SageTV Demux Beta for Windows w/ Accurate Seeking

[babgvant]

Thanks.

[waylo]

Getting massive crashes on my system. As in spinning wheel of death, can't pull up windows taskmanager to end the process, have to hit the reset button crash.

This is using the Intervideo video codec and Nvidia Purevideo audio codec. Happens on both HD OTA recordings and SD analog cable recordings. My HD OTA recordings were always in sync to begin with, but my ATI HD Wonder encoded cable has been extremely variable in sync issues.

Going back to the original until it gets worked out a bit more.

[leons1]

This filter gave me random macro blocking. I Had to revert back to the previous version

[Ryokurin]

No go here. (using ffdshow tryouts directshow enabled.) live TV either came up with a no signal, or a black screen, and recorded shows played for a few seconds and paused with no audio

[redondo_se]

Originally Posted by stanger89

You're in luck, I've got my HTPC up

HKCU\Software\Cyberlink\Common\CLAud\
There should be a SageTV (or SageTVClient) key.
I've got the following DWORDS:
AU_DRC_MODE = 1
AuDsChExpand = 2
AuDsExpandMode = 2

I think those are the important ones, but what I really did was setup the audio decoder in Graphedit, and then copied the settings from the graphedit key to the SageTVClient key.

I decided to give the Cyberlink audio decoder a try last night. DPLIIx didn't seem to do much for me. I got the best results (for my taste) with the TrueTheatre Surround (CLMEI-2) music (onstage) mode. It "copies" more of the dialog than any of the other modes to the surround speakers, but it's still not a pure copy like I can achieve with FFDSHOW.

However, the Cyberlink decoder does not work with all of my channels audio streams. For example, the Purdue/Notre Dame game from NBC last weekend has an AC3 container with stereo audio. The cyberlink decoder refuses to connect to the audio stream. I verified it with graphedit. I'm sticking with FFDSHOW.

Oh, and by the way, I set VSFilter (DirectVOBSub) to always load while I was messing with the cyberlink audio settings. Then I could right click the VSFilter "green arrow" in the system tray and bring up the cyberlink audio decoder property page to modify the settings instead of messing around with the registry keys. If you do this, make sure you change VSFilter back to "load when needed" because it messes up deinterlacing when it's in the video chain.

[grooves12]

I have a weird issue with the beta demux and h.264 DVB recordings, where everything plays fine... timekeeping is now accurate, but it gives a flash of a frame 30-60 seconds prior every few minutes or so.

[FlyingDoc]

This cleaned up my skipping problems on the recorded shows but as with a couple of the other users when watching live (delayed) the playhead marker doesnt move and the start of a commercial block doesnt then get detected.

Many thanks for posting this!!!!!

WAF is much improved... I am holding my breath for an update that would fix the above and make my Sage experience almost perfect.

[redondo_se]

Originally Posted by grooves12

I have a weird issue with the beta demux and h.264 DVB recordings, where everything plays fine... timekeeping is now accurate, but it gives a flash of a frame 30-60 seconds prior every few minutes or so.

I had what I think is probably the same problem with the stable demux, Sage 6.3, and Dish H.264 channels. That was with:

Vista Ultimate
ATI 2600XT
Cyberlink 7.3 H.264 decoder

I would see a frame from the past like you describe, and lots of what I would call "smearing". Very weird effect, it drove me nuts!

That problem went away when I swapped out my ATI card for an Nvidia 8600GT. I've gone through lots of software changes trying to find the right mix since then. I'm now using:

Vista Ultimate
Nvidia 8600GT
Arcsoft Total Media H.264 decoder
Sage 6.4

[Ryokurin]

Originally Posted by grooves12

I have a weird issue with the beta demux and h.264 DVB recordings, where everything plays fine... timekeeping is now accurate, but it gives a flash of a frame 30-60 seconds prior every few minutes or so.

I had something similar, but it wasn't due to the new demux. I noticed it after I upgraded my Geforce 8500 to a 9600. I took the time to format and reinstall everything, but in retrospect, and a separate post I remember seeing after I did uninstalling sage, making sure the directory is clean and reinstalling will probably fix it as well.

