HDTV Firewire Support on The Mac

[mohanman]

Can someone help me with the firewire setup? I have gotten as far as using the terminal window. However, the commands that are listed in that one post # 35 instructions don't work. It keeps saying invalid directory or invalid filename or command. I have done everything, I know my boxes work because Irecord works just fine! Please help me with using terminal
Thanks
Mo

(I am used to dos, but terminal is weird)

[drjb52]

Many thanks to Diginerd and guho for their work. A mac mini seems like an elegant pvr for a cable box. I have a motorola box, DCH-3200 and AVCVideoCap works perfectly, including channel change. I haven't been able to follow guho's instructions for Netinfo Manager (yes, I'm a Window's weenie). I have tried Diginerd's fresh install instructions twice, and the terminal shows that Sage is talking to the cable box, but no ts is recorded, and I get "no signal" messages in live TV, and GET_FILE_SIZE messages reminiscent of the old Timmoore days. Any thoughts?


Mac mini 1.86ghz, Mac OS version 10.4.10, Motorola DCH-3200, SageTV for Mac V6.2.10.1.

[guho]

Is your Sage server a PC? Check whether recording drives accessible from Mac with same paths encoder is trying to use. If not fix mounts or configfile mappings.

Originally Posted by drjb52

Many thanks to Diginerd and guho for their work. A mac mini seems like an elegant pvr for a cable box. I have a motorola box, DCH-3200 and AVCVideoCap works perfectly, including channel change. I haven't been able to follow guho's instructions for Netinfo Manager (yes, I'm a Window's weenie). I have tried Diginerd's fresh install instructions twice, and the terminal shows that Sage is talking to the cable box, but no ts is recorded, and I get "no signal" messages in live TV, and GET_FILE_SIZE messages reminiscent of the old Timmoore days. Any thoughts?


Mac mini 1.86ghz, Mac OS version 10.4.10, Motorola DCH-3200, SageTV for Mac V6.2.10.1.

[guho]

I uploaded a new version of SageTVFirewireNetworkEncoder. I was experiencing glitches on many recordings and narrowed it down to the code that writes the recording and made it more efficient. All my HD glitches gone. I get flawless HD on all channels! Also added a .command file that you can drag to login items to make sure it runs upon boot. And added some Leopard instructions to set up mounts via command line.

See http://hugolyppens.com/SageTVFirewir...rkEncoder.html.

[delgross]

I've been using Sage for years and have long wanted to setup firewire support.
I was very interested when I someone say how easy it is with a Mac.
So I went ahead and installed it per the instructions and am using
the latest version just uploaded. Everything seems to work but I must be mapping the drives wrong in config.txt.

Unfortunately, I had already installed leopard so netinfo was out of the
question. As I already use UNC paths for all machines I thought
I would be able to get around this, but apparently not.

Lets say video is being recorded on \\HTPC\Sage One. How would
I express that in the config file under OS X.? I already tried setting
directoryprefixmap=

Terminal shows that it is finding my motorola box. Channels change.
Sage (on a seperate windows box) shows "NO SIGNAL" and the program
continually generates what look like path errors

Performing stat://htpc/hd/2_700_1210_1838-1.ts
Response: Error 'Error stat //htpc/hd/2_700_1210_1838-1.ts'



Thanks,
ED

[guho]

Please reread my page as I've updated instructions and added non-NetInfo instructions that work with Leopard (and all other MacOS X I presume).

Originally Posted by delgross

I've been using Sage for years and have long wanted to setup firewire support.
I was very interested when I someone say how easy it is with a Mac.
So I went ahead and installed it per the instructions and am using
the latest version just uploaded. Everything seems to work but I must be mapping the drives wrong in config.txt.

Unfortunately, I had already installed leopard so netinfo was out of the
question. As I already use UNC paths for all machines I thought
I would be able to get around this, but apparently not.

Lets say video is being recorded on \\HTPC\Sage One. How would
I express that in the config file under OS X.? I already tried setting
directoryprefixmap=

Terminal shows that it is finding my motorola box. Channels change.
Sage (on a seperate windows box) shows "NO SIGNAL" and the program
continually generates what look like path errors

Performing stat://htpc/hd/2_700_1210_1838-1.ts
Response: Error 'Error stat //htpc/hd/2_700_1210_1838-1.ts'



Thanks,
ED

[delgross]

I have continued to play around with this. I keep getting the same
error I referenced in my message above. I think the mounts are ok
as an appropriate .ts shows on my sage server. Still nosignal on the
server as well..... any ideas. I would really love to get this to work.

Also, to anyone else.... I have a Motorola HD box and it seems like if
I can solve the above it will work.
ED

[guho]

Sorry to hear you're having trouble.

What's your directoryprefixmap? It should be something like \\htpc\SageOne|/Network/SageTV/SageOne

Can you see all your recordings when you type

ls /Network/SageTV/SageOne?

Please keep it simple with no spaces in the share name, user name or password.

Does AVCVideoCap work?

[delgross]

Thanks for trying to help.

I spent a lot of time with it and could not get it to work. AVCVideocap
was new to me, but I installed it and was unable to view the file with VLC.
I know the output is not 5c because I have actually viewed it on a PC.
AVCVideocap did show me a flag of "once only".

