WMC flashes "Subscription required" (live TV and recordings)

[Bear on the job]

Bear, if you search around this site, you'll see that I'm not a fan of Ceton's products. I'll bet you a dollar that if you buy a Silicondust HD HomeRun PRIME tuner and use it instead of the InfiniTV6-ETH, your problems will disappear. You'll need two HDHRP's if you want 6 tuners, but the extra $2.99/month I pay for the 2nd CableCARD is worth the lack of headaches.

Yeah I'm seriously considering this now after reading the other heat issue thread...The only reason I got the InfinTV was because of the 6 tuners per cablecard, but I'm inclined to agree with you now. For me, it's $2 more per cablecard...but 2xHDHRP is $60 cheaper than 1 InfiniTV 6, so the cost isn't even recouped until after 30 months of service. I think I'm going to return the Ceton while I can and order 2 HDHRPs.

[barnabas1969]

It's funny all the talk about temperatures and installing fans for the InfiniTV products (all of them, not just the ETH). I don't recall ever seeing a temperature reading in the HDHRP's webpages... and my HDHRP's have always been in a closet that stays pretty warm due to all the other equipment in there. The air temperature on the shelf where the HDHRP is located is usually around 85F. There are no fans in there, and the HDHRP's just keep working fine.

[barnabas1969]

I've been reading some of the reviews of the ITV6-ETH on Amazon. It's entertaining. Ceton often comments on the negative reviews, and they often blame the user's network for the problems. They did the same thing to me when I had a Ceton Echo... but they could never explain why all of my other extenders (Linksys DMA-2100, Linksys DMA-2200, HP X280N, and XBox 360's) worked fine... even when plugged into the same wall network jack using the same Ethernet patch cable. One or two of the reviewers actually stated in their review that they bought two HDHRP's, and they worked flawlessly on the same network... but Ceton still chimes in and blames the user's network, saying that 6 streams of TV generates a lot of network traffic. Duh. So does 6 streams coming from two HDHRP's.

[Bear on the job]

Ok, I ordered 2 HDHRPs and will hook them up Wednesday. I'm hoping hey are the cure-all for the problems I've experienced. Do you know if you still need TunerSalad to access all of the tuners from multiple HDHRPs? Seems like some people just run WMC digital cable adivsor and setup, and everything works normally. Also, is there a limit on the number of HDHRPs you can pool? I'm thinking of getting a 3rd because I don't think the combined 6 tuners is enough for our household (was running out of tuners with the InfiniTV6 on occasion).

[barnabas1969]

Yes, you will need Tuner Salad. It is actually not necessary for the Ceton tuners, because the Ceton drivers expand the max number of tuners to 30 per type of tuner. When you uninstall the Ceton drivers, you'll need to run Tuner Salad to increase the tuner limit.

I found some more fun Ceton responses to the reviews on Amazon. I think this is my favorite. In response to a complaint about how slow the ITV tunes channels, Ceton claimed that it's slower because there are more tuners in it than there are in the HDHRP. Yeah, right. If that's the case, then maybe they should have put a faster CPU in the ITV.

[barnabas1969]

Oh, sorry. I missed your other question. You can pool as many as you want, up to the max number of tuners per type. I think the Tuner Salad program expands the limit to 36, so you could have 12 HDHRP's. As long as you don't saturate the gigabit network interface in your PC, you're all set.

I'm still using the old (no longer available) free version of Tuner Salad that expands the limit to 6.

[Mystic95Z]

Just a thought have you tried NOT running your HTPC thru the XBONE's hdmi passthru port?

[barnabas1969]

Just a thought have you tried NOT running your HTPC thru the XBONE's hdmi passthru port?

I missed that entirely. It's especially important if he also connected his XBox360 so that it was passing through the XBox One.

[blueiedgod]

It's funny all the talk about temperatures and installing fans for the InfiniTV products (all of them, not just the ETH). I don't recall ever seeing a temperature reading in the HDHRP's webpages... and my HDHRP's have always been in a closet that stays pretty warm due to all the other equipment in there. The air temperature on the shelf where the HDHRP is located is usually around 85F. There are no fans in there, and the HDHRP's just keep working fine.

