Utility: Web Radio and TV Encoder - Page 2

deanm · #21 03-26-2009, 05:59 PM

Quick Update.

The MP3 files play perfect on the HD100 and MVP. (not tried VLC)

So its looking like the covertion to MPEG is causing the problem.

Is there a command I can use to stop the encoder.jar file once started.

Dean

michaeldjcox · #22 03-26-2009, 06:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by deanm

Quick Update.

The MP3 files play perfect on the HD100 and MVP. (not tried VLC)

So its looking like the covertion to MPEG is causing the problem.

Is there a command I can use to stop the encoder.jar file once started.

Definitely play with the video bit rate (currently vb=4000). Try reducing even all the way to vb=1. It will look crap but the audio might improve.

Also there is a property:

mp3BufferSize=3000

this states how big the mp3 file should be before combing with video.

Try making that bigger.

As for stopping. If you mean just stop the encoder running. Just ctrl C in the DOS window you started it in.

I usually wait until Sage finishes sending "NOOP" messages as you can usually start it up and Sage can still talk to it. Sometime though you have to go to source setup and select the encoder. Then Sage magically starts talking to the encoder again.

If you mean stop recording then that should be just stop watching in SageTV.

VLC processes should be killed. Now playing updates should stop.

ianhud · #23 03-28-2009, 03:52 PM

Hi

Firstly - thanks for creating this. The absence of audio only streams in SageTV is a real disappointment for me.

I've set everything up (hopefully) as per the instructions. I can see the default UK stations appear in the guide but when I tune to a radio station there's a hang in the SageTV UI and no audio comes through (sometimes accompanied by an error message relating to unplayable video).

I can see that the mp3 and mpg files are being generated. They are both playable but the mpg doesn't seem to have video content.

I've switched on debug and there seems to be a problem with the channel logos:

Code:

access_directory error: C:\Program Files\webfeed\webfeedencoder\tmp\BBCWrld.jpg: No such file or directory
access_file debug: opening file `C:\Program Files\webfeed\webfeedencoder\tmp\BBCWrld.jpg'
access_file error: cannot open file C:\Program Files\webfeed\webfeedencoder\tmp\BBCWrld.jpg (No such file or directory)
cdda debug: trying .cue file: C:\Program Files\webfeed\webfeedencoder\tmp\BBCWrld.cue

I can't see any sign of this jpeg - either during or after recording.

Apologies if I'm doing something daft - but any ideas?

Many thanks!

michaeldjcox · #24 03-28-2009, 04:05 PM

Hi,

Firstly, thanks for being a beta tester!

What should happen is that
1. in your tuning.props the channels should specify a URL where a logo image file can be found for the channel.

2. When the encoder first starts it downloads that image to the SageTV channelLogos directory (useful for the channel guide).

3. Then it creates a new version with a black border in the webfeedencoder tmp directory.

4. Then it starts listening for connection and uses the images in the tmp directory for the video.

I guess the tmp image is not there. There are some bugs with the image download process fixed in the next version (probably two weeks away).

I would:

1. Check that the icon URL for the channel can be reached and returns an image.

2. Stop the encoder.

3. Clear out any radio channel images from SageTV/ChannelLogos (careful not to deleted your TV ones)

4. Clear out any images in the webfeedencoder tmp directory.

5. Run the encoder.

In the first few lines of the encoder.log file there should be lots of stuff about downloading images and creating new ones in the tmp directory.

Check the tmp directory to see if the files have been created.

If any are missing you can try stop and starting the encoder to see if it fills in the gaps.

Good luck.

Michael

Slipshod · #25 03-28-2009, 10:03 PM

Weird problem unzipping it...

When I open the zip archive (built-in unzipper in Vista x32), there's a 0-length file in addition to every directory name, and I'm having issues getting it to unzip at all because of the identical filenames.

Anyody else having this issue? It doesn't happen with several other random samples of zip files I have.

michaeldjcox · #26 03-29-2009, 12:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Slipshod

Weird problem unzipping it...

When I open the zip archive (built-in unzipper in Vista x32), there's a 0-length file in addition to every directory name, and I'm having issues getting it to unzip at all because of the identical filenames.

Anyody else having this issue? It doesn't happen with several other random samples of zip files I have.

Hmm. I used "jar" rather than "zip" to build the archive as they are very similar

I unzip with winrar and it does the right thing but now having tried it with vista I do notice the the built-in vista extractor does create these wierd files.

