HDTV Network Encoder v0.9.0 07-08-05 - HD Support for Sage!

[Stealth1971]

Originally Posted by thatdude90210

I have a Fusion 3T in my Sage server that I could try later tonight. Couple of questions first: do we get the Cyberlink PowerVCR II Mux & dump filter just by installing the PowervcrII demo? And the "BDA tunable driver" is just part of the fusion's XP driver right?

Yep just install the demo - the filters aren't locked down...

And I believe the Fusion's XP drivers = BDA drivers

[Stealth1971]

I should have a fix to the "quirkiness" Flashbacck was seeing tonight - I hope... I am blindly connecting the MS Demux to the Cyberlink MUX... I think the wrong MPEG elementry streams are getting muxed???

[thatdude90210]

I'm not having any luck with QAM with my fusion 3t here yet, went through your instructions for setup, and added the hdne encoder as tuner in Sage. I tied-up my 2 analog tuners by having them record, and select a channel that I mapped to hdne encoder and just get black screen and just lock up Sage, or spits out this error message "there was a playback error in playback. Details: sage.playbackexception: error (-3,0x80004005): there was a problem accessing the filesystem for playback.".

Let me make sure I have ServiceLocator.xml setup correctly. My channel 5 on my Fusion app is 114.1 so it should look like this right:

<Option Name="5.Physical" Value="114"/>
<Option Name="5.Major" Value="5"/>
<Option Name="5.Minor" Value="1"/>

[chrisc16]

It sounds like your selected MPEG decoder is incapable of decoding .TS files. I get the same error when I try to playback a .TS file on my client when I have the SageTV decoder selected. Try switching to another decoder (previous posters have had luck with the CyberLink decoders).

-Chris

[thatdude90210]

I just tried the cyberlink decoder, and went through all my other decoders (intervideo, elecard, ffdshow, sagetv), all with the same result.

[Stealth1971]

Actually I had that happen earlier also as I am testing a new version that will fix some other playback issues (Mainly the "Could not Render Audio" error). It happens when Sage is trying to read a 0 byte size file. This happens when HDNE is unable to write data to the Sage requested video file. It happened to me because my OTA signal strength dropped and I didn't have any data for a long while. I am thinking the QAM channel request is probably not working - hence resulting in 0 byte size file.

I am going to contact Dvico to see if they have any info on how they are implementing the QAM tuning space. What I have read this afternoon is that MS is NOT currently supporting QAM in the BDA driver spec. So Dvico must be doing something special to get it to work.

[Stealth1971]

Originally Posted by flashbacck

I set it up last night and it worked on two channels (2-cbs, 7-abc) and it was possibly working on 4-nbc (I think I had signal strength issues).

On channels 2 and 7 it seemed to work pretty well. CPU usage was between 50-70% on the system in my sig.

I couldn't get it to work on 5-wb, 11-fox or 13-upn. 5 would give me a sage error that said audio could not be processed. And 11 and 13 would just give me a black screen. On those channels Sage would sometimes freeze. Eventually it would respond and I could get back to the main screen.

Edit: oh yeah... It worked with the intervideo and cyberlink video codecs. I think CPU usage was better with the cyberlink ones. The Sage decoders worked, but I don't think DxVA is used so CPU usage was high. When I tried the nvidia decoders it gave me a video could not be processed error. I did not try viewing 5-wb with different audio decoders to see if it fixed that problem (I'm using intervideo).

Flashbacck - thanks for the quick turn around of testing it out!

I have a new version that might fix most of the audio rendering issues... This version uses NVidia's "TS Info Parser" filter built into the demo of their DVD players software. It shouldn't time out after the demo is expired?

Anyways here is the new app (version 0.7)
EDIT: check the first post for the latest version

[foolio]

This works amazingly well for my fusion!

I set it up for all the local channels - watching and recording fine.

I am running into issues with channel numbers tho - I have a hauppauge for SDTV assigned to the channels for abc/cbs/fox/nbc etc. Now with the hdtv receiver, it is also assigned to the same channel numbers so sage gets confused as to which to tune. I had to set it up so that I use San Francisco's listing for my HDTV and sacramento listing for my SDTV.

I now have a 2-HDTV tuner system (fusion, firewire cable), cable SDTV (Hauppauge) and 2-satellite dvb tuners! I don't even watch tv - I just love setting this crap up. thanks stealth!

[Beefcake550]

so, how would I attempt to get this to work with QAM tuning? Any word back from DVICO yet on how to switch it into QAM mode?

