Sky TV on HTPC (legally!) without a STB

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Reply # 187531 5-Jan-2009 14:46

Satch:
Still ironing out some bugs with DVBSBridge... Had it working perfectly, but then I tried to "fix" it... :)

Let me start up my broken record again. When you say you had it working perfectly, are you saying that you never ever lost the Sky feed via DVSBridge?

Although my set up is a little more stable now that I've done a complete rebuild and installed the new versions of the software, I'm still having to occasionally stop and restart the DVBSBridge service when I lose the signal.

When yours was working "perfectly" did you ever need to do a stop and restart? If so, how often? Are there any special settings you made during setup? I'm struggling to find out why my setup is still not as stable as yours...

I've only just started playing with Sky HD and 7, so still working out the stability issues... It made me realise what you might have been talking about :)

Under 7, I'm currently using DVBSBridge PRO 1.02. with DVBViewer 4 - under Vista I used DVBSbridge STANDARD 1.00, with the modifed dll which allowed h.264 to work. Under Vista I could run for 3-7 days without losing the signal at all, which was as long as my Media Center ever makes it without a reboot or power down.

DVBSBridge Pro hasn't been very stable, especially prior to 1.02.

The "No TV Signal" errors are due to DVBViewer locking while changing channels. I only figured this out last nite. DVBSBridge Pro runs some good error logging, which lets you know whats getting dropped. I've nearly narrowed this down to a working confing under 7, I'll pm you with the results - its a combination of the turning stuff off in the tuning config and using default decoders.

There is the other error under the TV Pack which MCE leaves the no signal page ie the one after the SCRAMBLED service page, up even though the signal has pasaed correctly - that one is unique to the TV Pack, doesn't happen under 7.

I believe the same should apply under Vista...

Cheers,

Satch

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Reply # 187532 5-Jan-2009 14:51

RustyGonad: I'll pm you with the results...

I'll be waiting with baited breath. If you can make this more stable for me then there will be a reward...

Just a reminder, I'm running TV Pack 2008 with DVBViewer 4 and DVBSBridge for DVBViewer 1.01 (not pro).

sbiddle

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Biddle Corp

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Reply # 187533 5-Jan-2009 14:52

I'm guessing things are actually stable with software that supports MDAPI directly?

I'm actually running TCL digital now with a DVB-C using MDAPI with GB-PVR and it works brilliantly. I'm not aware of anybody using ndscam though.

Satch

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Reply # 187538 5-Jan-2009 15:00

sbiddle:
I'm guessing things are actually stable with software that supports MDAPI directly?

I'm actually running TCL digital now with a DVB-C using MDAPI with GB-PVR and it works brilliantly. I'm not aware of anybody using ndscam though.

I wish I understood what you mean't sbiddle! Sadly I don't... :)

pjv3

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Reply # 187640 5-Jan-2009 20:53

Does the card still need to be put into the STB to stop it from being deactivated? Or has this been resolved?

BarTender

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Reply # 187678 6-Jan-2009 01:23

I have also heard positive results from a guy who was using a DM800 with a NZ45 in the front.

RustyGonad

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Reply # 187946 7-Jan-2009 09:30

Satch:
RustyGonad: I'll pm you with the results...

I'll be waiting with baited breath. If you can make this more stable for me then there will be a reward...

Just a reminder, I'm running TV Pack 2008 with DVBViewer 4 and DVBSBridge for DVBViewer 1.01 (not pro).

A couple of questions:

1. How often do you lose the signal? i.e can it make it through a night of scheduled recordings?

2. Whats your serial port speed set to under the Vista device manager i.e. is it still on the default 9600?

I've narrowed down the errors, despite it looking like its DVBSBridge, all the "No Signal" losses I have seen are caused by DVBViewer dropping, or failing to change channels when prompted by DVBSBridge.

A couple of other things to try:

Check the "Ignore all errors" under DVBViewer options (I think its in the Extended section, although don't quote me on that), this seems to prevent 95% of Signal losses after/during a channel change.

Also check under Options --> TV Section that "No AV on Minimise" is set. This seems to prevent any decoder related clashes.

Cheers

Satch

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Reply # 188052 7-Jan-2009 17:47

Hey Rusty, here's my answers and additional comments:

1. How often do you lose the signal? i.e can it make it through a night of scheduled recordings?

Maybe every day, maybe every second day. It would not last more than 3 days without going down though.

2. Whats your serial port speed set to under the Vista device manager i.e. is it still on the default 9600?

Yes, it is set to 9600. Is that correct?

I've narrowed down the errors, despite it looking like its DVBSBridge, all the "No Signal" losses I have seen are caused by DVBViewer dropping, or failing to change channels when prompted by DVBSBridge.

A couple of other things to try:

Check the "Ignore all errors" under DVBViewer options (I think its in the Extended section, although don't quote me on that), this seems to prevent 95% of Signal losses after/during a channel change.

Ok, just set it to that. I also noticed in the same section the option which reads "Disable LNB on completion" is also ticked. Is that correct?

Also check under Options --> TV Section that "No AV on Minimise" is set. This seems to prevent any decoder related clashes.?

It was already set to "Disable AV on minimize" so all good there.

What's next? ;) Will monitor performance now that Ignore all errors is set and let you know if that makes a difference.

Thanks mate.

RustyGonad

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Reply # 188054 7-Jan-2009 17:59

Satch: Hey Rusty, here's my answers and additional comments:

1. How often do you lose the signal? i.e can it make it through a night of scheduled recordings?

Maybe every day, maybe every second day. It would not last more than 3 days without going down though.

