MyTheatre DVB Network Encoder Plugin

[xred]

Originally Posted by insomniac

you dont need to change anything in MT or MT plugin. You need to make sure that you configure sage itself. Instead of making the recording directory c:\do.... you would make it \\<computername or IP>\<sharename>. The quick solution for you would be to share your present recording directory and use the above path example.
I.

OK good news bad / news.

First the good news. I did this and it worked. I changed the video recording dir from C:\Docu......\Recorded TV to \\192.168.1.3\Recorded TV exclusively. The MyTheatre plugin started working and tuning. Its VERY slow on channel changes, but it works. Previously I had mapped 2 video recording folders in Sage (one local, one on the MyTheatre machine). But the plugin seems to use the very first one it comes across (In my case the local on on the Sage machine) and tries to replicate that path on the machine its installed on.

Bad news. The analog tuner is now also quite slow at changing channels. Something about having to address the local folder via the network stack instead of directly through the file system apparently sends Sage for a loop. What I wonder is whether this is a sign of something to do with the architecture of Sage, the plugin or just lousy performance of my network....... I'm pretty sure its not a system performance issue as the Sage machine is a 3GHz P4 w/ 1gig of RAM, and the MyTheatre server is a 2.4 Ghz P4 with 1 gig of Ram.

I am gonna try and tune some settings for a while and see if I can get the performance a bit better before I add my second DVB card to the MyTheatre machine.

Thanks again for the help.

[peterjb]

Argh!! Somewhere in my travels I reinstalled SageTV from scratch and lost the fseeker/fast_mux_switch=false setting from my sage.properties file.. Once I've set it and restarted - I haven't lost a channel change - even on pre V3.33.3 MT versions.

I'll add this to the doco - Thanks!!

Cheers

Peter

[KrisAcker]

Originally Posted by xred

OK good news bad / news.

First the good news. I did this and it worked. I changed the video recording dir from C:\Docu......\Recorded TV to \\192.168.1.3\Recorded TV exclusively. The MyTheatre plugin started working and tuning. Its VERY slow on channel changes, but it works. Previously I had mapped 2 video recording folders in Sage (one local, one on the MyTheatre machine). But the plugin seems to use the very first one it comes across (In my case the local on on the Sage machine) and tries to replicate that path on the machine its installed on.

Bad news. The analog tuner is now also quite slow at changing channels. Something about having to address the local folder via the network stack instead of directly through the file system apparently sends Sage for a loop. What I wonder is whether this is a sign of something to do with the architecture of Sage, the plugin or just lousy performance of my network....... I'm pretty sure its not a system performance issue as the Sage machine is a 3GHz P4 w/ 1gig of RAM, and the MyTheatre server is a 2.4 Ghz P4 with 1 gig of Ram.

I am gonna try and tune some settings for a while and see if I can get the performance a bit better before I add my second DVB card to the MyTheatre machine.

Thanks again for the help.

Use the computer's name instead of it's IP address when you refer to the share in Sage. Windows doesn't use the network stack when it "sees" that the computername in the UNC is the local computer.

[insomniac]

glad it helped!

Originally Posted by peterjb

Argh!! Somewhere in my travels I reinstalled SageTV from scratch and lost the fseeker/fast_mux_switch=false setting from my sage.properties file.. Once I've set it and restarted - I haven't lost a channel change - even on pre V3.33.3 MT versions.

I'll add this to the doco - Thanks!!

Cheers

Peter

[technazz]

Any way to run 2 Tuner Cards with this plugin? I can Run 2 providers in MT but will only be able to have one EPG for it. So iI think I need another card but o dont know if this plugin will work with 2 DVB-S cards??

Technazz

[peterjb]

Ahh now you obviously haven't read the manual To support multiple cards you need to run multiple instances of MT - which is supported by the plugin. How to set this up for the plugin is included in the manual - Including a link to a HOW-TO for setting up multiple MT instances on the MT support forum.

I currently run two NOVA-T DVB-T cards in my rig with no issues.

Cheers

Peter

[technazz]

Yes, Ok! I remember reading that but it took a while and slight hit on the head to remember . I was just trying to avoid buying another DVB card to get my EPG for my other providor! .

