How good can it be, if it isn’t HD?

After all that grief it was a bad tuner and a bad configuration change I’d made. A few days ago I figured out that it was a bad idea to set windows display settings to “never off” and then yesterday I received a replacement ATI Digital Cable Tuner and not only did I have it setup in 15 minutes, but it works without ANY issues what so ever.

The occasional bad piece of hardware is a fact of life these days, especially when it’s a problem like I was having where the hardware would work fine for a few hours before it stopped. I mean seriously, how could ATI even test for something like this at the factory? It’s not like they could test the tuner for 24 hours on every tuner that leaves the factory.

I can’t say enough about how great everyone at Microsoft and ATI has been at reaching out to me to make sure my problem was resolved, I really, really, appreciate it. Ironically though, in the end it was a Dell XPS support person who didn’t hesitate to send me a replacement that fixed the problem — which I received in 3 days!

Now that everything is working properly, I have to say I’m really enjoying this setup. VMC has so many more capabilities than my TiVo and although it required more setup, it is well worth it. Of course only time will tell how much maintenance it requires, but for now I’m loving it!

Thanks to everyone who helped me out!

My first job out of high school — and before I though college was important — was as a salesmen at Circuit City selling car stereos (and installing them). One thing I learned is it never pays to be rude to the customers. At one time I was also a door to door sign salesmen, which only lasted about six months because it was the worst job I ever had — okay, not the worst but pretty bad. So I also know how much harder it can be to cold call people, than to stand in a store and wait for customer who are at least semi-intersted in your products.

Anyways, so a door to door salesmen just stopped by selling home alarms. He had a GE shirt on, but I’m not sure who he actually worked for. He started out with a lie — never a good first start — by commenting that his company made the keypad in my house. Little did he know I knew a thing or two about alarm systems. His next question was, “when’s the last time someone looked at your alarm?” And I answered, “I installed it myself.” He was obviously not happy with my answer so he asked, “oh, where’d you get the panel,” to which I replied, “I bought it online.” If he was smart, he would’ve stopped here, but no, he had to take one last chance at me with, “who monitors it?” By now you should know exactly where this is going, as I’m sure he wasn’t one bit surprised to hear me say “a company on the Internet.” At this point he got down right rude and said, “Let me guess, $7 a month and they leave a VM for the police?” I replied “yes” because I didn’t want to waste my time getting into with him, but I know very well that they call the police when the alarm goes off because I had to give them the number when I signed up, and the police have showed up when for a false alarm before. They also call me, send me an email and a text message. To top it off the service also works over a traditional phone line or the Internet.

I understand why the guy got rude, but seriously like that’s going to help the situation. He had the perfect opportunity to put a good face forward for his company and tell me how much better his service was then my current provider, but nope, instead he got a bad post about his company online. Do they care, nah, they’re GE and they’re huge.

I sure hope Microsoft sends Ed Bott a nice Christmas card ’cause once again he’s helped out a fellow blogger on their quest to making Vista work. He left a comment in my original post, that helped me realize that configuring Vista’s Power setting to never turn off my display was a bad idea, because our favorite feature (HDCP) would break the output when it failed to handshake with a device that is off. So I set the Power settings to turn off the display after 5 minutes which makes the ATI driver stop trying to do the HDCP handshake when my Plasma is off. So now when I get up in the morning I’m staring at a black screen.

Unfortunately this isn’t my only problem. My ATI CableCARD tuner isn’t always working properly. Eventually it starts to macroblock very badly and sometimes even the entire screen turns green and freezes. I’ve found that the cure is to shut down the PC, unplug the ATI tuner for 30 seconds, plug it back in until the cable light turns green and then turn the XPS 420 back on. This buys me about one to eight hours of trouble free operation before the problem comes back. It starts out bearable, but then gets completely unwatchable, all the while the ATSC tuners continue to work perfectly.

After finding this helpful Microsoft page, I called Verizon and asked them to send my tuner an “init” and after a few minutes on the phone the helpful rep confirmed that my CableCARD tuner was communicating properly with their network and was everything was good to go as far as they were concerned. This ‘init’ made my tuner work perfectly again too, but by the time I got home the issue was back. Later that evening I was chatting with a friend who reminded me that when you buy an XPS system the support staff is in the US. So I gave them a call and although I don’t feel like they did a very thorough job of troubleshooting, they offered to send me a replacement. Unfortunately they said I had to call another department with my case number to get it, and you guessed it, that department was closed.

Although I don’t have much faith that a replacement tuner is the answer, I don’t have a better idea, so we’ll see how that goes, I just hope it doesn’t take another three weeks to receive it.

