Creative VideoBlaster DVCR

[robsmith]

Any support planned for this card? I tried the Sage recorder demo and latest beta, but get errors relating to the DirectShow Filters ...

IS there a way to manually re-register these filters, or view what is installed?

Thanks,

Bob

[Narflex]

Please add the following to your Windows registry as a DWORD:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Frey Technologies\Common\consolewin=1

Then post the error message that appears in the DOS window. The Creative card should work in 1.1.2 or later. It's still in user trials; but it's completely stable on our end.

Thanks,

[robsmith]

Hello,

Thanks for the reply. Here is the startup error:


Sun 3/9 20:35:56.904 Failed to find:LAME MPEG Layer III Audio Encoder
Sun 3/9 20:35:56.914 MMC NATIVE FAILURE line 723 hr=0x80070057
Sun 3/9 20:35:56.914 MMC processing error:myfilter

It looks like there may be some vestige components left on the system ...

Bob

[robsmith]

Hello again,

The first message referenced a LAME codec error, so I went out and grabbed the NIMO codec pack and added the LAME Codec.

Upon restart of the Sagerecorder, I now get error:

Sun 3/9 20:48:22.546 BVF NATIVE FAILURE line 328 hr=0x80040200
Sun 3/9 20:48:22.556 BasicVideoFrame processing error:mpeg2audio details:Default
rendering of audio failed
Sun 3/9 20:48:49.034 BVF NATIVE FAILURE line 328 hr=0x80040200
Sun 3/9 20:48:49.034 BasicVideoFrame processing error:mpeg2audio details:Default
rendering of audio failed

Thanks for the help.

Bob

[SHS]

robsmith NIMO codec pack is woste thing to install it can cuase more headack.

[robsmith]

Hi,

So, I was fooling with the software more last night after my last post and it looks like it is capturing, but the preview mode does not work (error setting up Audio). The captured file will play back with media player, but there is a blocky noise running through the frames every few seconds (the audio seems ok).

Thanks,

Bob

[Narflex]

robsmith,

Remove the NIMO codec that you installed.

The Creative card requires an MPEG 2 audio compressor to be installed at the present time. The LAME MPEG Layer III Audio Encoder is available as open source under GPL from
http://www.elecard.com/products/layer3encoder.shtml
You need the DirectShow filter. This is the one it was tested with. It also works with the StreamMachine audio compressor; which you'll have if you happen to also own a Provideo card.

Let us know how it goes.

[robsmith]

No errors on startup, but when I try to view live video (preview):

Mon 3/10 20:26:25.935 BVF NATIVE FAILURE line 328 hr=0x80040200
Mon 3/10 20:26:25.935 BasicVideoFrame processing error:mpeg2audio details:Defaul
t rendering of audio failed

[Narflex]

Try downloading and installing the Moonlight Odio Dekoda from Elecard also. I think you may need to use their decoder with their encoder, although any generic MP3 decoder 'should' work.

[ruel]

Jeff, I could never get that DebugMux.reg to merge/import into my registry from that zip file you sent me last Friday.

However, I've installed the Moonlight Odio Dekoda DirectShow filter and Elecard lame_dshow. In SageRecorder I was able to make a recording of a TV show with a very good picture but bad sound -- a bunch of static pops. Good progress. Now, have to get the sound.

I also tried SageTV and went into the EPG and tried to tune in a show on the grid but got a black screen in the TV. But SageTV apparently did record because I found a bunch of video files in the SageTV/Video directory although the sound was still bad with the static pops. So for SageTV, need both the TV picture and the sound.

Mon 3/10 21:45:57.470 BVF NATIVE FAILURE line 286 hr=0xffffffff
Mon 3/10 21:45:57.470 BasicVideoFrame processing error:mpeg2video details:Unable to find named input pin on specified MPEG2 video decoder filter

[ruel]

BTW, I'm programming the remote control for the Creative VB DVCR card for use with SageTV and I'm wondering if there is a way to put in a shift command like so I can alternate the channel up-and-down buttons to become regular up-and-down buttons (and vice versa) and to also alternate the volume increase and decrease buttons to become left-and-right arrow buttons (and vice versa)? Or is there a way that SageTV can sense that depending on where you are in the application?

