Quick Fix: Ceton InfiniTV ETH6 Slow Channel Changes

[fleanote]

I hope this info helps others as it helped me. Spent a lot of time with Ceton tech support to diagnose why it took so long for my channels to change (5-10 seconds), and often getting the 'Subscription Required' message only to have the channel tune in within another 5-10 seconds. I suspected it was all about signal strength, but my Ceton also exhibited another strange behavior - it would drop tuner availability to my media centers. Very frustrating but I strongly felt it was the signal strength that was causing the issue, so I put a booster in front of the Ceton - problem solved. Channels change in under 2 seconds and the ETH6 has not dropped a tuner assignment since. Phew! Now I love my ETH6 again! Can we get an ETH10 or 12!

BTW - Ceton Tech Support was very patient and offered a myriad of solutions (MS hotfixes, etc.) But it was odd they felt the signal strength could not be related to the issues I was having.

[jaimeknapp]

Do you have any diagnostic data, before and after to support your hypothesis?

[STC]

ETH10 or 12!

One "Multi-Stream" CableCARD (M-Card) can decode up to six simultaneous channels.

What roughly were your tuner signal levels and what are they now with the booster?

[EZEd]

...so I put a booster in front of the Ceton - problem solved. Channels change in under 2 seconds and the ETH6 has not dropped a tuner assignment since...

A caveat: Do be careful with this fix though because too hot of a signal is just as bad. I had the problem of only 1 channel in my lineup not coming through. The one channel would change over time (sometime Discovery sometime Disney) but it was always only one channel that would not come through. Signal level always reported low for that channel (-38db or abouts), so I thought too that an amp would fix it. I also wanted to blame the problem on the tuning adaptor (which I still think is at least an accomplice). TWC finally came out and determined that my signal was actually too HOT coming into the tuner and TA. They put an attenuator outside on my line and replaced all of the indoor cables and that fixed it for me. So the moral is yes signal level is likely and usually the culprit but you'll need to do a little investigating to determine if its too high or too low. They both exhibit similiar results

[fleanote]

Supporting data? I'd like to oblige, but I don't have that kind of time. All I can tell you is that it worked for me. It might work for you too. More background I can give you is - when I started with the ETH6 I was on East Coast Comcast. The setup was simple and the pairing was just as easy with the #'s they supplied. Service delivery of signal and the ETH6's performance were impeccable (this was 2 months ago). Comcast and I had a falling out which put me back on Verizon. I was not boosting with Comcast. The Verizon setup was just as simple (pairing etc), the issue was the channels (which were under 2 seconds w/Comcast) were really slow to change and 'come on.' High 600's channels were 20 seconds minimum until the picture was locked in. Then my manual Ceton tuner assigning stopped working. I would get 'no tuner available' errors on machines I assigned 2 or more tuners to. I didn't think a booster could effect that, I thought it had to be the Ceton. I worked with support but the whole time all I could think about was 'what if it had a stronger signal, maybe it would 'come in' faster.' I pulled out the booster (one Verizon had left behind from my original install), and used it right in front of the Ceton, with maybe a 3ft coax cable from the booster to the back of the unit. Now its behaving just like it did with Comcast when I started. I'm back on the Ceton bandwagon. BTW, no 'tuning adaptors' with Verizon FIOS here, if you have one - this may not work for you. BTW, I just checked diags and can say that all 6 tuners signal range from 10.1 to 13.6. Not sure if thats good or bad, but my HD looks great.

[JohnW248]

ETH10 or 12!

One "Multi-Stream" CableCARD (M-Card) can decode up to six simultaneous channels.

The Cisco PKM908 will decode 8 channels simultaneously and is a current product (some of the earlier M cards such as the 800/801 are EOL). So an 8 channel tuner would be possible when cable systems upgrade their headend equipment to control and work with the new card format.

[PlainEric]

BTW, no 'tuning adaptors' with Verizon FIOS here

Several reports with 6 tuner Tivos seem to indicate that the issue with 4 or 6 tuner cablecard devices like the ETH6 is related to a mixture of certain firmware versions and TA versions in both cisco and moto markets.

[erkotz]

ETH10 or 12!

One "Multi-Stream" CableCARD (M-Card) can decode up to six simultaneous channels.

The Cisco PKM908 will decode 8 channels simultaneously and is a current product (some of the earlier M cards such as the 800/801 are EOL). So an 8 channel tuner would be possible when cable systems upgrade their headend equipment to control and work with the new card format.

