[mythtv-users] I got my Ceton InfiniTV 4 working in 0.24-fixes (compiled with custom code)

[Ronald Frazier]

> I'd be quite interested in hearing about your CableCard setup struggles. I
> just picked up my card from WOW and will be going through the activation
> once the Prime ships.

Wait....you got WOW to give you a card for a self install? That's what
I wanted to do, but they would not give me the option. When they
wanted to schedule an installation appointment, I specifically asked
if I could just get the card and do a self install, and they told me
they can't do it.

Before I got my card, I had my ceton working in linux as a QAM tuner.
We inserted the cable card, and the ceton's control panel instantly
recognized the card was installed. The tech called in the info and
paired it, but the Ceton kept saying the card was unauthorized. He
double checked things, and get the NOC to verify everything, but no
luck. He had 1 more cablecard, so we swapped it out. He paired it to
the new card, NOC confirmed they had the info, but nothing was working
still. He called his supervisor looking for suggestion, but no luck.
Nobody really knew what to do. At this point, the tech had been at my
house for 1 hour.

On the dslreports.com website, there is a forum for WOW cable, and
there is an employee there (Dan) who works in the NOC. The guy has
been really helpful with everyone, and I knew he had personally setup
a Ceton in Windows, so he had a little bit of experience with the
card. I sent him an IM through the forum (and included my phone
number). Two minutes later, the install tech's phone was ringing...it
was Dan. He tried talking through some things with the tech, but he
wasn't familiar with this sort of stuff (he'd just installed
cablecards in a few Tivos), so he just handed me the phone and I
talked with Dan. We worked through a whole bunch of stuff...trying to
swap cablecards, wiping my account, authorizing me for everything.
Nothing worked. After a half hour of the tech just sitting there while
we talked, we decided to let the tech leave while we worked the rest
out over the phone.

Finally, we figured lets see if we can get this up and running in my
Windows 7 machine. Maybe it would upgrade the firmware (we couldn't
find any firmware on ceton's website other than the beta firmware) and
that would solve the problem. Put it in, installed the drivers &
diagnostic utility, but it wouldn't recognize the card. I reset the
card's network settings, and now the utility could see the card. It
said there was newer firmware, so I had it install it. It said it
succeeded, but after a reboot, it once again said I had the old
firmware and there was a newer version available. We toyed around with
a few things here, and we got some of the checkboxes in the utility to
be green, but there were still several red X's. However, when I went
into the Ceton's control panel, it was now saying that the card was
authorized and validated (don't recall the exact words, thought its
likely different on the Prime). At this point, I figured that although
it didn't want to work in windows yet, we had gotten over the most
important hurdle (getting the card authorized). I got off the phone
with Dan and figured I'd put it back into linux and see where I could
go from there.

When I got it back into the linux box and tried tuning my HD stations,
they weren't working. I was getting an error message in the control
panel that said something like "No entitlement". I was afraid I had
been misinformed, and that everything wasn't Copy Freely, so I put it
back into the windows box to see if I could get it working there. In
the diagnostic utility, there is a section where you can try tuning
channels (even though it's not yet working in media center). I tried
it and got the same error message...no entitlement...and it also said
something like contact your cable provider if you should be receiving
this channel. I sent Dan another IM telling him about this. He
promptly replied that my account was missing one of the HD flags, so
he added it in. Now when I tried tuning, it succeeded. I threw the
card back into the linux box, tried tuning, and it succeeded. I piped
the output from /dev/ceton into mplayer and I was watching HD video in
linux.


So, it was a very trying experience...took about 4 hours, but luckily
Dan was patient and helpful. Neither of us are really sure what the
trick was to getting it working. It seemed like everything should have
worked in linux, but it didn't want to do the initial authorization. I
would have said the firmware update fixed it, but as I said, even
though the upgrade said it succeeded, it apparently failed as I ended
up with the same version.

Much of this was Ceton specific stuff that will be different with the
prime, but hopefully something here will be of use to you.


-- 
Ron Frazier