Just Got my HD Homerun Prime up and running. I haven't seen a whole lot
of success stories shared here so I thought I'd add one.

I'm running 0.24.1 on CentOS 5.7 as provided by Axel Thimm via ATrpms.
Thanks Axel. I also have a couple of frontend boxes running CentOS 5.5
that I haven't bothered to upgrade. But the main backend doing the bulk
of the recording is running 5.7.

$mythbackend --version
Please attach all output as a file in bug reports.
MythTV Version   : v0.24.1-80-g1de0431
MythTV Branch    : fixes/0.24
Network Protocol : 63
Library API      : 0.24.20110505-1
QT Version       : 4.7.2

I ordered my HDHR3-CC via Amazon on a Sunday. But after waiting three
working days and they hadn't shipped it, I cancelled the order and
ordered it from NewEgg. They shipped right away.

I had previously picked up my CableCard/M-Card from Comcast here in the
San Francisco Bay Area. No special installation instructions or
anything. The lady at the counter knew exactly what I wanted, which was
encouraging.

After inserted the CableCard and attaching the box to my network and
cable, I called the main Comcast tech support. I did not call any
special number even though I searched for a special number. The tech I
got through to knew exactly what I was talking about and was not at all
flustered by my request to activate a CableCard/M-Card. He did say "Oh,
so you're activating a Tivo?" I told him it was something very like a
Tivo. He didn't ask any more questions. He asked for the ID numbers from
the CableCard which I had copied down but which the HDHR3-CC helpfully
reports in it's web interface. He sent an init signal which was
reflected in the log window.

The tech told me that the process would take 20 to 30 minutes to
complete. Although the CC was showing as "activated", all my previously
encrypted channels were still showing as encrypted. Now in my experience
if these kind of initializations don't happen in the first couple of
minutes, they don't happen at all. I waited 20 minutes. Channels
remained encrypted.

I called the main Comcast number back and got a new person. I was happy
(maybe lucky) that both times I did not have to wait very long. This
didn't ask any more questions. After providing my account information he
had all the identifying information for my CableCard which was nice.

I asked him about a "grand-slam init signal." He politely brushed my
in the init signal he sent. He sent a new signal and in a few minutes I
saw my CableCard reset.

Scanning some channels in the HDHomerun Config GUI, I saw a wealth of
channels previously marked [encrypted] now were marked with their
channel info. Clicking "view" I could watch them on my PC.

Other than the first tech messing up the init signal, it was really a
pretty painless process. I have since followed the instructions on the
wiki and connected the HDHR3-CC to Myth and made a bunch of successful
test recordings.

On to my question, which I am pretty sure I know the answer to.

The HDHR3-CC will replace my HD STB + HDPVR I've been using for
something like two years. I will continue to use my classic HDHRs for
the OTA ClearQAM channels as there is still a lot of content the family
watches on those channels.

The biggest PITA with the ClearQAM channels is maintaining the virtual
to physical channel maps. I have taught myself over the years how to
manually manipulate dtv_multiplex and mplexid to maintain those
mappings. Imagine my joyous surprise to see the new HDHR3-CC channel
lineup with mplexids of 32767.

So my question is, will the HDHR3-CC maintain those effing mappings for
me? Looks that way to me.

Kirk Bocek

There's no mapping to maintain, really.  The HDHR Prime tunes by
virtual channel number-- so the frequency, modulation, frequency
table, etc. is never even used by the application-- MythTV tunes the
virtual channel number, the Prime handles it all behind the scenes,
and streams data.  It's the Prime's job to maintain "what lives
where," the application needs only know the virtual channel... which
it gets from schedules direct, along with the XMLTVid, automatically.

No more mapping.

Robert

Let the dancing begin. Let the people cry halleluiah! And the people did
feast on the fruits and the wombats and the breakfast cereals.

Well, sort of.  If you have both a clear QAM tuner and a cable card
tuner, you currently still need to maintain the mappings to get the
clear qam tuner to work.  There's not yet any automated way to use the
mapping table from inside an HDHR Prime to tune a standard HDHR.

