Distributor of HDHomeRun DVB-T in NZ?

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24 posts

Geek

# 201043 13-Mar-2009 15:39

freitasm:
jpollock: Hey, Mauricio, any hope of trying it with an operating system that's generally available? :) :)

Why? I thought everyone was planning on skipping Windows Vista?

Seriously all my laptops (three of them) and my Media Center are running Windows 7 already. But I do have a Mac OS X 10.5 machine here (wife's) and I will try on that one too.

Windows 7 certainly makes life a hell of a lot easier in terms of codecs etc...

jpollock

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# 201052 13-Mar-2009 15:57

I was being completely tongue-in-cheek... I thought the devlish icon and thorough use of smiley's would have covered it. :)

Me, I'm stuck on XP because the Windows machine is the Mrs', and I am barely allowed to touch it to try to get the HomeRun working. Putting anything on it which might involve loss of access to Sims/Civ4 for even a small amount of time would have me banished. ;)

Jason

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freitasm

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Geekzone

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# 201053 13-Mar-2009 16:00

jpollock: I was being completely tongue-in-cheek... I thought the devlish icon and thorough use of smiley's would have covered it. :)

Hence the yellow ROFL icon in my reply...

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jpollock

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Ultimate Geek

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# 201081 13-Mar-2009 18:11

sdjafa:
Hi,

1) Run HDHomeRun Setup and enable debug logging on the support tab. Click OK to exit.

2) Run HDHomeRun Setup again and go to the channels tab. Click view.

Leave WMP open for a minute, then reply back with the Device ID - I will check the log.

Nick

The device id is:

12102C37-0

I have installed VLC, and it doesn't seem to be getting any data either. Looking at the URL, it looks like VLC is supposed to be "pushed" content over a UDP connection?

I'll go try another Windows XP machine and see how I get on over there.

The first system in the logs is Windows XP, running in VMWare with the network in "Bridged" mode (not NAT!).

---
http://blog.jason.pollock.ca

sdjafa

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

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Silicondust HDHomerun

# 201084 13-Mar-2009 19:03

The device id is:

12102C37-0

I have installed VLC, and it doesn't seem to be getting any data either. Looking at the URL, it looks like VLC is supposed to be "pushed" content over a UDP connection?

I'll go try another Windows XP machine and see how I get on over there.

The first system in the logs is Windows XP, running in VMWare with the network in "Bridged" mode (not NAT!).

Something odd is going on... Windows is rejecting the request to allocate buffer memory.

It looks like the system has WMP 9 installed... an interesting test would be to install WMP 11.

Nick

Silicondust HDHomeRun

jpollock

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Ultimate Geek

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# 201097 13-Mar-2009 20:14

I figured it out!

I've got it working under OS X.

What I did:

1) Download the beta OS X configuration tool:
http://www.silicondust.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2484
2) Download the latest version of VLC to make sure to have something with a working audio codec:
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-macosx.html
3) Start the configuration tool, do a scan, select view!

The problem is, Silicondust seems to have some bandwidth problems. It takes a while to download the additional software the OS X tool depends on (GTK/GLIB/etc). It takes a considerable amount of time (30-40min) to install the tool.

Not being aware of how the HD HomeRun worked, I wasn't aware that the video was a push UDP stream, that there probably aren't any packets from the PC to the HD HomeRun to prime any routers/etc in the middle. NAT need not apply.

My problem was that under VMWare, even in bridged mode, it looks like the packets weren't making it back. It was probably filtered somewhere in between the two. On a wired network, direct connection, I got video first try, upgrade VLC and I had audio too!

Now I'm off to figure out how to get it working under XBMC. Now that I've got video/audio, I'm feeling much more confident!

Recommendations:
1) Make the configuration tool a bundle, don't download during the install. The initial download prior to install can be unattended, but the install can't be.

---
http://blog.jason.pollock.ca

jpollock

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# 201099 13-Mar-2009 20:25

sdjafa:
Something odd is going on... Windows is rejecting the request to allocate buffer memory.

It looks like the system has WMP 9 installed... an interesting test would be to install WMP 11.

Nick

I'll give that a try in the morning and let you know. Thanks for looking. Is there any way to get a look at the logs on the client side?

---
http://blog.jason.pollock.ca

freitasm

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# 201160 14-Mar-2009 09:05

My testing so far is showing good results. On my work laptop (Acer F5000, AMD Turion 64 dual core, ATI Radeon 256MB, 4GB RAM, Windows 7 64 bit) it performs really well - even TV3 and the HD Demo channels worked with no problems and great picture - way better than the old USB stick I had here.

On my MCE (a Mac mini running Window 7) it works well again - but last night I decided to reinstall Windows 7 as a clean install instead of the Windows Vista upgrade as before. It still works fine, but I can't get TV3 or C4 now - the channels are in the lineup but just show a black screen.

I am now going to test this on the [VIEW] button to see if it works on WMP or VLC and then rule out Media Center. Then check codecs.

I am still using the standard Apple drivers, so I will go ahead and update the Intel drivers as I did before - but I do't want to install any other software - like my laptop it should just work.

It is probably not a problem with the HDHomeRun anyway, since Windows 7 is still in beta, and I've seen it working 100% on my other laptop. So I am not too worried.

What would be really cool is if the HDHomeRun incorporated a reencoding option to stream the content in other formats - like the SlingMedia boxes do for cable. That would be cool...

My technology disclosure | Digital Transformation | Enterprise Content Management | Customer Relationship Management | Data Insights, Business Intelligence and Advanced Analytics

freitasm

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# 201167 14-Mar-2009 10:29

freitasm: On my MCE (a Mac mini running Window 7) it works well again - but last night I decided to reinstall Windows 7 as a clean install instead of the Windows Vista upgrade as before. It still works fine, but I can't get TV3 or C4 now - the channels are in the lineup but just show a black screen.