[Narflex]

Ruel,

What source are you recording from that's giving the audio problems in SageRecorder? Do you have this problems in the Creative application?

For the error, if you use the same audio/video decoder/renderer settings in SageTV as those in SageRecorder; it should work fine. Let me know if that doesn't resolve SageTV's problems.

For the remote control, I'm glad you asked. :)

There's four Commands in SageTV that are near the end of the list:
ChannelUp/Up
ChannelDown/Down
VolumeUp/Right
VolumeDown/Left

What those buttons do depend on where you are in the application. Ideal for the Creative or Hauppauge remote controls.

[ruel]

Originally posted by Narflex
What source are you recording from that's giving the audio problems in SageRecorder? Do you have this problems in the Creative application?


No problems with the Creative application -- that works fine all the time.

I've been trying different setting combinations in the audio set up. I went through what I thought were the major combinations between audio input (patch) source and the audio renderer while keeping the audio decoder on the Moonlight Odio Dekoda. I'll probably try the MPEG Audio Decoder next in combination with the other settings. Agh, here we go again. Hopefully there will be some joy after going through some more combinations of the audio settings.

Thanks for the remote control tips.

[Narflex]

The audio patch input has no effect unless you're using a Provideo card, so don't bother messing with that.

I'm going to PM you with something else to try.

[ruel]

Woo Hoo! Picture and Sound on SageTV!

I tried what you suggested and I also set the video and audio to the defaults. The picture was a little off-center like it's missing part of the right side of the picture but it works. There was a sound sync problem after you change the channel but it seems to get into sync afterwards although maybe a little off. The sound is there although there may be an ocassional static pop once in a while.

Then I set the video decoder to Cyberlink Video/SP Decoder (apparently from PowerDVD) and the picture was no longer off-center and the sound was in sync. There still seems to be an ocassional static pop, but the picture and sound are much better now. Although the sound still seems to go out of sync if I change the channel a little too much in SageTV and then seems to slowly get back in sync but maybe not quite in sync.

Oh, when I tried watching one of the video files with PowerDVD, the sound was gone and only had static pops -- this is even though there was sound when I was watching it in SageTV. I seem to be getting the same results as far as the no-sound-but-have-static-pops in SageRecorder.

Otherwise, SageTV seems to be working fine for watching TV with the PVR capabilities with the pause, rewind etc. -- so long as you don't change the channel too much if you want to keep the sound in sync (!!!). But I can't do anything with the video files because of the sound.

[Narflex]

Could you email me one of the files that won't play with audio in PowerDVD?

For the sound problems in SageRecorder, is your audio/video decoder/renderer settings the same as SageTV? Since SageTV has no problems, SageRecorder shouldn't with the same settings.

NOTE: THIS ONLY APPLIES TO THE PROVIDEO 256 OR CREATIVE VBDVCR CARDS

Audio/video sync gets off slightly when you change channels because of the gap in the video stream caused by the temporary signal loss. The audio stream doesn't suffer from this because it has its own clock. Sage compensates for this and then applies a correction (along with compensating for clock drift) while it's multiplexing the MPEG2 data. If you're using CBR you should never notice this compensation because it's done very smoothly. VBR introduces a limitation mathematically regarding audio/video sync which makes it impossible to always maintain accurate synchronization, so you may notice temporary A/V sync loss while using VBR encoding.

Something you can try.....
There's a setting called seeker/fast_mux_switch in the Sage.properties file. If you set it to false, then the capture device will be reset on every channel change. This causes channel changing to be slower than normal, but audio/video sync will not temporarily drift on channel changes because the capture card is being reset. Make the change while SageTV is not running if you'd like to try it out.

[ruel]

I'll email you a video file made with SageTV.

The sound doesn't play in PowerDVD -- but when you use the Cyberlink decoder the picture is fine and the sound is there (using the default audio settings) in SageTV. (FYI, I use PowerDVD as my default video player.) The sound does play in Windows Media Player and RealOne Player and Zoomplayer, but the picture is off-center and part of the right side of the screen is cut off. The picture is centered in PowerDVD with the right side of the screen intact. I'm getting the same result for video files made with both SageTV and SageRecorder.