-Brian

[flashbacck]

Hi,
I haven't tested the new version yet, so the following is with the original version posted:

I noticed something weird with the audio while I was watching Alias last night (it was awesome watching it through Sage rather than the crappy Dvico software). My Rear-Right speaker did not play any audio. I was getting audio from my Rear-Left speaker however. I'm fairly sure it wasn't my setup, but I suppose it could be the broadcast. This was again with the Intervideo codecs.

When I switched to Cyberlink audio codecs, I was able to get audio in all speakers, but I don't think the cyberlink audio codecs do 5.1 output. When switching to the cyberlink codecs, I was able to get channels 5-wb, 11-fox to tune without the audio processing error.

I'm also having trouble if I try to change HD channels while I am watching an HD channel. I'll get a black screen, where my system seems to hang for 30 seconds or so. Changing channels by stopping everything, then going to the guide and selecting a new channel, works. This is with the SageMC16x9 STV.

Like I said, this is with the original version, so these might not even be problems anymore. I'll test out the new one tonight. Thanks for all your work Stealth!

[Stealth1971]

Originally Posted by flashbacck

Hi,
I'm also having trouble if I try to change HD channels while I am watching an HD channel. I'll get a black screen, where my system seems to hang for 30 seconds or so. Changing channels by stopping everything, then going to the guide and selecting a new channel, works. This is with the SageMC16x9 STV.

Like I said, this is with the original version, so these might not even be problems anymore. I'll test out the new one tonight. Thanks for all your work Stealth!

I saw this problem last night - I stayed up until 2:00am trying to figure it out -
Sage is doing something weird - When I select "Close File" when viewing and then start watching another HD show its fine. Its only when switching from one HD channel to the other... But my code executes pretty much the same way from either scenario.

[Stealth1971]

Originally Posted by Beefcake550

so, how would I attempt to get this to work with QAM tuning? Any word back from DVICO yet on how to switch it into QAM mode?

-Brian

Brian -
Not sure about the QAM mode -I believe QAM is a different frequency range and is modulated differently...

Check out this link - this is DVICO's response to QAM support for MCE 2005 (aka BDA support)
http://www.fusionhdtv.co.kr/Eng/Supp...ID=9&SCATID=42

I will hopefully write their support about this weekend.

Sorry

[salsbst]

That's hilarious (and pathetic).

[Stealth1971]

I was reading through the BDA SDK/specifications last night trying to see if there was a "QAM Tuning Space" - BDA has different Tuning Spaces (Network Providers) for different technologies i.e. DVB and ATSC. I couldnt find anything that resembled QAM from M$. I did come across a this link though:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...ningspaces.asp

It mentions "Local ATSC-style Digital Cable" and how its not supported yet!

This is starting to tick me off - I was really hoping for QAM support also!

[lovingHDTV]

OK, I must be missing something here. I installed the Cyberlink software, and I see video encoders installed but no video decoders. So which decoder are people using for viewing?

thanks,

[salsbst]

There must be *some* way to get the card to record QAM -- their software can do it. Perhaps a non-BDA IPlugin could theoretically handle the QAM functions using your server, if we can figure out how to control the card, right?

[foolio]

It's definitely possible - I believe Tony, the author of GotAllMedia has working QAM support for the fusion in his program.

BTW, for those having issues with switching channels - trying changing fastmux=false for your tuner in the properties file. I had the same problem with DVB.

[littlerm]

First of all, thanks Stealth for getting this working. I have an AthlonXP 3200+ with 1GB Ram on an NForce2 motherboard, Nvidia 6800GT video card, ATI HDTV Wonder, and a Hauppauge PVR-150. My processor is pegged at 100% on digital stations and the video is not smooth at all. I have tried Overlay and VMR9 with the Cyberlink decoders and it doesn't seem to help. Any ideas what I have done wrong?

[littlerm]

The processor problem must have been related to Sage cleaning up its database because of not using Sage for a while (using MCE2005). However, I still cannot get smooth playback on HD-channels no matter which options I choose. What decoder/settings are everyone else using for smooth playback?

[flashbacck]

Intervideo and cyberlink audio and video codecs have worked for me. SageTV video gives me 100% cpu usage, SageTV audio gives me BSOD. Nvidia audio and video do not work.

I haven't tested this completely, but it seems like HDNE works much better when I completely reboot after switching to a different codec, rather than just stopping the file, switching codecs and tuning to a channel.