R5000-HD capture via USB2 & SageTV

[jlindborg]

Just to follow up here - the files I sent NextCom play back fine in all other players for them as well (just as they did for me) including some I don't have (like MyHD, VLC and others). But the first frame is jacked up - which should be ok and most players will handle this. Sage is apparently somewhat twitchier about it for some reason. They indicated this was a problem in early testing with Sage but it was fixed along the way with a new Demuxer (and no, I have no idea what this is other than perhaps something to remove mux ). I'll download beta 14 onto my test server a little later, install fresh and just import those files into it and see if it has the same problem.

[dbfresh23]

Hmmm, you're just doing standard MPEG2 transport streams, I've been able to play the samples from their website since I first tried in the early betas. I obvioiusly don't know as much about the stuff as Nextcom, but I don't think it has to do with the demux, the only thing I had to specify a different demux for was to get H.264 R5000 files working. Demuxing is splitting the TS into audio and video streams so they can be rendered by the appropriate filters.

[jlindborg]

The support guy said he thought it had to do with corrupted frames at the begining and/or end of the file - which is apparently acceptable to most viewers. Beyond that I dunno - all I know is when I clean it up with Video Redo or chop the begining of the file off, Sage likes it.

[dbfresh23]

Most viewers that aren't trying to watch live tv!

[Kirby]

I'm not surprised by that explanation at all. Most players dont have issues with corrupt first frames, they just go on their marry way. I have had players not play nice with them though. I wonder if its anything to do with how 4DTV works in general, vs. small dish systems and cable.

[jlindborg]

Well, in the meantime I've forced all recordings for that encoder to go to a specific folder name and I have an app I've plugged into DirMon that automatically runs them through VideoRedo to clean them - that'll work for now, anyway. Just can't watch live TV on those shows until Sage/NextCom get this sorted out.

[dbfresh23]

Just in case anyone is interested I just saw a couple listings on ebay for E* VIP211 R5000 modded boxes being sold for less then on their website - the seller was listed as R5000-HD... Man - Ebay really does have it all!

[jlindborg]

I finally got around to shutting everything down and upgrading my server and all my clients to beta 14... it mostly works now! I say mostly because there's still a few bug-a-boos in there. If I'm recording on my 250 and I go to watch a live show on another chanel, it reports a conflict (there is none) and after you go through that bogus dialog you'll get a "no signal" notice. But if you select to record the show instead, while you still get the bogus "confict" dialog, it does start to record the show anyway and you can then trot over and watch the recording from there - not ideal but it's better than having to wait for it to be processed in the background, that's for sure.

I notice that there's a bit of a delay (a few seconds) from the time you tell it to record and when it starts - I suspect there's a little "wind up" time between sage and the R5000 service at play here and i'm guessing some flawed error handling logic is involved with the conflict dialog stuff.

it's working better than it was at any rate.

[jlindborg]

Another thing to report - I can't get playback of SD material recorded with the r5000 resource to play via the MVP client even after upgrading to build 14. The audio plays (although it sounds like an evil robot of sorts), no video kicks out. Not the end of the world at this point since I've only got one of the MVPs left in action as I'm moving all clients to HD capable units. Baby steps... baby steps...

And since a couple folks asked via PM - I've been doing some testing of the video quality of SD recordings today - I'm pretty pleased on both my plasma and the projector. I'm getting picture quality that's quite good compared with the 250's recording at "DVD long play" and considerably less than half the size (when the bitrate is set to "compressed"). I wouldn't say the end result is noticibly _better_ looking than decent analog catpure of SD, but I think that's because it's as good as it gets with SD broadcast. It looks, well, what you'd see watching the satalite straight (as does analog recording on the 250 at 2.4 gig an hour). I do notice the very rare "hitch" during playback but when I back up it's gone so the problem is on my playback unit (mostly the Mac Mini which I'm still ironing out). However the much smaller file size is handy. Besides, the real value of the unit comes into play when HD is involved - I wont be upgrading my Dish to HD till later this summer.

[stanger89]

Just wondering if someone could confirm, but the mod to a 622 does not allow recording of two channels simultaneously correct?

[Kirby]

correct. If Tuner 2 had a IR control on it, then it would be possible, but Tuner 2 is UHF. Its technically possible to get 2 r5000's into the 622, just no way to currently control them separately.

[stanger89]

I thought the R5000 tuned channels itself, that you wouldn't be using IR/RF. Or are you saying the R5000 uses it's own internal IR blaster?

[Kirby]

it taps into the IR point on the board. I had to solder my IR cable into my cable box when I was doing testing for them, because they forgot to hook it up..

I dont know if it is possible to make a UHF blaster of sorts, but would be a cool option, to have a very low power UHF blaster onboard.

[stanger89]

Ah, I see, that's not that bad (for a moment I had visions of an IR LED strapped to the box .

[jlindborg]

Well - after spending a bit more than a week with it, there's still a few wrinkles in the Sage/r5000 stuff. Overall I'm OK with the system but I've grown a little frustrated at the response (or lack thereof) on the support front.

First and foremost is that you cannot get the recordings done with the r5000 encoder to play via the MVP - the sound plays (badly) but no video. If you process it with VideoRedo and clean it up, it does play then. I have a background process bascially cleaning up all my r5000 recordings for this reason which is a tad annoying. Also annoying is the lack of response from Sage (two reports, no reply) and the constant refrain of "it works in all our viewers here" from the NextComm guys... not to but too fine a point on it, but I don't really care that the recordings play dandy in every player under the sun. They didn't even have a working Sage to test with when I asked them which is a little on the lame side. I realize this is very likely not their issue but I bought the r5000 exclusively to work with Sage - they should at least have a working test system they can verify reports on at a minimum.

