R5000-HD capture via USB2 & SageTV

[NEOSG]

aside from h264, it rocks. I feel bad for people whose locals are encoded with h264. I get by, because for me, it is only NFLHD and Starz

[Kirby]

Originally Posted by NEOSG

aside from h264, it rocks. I feel bad for people whose locals are encoded with h264. I get by, because for me, it is only NFLHD and Starz

I still dont understand the whole "NFLHD" thing, since I have as yet to see anything HD on that channel... Things that make you go 'hmmmmmmmmm'...

[kkoz]

Kirby,

Originally Posted by Kirby

Guys keep in mind, the 211/411 boxes from Nextcom should be brand new. I have no love for D* HD Lite. I switched in January this year to Dish. That being said, E* does have its fair share of HD lite. Examples:

All voom channels are 1280x1080i.
All NBC & CBS HD LiL are 1440x1080i.
Discovery HD Theather is running low on bitrate because its sharing a TP with 2 other HD's.

All in all though, the HD Lite from E* on the Voom channels literally blows away the D* HD Lite IMO, on my set (55" Mitsu CRT RPTV). My friend has the same opinion on a 50-some inch Fujitsu plasma.

Its been rumored that the Voom channels will go back to full resolution as soon as a new fiber has been installed between Vomm and E* (NY/NJ to CO). We were told about 6 months to get that done (even though they dont really lay new fiber for this, just activate it) but that timeframe does seem to go along with other fiber orders I have seen.

I just came across this thread, and I'm reading it through from the beginning. However, not being an expert on Satellite, I don't know all the abbreviations being used for different companies or services, etc.

Specifically, what do D*, E*, and DTV represent?

I currently, have DirecTV SD hooked up to my SageTV server, and I'm looking for a way to seamlessly integrate HD, and I'm willing to switch to the Dish network if necessary. It is appearing like D* and E* are the best routes with E* being the best quality.

However, since I have no idea what D* and E* mean, I'm not sure how to move forward !

Thanks for your help.

Never mind. I just found it a few pages later. E* = Dish and D* = DirecTV. I assume DTV is DirecTV?

-Kevin

[Kirby]

DTV is supposed to mean Digital TV. But it gets used by some as DirecTV.

[thetedinator]

I live in an area where OTA is not an option. I have an R5000 mod'ed Dish 211 STB. I have a PC with a nVidia 7600GS graphics card. I have SageTV. I can record both SD and HD using Sage and the R5000 combo. I can playback the recordings using Sage. What I can't do is "Watch Live TV". The R5000 switches the STB tuner to the correct channel and indicates it is 'recording' but the picture from Sage is black. Any thoughts on what I missed? When I "Configure Video Playback", all 4 of the options fail the Video Playback test. I am using the level 4 settings: VMR9 Renderer, SageTV MPEG Video Decoder and
3D Acceleration On. Using this 'failed' playback settings, I can view recordings in VGA as well 1080i.

Another question...maybe related....since I don't watch OTA and since I use the tuner in the STB, why do I need a tuner card?

Thanks,

Ted

[Kirby]

Originally Posted by thetedinator

I live in an area where OTA is not an option. I have an R5000 mod'ed Dish 211 STB. I have a PC with a nVidia 7600GS graphics card. I have SageTV. I can record both SD and HD using Sage and the R5000 combo. I can playback the recordings using Sage. What I can't do is "Watch Live TV". The R5000 switches the STB tuner to the correct channel and indicates it is 'recording' but the picture from Sage is black. Any thoughts on what I missed? When I "Configure Video Playback", all 4 of the options fail the Video Playback test. I am using the level 4 settings: VMR9 Renderer, SageTV MPEG Video Decoder and
3D Acceleration On. Using this 'failed' playback settings, I can view recordings in VGA as well 1080i.

Sounds like you either have your r5000's plugged into a PC that isnt the sage server, or more likely, you are writing the r5000 files to a UNC path or to a remote computer (different then the sage server). Am I right?

Another question...maybe related....since I don't watch OTA and since I use the tuner in the STB, why do I need a tuner card?

Thanks,

Ted

You dont need a tuner card, why did you think you did?

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by kkoz

Specifically, what do D*, E*, and DTV represent?

FWIW...

D* is often used to refer to DirecTV and/or Dish Network (both start with D hence "D*"
E* sometimes used for Echostar, the company behind Dish Network
DTV, yup, DirecTV usually.

