SageTV Demux Beta for Windows w/ Accurate Seeking

[jkohn]

I certainly wouldn't expect any decoding to happen at the server with an HD200, that would be pretty stupid.

My server just has the debux that shipped with 6.5, and skipping/seeking is accurate the HD200. Also, smooth ff/rw works, which had never worked on my HTPC client with HD recordings.

[HelenWeathers]

Originally Posted by jkohn

I certainly wouldn't expect any decoding to happen at the server with an HD200, that would be pretty stupid.

I would say that it's unfortunate that some files will play in Media Extender mode that won't play without problems in Media Player mode. I don't know enough about how Sage handles the delivery of those files to the HD-200 to know what the difference is, but I do know there is a difference, which indicates to me some degree of processing. I have about fifteen of those files that won't play in Media Player mode but will play in Media Extender mode.

Also (more on topic), when I upgraded to SageTV's 6.5.9 (final) version, I had to abandon EVR and go back to Overlay on my Vista Client to get smooth video rendering of files recorded by my OTA ATSC tuners and my HD-PVRs. That, I feel sure, has to do with the demuxer included with 6.5.9. I may roll back to 6.5.8 and/or try this beta demuxer (time permitting) to see if that makes a difference.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by gplasky

.38 and .39 would cause me a problem on the HD200. I could watch one video (tv recording, dvd, etc.) all the way thru. Skipping and everything would work fine. When I went to play a second video (tv recording, dvd, etc) I would either get a black screen, spinning wheel for a couple of minutes then I could get back to a menu or it would actually throw up a Sage Exception dialog box on the screen. Which I though was weird since everything is done on hardware. If I rebooted the HD200 I could play any first video but subsequent videos would have the issue. I went back .35 and haven't seen the issue. With .39 I added the dwords and ran it at default (64 & 128) and notched it up a bit (96 & 160). Same issue.

Gerry

Sorry. This issue appears to be related to the latest beta firmware for the HD200. I had 20090218 1 loaded. WHen I went back to the prod version 20081230 I no longer get the black screen after sucessfully play 1 video and no spinning circle or sage exceptions errors.

Gerry

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by jkohn

I certainly wouldn't expect any decoding to happen at the server with an HD200, that would be pretty stupid.

My server just has the debux that shipped with 6.5, and skipping/seeking is accurate the HD200. Also, smooth ff/rw works, which had never worked on my HTPC client with HD recordings.

A demuxer is NOT a decoder. A demuxer (demultiplexer) is used to list the contents of an MPEG system stream and to extract elementary streams. This is how a decoder knows what video and audio streams to play.

Gerry

[davidk21770]

So far, 39 at 2x the default settings is awesome here. No glitches or stutters what so ever during playback or when jumping around in the files. I can even jump without playing (in pause mode) and have the screen update properly again (haven't been able to do that for over a year). Much easier on the ears (and sanity) for finding the show again on those few commercials not correctly identified by ShowAnalyzer.

[mpogr]

With .39 and double the default settings, my situation is better, but still some navigation errors occur when jumping around.
An observation I have recently made: seems like these errors occur more frequently and by larger margin when a recording has "margins" (e.g. you scheduled a recording to start 15 minutes before the program start and finish 15 minutes after the program scheduled end).
Sage developers: any thoughts about this?

[donkey]

Originally Posted by mpogr

With .39 and double the default settings, my situation is better, but still some navigation errors occur when jumping around.
An observation I have recently made: seems like these errors occur more frequently and by larger margin when a recording has "margins" (e.g. you scheduled a recording to start 15 minutes before the program start and finish 15 minutes after the program scheduled end).
Sage developers: any thoughts about this?

A recording crossing two shows probably has a format and PTS change between two shows, I don't know if your problem is the format change making a problem in a video decoder, some of video decoder doesn't handle this issue very well, or the PTS change in demux has a trouble. post a MpegDemux log or prepare a sample clip for us to figure out.

Qian

[mpogr]

Originally Posted by donkey

A recording crossing two shows probably has a format and PTS change between two shows, I don't know if your problem is the format change making a problem in a video decoder, some of video decoder doesn't handle this issue very well, or the PTS change in demux has a trouble. post a MpegDemux log or prepare a sample clip for us to figure out.

