Utility: Web Radio and TV Encoder - Page 19

michaeldjcox · #**361** 11-17-2009, 11:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by btrumsey

After reading these last few posts about problems with paths that contain spaces, I uninstalled and re-installed WFE, this time using C:\webfeedencoder as the install dir. Now it appears to be working as expected.

I tried modifying detune.radio.windows.command file, which fixed the cleanup of the .mp3 file, but was still getting mpg files with no audio. There must be some other command in the chain that does not like the spaces in my install path.

Hmm OK - thought I had them all now but I will double check.

Quote:

Originally Posted by btrumsey

HD200 playback is good; I'm seeing choppy playback on my client... I know there are lots of posts about that here already so I'll read those and try to resolve that.

Yes - burned hours on this one. Kha said he had a solution to this issue on another thread. Hopefully he will paste it here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by btrumsey

One thing I noticed that you might want to clean up in a future version: when I specified a UNC path for my channel logos (\\\\WHS\\SageTV\\ChannelLogos), this ends up being added as \WHS\SageTV\ChannelLogos (missing a leading slash) in the encoder.props file. I had to manually update the encoder.props file for it to pick up my logos correctly.

Ah yes - ok will fix that

Quote:

Originally Posted by btrumsey

Thanks again for your great support and great SageTV utility!

You are welcome

Michael

btrumsey · #**362** 11-18-2009, 12:26 AM

I seem to have resolved my choppy playback issues by applying kha's recommendations. For those that may be looking for this as well, I will repeat what I did here.

Edit/add the following registry keys on the client machine:
* Note this will be slightly different on a Win7 system... just do a search for MpegDeMux

Code:

[HKLM\SOFTWARE\Frey Technologies\Common\DSFilters\MpegDeMux]
"BlockSize"=dword:00000200 (512)
"BlockNum"=dword:00000200 (512)
"NumBuffer"=dword:00000100 (256)

I do still have one lingering issue on the client... the playback won't start on its own. After I hit 'play', I wait for a bit (with nothing happening), and then hit pause. When I hit 'play' again, my video/audio begin as expected. Any recommendations for that ailment?

michaeldjcox · #**363** 11-18-2009, 02:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by btrumsey

I seem to have resolved my choppy playback issues by applying kha's recommendations. For those that may be looking for this as well, I will repeat what I did here.

Going to give it a go myself.

Quote:

Originally Posted by btrumsey

I do still have one lingering issue on the client... the playback won't start on its own. After I hit 'play', I wait for a bit (with nothing happening), and then hit pause. When I hit 'play' again, my video/audio begin as expected. Any recommendations for that ailment?

WFE has always been slow to tune say about 10-15 seconds or so. Have you tried waiting long enough for it to start?

Otherwise I have not seen this one - is it the same for all channels or just that one.

Michael

mikeg · #**364** 11-20-2009, 01:19 AM

I wanted to thank you for developing this great plugin. I became aware of WFE when adding the SageTV plugin for PlayOn and see WFE's capabilities as complementary to PlayOn.

I am an software test engineer and hope that sharing my experience will help others avoid some of the difficulties in setting up WFE. I spent about 3 evenings after work to get WFE deployed successfully.

Things learned:
- avoid paths with spaces: I had much better success when placing it directly under the root, instead of a folder of "Program Files".
- use the experimental patch recently posted and use your local time zone, not the TZ of the music source
- to avoid the stuttering audio on the server, use the regkeys described in post #362.

Pain points:
- Before installation I read the user guide but couldn't figure out how the WFE tuner was installed--I tried adding a WFE source through the SageTV setup menu but that didn't work properly.
- I also read the entire 360+ posts in the WFE support thread. This thread should be retired and a new one started with each release of the program to keep the number of posts down and keep the posts germane to that version of WFE.

Suggestions for improvement:
- Recommend dropping the "Program Files" from the default install location. If the spaces in the path cause problems, then changing the default path would eliminate that trouble.
- Start the WFE service at the end of the installation--it isn't clear that WFE is started or whether the system should be rebooted.
- The user guide could use a step-by-step tutorial for adding a well-known reliable stream. This is better than leaving the initial station programming to chance that the choice isn't a reliable radio source.
- Add a better description of how to set the channel offset. I'd suggest setting it to a number that is higher than the greatest existing tuner channel number.

