Placeshifter intentionally crippled by design? (it's not)

[perholm]

(Edited by SageTV)

This thread was closed due to the inaccuracy of the information. The OP didn't understand that SageTVClient on Windows uses DirectShow for TV playback; while the Placeshifter uses the 'SageTVPlayer'. SageTVClient also has a very different architecture vs. the Placeshifter. While both products have very similar UI functionality (something we try to maintain across the entire product line); the internal workings of them are very different.

Nothing has been intentionally crippled. The two products just have different architectures and different technologies used to build them which causes them to have different capabilities. (just like DVD playback is not in the Placeshifter; but it is in SageTVClient; again for the same reason of the technologies they are based on).




Hi,

This posting is regarding whether the SageTV designers have intentionally crippled Placeshifter in order to prevent it from being a competing product to SageTV Client.

I've now been spending quite a lot of time testing Placeshifter for TV viewing in my second home. But comparing Placeshifter to SageTV client, on the same bandwidth, Client has vastly superior picture quality than Placeshifter, and particularly, has much better deinterlace.

SageTV Client has settings for which video renderer to use, which Placeshifter does not. But since both appear to use a custom-compiled version of MPlayer, I cannot understand why the choice has been made to allow the rendering quality to be controlled in SageTV, but not in Placeshifter.

I'm the author of a separate post, where I at least figured out how to hack SageTVPlayer.exe to use the ffdmped deinterlace, which is somewhat better.

But I have to say that this situation really bothers me on a moral level. It seems totally within SageTV's power to allow users to control the rendering of Placeshifter, to allow it to render as well as Client on the same bandwidth.

So why doesn't it? It seems to me that Placeshifter has been intentionally crippled in order to force people to use SageTV Client, and somehow, in SageTV's mind, they'd make more money? Or what?

I really don't care a rat's butt what any of this costs, but I'm incredibly bothered by SageTV apparently deliberately hurting one group of users in order to gain some ficticious advantage somewhere else.

But all of us who are primarily streaming over the internet, are thus hung out do dry, because at the same time, SageTV Client has intentionally been designed to not work properly over the internet. In other words, SageTV is deliberately designed to not provide full achievable playback quality over the internet.

Why, why, WHY, has Placeshifter been deliberately been drizzled down?

I'm so angry about this that I want to find a different solution. It's totally within SageTV's power to make Placeshifter render as well as Client on equal bandwidth.

Per

[Brent]

Is this a rhetorical question or have you posed the question to SageTV Support directly.

If you're just hoping to rant on the forums to others I guess that post does that, but why not try to do something about it by putting in an official request?

[perholm]

Because if SageTV don't want to do it but someone else has a way to hack MPlayer, then I'd love to hear it.

Moreover, if this kind of design decision has been made, I think it deserves to be discussed openly. I also think that other people intending to use Placeshifter for primary remote viewing deserve to know about this before making a purchase decision. My purchase decision, for example, would likely have been different, had I read this post.

But yes, I'll post the same question to support directly. However, they state it directly on the website, that video renderer can be selected on Client, but not in Placeshifter.

I think that speaks to a conscious decision. Therefore, I think that some kind of community desire to see this change will be more powerful.

But I say "IF" it's a conscious decision. If it is a technological limitation, then it's a different matter. But even so, the desire to make the best possible product would have to be low, because if it's possible to allow people a proper renderer on Client, SURELY it's possible on Placeshifter. Somehow, some way. At least let us know some sort of config file hack, I can live with that.

Thanks,

Per

[perholm]

Also, by the way, then there's the whole thing about Placeshifter requiring a whole programming session just to launch. I've written a 10-line QuickMacros script to launch Placeshifter click-free. But Placeshifter can not be described by any stretch of the imagination to be user-friendly to launch.

I highly suspect intentional decisions to make Placeshifter an inferior product to Client.

If that is so, I think it's reprehensible. I'm also disappointed that I've bought multiple Placeshifter licenses before I started to wonder what was going on with the picture quality. If this is set in stone, I will not use these licenses, but find another way to move my TV over the internet. What a bummer.

Per

[perholm]

HA, I may finally have figured it out. I took one last trip through trying all the MPlayer deinterlacer settings, I must have missed this one:

vf=yadif=1:0

This deinterlaces and doubles the frame-rate, and it displays nearly smoothly. News tickers now actually update at 60 fields per second.

