MyTV wont work in MediaPortal

[Tigerjay]

Hi All,
Congrats on a fantastic forum
I’m a newbie here, a friend of mine has pointed me here and although I have had the odd nose around for bits of help which I definitely needed to get MediaPortal working.
I have now started playing in the realms of TV tuner cards, a cable tuner to be exact and this is where my problems have started.
This is what I have done so far.
1) I installed Media Portal (V1.0)
2) I then ran TV-server configuration
Chosen Microsoft SQL server (user name sa/password MediaPortal)
Test and save (all goes green)
3) Then I get a box saying TV server not running. Start now? I click yes.
4) In the next box that comes up I navigate in the left hand pane to TV server/ My-PC/ 1DVB-C DTV-DVBC 878 Digital tuner filter. At which point I select:
Country : United Kingdom-Telewest
Frequency : 131000
Modulation : 64 QAM
Symbol rate : 6952
5) Click Manual scan and within 5 seconds I get Scan done , found 0 transponders. I press scan again and after 10 seconds I get a message saying 90 Transponders found, would I like to scan. Click yes. 10 minutes later and it has found 250+ channels.
6) At this point all seems straight forward so I navigate again in the left hand pane to TV channels which displays all the channels, some of which have a green icon and some a red. I guess green is free to air and red is encrypted.
E.g. BBC ONE 018 DVB-C 427.00Mhz SR:6952
If I press PREVIEW I get a black window pop up titles PREVIEW as well as a Microsoft Windows window popping up saying
SetupTV has stopped working with 3 options
Windows can check online for a solution and close the program
Close the program
debug the program

If I view problem details I get this

Description:
Stopped working

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: SetupTv.exe
Application Version: 1.0.0.21149
Application Timestamp: 494e623f
Fault Module Name: viscommpgdec.dll
Fault Module Version: 9.0.0.0
Fault Module Timestamp: 473d3e19

7) I then start MediaPortal, thinking that maybe it’s just the preview function that’s not working.
8) I click on MY TV and get the following
TV set-up please specify the IP address or host name of the master TV service.
Current setting: MY-PC with a choice of CHANGE or BACK

This is where it all goes pear shaped.
I have tried the latest SVN-02-28-2009-Rev21813 as well with the same results.

I already had Klite mega codec pack installed before I installed MediaPortal and have played all my media that I had transferred on to the PC faultlessly under MP but I was not sure whether more, or rather different codec’s were required so I tried uninstalling MP and codec’s and then reinstalling with just the latest FFDshow and Haali codec’s but still I get the same results.

My PC specs:
Vista x86 with all updates
2x 250Gb raid stripe (OS on here)
4x 1Tb Raid 5 (storage)
4Gb ram
CPU Q6600
GPU 8800GT
Cable card: TwinhanDTV CAB.CI 2031 (Vista installed driver)

I have run DVB dream and I can watch all the channels (free to air) with no problems. So I’m sure my Tuner card is ok.
I have looked in Services.msc and it shows STARTED under TV service.

Does anyone know what I am doing wrong or what I need to do to get MY TV working?

[Ugg]

First I believe MP does not support softcams without MDAPI. So get that running first I have never tried to use it without so cannot say if thats what will happen.

MDAPI 2008 for Mediaportal

After you get MDAPI working you will need to add vplug under that folder.

The second issue can simply be not entering the TV server IP address under media portal config (not TV server config although they have to match ). You can try computer names but that adds a extra complication to your home network DNS etc. So choose a fixed IP on the TV server and use that.

Also did you configure the SQL server to accept network TCPIP connections. There are WIKI's for this on the MP website under TV server config manual.

It can take some time and patients to get there but MP is outstanding if you have the time.

[Tigerjay]

Thanks for your reply Ugg,

I am having trouble installing MDAPIS as per the Readme file included. I keep getting 'Access denied' in the dos window.

I have made sure my IP address in Mediaportal config and TVserver config are exactly the same but still no TV pictures at all. The only way I get any channels is in DVB dream.

I am wondering if it's something to do with something else on my PC.

I might try it on my spare PC which has similar specs but different components.

I will post back to say how I got on. Thanks again Ugg

[Kelv]

your running Vista so you need to run the batch files as an administrator, that's why you are getting the access denied message.

[Tigerjay]

I realised not long after I did the last post Kelv. Call it a Blonde moment

Anyway, I think I have a more complex problem than I first thought.

I have a spare PC which is running Windows7 (beta). It was only a trial to see if MS had improved Vista. Hmmm no comment there. So I installed Mediaportal and the latest svn and nothing else. Unticked EPG grab, I scanned the channels no problem. I clicked preview and bingo, an instant picture. I then fired Mediaportal up and again I get a TV picture. I haven't installed or changed any other settings. Obviously I can only get the free to view channels but the point is that it is my Vista PC that has a problem somewhere. I'm happy it's not the cable card, so I can just do a clean install, not ideal but it's probably overdue with all the clutter and messing about i've done with it. Since the Windows7 PC is spare I might put Vista back on it and use that with MP and just stream to other PC's. I know I still have to venture into user guides, soft cams etc, but at least I'm back on the right path.

Off topic question. I have my OS on 2x 250Gb raided (stripe) HDDs and I have 4x 1Tb HDDs on raid 5. So my computer shows just 2 drives, 500Gb for OS and 2.7Tb for storage of media etc. If I do a reinstall of Vista on the same HDDs will I loose the contents of the 4x 1Tb HDDs on raid 5?

Many thanks to Ugg and Kelv for your replied.

I'll be back

[Kelv]

If your on a good quality scsi raid card and not on-board then is this simple...

Disconnect your raid 5 till you have done the OS install, make sure you have the raid controller drivers setup, shutdown reconnect it and it should be good.
had this happen to me when a server went down in bad old days.

otherwise I have never used sata / ide raid, sorry, tho this on Toms H/W shows someone else in the same boat and it sounds like a p.i.t.a.

tomshardware.co.uk/forum/page-247844_14_0.html

(not got enough posts to make a real link so add your own www .. doh)