That seeker/fast_mux_switch=false doesn't seem to work or doesn't seem to agree with the Creative VB DVCR card at least on my system since SageTV freezes/crashes when I try to change the channel using that setting.

[robsmith]

Hello,

Adding the elecard LAME codec along with the odio decoder now gives me a preview picture. But ....

If I leave this preview open while recording, the recorded clip audio is out of sync and not playing back at the correct rate (very fast).

With only 6 days left on the temporary key and limited time to spend, I may have to hold off on licensing this product.

I would be intested in providing feedback and doing more testing if the key were to be extended.

Thanks again for all of your help,

bob

[Narflex]

robsmith,

Change the audio sampling rate to 48000 and you should be OK. :)

If that's not the problem, please email me a clip that plays with fast audio.

Thanks.

[robsmith]

Narflex,

I recorded a couple of test clips last night. If I do not have the preview window open, the recorded clip seems to be fine (sampling rate is set to 48k) ...

If I have the preview window open and try to record at the same time, the audio plays fast and the video is very jumpy on playback. You can also see that the video is not smooth while the recording is taking place.

I can send you the clip if you like.

My system:

Intel PIII - 1Ghz
Memory - 1 Gb
ATA 100 disks

As a side note, whenever playing back a recorded show, there is a small graphic superimposed in the upper right hand corner of the video (generated from the LAME codec, I think). Do you know of any way to get rid of this?

Thanks,

Bob

[dkardatzke]

The graphic you see is a Watermark from Elecard for the shareware version of their MPEG-2 Decoder. You can purchase a licensed version on their website of the MPEG-2 Player which comes with the MPEG-2 Decoder for $20.00.

[ruel]

FYI, I found that one way to get around the sound sync problem after changing the channels a lot in SageTV is to hit pause and/or to skip back (rewind) and/or skip forward, and then hit play.

After playing with SageTV a little more extensively (I let SageTV go and do a lot of timeshift recording overnight), I'll have to try that seeker/fast_mux_switch=false setting again for SageTV to see if it still crashes/freezes my Creative VB DVCR card.

[JQuaglino]

I've had no luck getting DVD complaint files. All files, no matter what setting I select, are reported as 640*480. Even if I select SVCD, I get 640*480, 48 khz.

Is there something I'm not doing correctly?

[ruel]

Originally posted by JQuaglino
I've had no luck getting DVD complaint files. All files, no matter what setting I select, are reported as 640*480. Even if I select SVCD, I get 640*480, 48 khz.

Correct me if this is inapplicable, since I don't know if there are the same settings in the SageRecorder.properties settings file, but take a look at this message thread (look at the fourth message) regarding the Sage.properties file for SageTV:
http://www.freytechnologies.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=89
I haven't gotten that far yet in making playable discs from Sage video recordings since I'm still exploring SageTV as a PVR.

[Narflex]

The creative drivers don't support another larger than 640x480 currently. Apparently there's a bug with 480x480 for the Creative card in Sage. That'll be fixed in the next release.

To get around it now for V1.1.4 (yeah, this sounds weird, but it works) make a custom quality setting (directions on our website) and set vbr to 480. It was using 'vbr' for both 'vbr' and 'width'. For example, to do SVCD Standard Play, add this line to the SageRecorder.properties file:
mmc/python2_encoding/SVCD480x480=videobitrate=2000000|peakvideobitrate=2500000|vbr=480|width=480|height=480|audiobitrate=224|outputstreamtype=0|audiosampling=48000

Thanks,

[JQuaglino]

Jeffrey,

Isn't SVCD audio supposed to be 44.1 and no 48 khz?

[Narflex]

I'm not sure. But the Creative driver doesn't support 44.1 kHz. Only 32 & 48, so that's not even an option.

[cellarboy]

I must say that Sage Recorder works suprising great considering the effort Creative went to try and prevent anyone else from making use of the card.

For some reason, the image quality is way better than the recordings made with the DVCR application. Are you supporting higher bitrates? Also, the horizonal jerkiness and blurry motion seem a lot less noticeable.

Are the video files recorded with the DCVR in this software completely MPEG2 compliant? They certainly seem to be, so Recorder doesn't seem to be introducing the errors into the data that the Creative app does.