To anyone else who is struggling with this, do the following.

Inside the Placeshifter directory, create the folder/file "mplayer/config" (no extension), and inside that file, paste:

vo=directx
vf=yadif=1:0

Try that out for size!

Per

[GKusnick]

As I understand it, the overriding consideration with Placeshifter is that it be self-contained and portable. It is by design a lowest-common-denominator solution that can be carried on a USB stick and run on any Windows machine (such as a hotel courtesy computer) without requiring any special setup or leaving many footprints behind when you're done.

Client in contrast is meant for non-portable installations on hardware you control, and thus is able to allow more configuration options and codec dependencies than Placeshifter.

If you have constructive suggestions on how Placeshifter can be improved without compromising portability, I'm sure the Sage devs would be interested in hearing them. But it seems to me that intemperate rants about nefarious conspiracies to bilk you out of your money are probably not a good way to start that conversation.

[perholm]

Well, certainly, it's a rant, but I unfortunately think I'm right. Client is sold as a node-locked license, whereas Placeshifter is a floating license. SageTV have an obvious financial interest in Client looking better than Placeshifter, because other wise people would just buy a single Placeshifter license and move from station to station -- with Client, you have to buy a license for each station.

They also advertise it directly that you can only control the playback quality in Client, not in Placeshifter.

If you look in the other thread where I posted my original hack for tolerable deinterlace, it didn't take long before grateful users posted thanks for the hack. This is not some fringe use of Placeshifter.

The developers know this software inside and out, and therefore, the above "vf=yadif=1:0" is like ABC. They themselves have compiled this on top of the MPlayer code, and they can't possibly not know about this.

I think it's unfortunately obvious that if Placeshifter looked at good as Client, nobody would be buying Client licenses, because it would be an unattractive license, given that it's tied to the PC it's installed on.

The real downside to posting all this is that if the developers are intent on managing a quality difference between Placeshifter and Client, it would also be a relatively small task to re-compile Placeshifter to suppress the "vf=" arguments, thereby deactivating this ability to play back at full quality.

I should say that I've now just spent a few hours watching TV on a Placeshifter, and the quality is now equal to that of Client. If the goal was for Placeshifter to be the best product it can be, I can't fathom why this is not built in.

It just doesn't add up. I hate being managed by having features disabled, especially when I'm perfectly happy to pay anything it costs. The goal for me is a solution that works.

So if SageTV really is managing a quality-difference, I truly hope that this video-filter won't be suppressed in future released.

I perfectly understand the need to target and version a product. But this shouldn't be done by suppressing vital features. Instead, they should then simply prevent Placeshifter from operating on a subnet, and only allow the Client to operate on a subnet. Removing features and causing a reduction in quality seems like a poor strategy.

I'll be very happy to have been wrong about all of this. But it is darn curious that these features have been removed when it would be SO EASY to dramatically increase the playback quality in Placeshifter.

Anyway, there now is a solution. I hope noone disables is.

Cheers,

Per

[bcjenkins]

Per,

A few points of interest for you, perhaps.

1) Placeshifter is being improved. Newer features allow you to transfer files from the remote server over the software. Continual updates to the mplayer base to allow it to play back content from new sources, ie. hdpvr.

2) Having met a few of the folks @ SageTV in person CES, etc., there does not seem to be an air of dubiousness about them. All of the concerns I have raised have been addressed. Not all have been implemented, though.

3) Contrary to your line of thought, they may not have the time to go through and test all of the settings made available in mplayer. I think it is no secret that they rely heavily on community testing of products for feedback and bug hunting.

I would encourage you to submit the improvement request/bug report via email. I would also be patient as they will likely not make a change to the default rendering method until the next beta versions.

B

[perholm]

Hi,

I'm glad to hear your positive impression of the SageTV team, that's wonderful.

The thing is that it's a normal part of business to try to target and version products, and the things that lead me to believe that Placeshifter has been the victim of versioning are:

1.) Obviously, from this post, no playback quality controls.
2.) That it's advertised as having no way to control quality.
3.) The fact that it's very labor intensive to start up, you have to click and type and click and type and click and type. Users have begged for a long time of some sort of easier startup, and it has not happened.
4.) That the only way to start up Placeshifter with the machine boot is through a .bat file, which will leave a permanent command prompt hanging.
5.) The fact that if Placeshifter could play at Client quality, it would be more attractive, and you'd have to buy fewer licenses because they're floating.
6.) That the encoder stutters and framedrops, even on simple almost non-moving video and low CPU load.