Ho-hum. Lesson learned. Will zip it properly next time.

Will repackage soon as life, wife and kids let me -might be later today or tomorow morning.

In the meantime if you have another extractor available to you that you could use to unzip that would also solve the issue.

Michael

ianhud · #27 03-29-2009, 07:29 AM

Hi

In relation to the unzip problem - I also had to change the permissions of the folder I was using to get this problem to go away. Vista seems to interfere with anything you try to put in directories such as Program Files. After changing the permissions I successfully used WinRar to extract.

Michael - thanks very much for your reply. There doesn't seem to be any sign of an attempt to download the logo in the logs. To test the mechanism I've manually downloaded the Radio 1 logo using the URL in the config file and saved it to the tmp directory in jpeg format. Success - Radio 1 works perfectly!

Any ideas on why this might be happening? In the short term I can manually download all of the logos I require. Thanks again for your work on this!

One more issue - I've noticed in the vlc logs that the messages:

Code:

main warning: feeding synchro with a new reference point trying to recover from clock gap
main warning: clock gap, unexpected stream discontinuity
main warning: feeding synchro with a new reference point trying to recover from clock gap
mux_ts warning: packet with too strange dts (dts=256619623000,old=256619645123,pcr=256619645123)
main warning: clock gap, unexpected stream discontinuity

are repeated over and over again. What might cause this?

Cheers

Ian

michaeldjcox · #28 03-29-2009, 11:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ianhud

Hi

In relation to the unzip problem - I also had to change the permissions of the folder I was using to get this problem to go away. Vista seems to interfere with anything you try to put in directories such as Program Files. After changing the permissions I successfully used WinRar to extract.

Michael - thanks very much for your reply. There doesn't seem to be any sign of an attempt to download the logo in the logs. To test the mechanism I've manually downloaded the Radio 1 logo using the URL in the config file and saved it to the tmp directory in jpeg format. Success - Radio 1 works perfectly!

Any ideas on why this might be happening? In the short term I can manually download all of the logos I require. Thanks again for your work on this!

One more issue - I've noticed in the vlc logs that the messages:

Code:

main warning: feeding synchro with a new reference point trying to recover from clock gap
main warning: clock gap, unexpected stream discontinuity
main warning: feeding synchro with a new reference point trying to recover from clock gap
mux_ts warning: packet with too strange dts (dts=256619623000,old=256619645123,pcr=256619645123)
main warning: clock gap, unexpected stream discontinuity

are repeated over and over again. What might cause this?

Hi,

On the permissions... hmmmmm well... you can unzip the encoder to anywhere so maybe program files is not the best choice after all - though would have made sense.

On the logos - yeah thats a way of getting it working - possibly won't look as pretty. But I'm surprised my fix didn't work for you cause I've had to do that one a few times.

Perhaps (in the encoder.props the sagetv.dir property doesn't point to where SageTV is installed?

The encoder adds to the contents of that property to end up (usually) here: C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\ChannelLogos.

This is where it downloads images from the internet to and then processes then a bit for video purposes and puts them here: webfeedencoder\tmp.

It may be worth deleting the downloaded (radio images from the ChannelLogos directory and deleting them from the tmp directory and stopping and starting the encoder.

The logs\encoder.log file should show lines talking about downloading, scaling and overlaying images. If it just does this:

Code:

27-Mar-2009 17:10:45 main uk.co.mdjcox.webfeedencoder.Encoder main INFO: Web feed network encoder starting
27-Mar-2009 17:10:45 ServerThread uk.co.mdjcox.webfeedencoder.ServerThread listenForConnections INFO: Listening on port 5000 for connections from sageTV

then it really has not tried to download the images - a mystery.

On the vlc logs files - it is better just to turn that logging off. VLC moans a lot on -vvv (which means verbose logging). The important thing is: does it sound all right. Does it show the track now playing?

Thanks for persevering.

Michael

ianhud · #29 03-29-2009, 03:10 PM

Hi

Thanks for the info.

I found out what was causing the encoder to fail to download the logos. I had sagetv.dir set to the default, which is where my installation of SageTV is. However... Vista uses a Virtual Store to 'protect' certain files and directories. Apps that try to write to the SageTV directory (apparently including SageTV itself) actually save data to a Virtual Store, so the Channel Logos are in C:\Users\Ian\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\ChannelLogos. I assume that I've done something wrong when I installed SageTV.

