HDHomeRun Prime - What's Going On?

[Aikouka]

I decided to replace my Ceton InfiniTV ETH 6. I was tired of its ridiculously long channel changes (between 5-10 seconds) and its need to be randomly reset. So, since everyone seems to talk so highly of the HDHomeRun Prime, I figured that I'd give it a shot. Unfortunately, I'm not having much luck there either.

After I finally got everything squared away at Comcast (one of my numbers was entered incorrectly :\), I thought things were fine. My channels seemed to play without a hitch, so I let it record Last Week Tonight. Well, when I went to watch it, there was bad macro blocking, a complete signal drop, and after the signal came back, there was even more macro blocking. I figured that I'd try using the HDHomeRun View program just to see if there was any difference, and as you can see in this screenshot, there wasn't:

(Kind of an improvement for that movie, eh? )

I had the HDHomeRun Config GUI open, and it looks like the Signal Quality % was fluctuating between 50-75%. Eventually, Signal Strength, Signal Quality and Symbol Quality just dropped to 0. I was able to fix the terrible signal problems by resetting the box, but that creates a problem in itself. I got rid of the Ceton because it made me reset the box to fix tuner problems, and now I've got to reset this one randomly too?

 

[silicondust]

Hi,

You should never need to reset the unit.

Please run HDHomeRun Setup and enabled "send diagnostic information" on the advanced tab, then file a trouble ticket on our website (silicondust.com).

We will review the diagnostic logs and figure out what is wrong.

Nick - Silicondust

 

[Aikouka]

Hi,

You should never need to reset the unit.

Please run HDHomeRun Setup and enabled "send diagnostic information" on the advanced tab, then file a trouble ticket on our website (silicondust.com).

We will review the diagnostic logs and figure out what is wrong.

Nick - Silicondust

Thank you for the response. I did do a bit of browsing yesterday to see if I could figure out what was going on, and part of what I found was to enable that option. Unfortunately, I enabled it after I rebooted the device. Although, I think the hardest part was that I also found a few older resources that referenced tabs and options that no longer exist. Here's a PDF I found on your website with old information.

I actually bought two HDHomeRun Prime devices to match the Ceton's six tuners, and if I run into problems, I'm tempted to try the other one. Unfortunately, I'm waiting for a splitter to come in as Comcast disconnected most of my apartment's coax runs in an attempt to fix some latency problems with my modem (it was actually just a bad modem).

 

[mvbighead]

Not to side track this, but wow. A customer rep for the product just jumps into these forums less than a half a day after you report a problem with their device...

That's customer service excellence right there.

Very happy with my dual tuner HD Home Run over the air tuner, and nice to see that service could be there when I need it.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I think I bought my first HDHR' in 2011. I should've studied the trouble-shooting and configuration guides more carefully: With this sort of thing, if it "appears" to be working fine, the cablecard may not be properly activated -- data may be incorrectly entered -- by the cable provider. I limped along for the duration thinking that it was a nifty gadget that had "quirks," and about every two or three weeks, I'd have to power-cycle the tuner-adapter and re-scan the channels.

Then I discovered the information about how the tuner status screen should look if there had been proper activation. I wouldn't have stumbled across it, but for my thought to buy a second HDHR'.

As for Aikouka's problem, I couldn't say. Never saw anything like that.

 

[XMan]

When I've seen picture quality like that it's usually been an issue with the cable signal. The lines in our area are pretty old and it got so cold last year that the lines were separating internally and causing blocking. Comcast should be able to come out and test your signal strength at the TV. They ended up replacing a lot of the lines in our area and we haven't any picture quality issues since.

 

[Binky]

This is almost certainly NOT the OP's problem, but the OTA HDHR can show blockiness like that when the power supply is failing. It couldn't hurt to try the second power supply that came with the second HDHR you bought.

 

[Aikouka]

When I've seen picture quality like that it's usually been an issue with the cable signal. The lines in our area are pretty old and it got so cold last year that the lines were separating internally and causing blocking. Comcast should be able to come out and test your signal strength at the TV. They ended up replacing a lot of the lines in our area and we haven't any picture quality issues since.

I don't think this is an issue with Comcast. At first, I saw the issue on my main desktop, which is where I took that screenshot. So, I went to try the first machine that I tested it on (my Windows 8.1 touch-based HTPC), and while it worked an hour before, it was experiencing the same problem. To note, I had spent about half an hour on the phone with Comcast trying to fix a "Subscription Required" problem, and I don't know if any sort of signals that Comcast might have sent could've caused any problems.

Anyway, I left the TV channel tuned on the HTPC when I went to reset the tuner, and only a few seconds after the two left-most LEDs turned green, the TV channel suddenly came back. The reason why I don't suspect that the issue is with Comcast is that it doesn't seem likely that an issue on their side would happen to fix itself right when I rebooted my hardware. Also, I checked their site, and it stated that all services in my area were working.

