HDHomerun Prime + TVHeadend 3.9

Ben Parmeter

I've been struggling with getting TVHeadend working with my brand new HDHomerun Prime ATSC here in Sacramento, CA on Comcast. While I can get VLC to work just fine with my HDHomerun Prime, I simply haven't been able to get TVHeadend to actually play channels.

I'm following this guide (http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=182556), with the exception that I currently have the unstable (v3.9) repo installed. I started with the stable repo (3.4) but basically got the same results so I tried pulling the source from git and building, then going for the unstable repo finally.

My setup:
* OS: Ubuntu Server 12.04
* Tuner(s): HDHomerun Prime (w/dvbhdhomerunprime-dkms, utils)
* TVHeadend: v3.9 (unstable repo)

Basically, I'm able to see the HDHomerun Prime in the Config > DVB Inputs > TV Adapters tab. I am then able to assign a network (I created an ATSC network, with my local muxes) to the tuner. This results in the services tab being populated with the correct services.

As for mapping channels, if I try to do this automatically using the "Map Selected" button I get the following:

2014-03-11 10:02:06.289 service_mapper: starting 2014-03-11 10:02:06.289 service_mapper: checking 261000 2014-03-11 10:02:06.289 mpegts: 261000 - tuning on HDHomeRun ATSC 131C30CD-0 : ATSC #0 2014-03-11 10:02:06.289 subscription: "service_mapper" subscribing on "none", weight: 3, adapter: "HDHomeRun ATSC 131C30CD-0 : ATSC #0", network: "HDHomerun Prime Network", mux: "261000", provider: "", service: "" 2014-03-11 10:02:06.289 service_mapper: waiting for input 2014-03-11 10:02:18.004 subscription: "service_mapper" unsubscribing 2014-03-11 10:02:18.012 service_mapper: 261000: failed [err No input detected] 2014-03-11 10:02:18.012 service_mapper: idle

Additionally, when I attempt to manually map channels via Config > Channel / EPG > Channels, I'm able to link the channels appropriately (which eventually also populates the EPG). However, when I attempt to click "play" on a particular channel, I get an error and TVHeadend hangs.

Help would be greatly appreciated, and I would gladly donate to this project if I can get it all up and running. The software looks amazing and quite frankly, exactly the solution I've been looking for.

Thanks!
Ben.

Ben Parmeter

Updated my HDHomerun Prime FW to the latest Beta 20140221. Still does not work.

I think all of my channels are coming back as encrypted in TVHeadend. Could be a lead? Anyone else tried this?

Ben Parmeter

I'm nearly sure I'm just talking to myself these days. In case anyone else is reading this, I stumbled upon this thread: https://tvheadend.org/d/700-no-descrambler-on-channels-with-no-cci-encryption

Because all of my services are being reported as encrypted by TVHeadend/DVBHDHomerun, I think I'm completely out of luck. This is a huge disappointment to me if this is the reason it won't work. Is there any chance that TVHeadend or DVBHDHomerun will be updated to workaround this problem? If so, I can go back to being happy. If not, I suppose I will start plugging away on MythTV.

Phill Lavender

Ben,

I moved from Europe to the US (Bay Area) a few months ago and have been investigating setting my TVheadend server up again for c**c** cable. (It was a lot easier in Europe on DVB and IPTV!)

From my investigations so far it looks like all my channels (inc local OTA) carry a broadcast flag, which tells the set-top box, in this case the HDPrime not to pass channels on to uncertifed devices. HDHomerun only get certified for CableCard if they conform to these requirements and since TVHeadend isn't a certifed HDCP device it won't ever give the flagged streams to the TVheadend server.

*The DVB driver is just a proxy and channel changer to the HDHomerun firmware. It would take someone to rewrite the HDhomerun firmware to ignore the broadcast flag. (probably illegal)

I've tried the firewire approach direct from the set-top box also and the same issue (HDCP on all channels). Which strictly speaking at least for the OTA channels appears to be contrary to some US consumer law or other (I can't find it right now, but it's well documented on the mythTV forums).

This is all new to me and some of the above might not be quite right, but basically it doesn't work and won't likely ever work for non OTA channels in the US.

Also it seems different areas of the US depdning on the provider have different broadcast flags on the same channels (go figure)

Phill

G C

Did you ever get this working.

I can see most of my channels when using NextPVR or Myth. TVHeadend doesn't appear to find any channels. I am adding a manual MUX with qam256 on a frequency where i know there is an open channel. I see tvheadend tuning the HDHR Prime, but it doesn't find any services.

Can anyone help?

Ben Parmeter

Basically, I've found that HDHomeRun Prime will not work with TVHeadEnd currently. There is some work that needs to be done to the DVB Driver layer and probably not enough incentive for anyone to work on it. TVHeadEnd is the perfect solution for my household, however because it won't work with my device I've gone to MythTV instead. It's not too difficult to setup, and it will work (even if it has it's quirks). Good luck, but my best advice would be to simply switch to MythTV and MythWeb for your frontend interface.

Thanks,
Ben.

G C

Thats a shame - i like the built-in transcoding that tvheadend has. Myth doesn't have that as far as I know

ProfYaffle

There were some HDHR-specific additions to the master branch within the last week. Have a look - I don't know the difference between the Prime and any other models, so I can't say if it's genuinely useful or not, but I thought I'd mention it.

https://github.com/tvheadend/tvheadend/pull/505

Ben Parmeter

The problem with Prime was that due to the cablecard implementation, there was some added layer of encryption or all channels were marked as encrypted. Something like that. Folks with a plain old HDHR without the cablecard would still be OK using the DVB driver layer. But it's worth a shot. Let me know if you get a chance to try it. I won't be able to try it out for the next week or so.