It seems quite obvious to me that the above makes Placeshifter less attractive than Client.

During any course of business, you have to decide what your product is supposed to cost, and which features are available in which version.

This doesn't denote some sort of conspiracy. A car might cost $1,000 more because of a $200 built-in GPS. That's how your version your product. So I'm not suspecting these very fine developers of being the KGB. I'm simply saying that it appears quite heavily that Placeshifter has been versioned so that playback quality controls are unavailable, and it's HIGHLY MANUAL to start up. Ergo, Client is a more attractive product.

If Client worked over the internet, you'd never heard a word from me, I had simply bought that instead. It's the fact that you can ONLY have good quality through Client, and that it DOESN'T work over the internet, that leaves us internet users sort of hanging in the middle.

The above solution works, I've now tested on many machines, and other users in other threads have also reported that it works great.

The only issue I'm try to solve now, and maybe anybody has any thoughts, is that there's some playback stuttering, and I'd like to find out if it's on the server side or the playback side. Both server and playback are extremely fast machines, and CPU hardly gets over 20% on either. The stuttering is the same on all machines, leaving me to think it's an encoding problem.

So the real question is, does anybody know how to send some settings to the Placeshifter encoder? It seems that some frame dropping is being allowed on the server side -- unnecessary frame-dropping at that, it also framedrops on a news-ticker and a nearly static frame.

Thanks,

Per

[perholm]

Hi there,

To answer my own question, the frame dropping doesn't appear to happen on the server, which I conclude for two reasons:

1.) Even when I disable transcoding, which is only recommended for LAN usage, it still frame-drops, which highly indicates a player problem, as presumably, the original recording is being fed live.
2.) The CPU on the server is hovering around 15%-20% when it's encoding.

The question is, which flag in MPlayer is causing the frame-dropping? The player CPUs hover at around 20% to 50% depending on the machine, so CPU is not the issue either.

Love to hear some thoughts.

Per

[bcjenkins]

Maybe it is this flag:

vf=yadif=1:0

Seriously though, I think you can adjust the transcoding bits on the server side in the Sage.properties

media_server/conservative_transcode=false
media_server/extra_allowed_files=miniclient
media_server/readahead_optimized_file_extensions=
media_server/transcode_quality/DVD=-f dvd -b 4000 -s 720x480 -acodec mp2 -r 29.97 -ab 128 -ar 48000 -ac 2
media_server/transcode_quality/DVD6Ch=-f dvd -b 4000 -s 720x480 -acodec ac3 -r 29.97 -ab 384 -ar 48000 -ac 6
media_server/transcode_quality/DVDAudioOnly=-f dvd -vcodec copy -acodec mp2 -ab 384 -ar 48000 -ac 2
media_server/transcode_quality/SVCD=-f dvd -b 2000 -g 3 -bf 0 -acodec mp2 -ab 128 -ar 48000 -ac 2 -s 352x240 -r 29.97
media_server/transcode_quality/SVCD6Ch=-f dvd -b 2000 -g 3 -bf 0 -acodec ac3 -ab 384 -ar 48000 -ac 6 -s 352x240 -r 29.97
media_server/transcode_quality/mp3=-f dvd -vn -acodec copy
media_server/transcode_quality/mpeg2psremux=-f dvd -vcodec copy -acodec copy -copyts
media_server/transcode_quality/music=-f dvd -vn -acodec mp2 -ab 64 -ar 48000 -ac 2
media_server/transcode_quality/music128=-f dvd -vn -acodec mp2 -ab 128 -ar 48000 -ac 2
media_server/transcode_quality/music256=-f dvd -vn -acodec mp2 -ab 256 -ar 48000 -ac 2
media_server_port=7818
media_server_thread_priority_offset=2
mediafile_metadata_parser_plugins=
mini_discovery_port=31100

miniclient/debug_push=false
miniclient/network_buffer_size=16384
miniclient/network_buffer_size_new=32768

minimum_tv_file_size=500000
miniplayer/align_iframes_on_seek=true
miniplayer/allow_transcoding=true
miniplayer/dvd_debug=false
miniplayer/min_bandwidth_for_no_transcode=2000000
miniplayer/num_reseek_attempts=3
miniplayer/seek_diff_for_reseek=2000
miniserver/clients=
miniserver/delay_between_connections=15000
miniserver/forced_server_ip=

[perholm]

Hi,

Thanks for that, but are these Conversion options or Transcoding options? They seem to relate to the manual conversions that can be done to recording in SageTV.