Now that I know I have to do. I just want to know how you guys Start MT on bootup. Right now I have it start up automaticly with at switch to start in the background Mode. But it seems like it a toggle and every other time I start I get video in the background causing Video rendering problem. Basicly I need the WAF. Once in a while im at work My wife has has to reboot and then MT is minimized but the video is on and Sage will not produce video and I loose the WAF!

And How to you start 2 instance of MT auotmatically?


I know I can go to MT forums but this forum seems better for the custom solution like this.


Thanks

Technazz

[xred]

Originally Posted by peterjb

Ahh now you obviously haven't read the manual To support multiple cards you need to run multiple instances of MT - which is supported by the plugin. How to set this up for the plugin is included in the manual - Including a link to a HOW-TO for setting up multiple MT instances on the MT support forum.

I currently run two NOVA-T DVB-T cards in my rig with no issues.

To get this running, I am guessing you would have to define the second encoder in the sage.properties file... I didn't see where in the doc it outlined what changes need to be made to the sage properties settings to add multi card support.

For setup of my first card I simply cut and paste out of the PDF you provided. Beyond changing the encoder name to MT Card 2, is there anything else that needs to be changed in there?

TIA.

[insomniac]

A while ago, I (and others) made a pledge for a $30 donation for anyone that creates a good, stable DVB-S solution. Not only has peter done that, but he has done it for all DVB-X methods. Although I wish that channel changes were a bit faster, I am confident that if it is fixable, it will get resolved.

Peter, do you have a paypal account that I may make a donation to?

I.

[xred]

Originally Posted by insomniac

A while ago, I (and others) made a pledge for a $30 donation for anyone that creates a good, stable DVB-S solution. Not only has peter done that, but he has done it for all DVB-X methods. Although I wish that channel changes were a bit faster, I am confident that if it is fixable, it will get resolved.

Peter, do you have a paypal account that I may make a donation to?

I.

I would definately chip in for the work done so far! Post an address where we can send money to.

[xred]

Originally Posted by insomniac

My thoughts on this was to use the existing mdb captured by MT. The export looks very similar to the format that sage needs to import the data into its epg. The scripting would be very easy, my problem is that I cannot figure out any good way to massage the xml data. See this link:

http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthr...9&postcount=30

I entered this in the EPG section, but the best bet for EPG data seems to be TSreader from www.coolstf.com. TSReader can read the EPG data from satellites and output the data as XMLTV format EPG data. Since Sage can now (with plugin) use XMLTV data this would be perfect.

My only problem seems to be that TSReader does not like systems with multiple cards in it. Everytime I start it and select my Twinhan, it dies.

Hopefully someone here can try this out and report if it works!

[xred]

Originally Posted by xred

To get this running, I am guessing you would have to define the second encoder in the sage.properties file... I didn't see where in the doc it outlined what changes need to be made to the sage properties settings to add multi card support.

For setup of my first card I simply cut and paste out of the PDF you provided. Beyond changing the encoder name to MT Card 2, is there anything else that needs to be changed in there?

TIA.

I am still looking for help on getting my second tuner up... can someone post what needs to be added to sage.properties to recognize "card 2" on my MyTheatre server?

TIA

[insomniac]

you just add another set of mmc lines (as in the first card install). You need to change the mmc encoder to a unique number. e.g. mmc/encoders/133509170/....doesnt matter what you choose...


I believe you must also change the listen port as well. e.g. 6969 is problably your first. Make the second 6970. You will also need to name the second card. see below for the 2 lines:

mmc/encoders/160342398/encoding_host=localhost\:6970
mmc/encoders/160342398/video_capture_device_name=MTSageTV Card 2

never done it, but im sure this has to be close to the mark.

I.

Originally Posted by xred

I am still looking for help on getting my second tuner up... can someone post what needs to be added to sage.properties to recognize "card 2" on my MyTheatre server?

TIA

[insomniac]

huge find. Im all over this! Luckily I have my cards seperated to 2 different machines.

Ill post my results when I have them.