Last time I checked, HomeRun did not have 6 tuners in one box. Their new transcoding tuner boxes have a fan in them, and still no 6-pack.

[barnabas1969]

Last time I checked, HomeRun did not have 6 tuners in one box. Their new transcoding tuner boxes have a fan in them, and still no 6-pack.

It doesn't matter how many tuners are in the box. If it has a temperature problem in certain environments, then it should have been designed with a better cooling design... whether that be a fan or a passive heat sink. Either way, you can't deny that only the Ceton tuners seem to have a temperature problem.

Erkotz once stated that the HDHR Prime only has 3 tuners because the CPU that SD put in it wouldn't be able to handle six. OK, so if they wanted 6 tuners in a box (which would be nice), they could have gone with a faster CPU. For all we know, maybe SD experimented with 6 tuners and it wasn't stable enough for releasing to the public. That "stability" thing obviously isn't a criteria that Ceton considers before releasing a product (e.g. Echo).

[Bear on the job]

Just a thought have you tried NOT running your HTPC thru the XBONE's hdmi passthru port?

I did try that, and I still had the issue. Also, my Xbox 360 extender is in another room, connected to a different TV. It was experiencing the same problems at the same timecodes in the recordings. So it is highly unlikely the issue has anything to do with HDMI connections or HDCP.

As an update, I got my HDHRP today, and I'm in the process of setting it up. I still have the Ceton available too, but I don't have the second Cablecard yet. I will be getting the second card tomorrow, and spending the next week testing the Ceton and HDHRP side by side. I also found an old laptop cooler for the Ceton, to test it with and without an external fan. With the fan on, it has been staying around 45°C under load, and peaking around 55°C. Without the fan, it was peaking at 70°C and higher sometimes. If the Ceton remains stable with the fans running...I'm willing to make that concession for the extra tuners.

[Bear on the job]

Got the HDHRP running now, and my first impression is "wow the channels change quickly now". With the Ceton, it would usually take 4-5 seconds for channel changes. With this, they are nearly instant.

EDIT: Also some stats from the HDHRP Config GUI:

• Tuner0 - Signal Strength: 100%, Signal Quality: ~85%, Symbol Quality: 100%
• Tuner1 - Signal Strength: 100%, Signal Quality: ~85%, Symbol Quality: 100%
• Tuner2 - Signal Strength: 100%, Signal Quality: ~85%, Symbol Quality: 100%

All 3 tuners signal strength stays maxed at 100% constantly, but the signal quality bounces around in the mid 80's, maxing out at 90%. Is that normal for the HDHRPs, or should all of the stats be 100%?

[barnabas1969]

I think it considers 35 or 36dB to be 100% for the SNR/Quality. Check the tuner's internal webpage (click the link in the HDHR Setup program, and it will take you to the webpage if you don't know the IP address of the tuner). If it's 30dB or higher, you should be fine.

I strongly recommend setting a static DHCP reservation in your router for all Ethernet tuners so that the IP address always stays the same. I recommend doing this for all extenders and the HTPC too.

You won't see the full benefit of the HDHRP until you disconnect the Ceton and uninstall all the Ceton software/drivers for the tuner (you can keep Ceton My Media Center installed if you have it). The reason for this is the "spinning circle" you get when you first start Media Center. That goes away when you remove the Ceton tuner.

[Bear on the job]

I think it considers 35 or 36dB to be 100% for the SNR/Quality. Check the tuner's internal webpage (click the link in the HDHR Setup program, and it will take you to the webpage if you don't know the IP address of the tuner). If it's 30dB or higher, you should be fine.

I strongly recommend setting a static DHCP reservation in your router for all Ethernet tuners so that the IP address always stays the same. I recommend doing this for all extenders and the HTPC too.

You won't see the full benefit of the HDHRP until you disconnect the Ceton and uninstall all the Ceton software/drivers for the tuner (you can keep Ceton My Media Center installed if you have it). The reason for this is the "spinning circle" you get when you first start Media Center. That goes away when you remove the Ceton tuner.

Yeah I checked and all the SNR values are still 33dB and above, so it seems fine. I already have the HTPC and extenders with static IPs, trying to figure out how to configure the HDHRP now...