Live playback is a disaster and I've just given up on it. I tried fiddling with the encoder delay parameter, cranking it all the way up to 10 seconds as a test and it makes no difference. If you start a show recording and then go view it in the recordings list after a bit it's better, but it still stutters badly and the skip back and forth functions are all jacked up and it freezes now and again. Basically the Nextcomm guys implied this is my rig (although with no Sage setup I'm not sure how they came to this conclusion). I don't buy that for a second - all other recordings on all other devices works fine and have from day 1. I find this response deeply annoying. If you let the recording finish and then play it back, all is well. I've tried this when no other activity on the box is going on - CPU is hovering around 10% - live playback is still a mess. Again, likely a Sage issue since the Nextcom guys dutifully let me know playback works fine on all their devices (although again, I'd like to point out they are not testing with Sage). As such I don't watch live TV on the r5000 encoder - I watch HD via the OTA card or on the analog Hauppauge 250.

The problems with the conflict resolution errors turned out to be a bug in Sage with the merit logic on the encoders - it's fixed in the version 5 release so I no longer have that issue anyway.

Recording quality is fabulous - file size is great. Playback on non MVP devices is groovy. But it's definitley not ready for prime time as your lead off recording device. Maybe it's specific to DirecTV content, maybe it's SD only, maybe it's something else - no clue. But folks thinking of jumping on this should probably think about keeping another option as their lead off hitter for live TV viewing anyway. I have my 250 in reserve and its setup such that the r5000 records first and if I want to watch live TV and nothing is recording at the time, I start recording a bogus show and then tune to another chanel to force the 250 into action then cancel the recording on the other chanel. Kind of annoying but it works - I usually only do this with sports and am happy to wait for recordings to complete on all other items so this isn't something that's kicking me in the teeth too badly, but the wife is kind of scared of the whole setup right about now so the WAF is in the toilet. My plans to get a 2nd r5000 unit are on hold indefinitely until Sage/Nextcomm figure this stuff out a bit better.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by jlindborg

Maybe it's specific to DirecTV content, maybe it's SD only, maybe it's something else - no clue.

AFIAK, DTV uses a non-standard encoding for their SD content, I've heard it referred to as MPEG-1.5. I'm not sure how Nextcomm is getting around that, I suspect it has something to do with that.

[Kirby]

Originally Posted by stanger89

AFIAK, DTV uses a non-standard encoding for their SD content, I've heard it referred to as MPEG-1.5. I'm not sure how Nextcomm is getting around that, I suspect it has something to do with that.

Doubtful, but I will verify it tonight. My brother has a D* E86/r5000 and sage setup, so I will go over there and double check his. But last he told me, SD and HD was working perfectly.

I do recall in early testing, there was some issues changing from a SD to HD channel, or vice versa, but I dont know if that was strictly associated with D* or not. I never had issues with my cable and E* setups doing that.

[jlindborg]

Cool - let me know what live TV is like streaming to a client if you can. I don't have HD coming off the dish yet so it's not a switching between SD/HD issue. I've tried two clients across my gigabit hard wired network and both have the same exactly problems - I suppose I can try playback on the server itself, although it's tucked in a closet with no monitor on it and you can't see video via VNC so that'll be a bit of a PITA.

Clearly bandwidth is not the issue since full OTA HD stuff plays flawlessly on both clients either live or recorded. Also my analog 250s are making 2.4 gig/hour files compared with the 1.2 gig/hour the r5000s are so I wouldn't think that's the issue. Can't think for the life of me what the problem would be with live TV - even shifted (I let the Mariners game record for 30 minutes before playback and it's _still_ jacked up - but if you wait for the recording to end it plays just fine). Very annoying...

Either way - I'll keep reporting the issue to both parties involved and hopefully some resolution will be found.

EDIT: Oh, and if you get a chance, try whipping back and forth to the "edge" of the recording program with the remote while it's recording - one of my clients _really_ doesn't like this and takes a bit of a nap while you watch the Sage logo spin...

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by jlindborg

Either way - I'll keep reporting the issue to both parties involved and hopefully some resolution will be found.

Suggestion: send a link to this thread to Nextcom sales (not just tech support). Regardless of whose bug it ultimately turns out to be, Nextcom is the party with the most to lose from bad-of-mouth. Make sure they know there are a number of us holding off buying until all this is worked out to your satisfaction.

[Kirby]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

Suggestion: send a link to this thread to Nextcom sales (not just tech support). Regardless of whose bug it ultimately turns out to be, Nextcom is the party with the most to lose from bad-of-mouth. Make sure they know there are a number of us holding off buying until all this is worked out to your satisfaction.

No need, its not that big of an outfit. And they already know about this thread and are watching it I would imagine. Furthermore, I wouldnt suggest that bad mouthing Nextcom is appropriate. The whole system (R5000 + Sage) has been proven to work excellently. In house they had (still do?) 4 sat receivers working on one box, 2 dish, 2 directv. I personally have 1 dish and 1 cable r5000 working flawlessly. And my brother's setup (directv sd+hd) is supposedly working great too (which I will verify in a few hours).