Two things I noticed though. The Sage Recorder is prone to crashing -- a lot! Unfortunately, it was late when I was testing the software and I didn't write down the error codes. I shall do this the next time I play with the software.

The other is that while using the MPEG2 max quality option, I see a lot of video corruption in both the preview and recordings. multicolored blocks of garbage are all over the bottom half of the video. These seem to totally go away when you drop down to Best quality. I'm wondering if the MPEG2 max quality option is just too high of a bitrate for the card to handle?

[JQuaglino]

I just used sagerecorder coupled with Demo's hacked DVCR driver to produce a 720*480, 48 Khz mpeg. Opened it in Ulead Moviefactory. Authored a DVD and burned. It played fine in my Apex 1200. It was only a 10 second clip. I'm doing some more testing right now.

[Narflex]

Awesome about that DVD burning working.

cellarboy,

Sage supports whatever bitrates the hardware support. I don't place any limits on it, so you can specify anything...if it's too high, you'll just end up getting errors in the stream most likely.

Sage's files are fully MPEG2 compliant. Since the Creative card produces a compliant MPEG2 video stream, the errors they introduce is done in multiplexing. Sage uses its own custom multiplexor which creates compliant files (go to mpegla.com we're a listed licensee).

Please send me any information you have about the crashing, the application itself is completely stable in testing, but certain systems end up crashing due to hardware/driver conflicts. I recommend trying the Elecard MPEG2 decoders (there's a free demo on their website you can use www.elecard.com). They're pure software decoding and work with the widest variety of configurations (haven't found one they don't work with yet).

[ruel]

Originally posted by JQuaglino
I just used sagerecorder coupled with Demo's hacked DVCR driver to produce a 720*480, 48 Khz mpeg. Opened it in Ulead Moviefactory. Authored a DVD and burned. It played fine in my Apex 1200. It was only a 10 second clip. I'm doing some more testing right now.
Are you using Demo's driver only with the Sage software? How is it working for you with the regular default software for the Creative VB DVCR card (if you are still using the regular default software)? Or is Demo's driver not meant to be used with the regular default software for the Creative VB DVCR card? I tried installing Demo's drivers but got a crappy badly pixelated picture in the default software. Everything looked okay in SageTV but I haven't tried different recording settings yet. For now, I went back to the original drivers for the Creative VB DVCR card. FYI, I switching back and forth using the regular default software for the Creative VB DVCR card and using SageTV since I want to continue using both software.

[cellarboy]

I had a little more of a play and this is the error code I keep getting:

AppName: sagerecorder.exe
AppVer: 1.0.0.1 ModName: mpegmux.ax
ModVer: 0.0.0.0 Offset: 00001a68

It eventually happens on all the recording settings, but the higher the quality, the faster it occurs.

Hope this helps!

[Narflex]

cellarboy,

email support@freytechnologies.com, and I'll send you back a debug file which will allow me to get more details on that.

[_Demo_]

The modified vbdvcr driver only supports 720x480 and that is not supported by the default vbdvcr application... The drivers by default only support 640,480 and 320 but the actual hardware can do 720,640,544,480,352,320. For sound, the card is only able to capture at 32khz but the driver can down/up sample to 16khz and 48khz.

_Demo_

[ruel]

Thanks Demo. That's good information to know. :rolleyes:

[JQuaglino]

Jeff,
I'm getting the mpegmux.ax crash on anything over SVCD bitrates. Also, is there anyway to specify files sizes. For exaple, if I'm recording a 2hr movie, it makes a 2 gig file. When converting to a vob in dvd authoring software the files a chopped to 1 gg. This is introducing sync problems i don't have with smaller files.

[Narflex]

Does anyone have information on the bitrates that the Creative card uses in their application?

What happens if you use Fair, Good, Great or Best? Do those crash?

[Narflex]

I'm also not sure what you mean by the file sizes, and what kind of sync problem are you having?

[JQuaglino]

I'd like to be able to set the files size to record 1 Gig files, press record, and have it generate movie01.mpg, movie02.mpg, movie03.mpg, etc. where all files are 1 gig. Thus, a 2 hour movie would be saved as 2 1gig files.