In any case once I changed sagev.dir and deleted the existing radio icons I could see the encoder downloading files.The only problems I now have are (using your example config) HeartFM and 977 Hitz. From the logs I'm guessing that any logos that are already jpeg don't get imported properly (the working logos are png or gif). Does this make sense to you? A relevant part of the log file is:

Code:

29-Mar-2009 21:27:26 main uk.co.mdjcox.webfeedencoder.ServerThread cacheImage INFO: Downloading http://img.mediaspanonline.com/5899/3351686.jpg content type image/jpeg of len=13026
29-Mar-2009 21:27:26 main uk.co.mdjcox.webfeedencoder.ServerThread cacheImage INFO: Scaling image C:\Users\Ian\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\ChannelLogos\\HeartFM.jpg
29-Mar-2009 21:27:26 main uk.co.mdjcox.webfeedencoder.ServerThread cacheImage INFO: Scaling image: Failed to rename C:\Users\Ian\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\ChannelLogos\HeartFM.jpg to C:\Users\Ian\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\ChannelLogos\HeartFM.jpg.old trying again
29-Mar-2009 21:27:27 main uk.co.mdjcox.webfeedencoder.ServerThread cacheImage INFO: Scaling image: Failed to rename C:\Users\Ian\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\ChannelLogos\HeartFM.jpg to C:\Users\Ian\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\ChannelLogos\HeartFM.jpg.old trying again
29-Mar-2009 21:27:27 main uk.co.mdjcox.webfeedencoder.ServerThread cacheImage INFO: Scaling image: Failed to rename C:\Users\Ian\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\ChannelLogos\HeartFM.jpg to C:\Users\Ian\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\ChannelLogos\HeartFM.jpg.old trying again
29-Mar-2009 21:27:27 main uk.co.mdjcox.webfeedencoder.ServerThread cacheImage INFO: Scaling image: Failed to rename C:\Users\Ian\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\ChannelLogos\HeartFM.jpg to C:\Users\Ian\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\ChannelLogos\HeartFM.jpg.old trying again
29-Mar-2009 21:27:27 main uk.co.mdjcox.webfeedencoder.ServerThread cacheImage INFO: Scaling image: Failed to rename C:\Users\Ian\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\ChannelLogos\HeartFM.jpg to C:\Users\Ian\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\ChannelLogos\HeartFM.jpg.old trying again
29-Mar-2009 21:27:27 main uk.co.mdjcox.webfeedencoder.ServerThread cacheImage WARNING: Exception scaling image
java.io.IOException: Failed to rename C:\Users\Ian\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\ChannelLogos\HeartFM.jpg to C:\Users\Ian\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\ChannelLogos\HeartFM.jpg.old
	at uk.co.mdjcox.webfeedencoder.ServerThread.cacheImage(ServerThread.java:158)
	at uk.co.mdjcox.webfeedencoder.ServerThread.initialise(ServerThread.java:54)
	at uk.co.mdjcox.webfeedencoder.ServerThread.<init>(ServerThread.java:34)
	at uk.co.mdjcox.webfeedencoder.Encoder.main(Encoder.java:45)
29-Mar-2009 21:27:27 main uk.co.mdjcox.webfeedencoder.ServerThread cacheImage INFO: Overlaying image C:\Users\Ian\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\ChannelLogos\\HeartFM.jpg
29-Mar-2009 21:27:27 main uk.co.mdjcox.webfeedencoder.ServerThread cacheImage WARNING: Exception overlaying image
javax.imageio.IIOException: Can't read input file!
	at javax.imageio.ImageIO.read(Unknown Source)
	at uk.co.mdjcox.webfeedencoder.ServerThread.overlay(ServerThread.java:244)
	at uk.co.mdjcox.webfeedencoder.ServerThread.cacheImage(ServerThread.java:177)
	at uk.co.mdjcox.webfeedencoder.ServerThread.initialise(ServerThread.java:54)
	at uk.co.mdjcox.webfeedencoder.ServerThread.<init>(ServerThread.java:34)
	at uk.co.mdjcox.webfeedencoder.Encoder.main(Encoder.java:45)

Thanks again for a great tool!

michaeldjcox · #30 03-30-2009, 12:21 AM

Hi,

Thanks for your investigations.