I am now going to test this on the [VIEW] button to see if it works on WMP or VLC and then rule out Media Center. Then check codecs.

Installed updated Bootcamp drivers, rebooted and all working fine - WMP and Media Center both now show all channels.

My technology disclosure | Digital Transformation | Enterprise Content Management | Customer Relationship Management | Data Insights, Business Intelligence and Advanced Analytics

Hinko

195 posts

Master Geek

# 201304 15-Mar-2009 17:43

There is an interesting related thread about HDHomerun streaming to VLC on XP at http://www.silicondust.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6635 that may be of interest.

RickD

240 posts

Master Geek

# 201309 15-Mar-2009 18:15

One more question before I order one of these.

Is wireless G fast enough to stream the HD video or will I need N?

And what kind of WiFi adaptor can be connected to this? I'm guessing the kind that has an ethernet connector and can be used with game consoles, but I can't find an example of one of them now.

Hinko

195 posts

Master Geek

# 201312 15-Mar-2009 18:27

See http://www.silicondust.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5877 re wireless.... not advised!

sdjafa

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Wannabe Geek

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Silicondust HDHomerun

# 201356 16-Mar-2009 02:57

The problem is, Silicondust seems to have some bandwidth problems. It takes a while to download the additional software the OS X tool depends on (GTK/GLIB/etc). It takes a considerable amount of time (30-40min) to install the tool.

Hi,

We fixed the server bandwidth issue.

Nick

Silicondust HDHomeRun

qupada

17 posts

Geek

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# 201362 16-Mar-2009 07:35

RickD:
One more question before I order one of these.

Is wireless G fast enough to stream the HD video or will I need N?

And what kind of WiFi adaptor can be connected to this? I'm guessing the kind that has an ethernet connector and can be used with game consoles, but I can't find an example of one of them now.

Yes, but only just. You'll want to play with the settings called 'CTS protection mode' (turning it off gives more speed for 802.11 clients but removes 802.11b compatibility), 'Short preamble' (decreases overhead by using a shorter packet header), 'DTIM interval' (default is usually 1 (ms), I tried 20 - interval between sleeping clients having to wake up to synchronise with the network) and 'Beacon interval' (default usually 100ms, try 500 - how often broadcast packets (with the SSID, amongst other things) are sent).
The last two are useful because DTIM and Beacon packets are transmitted at the lowest available rate (usually 1Mbps), so reducing how often the AP has to stop high-rate traffic to send them is good. As always though, there are caveats. Increasing DTIM can increase latency, especially on multicast packets. Increasing the beacon interval will often mean your AP takes some time to be discovered, since it may not even transmit a beacon during the interval your PC is scanning for it.

Where you may again run into trouble is if your router doesn't have a particularly fast CPU. My Asus WL-500GP v2 (Broadcom BCM5354 @ 240MHz) is near 100% CPU (because of wireless encryption) streaming TV3 (the only 1080i channel currently, pushing about 15Mbps - 1800kB/s).
As for the rest, 720p channels (TV1,2) are approx 10Mbps (~1200kB/s), the 576i channels (TVNZ6&7, C4, Maori TV, Parliament TV, CTV8, Sport Extra) seem to be about 4Mbps, so there should be no problems there.

In short, 11n could be worth your while - especially if you plan to do anything else with your network while streaming video. However if you have decent 11g hardware, it will cope for now.

RickD

240 posts

Master Geek

# 201497 16-Mar-2009 21:20

qupada:
RickD:
One more question before I order one of these.

Is wireless G fast enough to stream the HD video or will I need N?

And what kind of WiFi adaptor can be connected to this? I'm guessing the kind that has an ethernet connector and can be used with game consoles, but I can't find an example of one of them now.

Yes, but only just. You'll want to play with the settings called 'CTS protection mode' (turning it off gives more speed for 802.11 clients but removes 802.11b compatibility), 'Short preamble' (decreases overhead by using a shorter packet header), 'DTIM interval' (default is usually 1 (ms), I tried 20 - interval between sleeping clients having to wake up to synchronise with the network) and 'Beacon interval' (default usually 100ms, try 500 - how often broadcast packets (with the SSID, amongst other things) are sent).

The last two are useful because DTIM and Beacon packets are transmitted at the lowest available rate (usually 1Mbps), so reducing how often the AP has to stop high-rate traffic to send them is good. As always though, there are caveats. Increasing DTIM can increase latency, especially on multicast packets. Increasing the beacon interval will often mean your AP takes some time to be discovered, since it may not even transmit a beacon during the interval your PC is scanning for it.

Where you may again run into trouble is if your router doesn't have a particularly fast CPU. My Asus WL-500GP v2 (Broadcom BCM5354 @ 240MHz) is near 100% CPU (because of wireless encryption) streaming TV3 (the only 1080i channel currently, pushing about 15Mbps - 1800kB/s).

As for the rest, 720p channels (TV1,2) are approx 10Mbps (~1200kB/s), the 576i channels (TVNZ6&7, C4, Maori TV, Parliament TV, CTV8, Sport Extra) seem to be about 4Mbps, so there should be no problems there.

In short, 11n could be worth your while - especially if you plan to do anything else with your network while streaming video. However if you have decent 11g hardware, it will cope for now.

Thanks for the explanation, that's really helpful. Maybe I will get a Wireless N gaming adaptor to be future proofed a bit and if there is a throughput issue I could upgrade the access point to N.

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