Two separate PCs with Recording Service

[ddichiera]

I have two separate headless XP SP3 PCs, one with a Nova-HD-S2 DSAT card, and the other with a Nova-TD-500 DTT card.

 

I have reserved addresses for all devices on my network, oh and the DTT box also runs Squeezeserver.

 

I've installed Recording Service v1.5.0.31 on each, but I can only discover the DSat box from my main PC (Win7).

 

I've tried everything I can think of, including reading and re-reading the wiki, but the DTT box is never discovered from another PC.

 

Can anyone help?

 

(BTW, Not sure what other information is required)

[Gioxy]

I have reserved addresses for all devices on my network

Simply manually input the parameters, you can look at working PC as example...

 

You are absolutely not obliged to use autodiscover...

 

[ddichiera]

Thanks Gioxy,

 

But I should have added that I'd already tried that. I started by inputting the parameters manually, but to no avail.

 

I've tried every combination of ports and IP addresses I can think of.

 

I'm at a loss as to what step to take next.

[Gioxy]

...my crystal ball is out of order ATM and you've posted a support file for only 1 PC, were I can see you haven't configured the Recording Service correctly...

 

So please, first of all strictly follow the Recording Service Installation Guide for 1 PC, then post the results (and eventually the support file) for only this PC...

 

...only after the first RS is fully functional for all you PCs we can discuss how to implement the others...

 

Edited November 13, 2009 by Gioxy

[ddichiera]

Dear Gioxy,

 

Perhaps you'd be kind enough to let me know what it was about the configuration I uploaded that wasn't right?

 

As I said, I've been through the instructions over and over again and can't see where I've gone wrong.

 

(BTW: the link you posted seems to go to an empty page.)

 

In the meantime, here is the config for the PC that works OK.

 

Thanks.

 

Dominic

[Devastation]

The correct link: Recording Service Installation Guide

[Gioxy]

...what it was about the configuration I uploaded that wasn't right?

At least 2 very basic things:

1) in DVBViewer config (hardware.xml) I can see no Unicast Devices...

2) DVBViewer take the exclusive control of your tuners (status=normal), so no devices can be available for Recording Service

I found same problems also in your second support.zip...

 

So please follow ALL the instructions writed in the guide (sorry for the dead link, it's working now), with special care in those under "Setting DVBViewer / disable Hardware" and "Setting DVBViewer / Create Unicast Devices"...

 

[ddichiera]

1) in DVBViewer config (hardware.xml) I can see no Unicast Devices...

2) DVBViewer take the exclusive control of your tuners (status=normal), so no devices can be available for Recording Service

Ok, I think I've sorted that

 

...with special care in those under "Setting DVBViewer / disable Hardware" and "Setting DVBViewer / Create Unicast Devices"...

I had a bit difficulty in following these instructions, but now I think I've got it right.

 

One thing I've been meaning to ask is "how do I select between the DTT and the DSAT cards?" I can't seem to find that info anywhere.

 

At the moment, I can view the DSAT channels because I dragged the channels.dat file over from the DSAT box, obviously that only has the DSAT channels.

 

Thanks.

[Gioxy]

You have to build a "global" channel list with *both* sat and dtt channels on every PC (I suggest you to use Transedit to do this)

 

"how do I select between the DTT and the DSAT cards?"

You don't need to, when you have the "global" channel list you can simply choose the desired channel and DVBViewer will automagically use the right HW device (even local or remote) the channel belong to... but the Recording Service as to be configured right for both PC...

 

Next suggested step you have to work with is to build a "Favourite list": in that way you never get lost as you can create (e.g.) Favourite subfolders named e.g. "Terrestrial" vs. "SAT"... or, more interesting if the two PC are always "on-line", simply for category, like "Sport", "News" etc., with sat & dvb-t mixed-up: as told, DVBViewer will do the rest for you...

 

Take care only when there was, on same tuning space, more than 1 channell with the *exactly* same name: simply rename one of them to refer to them separately or DVBViewer will chose always the first encountered...

 

BTW, in your DTT PC you haven't yet set the DVBViewer HW devices to "Do not use"!

 

[ddichiera]

BTW, in your DTT PC you haven't yet set the DVBViewer HW devices to "Do not use"!

That's strange, because DVBViewer itself says that they're disabled, see the attached screen grab.

 

Thinking that there may be a corruption with the installation, I've since re-installed both DVBViewer and Recording Service (3rd time lucky?) see the attached config file.

