Be a part of the community.
It's free, join today!
Top Contributors
Alphabetical Article List
Ceton Wmc Hints Notes And Suggestions
Introductory Notes by RAF
WIKI Started on 11/15/10
The purpose of this WIKI is to share information regarding the Setup and use of of a whole house DVR for a cable system (Including FIOS and AT&T UVERSE systems as well) using a PC, a CETON Card, an M-Card from your TV service provider, and Windows Media Center (WMC). (Note: I am taking the liberty of refering to such a system as CETON/WMC to save time and a lot of writing by all contributors. There is no manual that details how to do this (setup and maintain a CETON/WMC system) and, while it is relatively easy using WMC it also involves a lot of seat of the pants trial and error by many users. Those of us who have gone through the process probably thought, "I wish someone had told me about this" after working through some setup or maintenance issue with CETON/WMC and, if you are like me, may have written something down for future reference. I envision this WIKI as taking the place of all those extraneous notes, hints and suggestions that we, as users of CETON/WMC have either written down for ourselves or have floating around in our heads, waiting to share with others who venture down the same path.
In order to attempt to bring some order to the possible chaos of lots of little bits of information I would like those who contribute to this WIKI to try to follow a couple of easy guidelines as follows: Each entry should contain the following information at the start
- the CATEGORY of the submission. This might be Initial Setup, Remote Control Hint, Changing Default Parameters, Programming Guide Hints or something else of a general or specific nature. I would suggest that you try to use categories that have already been established by other submissions and only use a new category if your submission doesn't already fit into one of the others. As the number of submissions grows I, or someone else, might attempt to rearrange the submissions into some logical order by categories. For now just add your submissions at the end of the ones already in the WIKI.
- the TOPIC of the submission. This is where you briefly describe what the submission is all about.
- SUBMITTED BY: This is where you list your HTF user name so that we can contact you for clarification or other details regarding your submission if necessary,
- DATE SUBMITTED: This will help in determining if your submission is new material about an existing issue and other matters,
After these four items are created as the heading of your entry you should then discuss your submission in enough detail to make the matter clear to others. You may reference other entries in the WIKI if you feel that you are adding additional information that would be helpful to other members,
That's enough framework discussion. I'll start the WIKI off with a few random entries. This will also serve to show examples of the framework I propose for this WIKI. Some of these examples are probably trivial to some readers here. I hope that they spur you on to share hints, notes and suggestions of more substance about CETON/WMC in all of its aspects with those who come across this WIKI so that it becomes a truly helpful document.
Let the games begin!
CATEGORY: Initial Setup
TOPIC: Preparing your PC for CETON/WMC
SUBMITTED BY: RAF
DATE: 11/15/10
Before setting up your CETON/WMC you should remove any third party programs that involve firewalls, virus and malware protection, etc. Examples of such programs are NORTON Internet Security, McAfee and similar. Remove doesn't mean just shutting these programs down but physically removing them from the PC using something like CCleaner or similar. Apparently these programs consider program guide entries and other information such as the meta data contained in these program guide entries as external threats and shuts them out. When I was trying to set up my tuners and program guides through WMC I hit a brick wall. No information would come through. As soon as I removed (i.e. uninstalled) Norton everything cleared up. For those who are concerned about protecting your CETON/WMC server from viruses, etc. I did NOT uninstall or turn off the protection built into Windows 7 itself. Apparently this is not an issue with the Win7 firewall, etc. so you will not be open to outside threats and your Initial Setup of CETON/WMC should proceed without further incidents of this nature.
CATEGORY: CETON/WMC Hardware
TOPIC: Where to get a CETON/WMC Remote Control
SUBMITTED BY: RAF
DATE: 11/15/10
Assuming that you are using XBox360s as your Media Extenders you can purchase an Xbox360 Universal Remote Control HERE at Amazon
CATEGORY: Remote Control Use
TOPIC: Last Channel Viewed Function
SUBMITTED BY: RAF
DATE: 11/15/10
Using the Xbox360 Universal Remote Control
CATEGORY: Remote Control Use
TOPIC:Mute Function for External Speakers
SUBMITTED BY: RAF
DATE: 11/15/10
Using the Xbox360 Universal Remote Control
CATEGORY: Remote Control Use
TOPIC:Navigation to the TV (Recorded TV) WMC Screen
SUBMITTED BY: RAF
DATE: 11/15/10
Pressing the Xbox360 Remote Control
CATEGORY: Remote Control Use
TOPIC:Skipping Forward and Backwards
SUBMITTED BY: RAF
DATE: 11/15/10
Using the XBox360 Remote Control:
CATEGORY: Advanced Areas: Editing the Registry ***
TOPIC:Changing the Forward Skip and Reverse Skip Intervals
SUBMITTED BY: RAF (with acknowledgement to Adam Gregorich)
DATE: 11/15/10
In Windows 7 type regedit in the Start Box and Search For SkipAheadInterval and InstantReplayInterval in the registry. The default values are 29000 microseconds and 7000 microseconds respectively which represent 29 seconds and 7 seconds. Change these values to change the intervals. ***IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are not comfortable with changing registry entries then you should probably leave the default values alone!!!
CATEGORY: Appearance
TOPIC: How to Make your Guide Appear more TIVO like
SUBMITTED BY: MattCR
DATE: 1/3/2011
One of the most common notes I get from people is how to make their new guide in Media Center look more professional, less text, more content and logos. With a CETON, it's even more important as your channel basis is much greater. So, I STRONGLY recommend those who are using or looking at a Ceton, prepare by grabbing MyChannelLogos: http://mychannellogos.com/ Your Guide will look more like this:
This provides you clear updates on what channels are HD or presented standard.
CATEGORY: Basic Configuration
TOPIC: Knowing the card as needed.
SUBMITTED BY: MattCR
When you acquire your CETON, one of the common mistakes that happen is that the cable company may be confused as to which kind of Cablecard you need. Make sure it is an M-Card (Multi), not an S-Card (Single). I've found that this is a frequent error people make. For Scientific Atlanta, as an example, an 600 card will not work; an 800 or 802 will.
CATEGORY: Basic Configuration
TOPIC: SDV Tuners
SUBMITTED BY: MattCR
If your provider requires SDV tuners, you will need TWO SDV tuners (if Scientific Atlanta or Cisco) to manage a CETON. An SDV tuner of those types will handle 2 channels tuned per each. DO NOT DAISY CHAIN your tuners. No output from the tuners needs to go to your cable card. They need to be connected to your cable input and to your PC via USB to have the signal sent. If you are using a Motorola SDV tuner, you will only need 1 per CETON installed.
CATEGORY: Basic Configuration
TOPIC: Upgrades
SUBMITTED BY: MattCR
Ceton frequently issues out upgrades.Most recent upgrades provide important settings; including new support for Digital Audio channels (like DMX) And support for multi-level SAP (Secondary Audio Programming). If you haven't recently, you might check their website for updates. Staying up to date can be a short hastle, but also very worthwhile.
You can find new updates here: http://www.cetoncorp.com/infinitv/support/ along with changelogs and supports
Comments (0)