Network encoder for DBOX 2 DVB set top boxes...

[Alfiegerner]

Excellent work m8 Like you say, the only problem is how to get live tv. If we had a set up like mediaportal that would work fine: there you have 2 settings, 1 being encoder priority for live tv and the other being encoder priority for recorded tv. I don't know if it is possible to simulate this in sage ...

Hopefully soon we will be able to play these files back in sage. This still leaves a slight issue with the time it takes to start a recording but hopefully that could be overcome.

Potpie, 2 questions for you:

1) Do you think sage - particularly the mvp - will be able to play back the files recorded by udrec in time? I don't know what the technical problems are so have no idea how likely it is.

2) This is to do with the time it takes to start a recording when using -udp -patpmt - do you think the time could be reduced between selecting the channel and the file being recorded?

Just wondering how far we are from the best tv solution in the world .

[potpiejimmy]

Hi guys,

first of all, thank you marneb for this great tool to convert the recorded files on-the-fly after recording I had also checked out projectX to convert the recorded files but I never thought it would be feasible to have an automatic conversion... I'm quite impressed you really got it working with dirmon, the txt files, the storage_path_prefix thing, the time stamps - that must have been quite a bit of work

One question: Are you recording the files with or without -patpmt?? Because if I record WITHOUT -patpmt, all files play fine in Sage, I'm having no problem as long as I don't try to watch a file that has just started recording or watch Live-TV (in that case Sage hangs for some minutes until the file size is large enough). Don't these files (without -patpmt) play in MVP extender??

Originally Posted by marneb17

Recording with udrec works great. I think the ggrab support is broken in version .9. I can see in the command window that the command that starts ggrab ends after the -o parameter.

Ggrab support shouldn't be broken in 0.9 (is it??). The command line should end with "-o -", the last '-' meaning stdout (ggrab_mod pipes its data to grabrecorder unlike udrec_mod which opens the target file on its own).

Originally Posted by marneb17

The only problem I have now is LiveTV. I want Sage to use the Svideo Input when I specify nothing, but use thenetwork encoder when I record something in the future.
Here is what I thought of but didn't get to work: I thought setting the network encoder to the quality "digital" would help me. Then I could have the default recording quality set to "Best" and since the network encoder can't supply the quality "Best" it would record through the pvr150 but when I select "digital" as the recording quality then it would need to use the network encoder. But this does not work.
Does anybody have an idea to get this working?

As far as I know it is not possible with Sage to setup different recording devices for Live-TV and favorites/recordings. Sage does not "ask" the devices whether they support a specific recording quality or not and select the appropriate device depending on that.

BUT HEY! IDEA I could use the recording quality to let my grabrecorder decide whether it should take ggrab or udrec. Since Live-TV works quite well using ggrab it could use ggrab in that case and udrec for recordings. What do you think??


/potpiejimmy

[potpiejimmy]

Originally Posted by Alfiegerner

1) Do you think sage - particularly the mvp - will be able to play back the files recorded by udrec in time? I don't know what the technical problems are so have no idea how likely it is.

Hmmm,... until now I didn't know the files don't play in MVP extender, I don't use the MVP. All files play fine in Sage if I don't use -patpmt (just a slight delay of a few seconds when starting to play a file since Sage tries to find PAT PMT information).

As for -patpmt, the problem is that the PATPMT seems to contain information for all PIDs of the bouquet, not just the channel. In this case, the Sage decoder always takes the information from the channel with the lowest ID number. That's why playback only works for one specific channel in a satellite/cable bouquet and fails for all other channels with playback ERROR.

Originally Posted by Alfiegerner

2) This is to do with the time it takes to start a recording when using -udp -patpmt - do you think the time could be reduced between selecting the channel and the file being recorded?

Well, actually the recording starts immediately, it just takes a while for the file to increase in size because of the memory buffer in udrec - and then Sage needs a good amount of data to finish its parsing for PATPMT. That's why it takes so long before one can actually start watching after the recording started. But again, this is only a problem for Live-TV or when trying to watch a file that has just started recording.