My Vista SageTV has channelLogos in the regular place - but some of SageTV properties are in the virtual store which has caught me out before.

I'll add a note to the properties file and installation instructions for this one.

On the exceptions - this i the bug I believe I have fixed now.

The work around I used on my 0.9.0 installation was to clear out the icons from tmp and ChannelLogos and re run. It took several repeats of this process but eventually it all images worked.

Michael

deanm · #31 03-30-2009, 12:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by michaeldjcox

Definitely play with the video bit rate (currently vb=4000). Try reducing even all the way to vb=1. It will look crap but the audio might improve.

Also there is a property:

mp3BufferSize=3000

this states how big the mp3 file should be before combing with video.

Try making that bigger.

As for stopping. If you mean just stop the encoder running. Just ctrl C in the DOS window you started it in.

I usually wait until Sage finishes sending "NOOP" messages as you can usually start it up and Sage can still talk to it. Sometime though you have to go to source setup and select the encoder. Then Sage magically starts talking to the encoder again.

If you mean stop recording then that should be just stop watching in SageTV.

VLC processes should be killed. Now playing updates should stop.

Played around with the vb setting lowering this don’t fix the problem. Thou lowering it did make it better. Played around with values from 8000 to 1.

If I play the MP3 in VLC it plays fine. If I play the video in VLC then it’s the same as the HD100 choppy. I have noticed that the time line in VLC seems to jump around and I think that is the problem. If you play this back on the MVP then the play back slows down and speeds up. I should add the problem seems to be with Radio 1, 1xtra and Radio 2

On a good note I have added Absolute Radio (http://network.absoluteradio.co.uk/c...x?service=vrbb) and it works perfect with vb set to 2000.

I can send you samples of both files if you would like.

The reason I was asking about how to stop this from running is because I noticed if I closed the DOS window then the MP3 file was still growing. It looks like the VLC process is still running if you don’t stop play back in sage first.

Its just a shame you cant just stream the MP3 to the extender. If I play the MP3 you can see the file growing on the info screen (SageMC) but it only plays to the time of when you started the play back. So if the length is 1min then it will play 1 min even if the file is then grown to 2 mins. (Can this be done via online services I'm sure some of them are audio only. Come on Sage pull you finger out and get this sorted)

One more point you mentioned in your OP that you may be able to change the video to something different. The reason I ask is because I’m sure I will have screen burn-in if I just have a static logo.

Not sure how all this works but could it be possible to stream BBC iPlayer into VLC using the new iPhone steams.

Dean.

michaeldjcox · #32 03-30-2009, 04:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by deanm

Played around with the vb setting lowering this don’t fix the problem. Thou lowering it did make it better. Played around with values from 8000 to 1.

If I play the MP3 in VLC it plays fine. If I play the video in VLC then it’s the same as the HD100 choppy. I have noticed that the time line in VLC seems to jump around and I think that is the problem. If you play this back on the MVP then the play back slows down and speeds up. I should add the problem seems to be with Radio 1, 1xtra and Radio 2

On a good note I have added Absolute Radio (http://network.absoluteradio.co.uk/c...x?service=vrbb) and it works perfect with vb set to 2000.

.asx could be the problem here. Apparently they contain no time synchronisation and are more difficult to combine with video. This is why I save to MP3 first. I suspect if we find an mp3 stream for BBC channels things might be better.

They may be something else going on here though because I do not share your unfortunate listening experience for BBC channels now - although I did have in the past.

Out of ideas at the moment on this one - need to try and reproduce and fix.

Quote:

Originally Posted by deanm

The reason I was asking about how to stop this from running is because I noticed if I closed the DOS window then the MP3 file was still growing. It looks like the VLC process is still running if you don’t stop play back in sage first.

I need to make a service out of the encoder so it can be shutdown gracefully and start up automatically. Currently I just make sure I stop recording before killing the encoder. Then there are no left over VLC sessions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by deanm

Its just a shame you cant just stream the MP3 to the extender. If I play the MP3 you can see the file growing on the info screen (SageMC) but it only plays to the time of when you started the play back. So if the length is 1min then it will play 1 min even if the file is then grown to 2 mins. (Can this be done via online services I'm sure some of them are audio only. Come on Sage pull you finger out and get this sorted)

Heh. I tried all this and more before settling on the encoder route.

