Issue with On-Line videos while using DirectShow playback

[Halstead]

All-
After struggling a bit with the MPlayer-powered h.264 playback (could never fix tearing) and the a bunch more with convincing SageTV to use directshow (it seems like all the IU based video playback prefs are broken in 6.3), I finally achieved playback bliss by setting always_use_dshow_player to true.

However, now I have a new issue- on-line video (FLV, WMV, MP4, et. all) will only playback as far as it is initially cached. As soon as the video reaches the point that it was initially cached to when playback began, it will freeze. pausing and waiting for caching to be finished does nothing- the only way to solve the issue seems to be to go back to MPlayer for video playback (which I'd really rather not do).

I'm using FFDShow for both AAC & AVC decode, and the Halli splitter for, well, splitting. FWIW, I also tried using the latest Nero codecs and splitter to troubleshoot (uninstalled FFDShow and Haali and then restarted just to be sure), whith the same result.

These files stream fine into Zoom Player and Windows Media Player 11 when I type in the stream URL.

Has anyone else seen this behavior? Any fixes?

[siak]

I just registered to the forum so I can reply to your post. First, I don't have a solution just a "me too" to your problem.

Setting "always_use_dshow_player=true" in sage.properties I am able to use CoreAVC with Haali splitter and my 264 playback is smooth with excellent picture. And just like you , if I try using the online services, it plays for 5 seconds without sound and stops. This is most likely because I don't have any codec's for the online services. So I decided to set:

always_use_dshow_player=false
mplayer/use_for_all_mpeg4_playback= false
videoframe/mpeg4_video_decoder_filter=CoreAVC

But that still does not work for me. mplayer is always used to play x264 files. My files are in .mkv and .ts containers. I think the splitter in mplayer may be buggy and may be contributing to the issue.

If anyone knows how, I want to set SageTV to use mplayer for everything EXCEPT for x.264 files in .mkv or .ts containers.

[Halstead]

Originally Posted by siak

I just registered to the forum so I can reply to your post. First, I don't have a solution just a "me too" to your problem.

Setting "always_use_dshow_player=true" in sage.properties I am able to use CoreAVC with Haali splitter and my 264 playback is smooth with excellent picture. And just like you , if I try using the online services, it plays for 5 seconds without sound and stops. This is most likely because I don't have any codec's for the online services. So I decided to set:

always_use_dshow_player=false
mplayer/use_for_all_mpeg4_playback= false
videoframe/mpeg4_video_decoder_filter=CoreAVC

But that still does not work for me. mplayer is always used to play x264 files. My files are in .mkv and .ts containers. I think the splitter in mplayer may be buggy and may be contributing to the issue.

If anyone knows how, I want to set SageTV to use mplayer for everything EXCEPT for x.264 files in .mkv or .ts containers.

Yes, the mplayer/use_for_all_mpeg4_playback= false command seems to be useless. Has it worked for anyone else?

Also, I don't think it's a codec issue, or else we wouldn't be seeing any video at all- it seems more likely to be a problem with the way streaming video is being handed off to Directshow.

[siak]

I guess no one else is having these issues.

Anyway, last night I tried to add the following to the sage.properties file:

always_use_dshow_player=false
mplayer/use_for_all_mpeg4_playback= false
videoframe/mpeg4_video_decoder_filter=CoreAVC Video Decoder
videoframe/h.264_video_decoder_filter=CoreAVC Video Decoder

Maybe you could try it and see if it works for you. With debugging turned on, SageTV was able to detect CoreAVC as a directshow decoder but I never saw SageTV try to use it for H.264 files.

[gplasky]

If you set always_use_dshow_player=false then it will use the Sage player to play them. And this option is also settable in the Detailed Setup.


Gerry

[siak]

Gerry,

Yes - you are correct, in detail settings there is an option to set mpeg4 to use mplayer or directshow. It seems no matter what it's set to, mplayer will be used.

It sounds like you are saying that if I set always_use_dshow_player= true, I will always use directshow for all files and if set to false, I will always use mplayer, without exception, for all my files.

Basically, mplayer does not handle H.264 files properly and I need CoreAVC to perform the decoding. On the other hand, mplayer handles files that are not H.264 properly so i'd like to have mplayer handle everything except H.264 files.

SageTV is *almost* the perfect solution I am looking for if this could be resolved.

[Halstead]

Originally Posted by gplasky

If you set always_use_dshow_player=false then it will use the Sage player to play them. And this option is also settable in the Detailed Setup.