[Narflex]

That'll likely show up in a release soon, there's another feature being implemented that's almost the same as the one you're asking for so we'll just do 'em together.

[JQuaglino]

Originally posted by Narflex
Does anyone have information on the bitrates that the Creative card uses in their application?

What happens if you use Fair, Good, Great or Best? Do those crash?

Creative uses, I believe 2.0 to 8.0 Mbs. I currenlty testing Fair. What are the corresponding bit rates for the recording settings.

[ruel]

Recording settings for Creative VB DVCR software:

setting - (a) sample rate - (b) audio - (c) video - (d) resolution
Best - (a) 32k - (b) 384 kb/sec mpeg - (c) 4 Mbits/sec - (d) 640x480
Better - (a) 32k - (b) 384 kb/sec mpeg - (c) 3 Mbits/sec - (d) 480x480
Good - (a) 32k - (b) 192 kb/sec mpeg - (c) 2.2 Mbits/sec - (d) 480x480
Fair - (a) 16k - (b) 128 kb/sec mpeg - (c) 1.6 Mbits/sec - (d) 320x480

[jmeeks]

JQuaglino, what is chopping the files to 1GB size? and what are you doing to require or need a 1GB file instead of the whole thing (movie) in 1 file. Is it just a problem with your DVd authoring software?

Just trying to understand what you are doing. Been looking into getting into the DVD authoring thing and if this is an issue I wanted to understand what is going on.

Thanks,

John

[Narflex]

These are the default qualities in SageTV.


Quality VBR AvgVideoRate Resolution AudioBitrate
Best No 6Mbps 720x480 384kbps
Great No 3.8Mbps 720x480 384kbps
Good No 2.8Mbps 480x480 256kbps
Fair No 1.7Mbps 480x480 256kbps
CVD Yes 2.5Mbps 352x480 224kbps
SVCD ELP Yes 1.152Mbps 480x480 224kbps
SVCD LP Yes 1.6Mbps 480x480 224kbps
SVCD SP Yes 2Mbps 480x480 224kbps
DVD ELP Yes 3Mbps 720x480 384kbps
DVD LP Yes 4.8Mbps 720x480 384kbps
DVD SP Yes 6.4Mbps 720x480 384kbps
MPEG2Max No 12Mbps 720x480 384kbps

NOTE1: For Creative VBDVCR, 640x480 is used instead of 720x480 and 320x480 insted of 352x480
NOTE2: AudioSampling of 48kHz is used for all of these


What I'm most suspicious of with Creative is whether or not they support VBR very well.

[JQuaglino]

jmeeks,

I'm trying to burn dvds of movies recorded of satellite for my kids. The mpegs play fine but when I bring them in Ulead Movie Factory or other software they lose audio sync when they are chopped into 1G vobs.

Jeff,
Fair worked fine. I'll try and up to Good and let you know what happens.

[jmeeks]

Why do you have to chop them to 1 GB? I thought DVD's could hold 4.7GB.

I'm assuming the VOB is just a DVD compatable file format.

John

[JQuaglino]

Vob is what is found on commercial dvds. This is what a standalone player looks for. That is the size they need.

[JQuaglino]

Jeff,
I've done some more testing and I think your right. I seem to be able to capture fine with the cbr modes but not with the vbr. I still have not found a solution to the vob sync problems. I read somewhere that the creative card doesn't actually capture at 29.97 but something like 29.3. Anybody have any info on this.

Jeff,
Have you all made any vobs with a creative card? If so what dvd authoring software do you use?

[ruel]

Originally posted by JQuaglino
I read somewhere that the creative card doesn't actually capture at 29.97 but something like 29.3. Anybody have any info on this.

It's 29.97 when I measure the exported mpeg2 files using PVAStrumento. I think the "29.3" could be when people may be making adjustments to get the sound back in sync when they are having the oh-so-typical-problems after resampling/converting the exported video mpeg2 files. That "29.3" is really too slow and must be for a really badly out of sync video. The original exported mpeg2 files are in sync at 29.97. And the 29.97 comes across when I divx the video files but the sound is then out of sync after the divx conversion and then I have to slow down the fps to 29.9665 or 29.9655 to get the sound back in sync. This is not what you want when you make a DVD or a SVCD, but it's good enough if you are merely archiving the video.