In conclusion, you've developed a great plugin and if you can simplify the initial setup a bit more, a lot of people will be willing to take the plunge and deploy WFE.

Mike

michaeldjcox · #**365** 11-20-2009, 01:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikeg

I wanted to thank you for developing this great plugin. I became aware of WFE when adding the SageTV plugin for PlayOn and see WFE's capabilities as complementary to PlayOn.

I am an software test engineer and hope that sharing my experience will help others avoid some of the difficulties in setting up WFE. I spent about 3 evenings after work to get WFE deployed successfully.

Thanks for feeding back. I really need this kind of feedback to improve the product as I only have two environments to test on and thats a subset of the various setups out there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikeg

- avoid paths with spaces: I had much better success when placing it directly under the root, instead of a folder of "Program Files".

The reason that works so well is because thats how I tested things in my environments until recently. It really needs to cope with spaces in file paths. Can you provide any information about the problems you had with file paths with spaces?

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikeg

- use the experimental patch recently posted and use your local time zone, not the TZ of the music source

Always take the latest :-)

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikeg

- to avoid the stuttering audio on the server, use the regkeys described in post #362.

That seems to work for many but hasn't worked for me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikeg

- Before installation I read the user guide but couldn't figure out how the WFE tuner was installed--I tried adding a WFE source through the SageTV setup menu but that didn't work properly.

This is because there is no need!

The installer does all the video source setup.

Then use the config tool to add a channel to the lineup.

You should see it appear in sageTV guide instantly.

There is no need to enter the video source setup at all or do a channel scan or any of that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikeg

- I also read the entire 360+ posts in the WFE support thread. This thread should be retired and a new one started with each release of the program to keep the number of posts down and keep the posts germane to that version of WFE.

Good point - I was going to wait until a non-beta verison 1.0 but I will do it for the next version 0.9.5.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikeg

- Recommend dropping the "Program Files" from the default install location. If the spaces in the path cause problems, then changing the default path would eliminate that trouble.

As discussed before I would rather get spaces in file paths working. These are just bugs - easy to fix if I know where.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikeg

- Start the WFE service at the end of the installation--it isn't clear that WFE is started or whether the system should be rebooted.

Good point - I may add auto start panel at the end of the installation or the very least add some helpful pointers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikeg

- The user guide could use a step-by-step tutorial for adding a well-known reliable stream. This is better than leaving the initial station programming to chance that the choice isn't a reliable radio source.

Hmm OK I may create a video on youtube to show the whole proces.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikeg

- Add a better description of how to set the channel offset. I'd suggest setting it to a number that is higher than the greatest existing tuner channel number.

I have amended the installer of the next version 0.9.5 to make this suggestion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikeg

In conclusion, you've developed a great plugin and if you can simplify the initial setup a bit more, a lot of people will be willing to take the plunge and deploy WFE.

Thanks again for trying WFE and taking the time to feedback in such detail.

Michael

mikeg · #**366** 11-22-2009, 03:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by michaeldjcox

Thanks for feeding back. I really need this kind of feedback to improve the product as I only have two environments to test on and thats a subset of the various setups out there.

I'm really excited about this plug-in and would be glad to test and file bug reports based on my testing. I have 3 bug reports from my testing--email me directly at mikegordon@mindless.com to begin a test thread.

Quote:

Originally Posted by michaeldjcox

The reason that works so well is because thats how I tested things in my environments until recently. It really needs to cope with spaces in file paths. Can you provide any information about the problems you had with file paths with spaces?

I uninstalled and reinstalled under C:\Program Files and tested the operation again.

At first it worked but as I continued to tune to different stations, it stopped working. The symptoms were that vlc processes are running and the stream files were growing, but black display and no audio on the server or extender.

Later on it seemed to get worse to the point where vlc wasn't getting launched when you tuned to a station. I tried restarting WFE, restarting SageTV and neither fixed the problem. Strangely, it seemed that restarting the server was the only thing to resolve the problem. I'm pretty certain about that because when I uninstalled the \Program Files\webfeedencoder folder was empty but couldn't be deleted because it was in use by another process.