Also, I've determined quite conclusively that the stuttering isn't caused on the server, because even with transcoding disabled, it still stutters on all players. Therefore, it has to be an MPlayer setting, but I've tried them all, and I'm getting no results. CPU load is definitely not a problem. On one machine, CPU is 20% on decoding, so it has to be setting.

By the way, the yadif filter causes a slight video delay, so I'm looking the setting for adjusting the audio offset.

Also, by the way, I've noticed that with the yadif setting, the picture itself looks WAY better, all deinterlace concerns aside. The module does some sort of temporal smoothing, and this has a dramatic impact on noise. I'm streaming over a 2Mbps connection, and it now looks almost like the source, it's really quite incredible. Except for the stuttering.

Thanks,

Per

[bcjenkins]

The transcoder tag is for file conversion:

transcoder/formats/AppleTV-High\ Quality=f\=mp4;MCompressionDetails\=-deinterlace -g 150 -qmin 25 -level 31 -flags loop -sc_threshold 40 -partitions partp4x4 -rc_eq blurCplx^(1-qComp) -refs 2 -qmax 51 -maxrate 4500000 -bf 1 -keyint_min 40;[bf\=vid;f\=h264;br\=2500000;fps\=29.97;w\=720;h\=480;arn\=4;ard\=3;][bf\=aud;f\=aac;sr\=48000;ch\=2;br\=128000;]
transcoder/formats/AppleTV-High\ Quality\ Widescreen=f\=mp4;MCompressionDetails\=-deinterlace -g 150 -qmin 25 -level 31 -flags loop -sc_threshold 40 -partitions partp4x4 -rc_eq blurCplx^(1-qComp) -refs 2 -qmax 51 -maxrate 4500000 -bf 1 -keyint_min 40;[bf\=vid;f\=h264;br\=2500000;fps\=29.97;w\=960;h\=540;arn\=16;ard\=9;][bf\=aud;f\=aac;sr\=48000;ch\=2;br\=128000;]
transcoder/formats/DVD-Extra\ Long\ Play=f\=dvd;[bf\=vid;f\=mpeg2video;br\=3000000;fps\=29.97;w\=720;h\=480;vbr\=1;][bf\=aud;f\=mp2;sr\=48000;ch\=2;bsmp\=16;br\=384000;]
transcoder/formats/DVD-Extra\ Long\ Play\ with\ AC3=f\=dvd;[bf\=vid;f\=mpeg2video;br\=3000000;fps\=29.97;w\=720;h\=480;vbr\=1;][bf\=aud;f\=ac3;sr\=48000;bsmp\=16;br\=384000;]
transcoder/formats/DVD-Long\ Play=f\=dvd;[bf\=vid;f\=mpeg2video;br\=4800000;fps\=29.97;w\=720;h\=480;vbr\=1;][bf\=aud;f\=mp2;sr\=48000;ch\=2;bsmp\=16;br\=384000;]
transcoder/formats/DVD-Long\ Play\ with\ AC3=f\=dvd;[bf\=vid;f\=mpeg2video;br\=4800000;fps\=29.97;w\=720;h\=480;vbr\=1;][bf\=aud;f\=ac3;sr\=48000;bsmp\=16;br\=384000;]
transcoder/formats/DVD-Standard\ Play=f\=dvd;[bf\=vid;f\=mpeg2video;br\=6400000;fps\=29.97;w\=720;h\=480;vbr\=1;][bf\=aud;f\=mp2;sr\=48000;ch\=2;bsmp\=16;br\=384000;]
transcoder/formats/DVD-Standard\ Play\ with\ AC3=f\=dvd;[bf\=vid;f\=mpeg2video;br\=6400000;fps\=29.97;w\=720;h\=480;vbr\=1;][bf\=aud;f\=ac3;sr\=48000;bsmp\=16;br\=384000;]
transcoder/formats/MPEG4\ HDTV-Good\ Quality\ AVI=f\=avi;MCompressionDetails\=-vtag xvid;[bf\=vid;f\=mpeg4;br\=6000000;][bf\=aud;]
transcoder/formats/MPEG4\ HDTV-Good\ Quality\ Deinterlaced\ AVI=f\=avi;MCompressionDetails\=-vtag xvid -deinterlace;[bf\=vid;f\=mpeg4;br\=6000000;][bf\=aud;]
