mikinho

[mikinho]

When bridged and working use the Ceton Network Client within Media Center to Reset to factory settings.  This should unbridge and reset to be in DHCP mode.

[mikinho]

If you are going w/ an Ivy Bridge, any particular reason for the discrete video card?

Assuming you are OK w/ the onboard GPU (for HTPC can’t see why you wouldn’t be) then I would look at the Intel DH77EB myself (I have it and have been fairly happy with it). Stay clear of that Gigabyte board…the Atheros network card is underwhelming to say the least.

Unfortunately most of the “ideal” HTPC Ivy Bridge CPUs are not available yet, i.e. those Core i3i5 w/ HD4000 (that isn’t a -K).

[mikinho]

[quote=Nmarconi]

Thanks for the help, let me know if i get annoying.

[/quote]

You are welcome. And don’t worry, I really enjoy giving feedback and am looking forward to seeing what you release.

[mikinho]

Generally you’d need more than one method. Below is what I use:

1- At “start up” do a manual scan for changes. This is needed if you are monitoring network shares that may have been changed when you are offline

2- Periodic scans similar to above. This is needed for SMB shares that do not support change notifications

3- FileWatcher. Easy to use and if done properly low resources (easy to do improperly too)

4- NTFS Journaling. Using the USN Journal is more efficient than FileWatcher but obviously only works on NTFS.

I recommend at least 1-3 to start with.  Media Center itself uses a combination of 1-3 though it uses the Win32 API versus FileWatcher.

[mikinho]

btw….Not saying you should or shouldn’t change the order. The PT is a great network card as well. It really comes down to your own expectations. I’m overly anal when it comes to network performance and stability.

[mikinho]

That is a good card but if you want to maximize your IO when running as a virtual then http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833106035&Tpk=E1G42ET is a better bet. It supports Virtual Machine Device Queues (VMDq) and SR-IOV

[mikinho]

If you need it here is a KB article on enabling VMDq support: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1026094

Again, only enable if your Intel NIC supports it.

[mikinho]

As a first step I would try assigning the Realtek to the host only and using the Intel w/ the virtual HTPC. I think you’ll see some improvement from that alone. Another Intel NIC (preferably w/ VMDq) would be the next step.

Note: On ESXi VMDq is disabled by default but with the proper NIC can offer noticeable real world improvements.

[mikinho]

Sounds like packet loss or latency issues. What network card do you have?

Can you go over your network topology and Hypervisor setup?  For instance, you really should never share a network card between the host and its virtuals. 

[mikinho]

You have a few options, I don’t suggest the background add-in route though (the least efficient method).  If you do want to go w/ that you’ll need use reflection to reset the MediaTransport cache. I can give some sample code.  Another option is Media Sink…which also has a whole set of caveats but better than the background add-in.

[mikinho]

[quote=Skybolt]

I tried using “OverrideDigitalCableAdvisor” and have that working, but I still get video driver/card errors on the client. As the DCA test fails on video drivers. I am using an xbox 360 as an extender and cannot watch live “CopyOnce” flagged tv on the extender.

[/quote]

Odd. The DCA doesn’t actually matter in that respect as long as PlayReady installs properly. I’ll setup on my server (I’ll disable RemoteFx first)

[quote=Skybolt]

I read the remoteFX can cure this? I don’t need to or want to watch live tv on the “Server” only record HBO etc. type shows. 

[/quote]

Yes w/ RemoteFx you can even watch TV through RDP. But long-term a RemoteFx RDS setup requires a RDS license so most people won’t pay for that.  But it is enough for you to setup and get past that.

Just make sure to remove the 3D Video Graphics in the VM Hyper-V settings before disabling RemoteFx.

[mikinho]

Btw….I realize the hotfix descriptions do not look relevant…they are.

[mikinho]

Please PM me your ticket number when possible.

And do you have a USB or PCIe?  Either way please make sure you have the below hotfixes:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2601456

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2679255

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2621491  -> (For InfiniTV USB and TAs)

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2645594 -> (AMD CPU)

[mikinho]

[quote=jeam]

Then things got “interesting” again. I honed in on a particular current program and selected it to watch. Instead of getting a show, we got a “tuner conflict” error message claiming that all four tuners were in use.  Huh? This was impossible — we were neither watching anything at all, nor recording anything. What’s more, the Ceton Diagnostic tool informed us that only two of the four tuners were actually tuned to any channel. It was also having problems with the CableCARD “entitlement,” the last step in that part of the diagnostics.

[/quote]

This is fairly common when running Live TV setup on an already configured CableCARD tuner.  As you found a reboot fixes.

[quote=jeam]

After pondering our next move, we decided to shut down the PC completely (not “restart”) and reboot. Launched WMC and got the usual “no tuner” message which we have learned to deal with by unplugging the CableCARD, waiting 20 seconds, plugging back in, and switching to another channel.

[/quote]

Next time, don’t pull the CableCARD, this shouldn’t be needed–ever.  When starting up the tuner may not be available for ~30 seconds – 2 minutes.

[mikinho]

Really just following normal Hyper-V best practices is enough.  If you need Live TV then you’ll need http://www.missingremote.com/dca-bypass as well.

You don’t need 3D virtual graphics for extender usage.  The best thing is to have a dedicated “server-grade” (i.e. Intel PCIe) NIC for the host and for the VM.

For a recording drive I had the best results with a dedicated drive as well instead of a VHD.

[Author]

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