HDHomeRun Help

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Gannet

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# 40023 23-Aug-2009 21:23

Hi, I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has the HDHomerun running under MediaPortal or Vista Media Center.

I bought one two weeks ago and unfortunately I've had limited success with it. Tuners identified, Channels found etc.. Can view channels using VLC and MPC-HC. However, no luck with MediaPortal or Vista MCE, they both identify the tuners, but I get no signal. MediaPortal freezes when I hit the TV button. For Vista MCE, I get 0 services when I scan for a TV signal.

Have googled and looked at a ton of forums that advise all sorts of things... have tried many of them.

I'd very much like to get this working on Vista MCE, MediaPortal a close second. I would appreciate some instructions step by step if possible please.

A8N5X, AMD64 3500+, 2GB RAM, 9800GT, Vista Ultimate.

Regards, Kim

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# 249932 23-Aug-2009 21:56

You must have h.264 decoder software installed on your PC. It won't work with Windows Vista - it works flawlessly with Windows 7. The reason for that is because Windows Vista does not have h.264 decoder.

It should work with MediaPortal, providing you have the right software for it.

Remember, HDHomeRun will provide a full DVB-T stream as your system would see from any other TV tuner. It's not a decoding device.

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Gannet

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# 250077 24-Aug-2009 13:32

Thanks Mauricio.

I admit I'm finding the decoder challenge, and especially with hardware acceleration part, a bit of a mine feild. I think the HD homerun box is great, though the shine is being taken off by not being able to get some PVR software to work with it.

I'd be interested to know if:
1. Vista MCE is able to use a third party h.264 codec, and if so, any suggestions?
2. If not, Media Portal will need a codec, any suggestions?
3. with either option, how do I enable hardware acceleration?

On the basis that I don?t mind purchasing some software to do the job, however it must work with Vista MCE or Media Portal, and use hardware acceleration.

The end-goal is to have a single Media Centre solution (using MCE, Media Portal or equivalent) for the playback and recording for HD H.264 (Freeview HD) content, utilizing the hardware acceleration of your 9800 GT.

freitasm

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# 250089 24-Aug-2009 14:24

No, you can't get Windows Vista Media Centre to use any external h.264. If you want an all-in-one solution with Freeview in mind, you have to use Windows 7 Media Centre. It comes with all the decoders you need, out of the box.

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# 250092 24-Aug-2009 14:29

If you want to stick with Vista your best option is PowerDVD for it's H.264 codec.

I believe the MPC H.264 codec works with MediaPortal but since I don't use MP now I'm not sure how well it's supported.

If you want the simplest out of the box solution go with Windows 7. The only thing you'll need to do is install a 3rd party application for the EPG which is pretty straight forward.

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# 250096 24-Aug-2009 14:42

Remember the latest PowerDVD has a patch that prevents other software using its h.264 decoder.

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# 250098 24-Aug-2009 14:44

What does the epg software do?

Does this take the epg from webpage listings, ie requiring internet connection?
Is this required because there's no EIT data on the UHF DVB-T service?
Can you merge a satellite EIT EPG onto HD DVB-T channels in Win7?

Gannet

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# 250217 24-Aug-2009 21:01

Thanks all, support very much appreciated. Looks like I'm leaning towards a Windows 7 install. I like the 'out of the box' support part. Now to find someone with a W7 RC disk :o) Since Microsoft just took the download option down.

Will post again later when it comes to sourcing EPG data.

Regs

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# 250225 24-Aug-2009 21:21

Jaxson: What does the epg software do?

Does this take the epg from webpage listings, ie requiring internet connection?
Is this required because there's no EIT data on the UHF DVB-T service?
Can you merge a satellite EIT EPG onto HD DVB-T channels in Win7?

Yes, yes and yes :)

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# 250279 25-Aug-2009 08:42

Regs: Yes, yes and yes :)

Cheers Regs, thanks.

Regs

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# 250374 25-Aug-2009 14:55

actually, depending on which EPG program, the guide listings could be coming from scraped web pages, EIT off the satellite, MHEG off the DVB-T or from an XML feed from a network's web server..

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aaristotle

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# 250499 25-Aug-2009 20:47

I have just installed the Homerun HD with Media Portal. I ended up using the coreavc.com h264 codec which has a 14 day trial before purchase (US$14.95) which seems to work fine. I seem to recall it has some sort of hardware acceleration for NVidia cards as well.
I have had MediaPortal working fine apart from the very occasional freeze when changing channel, but at the moment the audio is leading the video by about 10 seconds and I haven't figured out which setting I've disturbed with my mucking around with the settings.
I'm about to take delivery of a Samsung LCD with DLNA network support and hopefully can incorporate this to playback recorded HD via a network connection once I have Media Portal working properly.
I'm also waiting for MP 1.1 RC1 to be released at the end of this week so I'll see what, if any, problems it has rather than spending any time problem solving on the 1.02 version.

Gannet

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# 250661 26-Aug-2009 13:22

Thanks aaristotle, your setup is interesting. I'd be interested to know what you CPU usuage is for TV3 while using the Coreavc codec. I tried it and did not get hardware acceleration.

After the advice to date, I've installed Windows 7 RC 32-bit as a dual boot on my system. Post HDHR installation, media center picked up the HDHR tuners and scanned and found the channels straight away (not sure if all are there yet). Have not had the opportunity to really test everything, for example I did not have sound playing at the time (long story). An observation I did make though was TV3 CPU usage was a bit high at 60-80%. Suggesting there is some hardware acceleration in place, but I may not be getting the most from it. Compared with MPC-HC using hardware acceleration of 40-60%, which at the time I thought was high.

Gannet

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# 251229 28-Aug-2009 10:43

A small follow up on the HD Homerun issue. I've now tested audio and EPG, both work fine. CPU usage remains a bit high for my liking while watching live TV. I'm very pleased to have it going, the new W7MCE interface is fantastic.