[Alfiegerner]

hey potpie,

I will try using the -udp without -patpmt tonight to see if it plays in the mvp. I like your idea about intelligently switching between ggrab and udrec - sounds gooooood. I know you're already thinking that there is a problem with the potential for ggrab to screw up on the live tv i.e. its reliability problems .... However, it sounds like the best solution to date - ggrab is so frustrating as its *nearly* completely usable.

[Alfiegerner]

Originally Posted by potpiejimmy

As for -patpmt, the problem is that the PATPMT seems to contain information for all PIDs of the bouquet, not just the channel. In this case, the Sage decoder always takes the information from the channel with the lowest ID number. That's why playback only works for one specific channel in a satellite/cable bouquet and fails for all other channels with playback ERROR.

Ah okay, so if there was only one channel in the bouquet would that work okay in sage? I'll give that a go tonight.

[potpiejimmy]

Originally Posted by Alfiegerner

Ah okay, so if there was only one channel in the bouquet would that work okay in sage? I'll give that a go tonight.

I'm afraid you can't change the bouquets... well maybe "bouquet" is the wrong word for it, I mean the group of digital channels that are transmitted in the same analog channel frequency, the "hard-coded bouquets", not the user-defined ones.

[Alfiegerner]

Damn ... i thought that sounded too easy Thanks for letting me know.

[DIBU]

Originally Posted by potpiejimmy

Hmmm,... until now I didn't know the files don't play in MVP extender, I don't use the MVP. All files play fine in Sage if I don't use -patpmt (just a slight delay of a few seconds when starting to play a file since Sage tries to find PAT PMT information).

mvp will work with my dbox.

[marneb17]

Originally Posted by potpiejimmy

I'm afraid you can't change the bouquets... well maybe "bouquet" is the wrong word for it, I mean the group of digital channels that are transmitted in the same analog channel frequency, the "hard-coded bouquets", not the user-defined ones.

I think the proper term is "transponder".

Hmmm,... until now I didn't know the files don't play in MVP extender, I don't use the MVP. All files play fine in Sage if I don't use -patpmt (just a slight delay of a few seconds when starting to play a file since Sage tries to find PAT PMT information).

Well, I will try again. I first tried without -patpmt and sage took quite some time and then iit started, but the mvp didn't play the file. I then tried with -patpmt and that just crashed my SageTVClient and the MVP wouldn't play the file. I think. VLC couldn't play the file either! But after the demuxmux it worked.
I will try again to see if the file will play without -patpmt. I will also try ggrab again, must have been me than. I saw that it looked strange and thought that it didn't work.

Anyway I have one problem right now, I think, and that is that the aspect ratio isn't kept after the demuxmux process. But I will look into it.

Marneb

[Berg]

Originally Posted by Alfiegerner

I haven't yet found a way to use the dreambox with grabrecorder but I've been too busy lately to really play around.
...

Hello Alfiegerner,

I am consdering the purchase of a couple of Dreambox and was wondering if you had found a way to use Dreambox with Sage.

Thanks in advance.

[Alfiegerner]

Originally Posted by Berg

Hello Alfiegerner,

I am consdering the purchase of a couple of Dreambox and was wondering if you had found a way to use Dreambox with Sage.

Thanks in advance.

Hi Berg,

I'm afraid to say not streaming the video directly.

However, I use a pvr-150 and am getting very good results from that. Video is totally fine quality throught the pvr-150. Channel changes are done via exe tuner plugin and a script which calls web-pages from the dreambox web-server. Every time you select a channel the exe tuner plugin passes the channel number as a paramater to a specified exe. This is where I needed to write a small app to call the correct web page to change the dreambox to the correct channel.

I would recommend the dreambox with sage as its very stable and produces a very good picture quality. If you need help setting it up let me know - you're welcome to the channel changing app I have as well, its rough and ready but it works

[crollorc]

hi,

im using sage 6.1.4 and trying to get my dbox2 working with this network encoder.

i can access the web interface on the dbox and have kicked off grabrecorder which seems to pick up all my channels.