I am certain that the radio feeds were reliable and tried several that had previously worked on my system before. My test environment is Windows XP Pro SP3 with VLC 0.99, SageTV 6.6.2 and SageMC and HD100 extender.

Quote:

Originally Posted by michaeldjcox

The installer does all the video source setup.

Then use the config tool to add a channel to the lineup.

You should see it appear in sageTV guide instantly.

There is no need to enter the video source setup at all or do a channel scan or any of that.

It wasn't clear from the user guide about this point. The install notes displayed on the last pane of the installer would be a great location for this info and could have other useful tips.

Quote:

Originally Posted by michaeldjcox

Thanks again for trying WFE and taking the time to feedback in such detail.

Michael

You're welcome. Keep up the good work!

Mike

michaeldjcox · #**367** 11-22-2009, 06:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikeg

I'm really excited about this plug-in and would be glad to test and file bug reports based on my testing. I have 3 bug reports from my testing--email me directly at mikegordon@mindless.com to begin a test thread.

Will do. Very grateful for your support. Its still a beta because I can't be certain how it will work for people. A keen eye for issues helps a great deal. I've been able to make a lot of progress from all the feedback I have received from people so far.

I'm wondering whether to make 0.9.5 available for brave souls such as yourself. I hoping not do too many more patches of 0.9.4 as 0.9.5 is so close now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikeg

I uninstalled and reinstalled under C:\Program Files and tested the operation again.

At first it worked but as I continued to tune to different stations, it stopped working. The symptoms were that vlc processes are running and the stream files were growing, but black display and no audio on the server or extender.

Later on it seemed to get worse to the point where vlc wasn't getting launched when you tuned to a station. I tried restarting WFE, restarting SageTV and neither fixed the problem. Strangely, it seemed that restarting the server was the only thing to resolve the problem. I'm pretty certain about that because when I uninstalled the \Program Files\webfeedencoder folder was empty but couldn't be deleted because it was in use by another process.

I am certain that the radio feeds were reliable and tried several that had previously worked on my system before. My test environment is Windows XP Pro SP3 with VLC 0.99, SageTV 6.6.2 and SageMC and HD100 extender.

A problem I have had is vlc sessions not dying after the recording stops. Your symptoms sound very similar to another user who I have been have a PM conversation with recently.

I think its possible that after the recording the VLC session is dying properly. No amount of restarting WFE or SageTV will solve that. They need to be killed. Sending commands telling them to quit does not always seem to work.

Can you have a check please to see if problems start when, after a successful tuning, VLC sessions do not die and the no audio then starts?

I am seriously considering ditching VLC and working on an alternative because I cannot influence which bugs they address.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikeg

It wasn't clear from the user guide about this point. The install notes displayed on the last pane of the installer would be a great location for this info and could have other useful tips.

Agreed. I will add some words for the time being and think up something better to bridge the gap between configuration done in the installer and configuration done by the config tool for later versions.

Thanks again for your time.

Michael

mikeg · #**368** 11-24-2009, 09:43 PM

Sorry for the slow reply, but I repeated the testing of WFE in the default install folder location and have repro-ed the problem.

Quote:

Originally Posted by michaeldjcox

I'm wondering whether to make 0.9.5 available for brave souls such as yourself. I hoping not do too many more patches of 0.9.4 as 0.9.5 is so close now.

I suggest a quick patch to 0.9.4b to this highly visible bug...see below.

Quote:

Originally Posted by michaeldjcox

Can you have a check please to see if problems start when, after a successful tuning, VLC sessions do not die and the no audio then starts?

The root cause for the problem is that the %tmp%\%callsign%.mp3 files are not deleted after stopping playback. This is the problem described in post #354 and requires editing the %WFE%\commands\detune.radio.windows.commands file to include quotes around the file path and name in the delete command.

I would suggest updating this quickly as it should affect all windows users installing into the default location (under \Program Files) or any location with a space in the file path. The bug causes the SageTV client to hang.

Can you PM me your email or contact me via email so that I may provide you additional bug reports that I have created for WFE 0.9.4b?

