Ceton InifiniTV6 ETH upgrade from InifniTV4

[blueiedgod]

Took quite a bit longer than the 15 minutes I was hoping for that it would take to swap the InfiniTV4 PCIe for InfiniTV6 ETH.

Firstly, from Verizon. The old in-home agent that I had in the system no longer works. The new one is useless since it requires activation code that you get when you get a new CableCard, and does nothing for someone trying to pair an existing card.

Tried the automated system, waited an hour, and didn't get the "hit". Called tech support, and it turns out that automated system just deactivated my CableCard. Spent about 45 minutes on the phone trying to get my card back on-line. Luckily they were able to, so I did not have to go back to Verizon store to get a new card.

The 12 HD TV tuners showed that my PATA SEagate 750 Gb Recording drive was not up to par. Worked fine with 10 tuners (6 ATSC and 4 CableCard), but throwing 6 ATSC and 6 CaleCard tuners was too much for it.

Luckily I had a Hitachi 2 Tb SATAIII HDD that was just begging to be taken out of its USB 2.0 enclosure. Forgot how tightly packed the low profile nMedia HTPC 1080p drive cage was. But, another 45 minutes later, new drive was in place.

I was hoping that PlayReady would not rear its ugly head, since I was swapping same brand tuners, but it did. Reset DRM tool did not work on its own, but disabling media (Windows Media Player, WMC, DVD burn) in control panel, uninstalling PlayReady, deleting Play Ready folders and cache, then enabling media in control panel and going through TV set up worked. Later I found a command script that basically achieves the same.

Originally shipped driver/firmware was a bit spotty. 6 tuners worked for a bit, then would not release tuners when you switched channels, i.e. you would be able to make 5 channels changes, then it said no tuners were available. Then for some reason WMC reverted to 4 tuner limit and dragged the 4 tuner limit for the ATSC tuners too. I don't know how logically it could have happened, since Ceton drivers up WMC limit to 32 tuners.

Installing beta drivers and firmware fixed the problem. Was back to 12 tuners after 2 reboots, and running to the basement to reboot the ETH.

So, figure it took about 4 hours to switch over. Have been stress testing the system for the last few hours. 6 TV's viewing 6 different live TV channels, and recording 6 more. CPU (hexacore AMD Phenom II) is at 95-97% CPU utilization, generating full 95 watts of heat. Network is at 25% utilization (250 Mbps), Hard drive is writing at about 20 Mb/s.

Had to send family to the zoo/ice cream etc since none of the TV's work in the house when the system if off.

Ability to record 12 streams at once for $5/month is pretty good deal!

[tzr916]

12 tuners... nice...

I'm curious what size your recorded Tv files are with FIOS? and is it mpeg2?

Being on comcast, mine vary between 5GB to 7.5GB for a one hour long show (mpeg2)...

What size file is a one hour show on FIOS?

[blueiedgod]

12 tuners... nice...

I'm curious what size your recorded Tv files are with FIOS? and is it mpeg2?

Being on comcast, mine vary between 5GB to 7.5GB for a one hour long show (mpeg2)...

What size file is a one hour show on FIOS?

Thanks!

Yeah, they are about the same, 6 Gb to 10 Gb per 1 hour show. I have recorded the same program using ATSC and CableCard tuners, and the OTA file is slightly larger.

I am pretty sure all HDTV .wtv recordings are MPEG2, regardless of source.

[foxwood]

I am pretty sure all HDTV .wtv recordings are MPEG2, regardless of source.

Most US HD streams are MPEG2, for now. Many (probably most) HD streams outside North America now use h.264 encoding. Some North American Cable providers are starting to use h.264 encoding for some channels.

.WTV files contain whether was in the OTA or cable signal, so they'll contain MPEG2 in North America in the majority of cases, and they'll contain h.264 in much of the rest of the world.

[blueiedgod]

I am pretty sure all HDTV .wtv recordings are MPEG2, regardless of source.

Most US HD streams are MPEG2, for now. Many (probably most) HD streams outside North America now use h.264 encoding. Some North American Cable providers are starting to use h.264 encoding for some channels.

.WTV files contain whether was in the OTA or cable signal, so they'll contain MPEG2 in North America in the majority of cases, and they'll contain h.264 in much of the rest of the world.

Good to know that .wtv will contain whatever the broadcast was. Thanks!

[foxwood]

Good to know that .wtv will contain whatever the broadcast was. Thanks!

I think that this is one of the reasons that WTV was introduced to replace DVR-MS.

It's unfortunate that Linksys didn't bother to fix their firmware to handle .WTV files containing h.264 content, even though the Extender can play the h.264 content when you take it out of the .wtv container.