Gerry

Yes, that seems to be the only way to stop MPlayer from taking over .264 playback. However, using directshow with Sage setting seems to break on-line video playback for at least two of us.

[gplasky]

I would make sure you open up a support ticket then so Sage can look at it.


Gerry

[Halstead]

Originally Posted by gplasky

I would make sure you open up a support ticket then so Sage can look at it.


Gerry

I almost certainly will- I was waiting to see if anyone had a non-SageTV related solution based on my symptoms.

[siak]

Could you update this thread when you hear back from support?

Thanks.

[Halstead]

Update:
Working though this with TS now. No resolution yet, but they've been very resposnive.

[sacrament055]

What version of Sage are you guys using? I'm on 6.3.6 seeing the same problem but I could almost swear that it was working properly in 6.3.5

I don't really plan on backtracking to find out but I thought there was a note in one of these recent releases talking about tweaking the "always use dshow player" option.

For now I just wanted to add my name to the list of people having this problem

[Halstead]

Got the following from SageTV support yesterday:

"OK, I investigated some more and this is not something we're going to
support currently. (it can work alright on the SageTV application
standalone; but SageTVClient has an issue with this that isn't easy to
resolve).

Sorry about that."

It's certainly understandable- there's aways a limit to what a development team can address, and just because you want something doesn't make it a development priority.

-BUT-

This is going to become a HUGE deal for a quickly growing number of users as soon as folks start using the new h264 based Hauppage recording solution.

To get decent playback with interlaced (1080i) content, it seems to me you'll pretty much need HW accelerated playback thru an 8xxx nVidia or one of the latest ATI cards. All of those folks will likely have to turn to directshow-based playback (which note for many of us can only be achieved with the always_use_dshow_player flag).

All of those folks who run a client-server setup are going to have this issue with on-line media.

So, I really hope there's a plan to deal with this before mid March.

[Narflex]

This will have absolutely no effect on upcoming H.264 recording solutions. Those solutions use the MPEG2 file format for recording and DirectShow is always used for MPEG2 file format playback on Windows.

[Halstead]

Originally Posted by Narflex

This will have absolutely no effect on upcoming H.264 recording solutions. Those solutions use the MPEG2 file format for recording and DirectShow is always used for MPEG2 file format playback on Windows.

so they're not legal MPEG4 files? is it an h264 video stream in a .TS or .PS wrapper?

How does that work in graphedit? It still needs to use an AVC codec for decode, correct? It can't use, say the nVidia decoder.

[mangriotis]

Sorry to resurrect this thread, but I don't do online videos very often... I just tried to play one within sage (on a Sage Client PC), and it appears to me to be this exact issue. It'll play the first 8-10 seconds of the video, then hang.

I can exit out of Sage and play the video in my browser without issue, but online video viewing (I tried both Youtube and Google video) does not work.

Was this ever resolved? I am currently running v7.0.23... I could have sworn it was working properly in a past version, but like I said, I don't do online videos very often.

[mangriotis]

I have not yet gotten this working. It is a minor annoyance, but one I cannot figure out. Anybody fixed this issue??

[jimz06]

I also just ran into this problem and fixed it by going into Detailed Setup-Video/Audio-Media Player for non-MPEG files and changing it so that it uses Sage for online videos. Not sure why DirectShow quit working all of a sudden but there you have it.

[mangriotis]

I changed this and now get different behavior, but still not working correctly.

It seems like it works ok for SD-type videos (maybe 720x360), but when a 720p clip starts playing, the video freezes right away, but the audio continues (as well as the time bar). It seems like it's working, but the video locks up. If I click somewhere else, it will show a new still image at the correct time stamp, and the audio will continue from there, but video remains stuck on that image.

Does SageTV Player require that much more resources where my PC power may be the limiting factor and not able to play these clips?

(They work in high resolution when played through IE/YouTube directly).

This is on a SageClient PC with an Intel Atom 330 and nVidia ION integrated video.

[ero]

Originally Posted by Halstead

Got the following from SageTV support yesterday:

"OK, I investigated some more and this is not something we're going to
support currently. (it can work alright on the SageTV application
standalone; but SageTVClient has an issue with this that isn't easy to
resolve).

I've now come across this and although using SageTV for Online Videos work I want to use DirectShow to take advantage of DXVA.
I'm using v7.1.9 and I AM IN STANDALONE mode, but still not working for me.

On Win XP this was working for me (ie. DirectShow for Online videos).

Anyone ever come up with a solution?