Thanks,
Mike

michaeldjcox · #**369** 11-25-2009, 09:00 AM

Mike,

I thought I had patched above problem already. Will check.

See email with regard to bug reports.

Thanks,

Michael

sbrendtro · #**370** 12-02-2009, 11:46 AM

Odd problem here.
I have SageTV 6.5.9.1, running on Ubuntu 9.10, Java version 1.6.0_17.

I run "java -jar webfeedencoder_0_9_4.jar", and get a popup that says:

Failed to Install
error in opening zip file

The shell window shows the following output:

java.lang.RuntimeException: Failed to establish installation details
at uk.co.mdjcox.installer.config.InstallationDetails.<init>(InstallationDetails.java:172)
at uk.co.mdjcox.installer.config.InstallationDetails.getInstance(InstallationDetails.java:73)
at uk.co.mdjcox.installer.Installer.main(Installer.java:63)
Caused by: java.util.zip.ZipException: error in opening zip file
at java.util.zip.ZipFile.open(Native Method)
at java.util.zip.ZipFile.<init>(ZipFile.java:114)
at java.util.jar.JarFile.<init>(JarFile.java:133)
at java.util.jar.JarFile.<init>(JarFile.java:70)
at uk.co.mdjcox.installer.config.InstallationDetails.parseExtractableFiles(InstallationDetails.java:935)
at uk.co.mdjcox.installer.config.InstallationDetails.<init>(InstallationDetails.java:160)
... 2 more

Any thoughts on this? Thanks!
Steve

ohpleaseno · #**371** 12-02-2009, 04:19 PM

Went to install this on my WHS. Followed these instructions

Code:

Installation and upgrade from earlier versions

Unzip the download file in a location of your choice and double click on the jar file to install.

And nothing. Microsecond hourglass and that's it.

Now I have been known to be stupid and miss the obvious...

michaeldjcox · #**372** 12-03-2009, 03:08 AM

Steve,

Quote:

Originally Posted by sbrendtro

Odd problem here.
I have SageTV 6.5.9.1, running on Ubuntu 9.10, Java version 1.6.0_17.

I run "java -jar webfeedencoder_0_9_4.jar", and get a popup that says:

Failed to Install
error in opening zip file

The shell window shows the following output:

java.lang.RuntimeException: Failed to establish installation details
at uk.co.mdjcox.installer.config.InstallationDetails.<init>(InstallationDetails.java:172)
at uk.co.mdjcox.installer.config.InstallationDetails.getInstance(InstallationDetails.java:73)
at uk.co.mdjcox.installer.Installer.main(Installer.java:63)
Caused by: java.util.zip.ZipException: error in opening zip file
at java.util.zip.ZipFile.open(Native Method)
at java.util.zip.ZipFile.<init>(ZipFile.java:114)
at java.util.jar.JarFile.<init>(JarFile.java:133)
at java.util.jar.JarFile.<init>(JarFile.java:70)
at uk.co.mdjcox.installer.config.InstallationDetails.parseExtractableFiles(InstallationDetails.java:935)
at uk.co.mdjcox.installer.config.InstallationDetails.<init>(InstallationDetails.java:160)
... 2 more

Can you post the installer log file please.

Should be in the same directory as the webfeedencoder_0_9_4.jar file or possibly in the directory you were in when you typed the command below.

Should be called webfeedencoder_0_9_4.log

Theres been a lack of unix beta testers so expect a rough ride but plently of support and instant patches from me.

Michael

michaeldjcox · #**373** 12-03-2009, 03:12 AM

Hi,

Quote:

Originally Posted by ohpleaseno

Went to install this on my WHS. Followed these instructions

Code:

Installation and upgrade from earlier versions

Unzip the download file in a location of your choice and double click on the jar file to install.

And nothing. Microsecond hourglass and that's it.

Now I have been known to be stupid and miss the obvious...

Me too on the stupid thing

Can you try navigating to the directory where the webfeedencoder_0_9_4.jar file is and typing:

java -jar webfeedencoder_0_9_4.jar

please post back any exceptions you see and the webfeedencoder_0_9_4.log file if you still have problems.

Double clicking on the jar file depends on file associations being setup so doesn't always work. I think I had a line in the user guide about that but not able to check at the moment.

