High Split Converter Problem

[KeithAbbott]

I am caught right in the middle of a high split conversion that my local Spectrum is doing. At the moment, I have one of my HDHR Prime's still connected to the old TA, and my other Prime connected to the new HSC device. I am unable to view channels on either device currently. I spent 3 1/2 hours in my basement with a Spectrum tech today, but was not able to get either device working. Looking at the webgui for the Prime that is connected to the HSC, everything looks good (card pairing, tuning adapter, etc.) When I try to view a channel using the HDHomeRun Windows application, it returns "Unable to play channel: System Busy". Looking at the Spectrum website, it looks like the migration to HSC includes changing the format from MPEG2 to "MPEG-4 Part 10/H.264/Advanced Video Coding (AVC)". Do the Prime devices support that format? Any other things that I should be looking at?

[signcarver]

Hsc has nothing to do with which codec they use but they may bring more channels to h.264 as they have less physical video channels to work with so rather than 4 streams on a physical channel they can now pack in 8. The prime doesn't care what codec it is.... your client might, but I can't think of any client that wouldn't support h.264 and most today will support h.265 (hevc) as well.

First thing to check is if they actually did the split as then you wouldn't have oob for the cablecard without daisychaining the rf through the hsc and into the prime (prior to hsc it would have often been advised to split such connection rather than daisy chain but with high split you cannot split the rf between the devices you must run through the hsc to get oob. To test this, only have the coax from the wall to the prime and see if you get oob lock and can run a channel scan.

In.some instances when they haven't actually performed the high split yet it has been advised to split rf and rely on traditional oob to the cablecard but note if hsc/ta is connected via usb it provides all channel tuning requests whether sdv or not and that can be a problem in that the scan can cheat using cablecard map to pick up channels but then when you actually want to view the request goes to the ta (hsc also functions as ta) and if that isn't working, it can't tune the channel.

Typically the issue you described is upstream communications of TA (has always been the bane of TA's). Suggest power cycling it, some would prefer this when not connected via usb, others may require such connection. In some cases they may not have the ta/hsc properly linked to your account and often in the short time between the actual switch to hsc, they may have some systems down from time to time as they make the switch.

[KeithAbbott]

Thanks for the response, signcarver. Turns out I posted a little too soon, I had a channel scan going and that is why I was getting the System Busy message. Once the channel scan finished, I am able to view the channels within the Windows HDHomeRun app. So the Prime itself seems to be working properly. Now to figure out why it is not working within my OpenDCT/SageTV environment.

The channel scan is taking somewhere between 90 and 120 minutes to complete, is that normal for a tuner connected to a HSC device?

[leerandall]

I've also gone through the HSC on Spectrum, and if your Spectrum network is anything like mine, it takes between 5 and 10 seconds for the HSC to tune a single channel. Every. Single. Channel. So your long scan time might be normal. When I first installed my two HSC boxes, they didn't appear to be connecting to the headend, so I called the phone number included with the HSC boxes. They found something not configured correctly on their end and a few minutes later, I could see on one of the HSC menus the list of channels I am subscribed to being populated, after which I could tune them all. I may not have even had to do the scan for them. That may be why I don't remember how long it took.

[KeithAbbott]

leerandall, I just timed a few channel changes within the Windows HDHomeRun app, mine are taking 4-5 seconds. I didn't measure my channel change time when I was using a tuning adapter, but it feels like it's about the same.

[leerandall]

I'm glad it's faster for you. When I change channels, I keep expecting to see the "no video data" message, but eventually I get the channel. One of these days, when I have a couple hours to spare, I'll do a channel scan to see if that will speed it up.

[gtb]

The channel scan is taking somewhere between 90 and 120 minutes to complete, is that normal for a tuner connected to a HSC device?

As I recall, from previous explanations, In order to not overload the operators SDV system with fast channel changes (and potentially get blocked for doing so), the HDHR scan intentionally throttles itself. Depending on how many channels your operator has in the map that means it can end up taking a long time to complete.

[KeithAbbott]

That seems plausible, thanks. I was able to get everything working in my SageTV environment, looks like they have not transitioned yet to MPEG4, the files are still MPEG2. Anyways, thanks for all of the assistance!

[nickk]

Tuning adapters are always slow. The HDHomeRun pulls a few tricks to speed up channel scanning with a conventional tuning adapter but these tricks don't work with the high-split adapters so it takes a long time.

[KeithAbbott]

Now that one of my two Prime's is working well (after the HSC migration), I have turned my attention to my other Prime. After connecting the second HSC device to my Prime, and waiting close to 12 hours (with a power cycle or two mixed in), the webgui for the Prime looks good:

Code: Select all

Status (on main menu)
Card Authentication	success
Card OOB Lock	success
Card Validation	success
Tuning Resolver	ready

Code: Select all

Tuning Resolver Status (on tuning resolver menu)
Authentication	success
Downstream	success
Upstream	success
Operational Status	ready
User Inactivity	74 minutes

The problem is when I run a channel scan, it only finds 12 channels instead of ~400 channels. My first Prime was doing the same thing, until a Spectrum cable card tech made some change on their end which added over 400 more channels when I did the next channel scan. I will be contacting the Spectrum cable card support line tomorrow; I was hoping that someone on this forum with more knowledge than I could identify/narrow down what change(s) I need to request to my account to get me the missing channels. Seems like every time I have to deal with Spectrum, it's 1-2 hours on the call with them before they can (hopefully) figure out what the problem is. If I could point them in a specific direction, that could maybe speed things up a bit. Thanks in advance for any ideas!

[leerandall]

From the Prime's web page main menu, select Tuning Resolver Menu -> Tuning Resolver Pages -> Channel Map -> View Channel Map. My channel map lists all my channels on pages 0 through 57. If it doesn't show your complete channel map, call Spectrum's Cable Card support number tomorrow and tell them you're not getting the channel map to one of your HSCs. I had to do that when I installed my two HSCs. My call didn't take more than 5 or 10 minutes for them to find the problem and send me the channel map. Make sure you let them know you have TWO HSCs so that whatever they do for one of them they know to do for both of them so they don't mess up your already-working HSC. Good luck.

[KeithAbbott]

OK, so the plot thickens. I had seen the View Channel Map link, but had never clicked on it because I assumed it would be identical to the channel map in the Prime. But when I clicked on it just now, there is 57 pages of channels, which matches the HSC channel map for the working Prime. So now I am more confused than ever; if the HSC can see all of those channels, why can't the Prime? I've done multiple channel scans over the course of the last 36 hours or so...

[leerandall]

Yes, that does seem odd. Sounds to me like both your HSCs are working, but not interfacing properly with your Primes. Have you tried a new USB cable, or just swap cables and see if the problem follows?

[KeithAbbott]

That was a great idea, I hadn't thought of that. I went ahead and installed a different cable, with the same end result. One thing that I did notice, however. When I looked closer at the HSC channel map, it is including channels that my Spectrum plan does not get (HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, etc.) The Prime channel map for the working Prime only shows channels that I can actually receive. So it would appear that my Spectrum account settings are not allowing my cable card to access the channels that should be available for my plan.

I sure wish there was better documentation on how all of this is supposed to work. Taking the black box approach is fine when everything is working; when things aren't working, it's very frustrating.

[leerandall]

Sorry, I'm out of ideas then. Sounds like a call to cable card support is in order, but at least you have more information to give them now when you call. Good luck.