Quote:

Originally Posted by deanm

One more point you mentioned in your OP that you may be able to change the video to something different. The reason I ask is because I’m sure I will have screen burn-in if I just have a static logo.

Yes. More work to do.

Quote:

Originally Posted by deanm

Not sure how all this works but could it be possible to stream BBC iPlayer into VLC using the new iPhone steams.

I beleve this is possible. I was thinking this might be my next project.

Regards,

Michael

michaeldjcox · #33 04-01-2009, 04:46 AM

Issues so far:

Encoder instructions - port number wrong in SageTV properties. FIXED in 0.9.1
VLC won't run (only for matt91) - UNRESOLVED
ASF streams - mp3 save is fine but conversion to video choppy (only for deanm not for ianhud) - FIXED in 0.9.1
Icons not cached properly in ChannelLogos and tmp directory - FIXED in 0.9.1
Windows vista doesn't treat a jar file as a zip. Fix is to zip rather than jar the distribution. FIXED in 0.9.1
Encoder - instructions for encoder.props. Needed to warn the users that a different sagetv.dir property value may be needed on vista - FIXED in 0.9.1
Stopping and starting the encoder cleanly. Added a shutdown hook and made it a windows service - FIXED in 0.9.1
Less static image to avoid screen burn - UNRESOLVED
Default EPG grabber did not copy with shorter day on switch to DST - FIXED in 0.9.1
Dealing with timezones properly when generic grabber grabs schedules from foreign stations - FIXED in 0.9.1
SageTV and the encoder would sometimes get out of step when tuning time is long. FIXED in 0.9.1
No category is given for the XMLTV programes produced in the generic and default grabber. FIXED in 0.9.1.
HTML tags end escaping were not removed properly on now playing text and EPG title and description in the generic grabber. FIXED in 0.9.1
Easing the configuration needed. Moved channel information to separate per channel properties files and deploy channels as a separate zip. Intention is to make it easier to allow users to share channel configuration and to collect channel config so new users have less to do. FIXED in 0.9.1.

Thanks for the feedback so far.

Will be releasing 0.9.1 at the weekend or shortly after.

There have been over 40 downloads but only 4 users chatting in this thread so if there is any more feedback good or bad please let me know.

Thanks,

Michael

latino · #34 04-03-2009, 02:46 PM

I am sorry but i don't know what i am doing wrong but is no working for me.

thanks for your help

michaeldjcox · #35 04-03-2009, 03:15 PM

Hi,

Where is it going wrong please?

Have you been able to install?

Is it a problem with audio or video?

If you can attach the file:

logs/encoder.log

Michael

farhad · #36 04-05-2009, 11:03 AM

I have no "Add source" option in "setup video sources" menu, as I don't have any input source card in my configuration. Is there any solution for me like copying the properties of Webradio in appropriate files directly instead of configuring the radio source via control panel?

michaeldjcox · #37 04-07-2009, 10:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by farhad

I have no "Add source" option in "setup video sources" menu, as I don't have any input source card in my configuration. Is there any solution for me like copying the properties of Webradio in appropriate files directly instead of configuring the radio source via control panel?

Hi,

Unless you using a really old version of SageTV I'm guessing whats happened is that you missed the step in the instructions entitled:

Edit Sage.properties

Shutdown sage, follow the instructions in the section above, then restart SageTV.

You should be allowed to add WebRadio as a new source.

Let me know how you get on..

Michael

michaeldjcox · #38 04-08-2009, 04:45 AM

Later today or tomorrow morning for the next version...

bcjenkins · #39 04-08-2009, 04:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by michaeldjcox

Hi,

Unless you using a really old version of SageTV I'm guessing whats happened is that you missed the step in the instructions entitled:

Edit Sage.properties

Shutdown sage, follow the instructions in the section above, then restart SageTV.

You should be allowed to add WebRadio as a new source.

Let me know how you get on..

Michael

Shutdown SageTV first, then edit the properties.

deanm · #40 04-08-2009, 11:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by michaeldjcox

Later today or tomorrow morning for the next version...

Cant wait.

Just to let everyone know I have been working with Michael to iron out my issues.

I was advised to add the following line to the end of streamAsVideoCommand with in the encoder.props

--rc-quiet --sout-transcode-audio-sync

I’m please to report that it has been working for over a week now without and problems.

Was wondering has anyone else been having the same problem or is it just my set up?

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