Michael

rsagetv99 · #**374** 12-03-2009, 07:44 AM

I just installed this plugin, it was very easy with the installer. I tested a feed with the station you have listed in the pdf and it works. However, the 3 radio stations I wanted to add are not working.

When I tried to find the stations via the plugin on radiotime, I did not see them listed, so I tried using the link to the stations web-site player, but that did not work. Then I searched radiotime.com through my web browser and I was able to find ID's for the stations, I put the ID's in the plugin, and it recognized the stations, but when I tried testing, the mp3 file is created, but never grows.

I noticed on the radiotime web-site that all 3 stations are listed with the green box with two squares (as opposed to the green box with an arrow), indicating that they use an external player. I am guessing that this is the problem.

Here are the station ID's, let me know if there is any way to make them work.

s_28789
s_28140
s_28771

rsagetv99 · #**375** 12-03-2009, 07:50 AM

Also there is one other unrelated anomaly, one of the stations I mentioned has the same call sign as an affiliated local TV station (WFLA). So when I added the radio station to the guide, it gets data for the TV station instead of the radio station.

I was not sure if I could just manually edit the radio station's call sign in the plugin so that it does not conflict with the TV station, please advise.

michaeldjcox · #**376** 12-03-2009, 08:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rsagetv99

I just installed this plugin, it was very easy with the installer. I tested a feed with the station you have listed in the pdf and it works. However, the 3 radio stations I wanted to add are not working.

When I tried to find the stations via the plugin on radiotime, I did not see them listed, so I tried using the link to the stations web-site player, but that did not work. Then I searched radiotime.com through my web browser and I was able to find ID's for the stations, I put the ID's in the plugin, and it recognized the stations, but when I tried testing, the mp3 file is created, but never grows.

I noticed on the radiotime web-site that all 3 stations are listed with the green box with two squares (as opposed to the green box with an arrow), indicating that they use an external player. I am guessing that this is the problem.

Here are the station ID's, let me know if there is any way to make them work.

s_28789
s_28140
s_28771

Hi,

Radiotime is great but not flawless.

For some stations I have searched on the web e.g. going to the stations web site or other directory type web sites to find an alternative URL.

Such URLs go right to the station and are more reliable than the radiotime ones.

When you find a URL edit the channel in the config tool and paste it in as the tuning URL then try again.

I went to a lot of pains to ensure you can use data seeded from websites like Radiotime but do not need to rely on it and can override it.

Let me know if you still have issues.

Michael

michaeldjcox · #**377** 12-03-2009, 08:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rsagetv99

Also there is one other unrelated anomaly, one of the stations I mentioned has the same call sign as an affiliated local TV station (WFLA). So when I added the radio station to the guide, it gets data for the TV station instead of the radio station.

I was not sure if I could just manually edit the radio station's call sign in the plugin so that it does not conflict with the TV station, please advise.

Yes you can - use the config tool and edit the callsign.

Will save you time if this is done with SageTV up. If sageTV is down you will need to resend your lineup from the config tool once sageTV is up.

As there is no way of removing channels from SageTV once added I think the old TV station channel should be safe and unchanged.

Michael

ohpleaseno · #**378** 12-03-2009, 03:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by michaeldjcox

Hi,

Me too on the stupid thing

Can you try navigating to the directory where the webfeedencoder_0_9_4.jar file is and typing:

java -jar webfeedencoder_0_9_4.jar

please post back any exceptions you see and the webfeedencoder_0_9_4.log file if you still have problems.

Double clicking on the jar file depends on file associations being setup so doesn't always work. I think I had a line in the user guide about that but not able to check at the moment.

Michael

Here it is.

michaeldjcox · #**379** 12-03-2009, 04:36 PM

Is this a headless server that you are remoting into is it?

Haven't got the code in front of me at the moment but I will check the exceptions soon as.

Michael

ohpleaseno · #**380** 12-04-2009, 07:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by michaeldjcox

Is this a headless server that you are remoting into is it?

Haven't got the code in front of me at the moment but I will check the exceptions soon as.

Michael

yeah, it's a headless machine i'm remoting into. thanks for checking it out.

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