**Update** I received the replacement and it works perfect!

It started off bad because it took me a few hours before I could even get the tuner added to my setup, but after I got it working, I thought I everything was cool and wrote up a nice little post about it. At the time everything did seem cool except the occasion drop out, which I assumed I could fix by checking my coax connections etc. But since then, not only has the occasion drop out not gone away despite spending a few hours messing with my connections — the same exact connections that work perfectly with a Series3 TiVo — but every single morning since I woken up to a system that is not operational. Then even after I remotely kill the process, I still have to reboot the system and the ATI CableCARD tuner to make the signal watchable.

First some background, skip this paragraph if you want to go straight to the problem. I’ve had a Series3 Tivo since the day they were announced and have had it working with two different providers using both SA and Moto CableCARDs. I’ve had a total of 10 CableCARD tuners installed without ANY issues and the wiring in my house is brand new. Speaking of the coax, it’s all high grade RG6, with good splitters (there are only two) and I use compression fittings.

When I removed one of my Series3 TiVos to replace it with the ATI CableCARD tuner, I took the exact same coax cable and CableCARD that has been serving me well without any issues for 14 months and used them for the ATI tuner. So I’m pretty confident that I don’t have a bad CableCARD or a signal problem. But just in case I tried both CableCARDs from my TiVo and double checked all my coax connections. I even hooked up an old attenuator that I used to use on my old HR10 TiVo, which only made things worse, so I don’t think the signal is too hot.

Anyways, on to the issue. I originally posted this at The Green Button, but since no one has really responded, I’ll try again here before throwing the thing out the window. Ever since I installed my CableCARD tuner every morning when I turn the TV on after being off all night, there is a just a black screen (TV indicates it’s receiving a 1080p signal). If I hit the buttons on the remote, I can hear the sounds and the extenders continue to work fine, but if I get out the mouse and keyboard I can’t see the cursor and it doesn’t seem to respond to any keyboard presses (not even ctrl+at+delete or ctrl+shift+esc). If I telnet in and kill ehshell.exe, it returns me to my desktop, then I re-launch VMC that then works properly, except all the CableCARD channels (ATSC channels are fine) have unwatchable pixelation (yes I checked every channel I watch, about 20). If I reboot and unplug the ATI CableCARD tuner for a second, then all the channels work fine — aside from the occasional drop out.

In the System log, I see this event every 2 seconds from some time after I turned off the display, until the time I killed ehshell.exe.

Log Name: System
Source: atikmdag
Date: 4/20/2008 9:06:46 AM
Event ID: 52233
Task Category: CPLIB
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: VMC1
Description:
CPLIB :: General - Failed to authenticate output protection

My setup is pretty much a out of the box Dell XPS 420.
Intel Q6600 quad core.
3GB Ram
500GB SATA HDD
ATI Radeon HD3650 via HDMI @ 1080p60 (tried both Catalyst 8.3 and 8.4)
Pioneer PDP-6010FD
1 ATI CableCARD tuner
1 VBox PCI ATSC tuner
1 HDHomeRun dual ATSC tuner.

Since this is obviously completely unacceptable, if I can’t get it resolved, no matter how much I enjoy the VMC UI and extender architecture, I’ll just have to go back to using my TiVos.

**Update**  The issue was resolved by setting Windows Power Setting to turn off the display after 5 minutes, even though Windows isn’t capable of turning off the display this appears to tell the ATI driver to stop trying to verify the HDCP handshake.

If you know pretty well, then you know I’m a walking contradiction. Case in point, I don’t like hot sandwiches, but my favorite sandwich is a Reuben.

I can still remember the first one I ever had, it wasn’t very good as far as Reuben go, but it was still good. The best Reuben in the world is from a cafe in Tallahassee FL called Bagel Bagel — no it isn’t made on a bagel. There are a few franchises of the original now, but the ones I’ve tried don’t use the same ingredients. The Bagel Bagel on Pensacola Ave in Tallahassee uses a pumpernickel rye swirl bread, great corn beef, it’s a triple stack, and impossible to eat without making a mess — very important trait of a good sandwich.

Recently I finally got the idea that I could make my favorite sandwich at home and I have to say it’s much harder than I thought it would be. I haven’t found the best ingredients yet, but the ones I’m getting from Sweetbay are decent. But the real problem is how to prepare it. Might seem silly, but there are many ways to do it. Right now, I’m uses a skillet with some butter and cooking it on medium for about 2 and half minutes. This toasts the bread pretty good, but leaves the sauerkraut a little cold. Next try I’m going to cook it slower and longer in the hopes that I’ll be able to keep the bread nice and browned but also get all the insides nice and warm. I’ve also tried the oven and the toaster over, and while both turned out all right, it’s hard to get the bread right in an oven. If anyone out there is good in the kitchen, I’d love some pointers. I’ve done some searching online — that’s how I got this far — but I really need someone with first hand experience.