And wow, I never realized that spinning circle was from the Ceton...I always wondered why it would spin for 10+ seconds each time Media Center started. I thought it was indexing something with the channel guide. Another hidden bonus with the HDHRP.

[barnabas1969]

Yeah I checked and all the SNR values are still 33dB and above, so it seems fine. I already have the HTPC and extenders with static IPs, trying to figure out how to configure the HDHRP now...

33dB is good. Decibel values are logarithmic. 6dB is approximately double the power of 3dB. 9dB is approximately double the power of 6dB, and so-on. A signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) value of 33 means that the signal is approximately 2000 times as strong as the noise.

And wow, I never realized that spinning circle was from the Ceton...I always wondered why it would spin for 10+ seconds each time Media Center started. I thought it was indexing something with the channel guide. Another hidden bonus with the HDHRP.

Yeah, Ceton used to blame the delay on Microsoft. That got blown away when I switched to the HDHRP (and so did several others on this forum) and the spinning circle ("spinning donut" as Richard1980 likes to call it) went away. It can't be Microsoft's fault if it happens on one CableCARD tuner, but not another. EDIT: Oh, and I forgot to mention that it happens on ALL of the InfiniTV tuners --- PCIe, USB, ETH --- all of them. There have been several reviews over the years of the Ceton tuners that basically said, "the tuner is great, but the drivers are terrible."

Originally, I only tried the HDHRP to see if another problem was the fault of the InfiniTV tuner (it wasn't). But after experiencing the HDHRP... I sold my InfiniTV on e-bay and bought a 2nd HDHRP. It was a night-and-day difference.

[barnabas1969]

Not sure why he didn't provide a link in this thread, but STC moved some posts here:
http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... =22&t=7723

[STC]

^ I hadn't got to it yet. Phone rang, baby pooped. There's that rose smell again....You know. Stuff to do.

Thank you anyway.

[barnabas1969]

No problem. I still want to post part of one of those posts here, because I think it's relevant. Here it is:

The people who blindly defend Ceton really amaze me. Unless they've tried the competition's products, it's like someone who claims that a Chevy Malibu is the best car ever built... without ever driving any of the competing cars.

[barnabas1969]

Oh, and congrats on the baby if I haven't told you that before. They're lots of fun, and there's nothing like holding your own little baby... no matter if you're the mommy or daddy. I don't think moms understand just how much it means to a dad to hold his baby. My kids slept on my chest while I sat in the rocking chair for the first few months.

I would hold them on my chest and put my feet on the bed. That was the only way I could get them to sleep without waking mom for the first couple of months. I took time off work for both of my kids. I would sleep in the rocking chair with my feet on the bed and the kid on my chest. It's a memory that I will never forget. After my time off from work was over, my wife took over. It gave her a chance to recover after giving birth (cesarean), and a memory that will stick with me until the day I die.

It really bothers me when I hear women talk about how men don't care as much for the children as they do.

[blueiedgod]

Last time I checked, HomeRun did not have 6 tuners in one box. Their new transcoding tuner boxes have a fan in them, and still no 6-pack.

It doesn't matter how many tuners are in the box. If it has a temperature problem in certain environments, then it should have been designed with a better cooling design... whether that be a fan or a passive heat sink. Either way, you can't deny that only the Ceton tuners seem to have a temperature problem.

Erkotz once stated that the HDHR Prime only has 3 tuners because the CPU that SD put in it wouldn't be able to handle six. OK, so if they wanted 6 tuners in a box (which would be nice), they could have gone with a faster CPU. For all we know, maybe SD experimented with 6 tuners and it wasn't stable enough for releasing to the public. That "stability" thing obviously isn't a criteria that Ceton considers before releasing a product (e.g. Echo).

And I am saying you can't compare something that is only half of the other. I am not arguing that there are heat dissipation issues with Ceton. There were heat dissipation issues with ATI DCT, and that was a single tuner.

It is reasonable to expect that if 3-pack tuner generates x Watts of heat, than 6-pack would generate 2X or close to it.

If there were a 6-pack HDHRP, then you could compare ETH to it, but there isn't.

It is like comparing a Civic to a Covette and complaining that Civic is too slow and Covette uses to much gas. You can't have the cake and eat it too.