EDIT:

first thought after exporting xmltv format; the export is in unix time. Im not sure that sage can import this format. Does anyone know this?

take 2:
ugh...this could become a blog soon...have the xmltv "type" export from tsreader, now trying to read up on how the heck to import it as guide data in sae. All the 10,000 various versions is making my head spin. Anyone recommend a good one for this purpose?
I.

Originally Posted by xred

I entered this in the EPG section, but the best bet for EPG data seems to be TSreader from www.coolstf.com. TSReader can read the EPG data from satellites and output the data as XMLTV format EPG data. Since Sage can now (with plugin) use XMLTV data this would be perfect.

My only problem seems to be that TSReader does not like systems with multiple cards in it. Everytime I start it and select my Twinhan, it dies.

Hopefully someone here can try this out and report if it works!

[technazz]

you just add another set of mmc lines (as in the first card install). You need to change the mmc encoder to a unique number. e.g. mmc/encoders/133509170/....doesnt matter what you choose...


I believe you must also change the listen port as well. e.g. 6969 is problably your first. Make the second 6970. You will also need to name the second card. see below for the 2 lines:

mmc/encoders/160342398/encoding_host=localhost\:6970
mmc/encoders/160342398/video_capture_device_name=MTSageTV Card 2

never done it, but im sure this has to be close to the mark.

Yes that works. Exactly what I did. My problem is that I cant have both tuners on at the same time I get an exception if I have on started and Want to load up the other.

I have a Twinhan USB 2.0 7021 and Twinhan 102G using the /card2 switch.

I've searched all of the posts on MT forums but it doesnt look like to many people are having any luck with multiple tuners epspecially when they are different types.

Id love to populate the PPV guide. It drives me nuts to jump to the PPV previes and watch whats on.

Technazz

[insomniac]

did you enable the multicard thing in MT? Im assuming you did, but i have to ask.

Originally Posted by technazz

Yes that works. Exactly what I did. My problem is that I cant have both tuners on at the same time I get an exception if I have on started and Want to load up the other.

I have a Twinhan USB 2.0 7021 and Twinhan 102G using the /card2 switch.

I've searched all of the posts on MT forums but it doesnt look like to many people are having any luck with multiple tuners epspecially when they are different types.

Id love to populate the PPV guide. It drives me nuts to jump to the PPV previes and watch whats on.

Technazz

[peterjb]

I knew I was setting myself up for a fall by asking you guys to RTFM - because of course the documentation is incomplete

Here is the process that I followed to set up MyTheatre for multiple cards :

* Create two shortcuts to MT ( Simply copy the default shortcut ) - on the first ensure that you specify /toggle only. on the second specify /toggle /card2

* Click on the first shortcut and go to Settings->General Settings and select the Miscellaneous tab. Ensure that the Separate OFFLINE, CARDn profiles checkbox is set. Now scan and setup the channels that you require and add them to the MT favourite & specify the channel numbers that you wish to use for this card. Close this instance of MT

* Click on the second shortcut for MT and go to Settings->General Settings and select the Hardware tab. On the tab there should now be a dropdown list of the DVB cards on your PC. By default, the first DVB card in your rig that MT recognizes is selected. Now choose the card that you want to use as your second card. Now scan and setup the channels that you require and add them to the MT favourite & specify the channel numbers that you wish to use for this card. Close this instance of MT.

Now you should be able to start both instances of MT and watch channels that belong to each card. The plugin recognizes different card profiles and will load the correct card#.ini and log to separate log files based on what parameters are passed to MT. ( But Those instructions are in the manual ) On the SageTV side, as Insomniac has pointed out you will need to specify each set of mmc encoder entries with a unique number/port/name. You can then add these to SageTV and specify the required Channel Lineup and matching channels numbers, etc. I'll update the documentation for this in the next release.

There is no limitation on the type of cards you use, I've had a TwinHan DVB-T card and a NOVA-T in my rig using WDM drivers. I've also had a TwinHan DVB-T card ( using BDA ) and a NOVA-T ( using WDM ). And finally I've used a USB DVICO DVB-T (BDA) and NOVA-T (WDM) concurrently. Dual NOVA-T's was actually the most problematic for me as it's not a supported configuration by Hauppauge - But I found the cause was that they are implemented as Network Adapters that use the same base IP address - Argh!!! Using separate driver inf files with a different base IP address for each card sorted this out.