Was just looking at my AT&T Wireless bill and noted that I used 44,552KB last month. Not sure if that’s a lot, but it is compared to my wife who only used 11KB on her RAZR. It does seem like I use the Internet on my iPhone more than any other phone I’ve had, but I’m not sure if this is more than most. This might be high because I can’t access the WiFi at work (waiting on 802.1x support in June).

DHL delivered my ATI CableCARD tuner about 3:30 this afternoon, so it was hard to be productive at work knowing I had a new new toy at home and to make matters worse, I had to stay late due to some issues. After I got home it took me about 45 minutes to unpack the tuner, plug it in, check the firmware version and configure VMC to use it. It wasn’t the most straight forward configuration and when I was all done, it didn’t work. The video was more blocks than video. So later I went back to it and proceeded to monkey around with it for an hour or so until I finally got it working.

Here’s the interesting part. I used one of the CableCARDs from my wife’s TiVo, which was activated on the TiVo. And what do you know, it works fine. No I didn’t re-pair, and no I don’t understand why it works. I got the idea because the last time I paid $50 to RMA my Wife’s Series3 — happened twice in 14 months — I didn’t have to re-pair the CableCARDs.

Now that it is working, it’s working great. Channel changing isn’t as fast as I would’ve wanted, but it’s about the same as the Series3. The good part is that the VMC mini-guide makes it easier to channel surf.

As for TiVo vs VMC, I have a full post coming, but rest assured VMC is better, but requires quite an investment in time to set things up.

Since it appears that no one really knows which is the best Media Center Extender, I’ll have to figure it out myself. This is a good thing, as I really like doing this type of thing.

As hard as I tried yesterday, I wasn’t able to order a D-Link DSM-750 for less than $300 yesterday, and after learning that my local Circuit City had the Linksys DMA2100 in stock for $249, I went ahead and picked one up. At the same time, I got an email from a representative of D-Link who’d saw my post yesterday and offered to send me a DSM-750 for review! So once I get it, I plan to rent an Xbox 360 and do a full head to head review for Engadget HD. But in the meantime, here’s my initial impressions of the Linksys.

Setup was easy — although it did take like 5 tries before it’d link up with VMC — but despite the unit being about 15 feet from my 802.11G AP and without any walls in the way, the network tuner indicated I didn’t have enough throughput for HD. So I found a patch cable and used the CAT5 drop I already had behind the TV. The remote isn’t nearly as bad as Chris L lead me to believe it was, but programming was really weird — love the fact the vol, mute and pwr is programmable though– and the LiveTV, RecordedTV etc, buttons on the top are a little on the small side. The UI is very responsive and down right fast, but I’m surprised how drab it looks without the animations etc. Overall I have to say Microsoft did a great job — yeah, I said it — integrating the extenders. I’m very impressed with the experience and the tuner conflict resolution, as well as the way the two TVs don’t step on each other. Nice job guys. The box is completely silent and the remote does work good; in fact my only hardware complaint is the super bright blue led, that actually woke me out of bed in the middle of the night in search of some black tape to cover it with.

To give you an idea of how well this thing worked out of the box is that I actually set it up in about 30 minutes and my wife was watching her shows on it the same night. And just like most others, my wife is my toughest user. I should have the final part today as I expect my CableCARD tuner, so my migration from TiVo to VMC is nearly completion.

Yeah, I know, I should always read the fine print, but when you’re registering your brand new gadget, it’s too easy to miss something huge like an early termination fee. So today I called to cancel my second TiVo Series3 and learned that by getting the multi-service discount that I also agreed to pay the fee. I feel very sick right now and cheated by TiVo. I’ve loved their products for so many years and now I want to tell the whole world that they are no better than the worst cellular provider I’ve ever had. I know, I know, I did agree, but still, ETFs in general are so anti-consumer. In the end I had the Series3 for 14 months, which comes to $17/mo, which doesn’t sound bad in that retrospect, but I still feel very cheated right now.

With my CableCARD tuner coming tomorrow, I’m packing up one of my Series3 TiVos to sell, and I’m looking for a Media Center Extender. All three options are about the same price, but right now I’m leaning towards the D-Link DSM-750 even though it’s the most expensive at $315. But I’m tempted to save some money and pick up the Linksys DMA2100 for $250, but Chris L’s review has me thinking twice. The real problem is that no one has reviewed the D-Link. The Xbox 360 is $300 after you buy a remote, and although I understand it makes a great extender and also plays games, I’ve had one and the noise really bothered me. Plus I hear the IR receiver on it is troublesome.