Qian

Qian,

I researched the internal structure of these files and I can tell you PTS doesn't change. Sometimes small jumps forward (10 secs) take me actually backward or much more forward than intended to. This happens also in recorded shows, not only in live ones.
I can tell you that using Arcsoft demux (using the registry setting) gives me completely error-free jumping. I would have gladly completely switched to it if it hadn't made problems with live shows.
All this demux mess caused me the following thought: I performed some research on the new Sage demux, and it looks like it has 3 output pins: video, audio and pass-through. So I was wondering: what if I make my own demux filter that embeds Arcosft inside and delegates all the relevant methods to it, but also provides a pass-through pin? Could this finally result in a perfect demux?

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by mpogr

Qian,

So I was wondering: what if I make my own demux filter that embeds Arcosft inside and delegates all the relevant methods to it, but also provides a pass-through pin? Could this finally result in a perfect demux?

what if your filter wrapped the different demuxers depending on context (arcsoft for recordings, sage for live)?

[mpogr]

Originally Posted by babgvant

what if your filter wrapped the different demuxers depending on context (arcsoft for recordings, sage for live)?

That's a neat idea, but I have no clue how during graph creation my filter can now what kind of context it's being used within.

[mkanet]

I am using PowerDVD mpeg2 video decoder. What kind of results are other people getting with this? I dont have arcsoft installed, and dont plan to buy arcsoft since I use PowerDVD 8 for blu-ray playback already.

Originally Posted by mpogr

Qian,

I researched the internal structure of these files and I can tell you PTS doesn't change. Sometimes small jumps forward (10 secs) take me actually backward or much more forward than intended to. This happens also in recorded shows, not only in live ones.
I can tell you that using Arcsoft demux (using the registry setting) gives me completely error-free jumping. I would have gladly completely switched to it if it hadn't made problems with live shows.
All this demux mess caused me the following thought: I performed some research on the new Sage demux, and it looks like it has 3 output pins: video, audio and pass-through. So I was wondering: what if I make my own demux filter that embeds Arcosft inside and delegates all the relevant methods to it, but also provides a pass-through pin? Could this finally result in a perfect demux?

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by mpogr

That's a neat idea, but I have no clue how during graph creation my filter can now what kind of context it's being used within.

The type of file handle you can get to the source could be used as a proxy.

[mpogr]

Originally Posted by babgvant

The type of file handle you can get to the source could be used as a proxy.

My filter won't get any file handle. Its input pin is connected to another filter which actually reads the file.

My hope, however, that this wouldn't matter at all. I'd like to believe (maybe wrongly, but then this all idea is just a piece of junk) that live video issue will be fixed the moment Sage can get this pass-through pin. Seems like it needs it to understand where the current recording ends at each and every moment, but the actual jumping is done using usual IMediaFilter.SetSyncSource API, otherwise it wouldn't work at all with 3rd party filters. I assume this is implemented much better in Arcsoft's demux than in Sage's one, therefore delegating it to Arcsoft should do the trick.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by mpogr

My filter won't get any file handle. Its input pin is connected to another filter which actually reads the file.

right, but the graph (which contains the filter) will have a filter that implements ifilesourcefilter which you can use to pull the path to the file.

Originally Posted by mpogr

My hope, however, that this wouldn't matter at all. I'd like to believe (maybe wrongly, but then this all idea is just a piece of junk) that live video issue will be fixed the moment Sage can get this pass-through pin.

I suspect that this pin is for debugging.

Originally Posted by mpogr

Seems like it needs it to understand where the current recording ends at each and every moment, but the actual jumping is done using usual IMediaFilter.SetSyncSource API, otherwise it wouldn't work at all with 3rd party filters. I assume this is implemented much better in Arcsoft's demux than in Sage's one, therefore delegating it to Arcsoft should do the trick.

I think you mean IMediaSeeking.SetPositions, SetSyncSource is used to sync the filters in the graph.

[mpogr]

Originally Posted by mkanet

I am using PowerDVD mpeg2 video decoder. What kind of results are other people getting with this? I dont have arcsoft installed, and dont plan to buy arcsoft since I use PowerDVD 8 for blu-ray playback already.

