Dan’s Space on the Web

A week after I first finished setting up the EPG, I noticed that it wasn’t working properly. I’ve been busy since then, but finally got the time to do some maintenance this weekend. I found out that the problem was that my discSvc registry value had changed back to the default value, reason being the disableUpdateDiscSvc entry was missing. After adding the missing DWORD entry and setting it to 1, everything is back to working condition. Tested it a few times by manually asking Media Center to grab the latest guide data, no problems.

Now, over the past few weeks my dad has been following the NBA and recording whatever matches were being broadcast. This ate up disk space, fast. Fortunately, I had already foreseen this problem back when we first put the HTPC to use, and had prepared a nice 1TB NAS (for general backup and archiving, including recorded TV). Trouble is, Media Center doesn’t like letting you add network folders to the More TV Locations list. Initially I tried using the registry hack method, but that didn’t do anything. Then I found this, which involves creating a symbolic link to the network folder and thereby tricking Media Center. Worked like a charm. Only problem now is I still have Media Center recording new shows to the cramp local drive, and I have to manually move recordings over to the NAS. I guess I could try the symbolic link trick, but because my HTPC is a little far from my router, the WiFi connection isn’t the best. I’ve also noticed that sometimes the WiFi doesn’t work at all after resuming from sleep, but I’ve yet to confirm and look into this. Anyway, since the WiFi isn’t stable, I don’t want to risk the recorded TV being lost or corrupted, so I’m leaving it to first record to the local drive.

I’m considering writing a simple add-in that would automatically watch for disk space and move files when needed, or simply provide an interface for the user to manually “move recording to network drive”. Unfortunately, I don’t have time for that right now. Another option I came across is to use Belvedere to automatically monitor the folder and move files once they pop up, but each recorded TV file is usually huge and so takes awhile to move over to the NAS. If I were to let Belvedere do this automatically in the background, there’s the possibility of my dad (or whoever’s using the HTPC) switching it off before the move can complete. And if this keeps occurring then well, the files would never get moved over. I could schedule it to run during the night, but again I have no idea how long it’ll take. Plus we don’t record stuff every day, so on those nights the computer would wake up and sit there for a few hours for nothing. Ideally it should only automatically wake up and do the moving only if there are files and limited space left, and go back to sleep once it is done. Unfortunately, I haven’t found a tool that does this.

Finally got around to finish setting up TVxb with BladeRunner Pro to get EPG data. Seems to work fine, but I will have to continue monitoring it to make sure it automatically stays up to date (depends on whether or not the scheduled task was created with the correct settings). Also, missing some channels – namely the free-to-air ones like channel 5 (including 5HD). Problem is the Starhub portal doesn’t provide guide info for that, so will probably have to try getting from elsewhere.

On the channel changing side, site visitor Paul came across some useful information. This did help get past the remote learning phase, but instead the results were worse – media center was unable to change the channels at all. The IR blaster seems to be sending signals, but the STB is not responding.

Tested sleeping with hybrid sleep enabled and Media Center running. No problems. Not sure what happened the last time.

Waited 5 minutes after recording ended, did not go back to sleep.

Switched BIOS settings to S1&S3, works fine.

Noticed that when there’s a scheduled recording, it sometimes either doesn’t go to proper S3 sleep, or maybe it just takes a long time. so far 2 out of 3 times it didn’t go to S3 even after a couple of minutes (but display was turned off), and once it went to S3 after about a minute. Will have to test this further. On further thoughts, those 2/3 times were when I had a scheduled recording to start in about 5 minutes. Perhaps this forced the PC into Away Mode instead of sleep. Should check what the timing is for “wake computer x minutes before” (is there such an option?).

Seems to be working fine now. Did two scheduled recording tests. Went to S3 sleep, automatically woke up, recorded, and went back to sleep. The main problem was the “when sharing media, allow computer to go to Away Mode” power option. Changed it to “allow computer to sleep”.