 

If I could re-iterate what I think the instructions say?

 

1. Install DVBViewer on the PC with the DTT card and scan with the hardware.

2. Install Recorder Service on the same PC.

3. Go back to DVBV and Disable the existing hardware.

4. Whilst still in DVBV, create the new Unicast Devices and set them to Normal (dual tuner in my case).

 

I don't think this step is going right. Note that while I'm in Network Settings for the Unicast Device on the same PC (DTT), that I can see the DSAT PC in the Autodiscovery Serverlist, but not the DTT one(see attachments). So to counter that, I'm inputting the parameters manually.

 

5. Whilst still in DVBV on the DTT PC (server), enable the Recording Service and test it. Despite the uncertainty of the previous step, when I test it, I get a positive result. (BTW, I changed my port to 8060, just in case of a clash with other programs on this PC)

 

 

You have to build a "global" channel list with *both* sat and dtt channels on every PC (I suggest you to use Transedit to do this)

After four days working non-stop on this, I felt that perhaps the DTT server was working but I just couldn't tune it in because I only had DSAT channels on the client PC, so attempted to change that with Transedit. I've failed miserably here too, all I get is a "Hardware not found" error message on the client PC.

 

Again, could I re-iterate what I think I should do?

 

1. Install Transedit on all PCs.

2. Use the relevant DSAT or DTT transponder list on the servers within Transedit.

3. Save to a common file on a network share that all devices can see.

4. Use the common file to drive the clients.

 

That's not what I've done BTW, but will be my next step.

 

BTW, thanks for your patience.

 

Dominic

[Gioxy]

That's strange, because DVBViewer itself says that they're disabled, see the attached screen grab

You're right, I checked again and it was my fault, sorry for this

 

I can see the DSAT PC in the Autodiscovery Serverlist, but not the DTT one...

most probably you can't see DTT virtualized hw because its Recording Service was down...

 

...enable the Recording Service and test it. Despite the uncertainty of the previous step, when I test it, I get a positive result...

Did you mean you do can watch DTT channels on DTT-box? It's because now you have activated the Recording Service... Ie: with this kind of configuration (Recording Service virtualized HW) you do need a working Recording Sevice to use the HW, even if the HW reside in the same PC.

 

To be more clear about the HW virtualization made by Recording Service: to serve both local and remote PCs, the Recording Service has to be the unique owner of the HW, while all instances of DVBViewer have to (virtually) reach the HW exclusively via Unicast devices that can be directed to both local or remote Recording Services... that's the reason of the (maybe) unusual "Do not use the HW" settings in DVBViewer...

 

4. Use the common file to drive the clients.

Sorry for my poor english, but I can't get the point... with "drive" did you mean "feed"?

...normally you have to save the Transedit scanned channels list in a .ini file (optionally on a network share...) then import it in all PCs... or (probably better) you can do the whole work on only 1 PC (Favourite list building included...) then copy the channels.dat & favourites.xml on all others PCs (shut down DVBViewer AND Recording Service before copy...)

 

After you worked out that, please report about all these items, one by one:

on PC-Sat:

1) can you watch Sat (=local hw) channels?

2) can you watch DTT (=remote hw) channels?

on PC-DTT:

3) can you watch DTT (=local hw) channels?

4) can you watch Sat (=remote hw) channels?

 

[ddichiera]

DSAT can be viewed on its own PC and remotely.

DTT cannot be viewed anywhere, not even on its own PC using DVBViewer! (No hardware available)

(In DVBV on the DTT PC, I have the hardware devices set to off, and two virtual devices set to normal)

 

However,

On the DTT PC, Transedit can only scan and analyse the DTT hw.

ON the DSAT PC, Transedit can only scan and analyse the DSAT hw.

 

 

Having played with Transedit a bit more, I think it works like this?

 

Install on one of the PCs.

Delete (or generate) ini files until I only have the ones I need.

Scan the hardware and then update the DVBV channels file.

It only seems to be able to do this from the scan results window, so do I scan all hardware from one PC to generate a complete channels file?

 

I've played around with settings a bit, so here is the current support file.

[Gioxy]

... DTT cannot be viewed anywhere ...

Ok, so the problem is only on DTT's Recording Service...

So, what about if you stop Recording Service and set HW as "Normal" on DVBViewer? Can you see DTT on the DTT PC?

And what happen if you remove 1 of the two DTT Huppage?

 

However,

On the DTT PC, Transedit can only scan and analyse the DTT hw.