The issue doesn't depend on the decoder, it's actually a malfunction of demux. It's really strange that after so many months Sage developers haven't been able to develop demux that works for different variants of TS streams. Maybe they need to revise some of their basic assumptions (e.g. PTS information synchronization with EPG etc.). This is not a simple issue, as other software is also struggling with it (VLC player doesn't work well on my files as well as GBPVR, while Media Portal mostly works but still with issues). However, when a robust 3rd party demux is used with software that allows complete graph-construction freedom (like Arcsoft or Haali with ZoomPlayer), everything works perfectly. Obviously, ZoomPlayer doesn't account for growing files, so the problem it's facing is much simpler. But I don't believe it's unsolvable for Sage.
So, come on guys, give it a final push. This is a major pain in the butt preventing from people with digital sources (DVB-S etc.) effective use of Sage.

[mpogr]

Originally Posted by babgvant

I suspect that this pin is for debugging.

Not sure, that's exactly what I'd like Sage developers to tell us.
The difference between Arcsoft and Sage demux in live playback is that with Arcsoft the current position stays always where it was when the playback started. This is fine as long as you don't need to pause/resume or jump. But if you do one of these, you're completely off the target. So, it's either Sage uses this pass-through to follow the file growth (which, IMHO, is not the most efficient way of doing this), or communicates with the demux using proprietary APIs (which also sucks). I'd like to believe the correct answer is 1, if it's 2, then my idea won't work.

Originally Posted by babgvant

I think you mean IMediaSeeking.SetPositions, SetSyncSource is used to sync the filters in the graph.

You're right, my mistake.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by mpogr

The difference between Arcsoft and Sage demux in live playback is that with Arcsoft the current position stays always where it was when the playback started. This is fine as long as you don't need to pause/resume or jump. But if you do one of these, you're completely off the target. So, it's either Sage uses this pass-through to follow the file growth (which, IMHO, is not the most efficient way of doing this), or communicates with the demux using proprietary APIs (which also sucks). I'd like to believe the correct answer is 1, if it's 2, then my idea won't work.

The difference is most likely that Sage's demuxer doesn't take the duration as a fixed value so it constantly updates the value.

It should be easy enough to find out. Start a recording in Sage then use their filters to open the file with directshowand poll the duration.

[donkey]

Originally Posted by mpogr

The issue doesn't depend on the decoder, it's actually a malfunction of demux. It's really strange that after so many months Sage developers haven't been able to develop demux that works for different variants of TS streams. Maybe they need to revise some of their basic assumptions (e.g. PTS information synchronization with EPG etc.). This is not a simple issue, as other software is also struggling with it (VLC player doesn't work well on my files as well as GBPVR, while Media Portal mostly works but still with issues). However, when a robust 3rd party demux is used with software that allows complete graph-construction freedom (like Arcsoft or Haali with ZoomPlayer), everything works perfectly. Obviously, ZoomPlayer doesn't account for growing files, so the problem it's facing is much simpler. But I don't believe it's unsolvable for Sage.
So, come on guys, give it a final push. This is a major pain in the butt preventing from people with digital sources (DVB-S etc.) effective use of Sage.

I know your TS recordings are created by youself, if you have troubles with the demux, upload sample clips. I tested your one recording posted on 1/12/09, no issue there. another way you can use SageTV's TSSplitter to remux your TS format recording into PS format one, that could have less troubles.


Qian

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by mkanet

I am using PowerDVD mpeg2 video decoder. What kind of results are other people getting with this? I dont have arcsoft installed, and dont plan to buy arcsoft since I use PowerDVD 8 for blu-ray playback already.

Even though you're using PowerDVD as the deocder you're using the Sage Demux. He is talking about having done a registry change that would use the Arcsoft demux. Unless you did the same registry change for Powerdvd any decoder installed uses the SageTV Demux.

Gerry

[babgvant]

Got some flashes of green (using the MS decoder) tonight while watching. The Cyberlink decoder had a slight blip over the same segment (both in Sage and in PDVD) so it could be the file (HVR-2250 cap).

Log and screen shot attached.