When I tried the demux again it worked better this time, however there were different problems. Live TV and initial playback worked, but when comskip attempted to fast forward then the playback will stop, but the timeline will continue until you manually stop it.

[Beefcake550]

Ok, so I may have some info that will explain why for some this new demux works great and others it doesn't.

When I tune it or view a previously recorded show from my HDHR, this new demux is great. The timeline is accurate and comskip stuff works great.

When I do the saem using my HD-PVR, all hell breaks loose independent of the h264 decoder that I use (I've tried Arcsoft and Cyberlink-PDVD8).

So, perhaps things are great in MPEG2 land, but for H264 people (especially from HD-PVR) there are some major problems.

I'm not 100% sure, but after 3 nights of testing everything to get my system up and working well, this is what I saw as the definitive factor.

-Brian

[donkey]

Here is an update
http://download.sage.tv/MpegDeMux.ax

1. fixed the stuttering problem on a H.264 recording on some kind of hardware and video decoder combination.
2. fixed macro blocking, loss A/V sync when skipping back and forth.

[Razillian]

The new beta demuxer (posted ^^^^) has a couple issues.

1) Playing back HD-PVR recordings made using the release HD-PVR drivers produce a playback error when using the Cyberlink PowerDVD 8 decoders. Recordings made with the beta driver work fine.

2) The timeline freezing issue is not as prevalent, but still happens when watching "live TV" (ie a watching a show while it is still recording). When it happens, pausing and playing the recording jumps the timeline back to where it should have been (which is much better than it was). But it also drops sage client to the desktop when the timeline gets to where Sage "thinks" there is no more recording to play, even if there is (timeline freezing issue).

I have log files I'll be submitting later today, but thought people should keep an eye out for these two issues.

[redondo_se]

Originally Posted by donkey

Here is an update
http://download.sage.tv/users/qian/6.4.1/MpegDeMux.ax

1. fixed the stuttering problem on a H.264 recording on some kind of hardware and video decoder combination.
2. fixed macro blocking, loss A/V sync when skipping back and forth.

I know you didn't say specifically that you addressed this, but it still doesn't work correctly with FFDSHOW audio decoder.

[Beefcake550]

You bastards!!!

I was hoping to have a night off from messing around with the PC, but I guess that is out of the question now

-Brian

[redondo_se]

Originally Posted by swats

I just noticed that the time bar doesn't advance when watching live tv. The current position indicator is always at the beginning, and if you skip back or forward it does so from the beginning, not end of the recording.

I decided to give both versions of the beta demux a try with AC3filter instead of FFDSHOW. Playback works, but I experience this same timeline freeze. I don't use comskip, so it always just gets stuck wherever it was last. This happens with mpeg-2 and H.264.

[ToxMox]

I was using the newest one last night and while watchine Bones 3 times when fast forwarding/skipping through some commercial breaks the video got stuck but the audio kept going. Had to stop and restart playback each time. This is on an HDHR recording.

[TallMomof2]

The latest DeMux fixed my h.264 playback problems with skipping. Thanks!!

I am getting the timeline freeze with live TV but I rarely watch live so its not that much of a problem for me.

[jjoster]

After installing this file, my screen goes black often and the service and client both need to be restarted. Tuning in live TV also locks up the system often with the spinning wheel that nevers goes away. Also, when I fast forward live TV to the end of the timeline it starts playing from the beginning though the timeline shows it is at the end. My settings are VRM9, directshow, hardware acceleration is on. Everything else is Default or SageTV.

I read on this forum someone else had similar symptoms and turned off hardware accel. I will try this and see if I can still play HD shows. I only installed this because my comskip doesn't work with HD shows. If I cannot play the shows smoothly but it skips commercials accurately did I really help myself?

[jjoster]

Well, it's too early to say if shutting off the hardware acceleration has fixed my locking up problem, but it did NOT fix live TV problem. If I fast forward to the end of my timeline then it starts playing from the beginning of the timeline though it shows up as the end.

[swats]

This latest version fixed my non-advancing timeline issue with HD-PVR recordings (thanks!). However, "Live" recordings on my HDHR still exhibit the frozen timeline weirdness. Also, I noticed this new version sometimes causes sage to crash when I am watching "Live" (or timeshifted live) and the program changes on the hour or half hour.