I currently, have DirecTV SD hooked up to my SageTV server, and I'm looking for a way to seamlessly integrate HD, and I'm willing to switch to the Dish network if necessary. It is appearing like D* and E* are the best routes with E* being the best quality.

From everything I've seen/read, Dish Network is the better one to go with for HD. They're (both DTV and Dish) going MPEG-4 for more and more HD channels, and last I read, none of the DTV MPEG-4 boxes were modable, while you can get the newest Dish box (the 211) modded quite easilly. Overall it seems Dish is a bit more open than DTV.

[thetedinator]

Originally Posted by Kirby

Sounds like you either have your r5000's plugged into a PC that isnt the sage server, or more likely, you are writing the r5000 files to a UNC path or to a remote computer (different then the sage server). Am I right?

I don't know what UNC means but you were correct. The R5000 was capturing to one directory and SageTV was looking in another.

Originally Posted by Kirby

You dont need a tuner card, why did you think you did?

That's what I thought.....how I got confused is a long story....sigh.


Now I need to get the audio working (again) and see about some stuttering when watching live TV.

Thanks for the help.

Ted

[pilotguy7ca]

I just got my 2 R5000 moded boxes back and I have a couple of issues/questions. On my server all I have running is SageTVServices and two instances of the DVR software running and I do all my Sage viewing on a SageTVClient.

I am able to get live playback on my client but there are some channels (2 that I've found so far) where I am experiencing a blank screen, although on the server I can see the recording file get larger. I experience the same thing if I view live tv on my server. I know I get these channels and my reciever shows its getting a signal.

Secondly is there anyway to speed up channel changes? Right now it takes about 6-8 seconds and when I view the receiver (which has a channel display) while a channel change is made, the R5000 software inputs the channel numbers at about 1 per second and I know that when I changed channels through my usb-uirt prior to the mod I had something like a 250-300ms pause between number inputs making a channel input in less than a second. I thought if there was a way to change this it could speed up channel changes.

Lastly I notice some what I would call micro stuttering when view HD channels. What I'm seeing doesn't happen on my non-HD channels. It's not bad, almost as though the frame rate is too slow or something. When I switched from the Sage mpeg decoder to my Nvidia one it got significantly better but I was wondering what would be the best to view HD content?

[Kirby]

Originally Posted by pilotguy7ca

I just got my 2 R5000 moded boxes back and I have a couple of issues/questions. On my server all I have running is SageTVServices and two instances of the DVR software running and I do all my Sage viewing on a SageTVClient.

I am able to get live playback on my client but there are some channels (2 that I've found so far) where I am experiencing a blank screen, although on the server I can see the recording file get larger. I experience the same thing if I view live tv on my server. I know I get these channels and my reciever shows its getting a signal.

1) which channels?
2) how are your recording directories set up?

Secondly is there anyway to speed up channel changes? Right now it takes about 6-8 seconds and when I view the receiver (which has a channel display) while a channel change is made, the R5000 software inputs the channel numbers at about 1 per second and I know that when I changed channels through my usb-uirt prior to the mod I had something like a 250-300ms pause between number inputs making a channel input in less than a second. I thought if there was a way to change this it could speed up channel changes.

Been discussed before, it is what it is. faster channel changes were tried and proved to be less accurate.

Lastly I notice some what I would call micro stuttering when view HD channels. What I'm seeing doesn't happen on my non-HD channels. It's not bad, almost as though the frame rate is too slow or something. When I switched from the Sage mpeg decoder to my Nvidia one it got significantly better but I was wondering what would be the best to view HD content?

Refer to my questions above, and give us a rundown of your playback hardware. Also, does it happen on recorded material, or only on live material?

[pilotguy7ca]

Originally Posted by Kirby

1) which channels?

Starchoice Channels 580&581 MuchMusic & MuchMore Music. I've checked the file that is recorded on these channels with VLC and its blank, so the R5000 is recording a blank signal on these 2 channels. I get the same results on both R5000 boxes.

2) how are your recording directories set up?

I'm using UNC to drives that are local to the Sage server which the R5000 are on.

Refer to my questions above, and give us a rundown of your playback hardware. Also, does it happen on recorded material, or only on live material?

I'm tried different settings and I am able to get rid of 99% of the micro jitter/stutter if I use Overlay, SageTV video decoder (I can't use overlay with Nvidia decoder since I am viewing on my secondary screen), and AC3 filter to pass DD signal to my pre-amp.

As far as the difference between live and recorded material I don't notice a difference, but I do notice a difference between live HD & live non-HD, the sound occasionally drops out for 1/10 a second every so often on live non-HD material.