transcoder/formats/MPEG4\ HDTV-High\ Quality\ AVI=f\=avi;MCompressionDetails\=-vtag xvid;[bf\=vid;f\=mpeg4;br\=8000000;][bf\=aud;]
transcoder/formats/MPEG4\ HDTV-High\ Quality\ Deinterlaced\ AVI=f\=avi;MCompressionDetails\=-vtag xvid -deinterlace;[bf\=vid;f\=mpeg4;br\=8000000;][bf\=aud;]
transcoder/formats/MPEG4-Good\ Quality\ AVI=f\=avi;MCompressionDetails\=-vtag xvid;[bf\=vid;f\=mpeg4;br\=1500000;w\=720;h\=480;fps\=29.97;][bf\=aud;]
transcoder/formats/MPEG4-Good\ Quality\ Deinterlaced\ AVI=f\=avi;MCompressionDetails\=-vtag xvid -deinterlace;[bf\=vid;f\=mpeg4;br\=1500000;w\=720;h\=480;fps\=29.97;][bf\=aud;]
transcoder/formats/MPEG4-High\ Quality\ AVI=f\=avi;MCompressionDetails\=-vtag xvid;[bf\=vid;f\=mpeg4;br\=2000000;w\=720;h\=480;fps\=29.97;][bf\=aud;]
transcoder/formats/MPEG4-High\ Quality\ Deinterlaced\ AVI=f\=avi;MCompressionDetails\=-vtag xvid -deinterlace;[bf\=vid;f\=mpeg4;br\=2000000;w\=720;h\=480;fps\=29.97;][bf\=aud;]
transcoder/formats/PSP-Good\ Quality=f\=psp;MCompressionDetails\=-bitexact 1[bf\=vid;f\=xvid;br\=216000;fps\=29.97;w\=320;h\=240;][bf\=aud;f\=aac;sr\=24000;ch\=1;br\=48000;]
transcoder/formats/PSP-High\ Quality=f\=psp;MCompressionDetails\=-bitexact 1[bf\=vid;f\=xvid;br\=768000;fps\=29.97;w\=320;h\=240;][bf\=aud;f\=aac;sr\=24000;ch\=2;br\=128000;]
transcoder/formats/PSP-Widescreen\ Good\ Quality=f\=psp;MCompressionDetails\=-bitexact 1[bf\=vid;f\=xvid;br\=216000;fps\=29.97;w\=368;h\=208;][bf\=aud;f\=aac;sr\=24000;ch\=1;br\=48000;]
transcoder/formats/PSP-Widescreen\ High\ Quality=f\=psp;MCompressionDetails\=-bitexact 1[bf\=vid;f\=xvid;br\=768000;fps\=29.97;w\=368;h\=208;][bf\=aud;f\=aac;sr\=24000;ch\=2;br\=128000;]
transcoder/formats/iPhone-Standard=f\=mp4;MCompressionDetails\=-deinterlace -g 150 -qmin 26 -level 30 -flags loop -sc_threshold 40 -partitions partp4x4 -rc_eq blurCplx^(1-qComp) -refs 1 -qmax 51 -maxrate 768000 -bufsize 768k -keyint_min 40 -async 50;[bf\=vid;f\=h264;br\=640000;fps\=29.97;w\=480;h\=368;arn\=16;ard\=9;][bf\=aud;f\=aac;sr\=48000;ch\=2;br\=128000;]
transcoder/formats/iPhone-Widescreen=f\=mp4;MCompressionDetails\=-deinterlace -g 150 -qmin 26 -level 30 -flags loop -sc_threshold 40 -partitions partp4x4 -rc_eq blurCplx^(1-qComp) -refs 1 -qmax 51 -maxrate 768000 -bufsize 768k -keyint_min 40 -async 50;[bf\=vid;f\=h264;br\=640000;fps\=29.97;w\=480;h\=272;arn\=16;ard\=9;][bf\=aud;f\=aac;sr\=48000;ch\=2;br\=128000;]
transcoder/formats/iPod-Fair\ Quality=f\=mp4;MCompressionDetails\=-bufsize 33554432 -g 300;[bf\=vid;f\=mpeg4;br\=500000;fps\=29.97;w\=512;h\=384;arn\=4;ard\=3;][bf\=aud;f\=aac;sr\=44100;ch\=2;br\=64000;]
transcoder/formats/iPod-Good\ Quality=f\=mp4;MCompressionDetails\=-maxrate 1250000 -bufsize 33554432 -g 300;[bf\=vid;f\=mpeg4;br\=1000000;fps\=29.97;w\=512;h\=384;arn\=4;ard\=3;][bf\=aud;f\=aac;sr\=44100;ch\=2;br\=96000;]
transcoder/formats/iPod-High\ Quality=f\=mp4;MCompressionDetails\=-maxrate 2500000 -qmin 3 -qmax 5 -bufsize 33554432 -g 300;[bf\=vid;f\=mpeg4;br\=1800000;fps\=29.97;w\=512;h\=384;arn\=4;ard\=3;][bf\=aud;f\=aac;sr\=44100;ch\=2;br\=128000;]