It has to be a PKM908 with PKEY_2.0.1 (or later) firmware. If it has PKEY_1.5.3 FW it is still limited to 6 streams. On the TA firmware I believe it was build 1901 (maybe 2001, I forget) that enabled 8 stream support. I'm unaware of any operator that has the PKEY_2.0.1 FW deployed outside of lab testing.

It's worth noting that the CableCARD's bus is limited to 200mbit/sec, which gives a theoretical maximum of about 10 HD channels, or 40 SD channels (you might get 1 or 2 more HD depending on the bandwidth used, but you're going to start getting into scenarios where you can hit problems, especialy if your operator uses stat muxing).

[STC]

Now you're just showing off

[JohnW248]

Now you're just showing off ;)

But what's really interesting is there is a new cableCARD with greater decoding capacity but there still isn't any "ALLVID" device I've seen which was to been the new home gateway service to replace cableCARDS. Also haven't seen any Tru-2-Way or whatever they were calling the two-way cableCARD host that didn't require a Tuning Resolver and could handle on demand.

[barnabas1969]

Now you're just showing off

But what's really interesting is there is a new cableCARD with greater decoding capacity but there still isn't any "ALLVID" device I've seen which was to been the new home gateway service to replace cableCARDS. Also haven't seen any Tru-2-Way or whatever they were calling the two-way cableCARD host that didn't require a Tuning Resolver and could handle on demand.

We're going off topic now, but my concern about the "home gateway" devices is that it will force us to pay for the rental of the gateway... and we will be at the mercy of the cable company as far as what kind of devices can be used for playback. Also, where will recordings be stored... on the "gateway"? If so, then we'll be limited to the number of tuners and storage space in the gateway device.

[RyC]

Now you're just showing off

But what's really interesting is there is a new cableCARD with greater decoding capacity but there still isn't any "ALLVID" device I've seen which was to been the new home gateway service to replace cableCARDS. Also haven't seen any Tru-2-Way or whatever they were calling the two-way cableCARD host that didn't require a Tuning Resolver and could handle on demand.

We're going off topic now, but my concern about the "home gateway" devices is that it will force us to pay for the rental of the gateway... and we will be at the mercy of the cable company as far as what kind of devices can be used for playback. Also, where will recordings be stored... on the "gateway"? If so, then we'll be limited to the number of tuners and storage space in the gateway device.

Verizon "supposedly" is on the way there with "Quantum TV" http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/01/veri ... uantum-tv/

Right now, it's similar to TiVo's main box + TiVo mini extenders, but "supposedly" for "phase 2" it will become the "gateway" for other devices.

Of course Verizon is charging an arm and a leg + first born for this system!

[barnabas1969]

I've seen that one before. So, for 12 tuners and 6 TV's, that's $92/month (plus the cost of your cable subscription and taxes).

[Dkeyguy1]

Now you're just showing off

But what's really interesting is there is a new cableCARD with greater decoding capacity but there still isn't any "ALLVID" device I've seen which was to been the new home gateway service to replace cableCARDS. Also haven't seen any Tru-2-Way or whatever they were calling the two-way cableCARD host that didn't require a Tuning Resolver and could handle on demand.

Have you been seeing any of this?
http://www.dlna.org/dlna-for-industry/c ... tification

[delightfor]

What booster did you put in front of the ceton box?

[fleanote]

Luckily, i'm sitting right next to it. It's labeled Electroline EDA 2200, but I'm not using it anymore. I tried a test of moving the Ceton directly to the main line as it comes into the house (no splits) It didn't change anything. Even when I ran diagnostics when it was crappy I still had -4 or 5db's. My issue was never about signal strength. But, I just posted the fix that has now worked for me, and might work for you.

RESOLVED

I think I got it...at least its working perfectly well right now. My plan was to make 3 changes to the ETH6 setup to fix what I believed to be 'internal bandwidth' problems. I never blamed the cable signal because when I had cable boxes they were all lightning quick to change (and I won't tell you how many cable splitters were in this house). I never blamed the Ceton because it always worked and the web page diagnostics told me so. I kept thinking...what if the bandwidth in my house was not fast enough? We have 10+ networked devices and they're all always on and always talking - maybe I didn't have enough bandwidth to support LIVE streaming TV?

For my 3 changes - here's what I found on the web, and I hope it helps you as it has helped me.