So I decided to bite the bullet and bought the Sage Server for the Mac.
From what I read then the path stuff should not matter.
I figure if this works I will run the server on the Mac anyway. For
the life of me I could not get the program to recognize your program as
a network encoder.

If it is not too much trouble I am going to try to attach my config.txt
and sage.properties file and maybe you can see what I can. BTW I
already set find network encoders to true.

Thanks
ED

[Diginerd]

Took a quick look at your properties file. I don't see the mmc/encoders section populated with the section from guho's site or from my guide.

Get that in there to tie it together, if you still have isses we can work from there..

[delgross]

Appreciate it. I don't know how I sent the wrong file. Also just in
case anyone needs to know I have my Mac firewall off.

[guho]

If AVCVideoCap says 'Copy Once' you're out of luck. I know this since one of my HD channels recently started doing this and I've had to remove it from the channel lineup. It will record encrypted data, which grinds SageTV to a halt. Unless you can find channels that can be copied freely and you can play AVCVideoCap recordings back using VLC, I do not think it is going to work for you.

Originally Posted by delgross

Appreciate it. I don't know how I sent the wrong file. Also just in
case anyone needs to know I have my Mac firewall off.

[delgross]

Ok. I looked at all my HD channels with AVCVideoCap and in fact most
of them have a copy freely flag and I was able to visualize them in
AVCVideocap. No back to my problem with Sage not recognizing the
encoder

Thanks,
ED

[guho]

is /Users/Shared/SageTV/TV/ writable?

[guho]

Originally Posted by drosne01

I am not sure. In finder it says that Admin can read/write, but then there are two other groups that can only read it--one called "wheels."

Should I make the folder writeable for all groups? I figured the sage process was owned by Admin, so it should be able to write.

It needs to be writable by the user the SageTVFirewireNetworkEncoder runs as. As a test just make it writable to all.

[guho]

so if you type

touch '/Users/Shared/SageTV/TV/defaulton1270016969DigitalTVTuner-0.mpgbuf'

as a test in the same terminal window you should get a zero-length file there; check with

ls '/Users/Shared/SageTV/TV'

then clean up:

rm '/Users/Shared/SageTV/TV/defaulton1270016969DigitalTVTuner-0.mpgbuf''

if any of those commands fails it is a problem that needs to be fixed.

[guho]

Anyone out there who got this working? I do not have mac SageTV, only Windows, and use the mac as an encoder on the LAN.

One thing you could try is even if the BUFFER commands won't work, just set up a channel anyway (don't attempt to preview it) and record something from the cable box. That will issue a START command. I would like to know if that gives the same error.

Also could you try setting directoryprefixmap in the config file to

/|/

This will map / to /, which is a no-op but it could be that I have a bug in the case there is no mapping going on since I only tested it with nonempty directoryprefixmap.

Hugo

[guho]

I am familiar with this error as it happened to me all the time. I think it is a Mac OS problem. If you kill the encoder server, it does not release the network socket it is listening on immediately. It takes a few minutes and then it will work again. Or you can reboot the machine.

Did you try setting directoryprefixmap=/|/ in the config file?

Originally Posted by drosne01

So I have been continuing to play with this. I am working exclusively in Terminal now and when I run the program I get a socket error that makes me think that there could be some other underlying problem:

rosner:Sagetvfirewirenetworkencoder rosner$ ./MacOS/SageTVFirewireNetworkEncoder --configfile config.txt
SageTV Firewire Network Encoder
Copyright (c) 2007 Hugo Lyppens. All rights reserved.
This software is free for personal use only.
Notification controller DCT-6200
Caught exception Failed to set socket address

[guho]

This is hard to troubleshoot as I have no Moto box. Anyone on this thread got it working with the Moto 6200? In your config you have device=0? Perhaps reboot Mac and try again. I assume you can capture from this box with AVCVideoCap, right?

[guho]

Big 'Thank you!' to Andy Spitzer. He e-mailed me, pointing out I do not properly set the permissions when creating the ts file. Now it is 0666 (instead of a random number from omitting the parameter), combined with the umask in effect when starting the server. In addition the update addresses the annoying issue of getting 'address in use' when exiting and restarting the firewire network encoder. Get the latest update from the download link at: http://www.hugolyppens.com/SageTVFir...rkEncoder.html.

Originally Posted by drosne01

Yes, config is set to device=0. AVCVideoCap records fine and can change channels on the box over firewire as well.

I tried rebooting and I am back to my original cannot open file error again:

rosner:sagetvfirewirenetworkencoder rosner$ ./MacOS/SageTVFirewireNetworkEncoder --configfile config.txt
SageTV Firewire Network Encoder
Copyright (c) 2007 Hugo Lyppens. All rights reserved.
This software is free for personal use only.
Notification controller DCT-6200
Starting SageTVFirewireNetworkEncoder, listening for commands from SageTV.
Received command: START SA4200HD Digital TV Tuner|30|2405761891136|/Users/Shared/SageTV/TV/MarieOsmondDolls-42712-0.ts|Great
Response: Error 'Cannot open file '/Users/Shared/SageTV/TV/MarieOsmondDolls-42712-0.ts''