical to the iTV4 (vs. the iTV6ETH being a new network interface that Ceton is still tweaking).

On the wait circle - I only have 2 maybe 3 seconds tops; the ui is responsive so it's not deadlocked. I didn't even know that it was a "problem" until people kept mentioning it. Then again. I've seen the same circle of 2-3 seconds on machines that don't even have any tuners, so go figure.

The only time lag I experience is when things first wakeup and wait while the WMDRM pairing goes to green - usually 1-2minutes. All my channels are copy-once so it won't tune anything until that's ready to go - I would think all CC tuners would have the same hurdle.

[STC]

I am just curious, how were you able to get CableCard support in Canada?

I am fortunate to know the folks at my Cable Co and helped them trial the use of stand alone cable cards as an experiment.

There is no legislation here in Canada forcing the operators to provide CC's alone, so they don't.
Saying that the technology is widely used in a lot of STB's for which the cards are paired the the STB's they are installed in.

[barnabas1969]

I would think all CC tuners would have the same hurdle.

No, they don't. I can tune a channel on my HDHRP as soon as my PC wakes.

[foxwood]

I would think all CC tuners would have the same hurdle.

No, they don't. I can tune a channel on my HDHRP as soon as my PC wakes.

Grinchy was quite explicit that all his channels are copy-protected, and he put any delay down to WMDRM. Are your channels all copy-protected, or are you getting different behaviour because you've got a different provider?

[barnabas1969]

I would think all CC tuners would have the same hurdle.

No, they don't. I can tune a channel on my HDHRP as soon as my PC wakes.

Grinchy was quite explicit that all his channels are copy-protected, and he put any delay down to WMDRM. Are your channels all copy-protected, or are you getting different behaviour because you've got a different provider?

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.

[grinchy]

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.

[shortcut3d]

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.

Add another user that had instant tuning* with the HDHRP on copy protected content. I guess that's why I'm in such dismay with Ceton. Simply usability things that were not a problem with the HDHRP exist on the InfiniTV6 ETH, but I'm told its either my system or there's no way around the problem. From my point of view those comments are NOT fact and simply untrue.

*I used the HDHRP since release and decide for it in favor of Ceton because I could have a small energy efficient HTPC without the heat of the InfiniTV4 AND faster tuning. This was all covered in the missing remote reviews.

[EZEd]

One thing already stated was SD release firmware fixes much faster than Ceton. More importantly, they acknowledge the issue and update the community on progress. The worse firmware SD released caused severe pixelation, and they released daily firmware updates that improved for three days until the issue was resolved. The big point is the ETH should be a next generation product, but is not really release ready. Ceton is now in the habit of releasing beta products to consumers.

My point being that I only needed to update firmware on the ITV4 once and it was to try and fix an issue that was actually induced by the TA. In so doing it actually made a perfectly stable system unstable. To my knowledge there has only been one firmware update/load issued for the 6ETH since it has been introduced and that is to get Tuner Pooling capability. I installed that during the initial installation process for the 6ETH so I personally have not experienced any of these issues that some are having. But I've read just as many experiences of SD HomerunPrime issues when it first came out as 6ETH problems now. So again I view that as simply new product maturity, nothing more. I do believe that if SD had delivered a 6 tuner single CC device around the same time as I was ready to purchase I may have been swayed to get it. But for now, in my opinon Ceton holds the advantage in price per/feature category and that was a big selling point at time of purchase. That coupled with the fact that I already had experience with Ceton products and have not to date experienced any problems with 6ETH leads me to endorse Ceton much like you endorse HDHomerunPrime. I see your point and loyalty. I assume you do the same for me.

[ZPrime]

One thing already stated was SD release firmware fixes much faster than Ceton. More importantly, they acknowledge the issue and update the community on progress. The worse firmware SD released caused severe pixelation, and they released daily firmware updates that improved for three days until the issue was resolved. The big point is the ETH should be a next generation product, but is not really release ready. Ceton is now in the habit of releasing beta products to consumers.

My point being that I only needed to update firmware on the ITV4 once and it was to try and fix an issue that was actually induced by the TA. In so doing it actually made a perfectly stable system unstable. To my knowledge there has only been one firmware update/load issued for the 6ETH since it has been introduced and that is to get Tuner Pooling capability. I installed that during the initial installation process for the 6ETH so I personally have not experienced any of these issues that some are having. But I've read just as many experiences of SD HomerunPrime issues when it first came out as 6ETH problems now. So again I view that as simply new product maturity, nothing more. I do believe that if SD had delivered a 6 tuner single CC device around the same time as I was ready to purchase I may have been swayed to get it. But for now, in my opinon Ceton holds the advantage in price per/feature category and that was a big selling point at time of purchase. That coupled with the fact that I already had experience with Ceton products and have not to date experienced any problems with 6ETH leads me to endorse Ceton much like you endorse HDHomerunPrime. I see your point and loyalty. I assume you do the same for me.

I would love to have your seemingly magical set of circumstances under which the Eth6 works correctly. I've tried basically everything to appease this device and nothing has worked. Signal issues / macroblocking aside, the device itself seems to disappear from WMC's access far too regularly (no tuners available type messages)... the SD Prime hasn't done that for me at all in the weekend I've been using it thus far.

[barnabas1969]

I would love to have your seemingly magical set of circumstances under which the Eth6 works correctly. I've tried basically everything to appease this device and nothing has worked. Signal issues / macroblocking aside, the device itself seems to disappear from WMC's access far too regularly (no tuners available type messages)... the SD Prime hasn't done that for me at all in the weekend I've been using it thus far.

I used to get the no tuners message sometimes with the ITV4. I would also get a prompt to "setup" my newly-found CableCARD tuners about once a week. Those messages also disappeared as soon as I installed the HDHRP.