1. Switch out the ETH6 power supply. I found on a thread that it overheats because its core is not as big. The thread gave a link to an Ebay auction for a replacement. It was only $12. It hasn't arrived yet, I haven't even put it into place. It probably won't hurt and will help with the overheat problems.

2. Move over to 'managed' gigabit switches. Those you can set flow control on and give priority to ETH6 traffic. I actually think this will work, but again. They haven't arrived yet (ordered those too before I started with #3). But based on #3, which worked, I think they would have done the trick. I'm not going to bother swapping my switches out now unless the channel slow downs happen again.

3. Worked like a charm - all my Media Center PC's run Windows 7 (Premium or Pro). I found a thread that (for different reasons than TV watching) shows you a couple tweaks to make to increase your bandwidth capacity to your network cards. I'll paste it below but essentially you replace the embedded Windows network card driver with the latest version from the manufacturer (Broadcom, Intel, etc - whatever gives you more config options than Windows' native driver). After installing, disable TCP/IP V6 (unless you use it), go to the network cards properties and find the Advanced option for 'Jumbo Packet' and change it from disabled to its highest setting which hopefully is 4088 or higher. Lastly, go to Add/Remove Programs and click on 'Windows Features' and uncheck/disable the 'Remote differential compression' option. That was it.

Not only are my channels changing in under a second, my file transfers between machines have increased. Great tip. Pass it on if it works for you. Increase your internal bandwidth. It killed all the channel change delays, PlayReady popups, No tuner available, weak signal crap.

https://romaco.ca/blog/2011/01/28/how-t ... etworking/

[fleanote]

UPDATE - I just tested the ETH6 with all 6 tuners active and running on 6 screens, each was flawless. Each kept channel changes in under a second even premium ones (HBO, etc). Man, I'm glad that headache is done. Even if you don't have Win7 media centers, I bet the managed switch would do the job for slowness issues. . If you're curious which one I settled on, it was the Linksys-Cisco SRW2008, I found them on Ebay for $50.

[mdavej]

Thanks for posting. Unfortunately, I tried everything on your list (except the managed switch), and it made no difference in my case.

- Power: Ceton says the ETH 6 maxes out at 14W. The original power supply is 18W, so no problem there. Besides, the one I got from ebay had a smaller plug that would just barely stay in. I'm afraid it will cause even more problems. Mine doesn't get very hot anyway, now that I stand it on edge. If anybody wants to my 12V 3A power supply, PM me.

- Green Ethernet, EEE: Turned on and off. No difference in channel changing speed.

- Jumbo packets: Hard to tell, but seemed to have no effect either.

- TCP/IP V6: Turned it off. No difference in channel changing speed.

- Remote Differential Compression: Again, no difference on file transfer speed or channel changing speed.

But I'm wondering if I can ever break the 3 second channel change threshold since my system is SDV and uses a tuning adapter. Probably not. Even the Homerun Prime which everyone raves about is equally slow on my system.

I've not had any of the other problems you had: Playready popups, No tuner available, weak signal, etc., only slow channel changes and monthly lockups.

[fleanote]

Luckily East Coast Verizon doesn't need an SDV, but I believe any device in the chain has the potential to cause a slow down. Tuners are still good as of this post. I got the power supply and the switches, but they're still in their boxes. Let's hope it keeps working, but so far so good.

[fleanote]

Sharing what i've learned here. As last posted, I configged the NIC's in my HTPC's to jumbo frames (9K) based on a blog post I found about 'speeding up Windows Networking.' It worked for TV watching, channel changes down to a second or so. But, I had already ordered a bunch of managed switches to try out so I figured I'd put them in tonight and it has made a difference. The key is 'jumbo frame' support on your switches. I have TEG GreenNet switches and was very happy to learn that they natively support 9K jumbo frames. Where I was going wrong were 2 other switches in my house loop. They were gigabit so I assumed they were good enough to support jumbo frames - but that was a bad assumption. I found a set of Linksys SRW2008's on Ebay (which support jumbo frames) and replaced them, now I have 4 switches that support jumbo frames and my channel changes are under 1 second now, no kidding/bragging. Remember being able to have a channel tuned in, then just hit channel up one at a time and watch 3 seconds and keep surfing without waiting for the channel? Those days are back.

I know not everyone has all Win7 machines in their HTPC networks, but I think this IPTV and jumbo frames have a common thread that could help. The random PlayReady update, weak tuner, searching for tuner type messages are all gone. Lets hope it stays this way and I'll get another ETH6. 12 tuners has a nice ring to it.