Parents came home and they usually use the TV for the rest of the night, so I can’t work on improving the TV input quality.

Instead, am remoting in from my laptop and setting other stuff up: WebGuide and EPG.

WebGuide installed successfully, and I’m able to access the web interface fine. Can play recordings from there, but it’s a little slower than simply opening the files directly. This is probably since I have my recordings stored on a NAS, and so it’s clearly less efficient to do NAS –> ShuttleBox (my Media PC) – WebGuide –> WafflesSeven (my Laptop), as opposed to NAS –> WafflesSeven.

Since EPG for Singapore is not available through VMC, I have to use TVxb instead, in conjunction with BladeRunner Pro . Halfway through this – currently have both installed, am TVxb seems to have successfully downloaded EPG data for Starhub channels.

Next up:

1. Improve Live/Recorded TV Quality (from yesterday)
   • Check if it’s signal quality issue (including analog vs. digital) by switching to composite video input from STB (ie. see how cable channels look like)
2. Continue setting up EPG
   • am on the step of “Granting permission to write into the BladeRunner GuideData, Native, and QuickGuide folders.”
3. Ensure EPG works with WebGuide
4. Continue testing WebGuide, figure out how to watch Live TV (so far I can’t find the option for this. Suspecting that I need to have EPG data)

[Click Here HTPC Specs]

(Quick Specs: an old shuttle PC running Vista. ok, I can’t remember the specs. will update later)

Attempting to get S3 sleep state to work.

Had to change power settings in BIOS – ACPI Standby State set to S3. I think setting it to S1&S3 didn’t seem to work, will elaborate more on this later.

Initially, I followed the instructions as linked above but it made things worse – the PC didn’t seem to power down at all, with the “On” indicator light not going off. It turned off the TV display but that’s about it.

Then I found out that the problem was having created based off the High Performance plan. When using High Performance, the computer doesn’t sleep much, only as above. Switching to Power Saver fixed this, and my shuttle went off nice and quiet (previously you could still hear a fan spinning), as if it was completely off. Cool.

Minor problem at this point – had to push power button to wake it up, keyboard/remote control didn’t work. Fixed this by enabling wake by USB keyboard in BIOS.

Quick elaboration on setting BIOS ACPI Standby State to S1&S3 – when I had done so earlier, I think I was still using the High Performance plan. Don’t remember testing after I switched to Power Saver.

Next attempted to schedule a recording and put computer to sleep. However PC seemed to just turn off the display again. Suspecting Windows (Vista) Media Center to be preventing proper S3 sleep, closed VMC and tried going to sleep. Success. It came on as scheduled to record, but it didn’t go back to sleep after that.

End of this for today.

Noticed that watching TV through the PC (tuner card) was significantly worse than watching from Starhub HD STB. Understandable since what I’m getting is probably the analog free-to-air and signal strength is not as good as cable’s (and it’s analog vs. digital). Currently I’m using the TV OUT from the Starhub STB to connect to PC (via coax cable). Rerouted this TV OUT to TV to test signal quality. TV looks better than PC, but still worse than cable STB (over HDMI). Makes sense, but notes that the PC is indeed degrading quality. I need to figure out if it’s due to the TV card, or a VMC problem. Perhaps VMC is enconding the video badly before displaying? Or is the video encoding handled by the TV tuner card? The “bad” quality looks like it may be a compression issue. Will have to look into this.

Next up…

1. Fix S3 Sleep
   • Run another scheduled recording test, see if it goes back to sleep
   • Verify scheduled recording behaviour by reverting to regular sleep
     • Find out if this uses the Windows Task Scheduler. If so, might be able to get info from that.
   • Verify inability to sleep when hybrid sleep enabled and VMC running
2. Improve Live/Recorded TV Quality
   • Check if it’s signal quality issue (including analog vs. digital) by switching to composite video input from STB (ie. see how cable channels look like)

[Click Here HTPC Specs]