I've looked into scripting this, but it really feels like a hack.
Ideally, I'd like to use the same video source for both my Prime and
non-Prime HDHRs, but that's a lot of work.

Eric

This wasn't what he was asking about, though.  He was asking about his
channels on his Prime.  He wasn't asking if the Prime would be
maintaining the channels for his other devices.

Why would you want to use the same source?  The reason most (all)
Prime purchasers will buy it is because it gives them more programming
than a regular ClearQAM tuner.  Therefore they *can't* use the same
video source.  They have different capabilities.

And who cares how many sources you have, anyway?

Robert

Yes, I was only talking about the Prime. I expect to have to continue my
travails with the classic HDHRs. <sigh> <breakfast cereals set aside>

However, that brings up a point. The prime can tune the ClearQAM
channels too. Does it also maintain their mappings?

That's a true gotcha!

I am very familiar with scte65scan. I actually have two classic HDHRs. I
only have three of the four tuners configured in Myth, which is enough.
I leave the last for testing and playing and a nightly run of
scte65scan. When a recording fails, I immediately jump to the text file
that was generated the night before and check the channel mappings. It's
almost always a matter of retuning a virtual channel.

But... can the Prime do channel mapping *without* a CableCard? I bet the
answer is no. I bet the information is buried in the channel list
provided as part of the paring process. Another CableCard means another
"Outlet" charge to Comcast (currently $8/Mo) which I don't want.

I am aware of the Premium content limitation. Not subscribed to any
premium content. But, yes, that would be a use for the HD-PVR.

You're right, but that wasn't clear to me based on his initial post.
You could read it either way.

I care.  Having more sources makes the mythweb channel editor page
unwieldy.  Having more sources means that there's more to keep track
of.

You really have to log in to mysql directly and periodically run
moderately complicated sql commands like:

  update channel cl join channel cr on cl.channum=cr.channum set
cl.callsign = cr.callsign where cl.sourceid = 8 and cr.sourceid = 9;

to make sure that the clear qam callsigns match the prime callsigns to
avoid duplicate recordings of generic episodes.  That assumes, of
course, that you've set all your channum's correctly.  I've been doing
that with this awk script on the hdhomerun_config channel scan output:

#!/usr/bin/awk -f

/^SCANNING/ { if (match($0, /([0-9] )\)\'/, freqs)) freqid = freqs[1]
; else freqid = 0; }

/^PROGRAM/ { if (freqid && !(/encrypted/) && !($3 ~ /\./) && ($3 0)) { pid = substr($2, 1, length($2) - 1); print "UPDATE channel SET
channum = " $3 " WHERE sourceid = 8 AND freqid = " freqid " AND
serviceid = " pid ";"}}

It would be a lot lot simpler from a maintenance and user friendliness
point of view if the channel table just had a couple of extra columns
to track both the virtual and physical channel numbers and also which
channels are clear and which aren't and have the scheduler act on that
accordingly, rather than needing to duplicate the channel in two
different sources and make sure that they're in sync.

Eric

If you use hdhomerun_config to tune to a channel, you can get a lot of
info about that channel.

If you have tune the hdhr prime to a particular vchannel using:

hdhomerun_config <ip_of_hdhrcc> set /tuner2/vchannel xxx

where xxx is the cable channel as in the guide, you can then get the
channel(frequency) using:

hdhomerun_config <is_of_hdhrcc> get /tuner2/channel

and the program id using

hdhomerun_config <is_of_hdhrcc> get /tuner2/program

You can get other useful information using

hdhomerun_config <is_of_hdhrcc> get /tuner2/vstatus

I was playing around the the hdhomerun cci_scan script that someone
posted to the list a while back, and I was going to add the frequency
and program id to the output for my own use.  The next time comcast
changes the clear qam lineup, I may knock together a script to update
the database using the information.  But they have been pretty stable
for me.  They were good for about a year, then in 3 days they changed
them 3 time about 2 months ago, but have been stable since then.

Bill

I'll have to hunt that down. I was hoping someone had done some
scripting from linux for the Prime. That would give some of the power of
scte65scan to the encrypted channels. Thanks.