This is almost certainly NOT the OP's problem, but the OTA HDHR can show blockiness like that when the power supply is failing. It couldn't hurt to try the second power supply that came with the second HDHR you bought.

I can give that a try, but the awkward part is that everything has been fine since I power cycled the hardware. If the power supply was being flaky, and keep in mind that the unit is new and had only been plugged in for about a day or two prior to this occurring, wouldn't I have possibly seen the issue crop up again?

I don't know if this is anything of consequence, but I did notice that the two units that I bought are not boxed the same. The second one appears to be in (significantly?) older packaging as it doesn't even mention Windows 8 compatibility. The newer one, which did mention Windows 8, has quite an emphatic "CABLECARD" written on the front of the box. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if most people thought that was the brand or product name. Anyway, out of fear that I might have received the wrong product, I checked the information on the box, and they appear to be the same. However, you never know if a different revision may have some minor change like a new power adapter.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I don't think this is an issue with Comcast. At first, I saw the issue on my main desktop, which is where I took that screenshot. So, I went to try the first machine that I tested it on (my Windows 8.1 touch-based HTPC), and while it worked an hour before, it was experiencing the same problem. To note, I had spent about half an hour on the phone with Comcast trying to fix a "Subscription Required" problem, and I don't know if any sort of signals that Comcast might have sent could've caused any problems.

Anyway, I left the TV channel tuned on the HTPC when I went to reset the tuner, and only a few seconds after the two left-most LEDs turned green, the TV channel suddenly came back. The reason why I don't suspect that the issue is with Comcast is that it doesn't seem likely that an issue on their side would happen to fix itself right when I rebooted my hardware. Also, I checked their site, and it stated that all services in my area were working.



I can give that a try, but the awkward part is that everything has been fine since I power cycled the hardware. If the power supply was being flaky, and keep in mind that the unit is new and had only been plugged in for about a day or two prior to this occurring, wouldn't I have possibly seen the issue crop up again?

I don't know if this is anything of consequence, but I did notice that the two units that I bought are not boxed the same. The second one appears to be in (significantly?) older packaging as it doesn't even mention Windows 8 compatibility. The newer one, which did mention Windows 8, has quite an emphatic "CABLECARD" written on the front of the box. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if most people thought that was the brand or product name. Anyway, out of fear that I might have received the wrong product, I checked the information on the box, and they appear to be the same. However, you never know if a different revision may have some minor change like a new power adapter.

Did you attend to upgrading the firmware -- for the oldest of the two HDHR'-'s -- or both?

 

[bradly1101]

Did you attend to upgrading the firmware -- for the oldest of the two HDHR'-'s -- or both?

Yes, I just did the update and it downloaded to both of my HDHR's, but I don't think that's his issue. It sounds like a signal/wiring problem. I've had two running with zero problems for a while now, so I know it should work.

My cable co. provided a tuning adapter for each cable card. According to them the cable signal should not be run through the adapters even though they have cable in/out. So I had a six-way splitter, but that caused low signal problems, so I just ran the signal through the tuning adapter (the picture/res/fps were all the same) which allowed me to use a three-way splitter (one going to the computer modem), and it all works perfectly now.

 

[lupi]

Wow the SD guys showing up here. Would be nice if they did that more often than having to go to their site.

I'm running 2 prime units (and still waiting on release of the new ones with more tuners). Main problems I've noted are 1:getting cable co. to accurately enable the CC/TA 2:TA actually working 3:signal strength. Once you get the first 2 under control, 3 will be the biggest challenge. I ended up getting a 6 way powered splitter and haven't had any issues since.


Did have an odd occurrence this weekend when updating to the latest software. For some reason WMC modified the saved channel data for my series record list.

 

[Aikouka]

Both tuners seem to be working fine right now, but I'm still keeping an eye on it.

Did you attend to upgrading the firmware -- for the oldest of the two HDHR'-'s -- or both?

Yes. The firmware is updated automatically by the setup software.

1:getting cable co. to accurately enable the CC/TA

I've only ever had Comcast enter my information correctly the first time once. This last time took me two online chats and three phone calls to get setup and fix a "Subscription Required" issue. During one of the phone calls, I got transferred to a phony "You won a cruise!" line, which didn't make me very happy. Oh, it was actually four phone calls, because the system hung up on me once.

 

[lupi]

My worst two problems: first time involved them not being able to enter any data in the system for me and have it work. Turns out to be some type of bug rarely seen in their system and only way to solve it was to flush everything out from my account and rebuild it. Second time I knew it was either a CC or TA error (figured adapter but just took both back since I was going) and it turns out that was the same day they converted over phone systems. So the initial reps couldn't just forward you as you'd just get dropped and no one had actual hone numbers available. Took my about 2 hours of calling in, waiting on hold, asking initial rep if they knew the number and then going back into hold for new one if they didn't.