[perholm]

Hi there,

But do you know where the setting for Placeshifter streaming is? That would be lovely to control.

Thanks,

Per

[perholm]

By the way, I've determined the the audio needs to be delayed a slight bit with the yadif deinterlacer. So this is the mplayer/config file:

vo=directx
delay=-0.15
vf=yadif=1:0

I've been researching the stuttering issue, and I've determined that it's probably not the server. I've also noticed that it sometimes jumps ahead, sometimes behind, so possibly it's some sort of vsync issue. However, I've tried basically all parameters in MPlayer that have to do with sync, buffering, framerates, and there's no difference.

Possibly, this could be due to Placeshifter tagging the video as 30fps, where in reality it would have to be 29.97. I think 29.97 should be an option.

Best,

Per

[voidpt]

Did a short attempt to find out if there was any way to influence the command line passed to SageTVTranscoder.exe when the PlaceShifter starts a video. Couldn't find any. Looks like that logic is locked inside (in my case) the SageTVService.exe when it starts SageTVTranscoder.exe. In my sample the command line looked like this:

"C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\SageTVTranscoder.exe"
-ss 1234 -v 3 -y -threads 1 -vsync 0 -async 1
-stdinctrl -i \\myserver\library\recording.mpg
-threads 3 -f dvd -vcodec mpeg4 -s 352x288
-ac 2 -g 250 -bf 2 -acodec mp2 -r 25 -b 400000
-ar 48000 -ab 64000 -packetsize 1024
-aspect 16:9 -muxrate 2000000 -rc_init_cplx 323
-maxrate 400000 -minrate 0 -bufsize 400000
-mbd 2 -priority belownormal -

Probably even longer. Because of the ending '-'. Could be that Process Explorer have a capped limit on showing the command line. No entry in Sage.properties seems to have an influence on this command line. So I think the request from PlaceShifter together with SageTVService.exe determines parameters. And that as of now it is not possible to get custom stuff in there.

[The Truth]

Perholm:

I'm kinda a newb to this... =/ .... but would you be able to help me get placeshifter to open up without a mouse click...

And i think i got your solution working... THANKS

[CollinR]

1. Do realize most are moving to hardware clients as none of this is an issue with them and they too use placeshifter licenses so you can do an either/or with them.

2. SageTV placeshifter is designed to work on WANs with more like 256k upload like most people really have. More of an anywhere on anything type deal.

3. If SageTV really wanted placeshifter to be "inferior" they would have prevented you from adding and manipulating the mplayer config file.


In the end you will do all this ranting and the next beta version will have a developers version of your changes integrated. The stuff that doesn't detract from WAN streaming or become dependent on hardware or as was most likely the case the OS. Sit back and give em a chance before you fly off the handle. Acting as though their portable crossplatform WAN product has the same performance goals as their desktop/LAN application isn't overly realistic.

In the same sence client is inferior as it won't work remotely for jack!