2. Whats your serial port speed set to under the Vista device manager i.e. is it still on the default 9600?

Yes, it is set to 9600. Is that correct?

I've narrowed down the errors, despite it looking like its DVBSBridge, all the "No Signal" losses I have seen are caused by DVBViewer dropping, or failing to change channels when prompted by DVBSBridge.

A couple of other things to try:

Check the "Ignore all errors" under DVBViewer options (I think its in the Extended section, although don't quote me on that), this seems to prevent 95% of Signal losses after/during a channel change.

Ok, just set it to that. I also noticed in the same section the option which reads "Disable LNB on completion" is also ticked. Is that correct?

Also check under Options --> TV Section that "No AV on Minimise" is set. This seems to prevent any decoder related clashes.?

It was already set to "Disable AV on minimize" so all good there.

What's next? ;) Will monitor performance now that Ignore all errors is set and let you know if that makes a difference.

Thanks mate.

Change the baud rate to 38400. ie on Question 2 - this should help NDSCam a wee bit,,,

ers,

Satch

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Reply # 188077 7-Jan-2009 19:52

RustyGonad: Change the baud rate to 38400. ie on Question 2 - this should help NDSCam a wee bit,,,

ers,

Ok, will try this and let you know. Thanks for your continued help on this. You should have a trusted thingee next to your name.

Now if you could only tell me how to get rid of the squawking seagulls which nest next to my apartment and make a hell of a racket each morning at 5am, I'd be one content man...

WaffleMakerMan

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Reply # 188095 7-Jan-2009 20:49

Satch:
RustyGonad: Change the baud rate to 38400. ie on Question 2 - this should help NDSCam a wee bit,,,

ers,

Ok, will try this and let you know. Thanks for your continued help on this. You should have a trusted thingee next to your name.

Now if you could only tell me how to get rid of the squawking seagulls which nest next to my apartment and make a hell of a racket each morning at 5am, I'd be one content man...

Oh! I never thought of doing that lol, Will bordrate set to auto in ndscam.ini detect this? It should aye...

Satch

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Reply # 188438 9-Jan-2009 18:54

Well Rusty my man, I have bad news. My Sky feed dropped out again tonight :(

I'm no longer getting the No TV Signal error, just the other one which I cannot remember what it says at the moment...helpful...

I used to get the error message I'm currently getting when the signal first drops. Then when I try changing to another Sky channel, I would get the No TV Signal. The changes you suggested have gotten rid of the No TV Signal issue, but not the first error message which still requires the DVBSBridge service to be stopped and started again.

Anymore suggestions my friend? I'm a bit gutted that it's not more stable. I know it should be more stable than this, and the guys at DVBSBridge cannot/will not help me.

RustyGonad

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Reply # 188536 10-Jan-2009 10:53

Satch: Well Rusty my man, I have bad news. My Sky feed dropped out again tonight :(

I'm no longer getting the No TV Signal error, just the other one which I cannot remember what it says at the moment...helpful...

I used to get the error message I'm currently getting when the signal first drops. Then when I try changing to another Sky channel, I would get the No TV Signal. The changes you suggested have gotten rid of the No TV Signal issue, but not the first error message which still requires the DVBSBridge service to be stopped and started again.

Anymore suggestions my friend? I'm a bit gutted that it's not more stable. I know it should be more stable than this, and the guys at DVBSBridge cannot/will not help me.

Getting rid of the "No Signal" error is major progress - believe me.

Whats the actual message on the error your currently getting now? This maybe caused by the TV Pack itself, which will be very hard to fix. If its the Scrambled signal page - you can fix this by changing to another channel. This is "unique" to the TV Pack ie doesn't happen anymore in 7.

Under Windows 7 (I only say this cause its what I'm now using) I have established the following:

No TV Signal - this error is caused largely by DVBViewer during a channel change. I'm not sure what actually causes the issue but the "ignore errors" gets rid of many of the causes. I'm still working on getting it completely stable - the only time I see this error is on a h.264 channel change (ie Sky HD). From what I have worked out so far its due to inefficiencies in DVBViewer (its uses alot of CPU time when tuning into h.264 signals). My current understanding is that the channel change spike the CPU utilisation to 100% and this causes DVBSBridge to miss/drop the connection to DVBViewer.

The reality is that after pointing the finger at DVBSBridge for a long time, I believe the issue actually sits with DVBViewer. This has really shown up with Sky HD, where it uses huge amounts of CPU time, and can be made to crash on demand.

What you actually do when you stop the service is in effect stop and restart DVBViewer.

Cheers,

Satch

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Reply # 188620 10-Jan-2009 18:31

Hi Rusty,

I realise that "the other error" is not a very useful when describing the error I do get now. I've seen it like 100 times before but it totally escapes me at the moment. As soon as it occurs again, I will copy it down and post it up. Of course you realise that this is actually the resolution to all my issues as issues normally never occur again when you actually do want them to happen!

Interesting to know that the issue is probably DVBViewer, and has been all along. Here I've been blaming DVBSBridge for a long time now.

As soon as I get "that other error message" again, I'll let you know what it is.

Cheers.

Satch

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Reply # 188660 10-Jan-2009 21:30

Righto, got the error message again. It is the 'Service is Unavailable' message. I left it on that message while I went to get pen and paper to write it down, and when I got back it had turned into the 'No TV Signal' message.

Incidentially, I got this error (lost the Sky signal) after I logged off and back onto my HTPC while trying to do something else with watched folders. Note that I just logged off and back on and did not actually reboot.

Does this give you any helpful info Rusty?

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