On the starting of multiple instances of MT - I use HIP in my rig and have set it up to use the MT command line interface on StartUp/Standby/Resume to control the instances of MT. Support of Standby & Resume works very well, but I have an issue at startup I'm trying to work out.

Thanks for your offers of payment - I appreciate it! If I do end up getting some recompense for my efforts - It will upset my wife! She thinks I spend too much time on my 'little project' it as it is!

Cheers

Peter

[technazz]

* Create two shortcuts to MT ( Simply copy the default shortcut ) - on the first ensure that you specify /toggle only. on the second specify /toggle /card2

* Click on the first shortcut and go to Settings->General Settings and select the Miscellaneous tab. Ensure that the Separate OFFLINE, CARDn profiles checkbox is set. Now scan and setup the channels that you require and add them to the MT favourite & specify the channel numbers that you wish to use for this card. Close this instance of MT

* Click on the second shortcut for MT and go to Settings->General Settings and select the Hardware tab. On the tab there should now be a dropdown list of the DVB cards on your PC. By default, the first DVB card in your rig that MT recognizes is selected. Now choose the card that you want to use as your second card. Now scan and setup the channels that you require and add them to the MT favourite & specify the channel numbers that you wish to use for this card. Close this instance of MT.

Now you should be able to start both instances of MT and watch channels that belong to each card. The plugin recognizes different card profiles and will load the correct card#.ini and log to separate log files based on what parameters are passed to MT. ( But Those instructions are in the manual ) On the SageTV side, as Insomniac has pointed out you will need to specify each set of mmc encoder entries with a unique number/port/name. You can then add these to SageTV and specify the required Channel Lineup and matching channels numbers, etc. I'll update the documentation for this in the next release.

There is no limitation on the type of cards you use, I've had a TwinHan DVB-T card and a NOVA-T in my rig using WDM drivers. I've also had a TwinHan DVB-T card ( using BDA ) and a NOVA-T ( using WDM ). And finally I've used a USB DVICO DVB-T (BDA) and NOVA-T (WDM) concurrently. Dual NOVA-T's was actually the most problematic for me as it's not a supported configuration by Hauppauge - But I found the cause was that they are implemented as Network Adapters that use the same base IP address - Argh!!! Using separate driver inf files with a different base IP address for each card sorted this out.

On the starting of multiple instances of MT - I use HIP in my rig and have set it up to use the MT command line interface on StartUp/Standby/Resume to control the instances of MT. Support of Standby & Resume works very well, but I have an issue at startup I'm trying to work out.

Thats exactly what I am doing

Card1 is mY Twinhan Starbox 7021( VisionDTV 2.607 Driver there is no BDA or WHLQ) and Card2 is Mty Twinhan 102G (BDA Driver)

Ive edited the first to allow mulple cards selected the proper card on both instances.

My Shortcut for one is good and 2 uses the /toggle /card2.

The both can start independantly and work in Sage, but when load them together I get an error on the last one 9Exeption error).I have toe CTR-ALT-DEL and remove all instances of MT to get one to wor, Im using MT 3.3.3. Im a little frustrated. Uggg..

Technazz

[insomniac]

much more reliable for me. changes channels without fail and also allows for me to use 3.x versions of dvbcore.

Originally Posted by foolio

question for insomniac:

why is this plugin better than the sdvbcorerecorder for DVB-S useage? is it more reliable?

thanks

[peterjb]

technazz,

What is the exact exception message that you get? There is some discussion in the MT support forums that after setting up the channels.mdb and the rest of your configuration that you may need to run each of the cards out of a separate copy of the MT install directory. I've implemented it both ways in my rig and it does not seem to make too much of a difference - your mileage may vary.

Also are you running any other plugins other than the network encoder? These may be the cause of the error - If the plugin developer hasn't catered for multi-card use. Running each instance out of a seperate copy of the MT install directory may assist here too.

Cheers

Peter