My hardware is as follows:

-HTPC-
2GB ram
Intel Prescott 3.4GHz
ATI X850XT
2TB 3Ware Raid 5 Array

-Sage Server-
1GB Ram
Pentium D 3.4GHz
750GB Sata 2, 64K chunks


Another question is, now when I'm watching live tv and want to enter a channel # to change to I have to enter 0360 instead of 360, its expecting 4 digits, is there anyway I can change it to only expect 3? I know that when I had my usb-uirt to control my box before I got the R5000 mod that i could set the tunning device to only need 3 digits, but now that these are considered network encoders I'm not sure where/if this can be done.

[pilotguy7ca]

Ok, an update on my blank channel issue. I found that its a codec issue that affects 3 of my Starchoice channels, 580,581& 583. If I use the Nvidia decoder with VMR9 I do get a picture on these channels. Unfortunately I can't seem to use VMR9 because it causes the jitter/stutter on my HD channels that I mentioned earlier and NVidia doesn't do overlay on a secondary monitor so I am stuck using the Sage mpeg encoder with overlay but then I can't play these channels. So would these channels be encoded in such a way that the Sage mpeg encoder can't play them?

[pengdahl]

I also have the problem of getting a blank screen when attempting to watch live tv using the R5000HD as the tuner. It doesn't happen all the time, but when it does happen, I have to kill the SageTV process in order to get out of it (the sage icon spins and spins...). What is interesting is that the R5000HD app shows that it is recording when this happens.

Recordings that I record and later watch (i.e., not "Live") work fine.

I have the R5000HD on a different computer than the SageTV machine. I have mapped drive letters on both machines, and they match. I am able to use another network encoder (stealth1971's HDNE) hooked up to a Fusion card with no problems, so it's not a drive mapping issue (I'm pretty sure).

I *think* that what is happening is the R5000HD app starts saving the file, but Sage tries to read it before it shows up because of some weird delay over the network. I could be totally off-base about this, though.

I am using the Nvidia decoders and VMR9, although I have also seen this happen with Overlay.

Because Sage completely stops responding when this happens, I can't use FSE mode. If I do, the black screen will show up, and I can't alt-tab away, nor does ctrl-alt-delete work. They bring up the appropriate programs, but the black screen immediately covers them and I can't read the screens. Then I have no choice but a hard reset of my computer.

I had all these problems with Sage 5 and now I'm still having them with the Sage 6 beta.

I hope this helps somebody understand what the problem is here. I think this is a real issue, and I'm hoping a solution can be found. Thanks!

[Kirby]

Dont use UNC mapped drives for recording drives on the R5000. I dont know any way around it. Its one of the limitations, and I dont think there is anyone here running R5000's successfully that is using UNC mapped recording drives.

And for that matter, I believe most have found that the best method is local hard drives AND the R5000's connected locally to the SageTV Server machine.

I understand its not a perfect solution, but it works best this way. If someone is successfully running their R5000 on a remote machine and/or with UNC mapped drives, speak up.

[sleonard]

Can the R5000 software for Sage use local drives that are referred to by UNC pathnames?

Scott

[NEOSG]

Originally Posted by sleonard

Can the R5000 software for Sage use local drives that are referred to by UNC pathnames?

Scott

Didn't work for me. Eventually, the R5000 software pegs the cpu.

[Kirby]

Caveat time: it will work with UNC paths if and only if you dont view those recordings while they occur.

Otherwise, you must have your recording directories setup as "E:\" for instance.

[pengdahl]

Well if you can't use UNC paths, then you also can't run in service mode, since service mode can only access network drives using UNC paths. This is a pretty big problem in my view. My question is why does my other network encoder running on the same machine work perfectly using UNC paths, and the R5000 does not?

[blade]

Originally Posted by pengdahl

Well if you can't use UNC paths, then you also can't run in service mode, since service mode can only access network drives using UNC paths.

I haven't been following this thread, but are you talking about the Sage service? If so the service can access mapped drives. I ran it this way for over a year and a half.

[Kirby]

Originally Posted by pengdahl

Well if you can't use UNC paths, then you also can't run in service mode, since service mode can only access network drives using UNC paths. This is a pretty big problem in my view. My question is why does my other network encoder running on the same machine work perfectly using UNC paths, and the R5000 does not?

You need to check you facts. Sage Service runs just fine using local drives. Only the recording drive(s) has to be local, you can run a vast number of remote drives as UNC mounted import directories. Or if you use all UNC paths, you have to wait for the show to finish recording before you view it.