[Narflex]

Haven't tried doing any DVD authoring from the Creative files yet.

Can you tell me more about the sync problems you're having? The MPEG2 multiplexor that's used when recording from the Creative card is something I wrote from scratch. It has extensive audio/video synchronization management in there. If you've found a problem with the a/v sync in the recorded files I'd like to know more about it.

The one known problem is when you change channels it will become out of sync, but it will correct itself soon afterwards. The more times you change the channel, the worse it gets and the longer it takes to correct. This is because the video stream stops during the channel change because the signal is lost, but the audio digitizer keeps going and outputting data. So you get extra audio data which will eventually be detected by the statistical analysis in the synchronization algorithm and then corrected (a minute or two at the most if you're doing a lot of channel changing).

[JQuaglino]

Jeff,
I have absolutely no sync problems with the mpeg files generated by sagerecorder. I only have problems after converting them to vob with Dvd authoring software.

[JQuaglino]

Problems solved. I updated Ulead and all works well. I'm still getting crashes with vbr but not cbr.

[Narflex]

I'm going to disable VBR for the Creative cards by default in the next build. They definitely seem to be problematic. You'll still have all of those bitrate options, but they'll all be CBR.

[Narflex]

Oooh, and I just found a bug regarding the Creative card while disabling VBR for it. Apparently, V1.1.4 would randomly enable VBR unless vbr was explictily set to 0. And it's not explicitly set to 0 in any of the default properties. This was because the code wasn't initializing the VBR field of the data structure that went to the encoder unless vbr was explicitly set. (stupid C memory initializtion; another reason Java rocks, because it always initializes your memory for you)

What that means is good news for any random crashes with CBR, because this is a VERY likely culprit for those. There'll be a new beta out within the next couple of days; this will be fixed in it.

[LPC]

I'm not having much luck wth the "Moonlight Odio Dekoda DirectShow filter."
I downloaded the .zip file and extracted the files and then double clicked
on the .exe file and afterwards I got a window with the title "RegSvr32"
along with a yellow triangle with a black exclamation mark in it. Below are
some lines the first of which states "No DLL name specified." There are some
other lines but I don't have the energy to type what they are.

Someone suggested that I double click on the reg.bat file that was also extracted from the zip file which I did. I then got a DOS window with a path at the end of which is >regsvr32 mlcom.ax. I also got a window saying RegSvr32 at the top and below it it said "DLLRegisterServer in mlcom.ax succeeded." There was also an "Ok" button which I selected. I then went back to the folder to run the regsvr32.exe file and I got the same "No DLL name specified" window. Anybody know what's going on here?

When I attempt to open the program I get a window saying that it can't "Cannot load DirectShow filters" so unless I figure this out I won't be able to use it.

Thanks.

[jmeeks]

Is the file mlcom.ax in your Frey Technologies\common folder?

[Narflex]

LPC,

You also need to get the MPEG Layer III Encoder DirectShow Filter from Elecard and download and register that. Then the Cannot Load Filters message should go away and it should work.

[LPC]

Originally posted by jmeeks
Is the file mlcom.ax in your Frey Technologies\common folder? No it isn't. I see it in the OdioDec folder. Shall I copy and paste it into my FreyTechnologies/common folders?

Before posting here I downloaded and unzipped the MPEG Layer III Audio Encoder for DirectShow from the Elecard site but I'm still getting that annoying "DLL" window. I then double clicked on the reg.bat folder and I witnessed a DOS window flicker in front of me and then double clicked on the .exe file again but I still got that "No DLL name specified" window. Any ideas?

Thanks.

[Narflex]

You don't need to concern youself with the location of mlcom.ax, it's irrelevant.

When you register the Elecard filter, you just double-click on reg.bat and you're done. that little window flashing is what's supposed to happen. You're not supposed to try and just run regsvr32.exe.

Does it work now? You could also try the 1.2.2 beta, you might have better luck with it.

[LPC]

Originally posted by Narflex
You don't need to concern youself with the location of mlcom.ax, it's irrelevant.