C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\grabrecorder>grabrecorder.exe -dh 192.168.2.5
** 2006 Sage GrabRecorder 0.9 for DBOX2 by Thorsten Liese **
Constructing process recorder.
Constructing neutrino recorder.
Reading channel list.
1 = 6a7010259 (RTE One)
2 = 6a701025a (RTE Two)
...
243 = 4a7010195 (Sky Movies 1)
244 = 4a7010196 (Sky Movies 8)
245 = 4a7010197 (Sky Movies 2)
246 = 4a7010198 (Sky News)
247 = 4a7010199 (Extreme Sports)
248 = 4a701019a (Paramount 2)
Constructing ggrab recorder.

ive also modified the properties file and tried to setup the new video source. however at that point i run into trouble. the channel listing only shows one channel and when i "view" it i get "no signal" and see the following grabrecorder output -

<<< GET_FILE_SIZE F:\sagetv\My Videos\DBOXIIGrabRecorderon1270016970SerialDigita
l-0.mpgbuf
Getting file size.
>>> 0

does anyone have any ideas on where ive gone wrong?

thanks for your help,

colm

[crollorc]

hiya,

the problem appears to be that the ggrab command produced doesnt work with the apid it uses -

Getting pids.
First PID (video): 1029
No preference audio PID found, using default.
Starting process ggrab_mod -p 0x405 0x75 -o -

when i try this on the command line i get a timeout error. whereas if i remove the 0x75 param it works.

ive tried the different grabrecorder params(-a, -ap english) but none of the ggrab commands produced work.

also, when i run the getpids web command -

http://dbox/control/zapto?getpids

manually it hangs.

is there a particular neutrino image i should be using? im on sportster 1.7+ ukos at present.

thanks for any help!

colm

[potpiejimmy]

Hi colm,

hmm, to be honest, i don't really know why ggrab won't work for you. Are you sure the getpids command hangs - what about getallpids, which is used by grabrecorder!? Have you managed to get ggrab to record anything at all, i mean video and audio together, not just the video? What about udrec recording (use -udp for grabrecorder), have you tried that?

Anywho - I've added a link to the source code for grabrecorder 0.9, see my original posting on page 1, maybe you can get it to work with the help of the source code, but I think you should try to manually get udrec_mod or ggrab_mod to record from your box first to see if recording works at all with one of those tools and in combination with your dbox image.

Sorry I can't be of better help Good luck! I appreciate to hear from if you get it to work

[crollorc]

thanks for your advice!

im currently updating my image from sportster pro 1.7 to 1.10. perhaps the get(all)pids zapto commands will work in the newer version!

by the way, i could get the sound working with ggrab but only if i worked out the audio pid via the dbox menu system and then used it in the ggrab command.

thanks again,

colm

[potpiejimmy]

Good news, everyone. Sage 6.1 plays TS-files with PAT and PMT, so you can start using the -patpmt option of grabrecorder (when using -udp) now.

[deanm]

Originally Posted by crollorc

hiya,

the problem appears to be that the ggrab command produced doesnt work with the apid it uses -

when i try this on the command line i get a timeout error. whereas if i remove the 0x75 param it works.

ive tried the different grabrecorder params(-a, -ap english) but none of the ggrab commands produced work.

also, when i run the getpids web command -

manually it hangs.

is there a particular neutrino image i should be using? im on sportster 1.7+ ukos at present.

thanks for any help!

colm

Hi Colm

Did you ever get this to work. I have the same Image as you and have the same problems.

ggrab works ok if I manualy add the pid info but nothing else works. The get all PIDs will lockup my Dbox.

Dean

[crollorc]

nope, i gave up in the end im afraid.

i finally assumed that the dbox sportster image im using is too buggy to get this working but i couldnt get later sportster images to pickup and decode my channels.

i plan to try again if i can find a newer sportster image which works reliably in ireland.

colm

[DIBU]

Originally Posted by potpiejimmy

Good news, everyone. Sage 6.1 plays TS-files with PAT and PMT, so you can start using the -patpmt option of grabrecorder (when using -udp) now.

in the new version of sage it will not play the files with -udp and -patpmt for me

but when i record from the dbox with streamme..sage plays the ts-files without problems