ON the DSAT PC, Transedit can only scan and analyse the DSAT hw.

 

Having played with Transedit a bit more, I think it works like this?

Yes, TransEdit (at least until now ) can't cope with virtual device but only with phisically present HW (except IP-TV, but that's don't apply here)...

 

It only seems to be able to do this from the scan results window

this is one of the possiblity of TransEdit, the other is to Send/Update the channel list of the main (registered) DVBViewer; You can do all that, as I told you before, only for phisically present HW... so:

 

so do I scan all hardware from one PC to generate a complete channels file?

if your HW is spread in more than 1 PC you can't (as I already told you 2 times here up ): you *have* to import the various .ini file (beware, don't be misplaced by the .ini of transpoder files! ...the extension is the same, but the content is *very* different...) to build a "complete" channels file; in your case 1 for Sat and 1 for DTT...

 

BTW: read this topic about your DTT devices, maybe it can light something we don't have discussed yet...

 

[ddichiera]

After reading the link provided, I decided to update the driver for the dual tuner DTT card that worked very well via Device Manager.

 

Also re-installed DVBV and RecServ after cleaning the registry, but still no good.

 

So, what about if you stop Recording Service and set HW as "Normal" on DVBViewer? Can you see DTT on the DTT PC?

And what happen if you remove 1 of the two DTT Huppage?

If I set the HW to normal in DVBV then it works fine on the DTT PC. BTW, it's a dual tuner card; one card, two tuners (Hauppauge Nova TD-500)

 

My terrestrial signal is a little lousy at the moment, the antenna fell down after the high winds we had here yesterday

[Gioxy]

If I set the HW to normal in DVBV then it works fine on the DTT PC.

Then the problem reside in the RecordingServer configuration...

 

BTW, it's a dual tuner card; one card, two tuners (Hauppauge Nova TD-500)

So please post an updated support file for only the DTT PC, all you posted till now are reporting two (2) separated card each with a double DVB-T tuner (for a total of four [4] tuner!) model "Hauppauge WinTV MOD7700 DVB-T Tuner"(...but maybe this a tecnical name while you talk about the commercial one...)

 

[ddichiera]

Ok, first thing to say is that I believe the model number is a red herring. If you do a quick google, other people with the same card have the same model number in their setups.

 

Next, startling discovery!

 

I took the card out of it PC, put it in another and it worked ok. It gets more complicated.

 

The original PC is an HP DC7600. It's a 3-4 year old standard business desktop pc with oem XP SP2 (upped to SP3).

 

The new PC is an HP DC7800. It's a 1-2 year old standard business desktop with Microsoft supplied Win7 x64 installed.

 

So I re-installed XP SP2 on the DC7600, but it still didn't work

 

I have another DC7800 on which I did a fresh install of oem Vista and it didn't work either!

 

Furthermore, the DSAT card is in a DC7800 with XP SP2 (and that works fine). I don't remember where this copy of XP came from.

 

In short, assuming I did everything correctly:

 

1. The DTT card works

2. We can rule out the PC type

3. It's possible that the supplied version of OS is a problem i.e. OEM vs Microsoft (different drivers, missing optional bits of OS?)

 

At the moment I'm re-installing XP SP2 on the original DC7600 from a Microsoft disk.

 

In the meantime, can you think of anything that would be different from one version of OS that RecServ requires?

 

Dominic

[Gioxy]

It's possible that the supplied version of OS is a problem i.e. OEM vs Microsoft (different drivers, missing optional bits of OS?)

Of course: HP OEM SO version install directly with correct HP speci(fic)al drivers for every HP special HW bits, while MS ver. is obliged to start using generic ones, that can waste at least some PC power/functionality...

But you can update afterwards all drivers with latest HP drivers from HP site: eg look here BEWARE! first be sure this is exact the PC model you got! ...and *always* use the same language as the OS!; then, only if you are *really* used to, you can begin to update firstly the BIOS(es)... otherwise never mind and you can certainly start with Chipset and follow with Video card, Audio and Network; other usually are really optional or in same way potentially dangerous, and, over all, ininfluent...

 

can you think of anything that would be different from one version of OS that RecServ requires

AFAIK there are no specific OS problems with Recording Service, rather whith SO/drivers/codecs messed up (I don't mean is your case); so also apply every patch MS Update find for you, find and install latest DirectX update, and *avoid* to install CodecPacks and/or too many codecs (before your DTT PC listed four differents Cyberlink Video decoder and 3 others more...)