When you register the Elecard filter, you just double-click on reg.bat and you're done. that little window flashing is what's supposed to happen. You're not supposed to try and just run regsvr32.exe.Sorry, I'm not very technically advanced so I figured that the .exe file was the key. However, when you said that what I had done was correct I went to open the program and it opened!

There are, however, some instant issues of concern.

Firstly, I'm in Canada so I don't have a zip code which means I can't use the guide. Secondly, the audio is a little off. I was also disappointed that it didn't correct the poor reception that I have with some of the channels when using the Creative software which means that problem is obviously with the hardware-related. I also can't use the remote which is drag.

One very good thing (at least according to the FAQ) is that it's possible to use a sattelite service with the sofware. Hopefully, this also includes Canadian sattelite providers.

Thank you very much for helping me get this thing going.

[Narflex]

LPC,

If the audio's off in a constant way, there's an audio delay setting in setup you can use to correct it.

You can use the Creative Remote, just go into Detailed Setup->Commands and link the buttons on the remote to commands in SageTV.

[MarcAronson]

I have a copy of the hacked drivers for the creative DVCR card and I attempted to do some recording with it. I was using the DVCR application that comes bundled with the creative card. It created 720x480 streams at 32KHZ. I used MYDVD v4 to create a DVD -- MYDVD took care of re-sampling the audio. I was able to create DVDs in some cased, but with some recordings I ran into the following problems:

1. When using "best", MYDVD would reject the recording with the msg "bit rate too high for DVD". I ran bitrate on the file and found that the peak bit rate was just a bit of 9200kbps for video. Is anyone else having this problem? Can the bitrate be contained?

2. When using "better", the video quality was very poor.

Any thoughts?

Marc

[Narflex]

Try using SageRecorder or SageTV to create the files.

[rfutscher]

I have a Video Blaster but can't use it because my computer is a multi proscessor and the Creative software won't work.

Will the Sage Software work in a multi proscessor system?

Will the Sage Software work if the Creative software isn't installed?

[Narflex]

Sage will work in a multiprocessor system, the only reason it wouldn't is if the driver's for the Creative card won't work on a multiprocessor system. You will need to install the Creative drivers, but their software package doesn't need to be installed.

[JQuaglino]

Jeff,
I loaded the beta and had nothing but problems. I went back to the release addition, 1.14, I think and now I get constant mpegmux.ax crashes even on the settings that were safe before. Using NTSC (best), sagerecorder records for about 13 minutes and then crashes with the mpegmux.ax error.

Like I said, all was working fine. I haven't made any other changes to the system.

Additionally, when I reloaded 1.14, I got audio that was very slooooooow sounding. I installed SageTV demo and this was corrected. Does SageTV have to be installed for Sagerecorder to work correctly.

[dkardatzke]

SageTV and SageRecorder are two different applications and installing one does not affect the other. I'll let Jeff address the other comments/issues.

[Narflex]

You do need to be using the same version of SageRecorder and SageTV if you have both installed.

There's a new beta 1.2.5 out now which you should try. It should have no issues with the Creative card at all. If you have any problems with it, let me know and I"ll help you resolve them.

You should also do a clean install to be sure you don't have any old settings lying around, this will clear all of your settings for Sage, so don't do this unless that's OK. To clean Sage off completey, go to Add/Remove programs and remove it that way first. Then delete the C:\Program Files\Frey Technologies folder. That's it.

If you ever regress versions, you should always clean your settings out because the properties/databases are not backwards compatible. All settings for SageRecorder are in the SageRecorder.properties file. For SageTV all of the information is in the Sage.properties & Wiz.bin files.

Thanks,

[JQuaglino]

Jeff,
I'll give it a try and let you know. Any idea why I get the slow audio without SageTV installed?

[Narflex]

It has to do with a bug in V1.1.4 I'm pretty sure.

[JQuaglino]

Jeff,
I can get 1.14 to work if I choose to install the Provideo stuff. Then the audio works fine. Is there something wrong with doing it that way. I tried the beta but I have horrible audio/video sync issues with it. I haven't tried the beta with the Provideo extras.

Wiping out everything seems to have solved the mpegmux.ax crashes. Thanks!

[Narflex]

Nope, nothing wrong with that. If it works for you, go with it.