Utility: Web Radio and TV Encoder

[koelec]

Originally Posted by michaeldjcox

Hi Chris,

It looks like a bug.

I have uploaded a fix for this - plus a problem killing VLC sessions which refuse to die.

WebFeedEncoder 0.9.6 RC4

Run the installer and choose "Repair". Make sure webfeedencoder, config tool and sagetv are all down. Leave any command shells, explorer windows or edit sessions in the webfeedencoder directory.

Thanks,

Michael

Michael,
Thanks for the quick reply.
And yes the new version fixes the problem.
I'm experimenting with the advanced settings to get a low cpu load without a choppy sound. Eventhough vlc player can play a very low video bitrate with good audio, I found out that there's a lower limit on the bitrate and framerate for playback in sagetv to succeed.
Do you know what the optimum settings are for an audio feed and playback on extenders?

thanks a lot
- Chris

[koelec]

Originally Posted by n9cqs

Chris,
When you do get things working well, could you please put instructions on here for the rest of us? Thanks!
Jeff

Sure Jeff,
An update of the Slimplayer is due soon. It will contain instructions of how to use it in combination with WebFeedEncoder.
- Chris

[PiX64]

I got webfeedencoder setup and working properly for slimplayer, as well as internet radio stations, however i am having some difficulty in getting tv to work. I am trying to just get anything working at this point.

I am using the NASA found in the seed for "allinternettv.com" as my test case.

I use the seed to find NASA and populate the information. When i go to test the channel in the webfeedencoder i cannot get it to display anything. The log output says everything is good and encoding properly, it shows the file being created, but on the VLC tab it always shows "nothing to play" no matter what i try. I am using the required version of VLC as well as the most recent webfeedencoder.

Any ideas on what i could try?

Thanks, and this is an AMAZING addition to SageTV. i cannot believe i waited until now to mess around with this.

GREAT JOB ON THIS ITS AMAZING!!!!!!!

~Pix64

[michaeldjcox]

Originally Posted by PiX64

I got webfeedencoder setup and working properly for slimplayer, as well as internet radio stations, however i am having some difficulty in getting tv to work. I am trying to just get anything working at this point.

I am using the NASA found in the seed for "allinternettv.com" as my test case.

I use the seed to find NASA and populate the information. When i go to test the channel in the webfeedencoder i cannot get it to display anything.

Any ideas on what i could try?

Hi,

The URL at allinternettv.com is wrong.

The one in channels/samples/NASATV.props is correct.

In fact if you copy that file into channels you might pick up some other useful settings

Michael

[michaeldjcox]

Originally Posted by koelec

Eventhough vlc player can play a very low video bitrate with good audio, I found out that there's a lower limit on the bitrate and framerate for playback in sagetv to succeed.
Do you know what the optimum settings are for an audio feed and playback on extenders?

Hi,

The CPU intensive part is adding the video. Processing the audio doesn't seem to need much CPU.

I have found that to play successfully on a PC without chopping up you need video bitrate of 800, to play on extenders you can afford to have more - I was using 4000 before but 800 works too.

I've never really had a problem playing on extenders or with CPU when I had a 3Gz single core box.

Another factor that seems to help is whether the container is MPEG-TS or MPEG-PS. Worth playing with that to.

Audio bit rate doesn't seem to matter match.

I think the size of the video in terms of height and width makes a differernce of course.

There are also settings about how often the logo image is reinjected into the feed - might be worth playing with that - not sure what I've got it set up at at the moment as I'm at the gym.

Michael

[michaeldjcox]

I'm in a mess with my home installation of WFE on windows 7.

Can't seem to get control over windows security to get playback.

Security in windows is seriously going to turn me into a MAC user soon!

I need to get that all working before I can reliably look at some of the channel playback queries from earlier - CFJM and VocalJazz.

I also cannot release 0.9.6 until I have my home WFE installation back to normal.

While I'm commuting I am making a Sage V7 plugin version. This will no longer requirer the installer or a seperate service. It will make WFE much more accessible.

Michael

[gplasky]

I would suggest disabling UAC and then install all your appa on Windows 7. Make sure to configure that you are on the home network also. Then for the most part security shouldn't be an issue for you from an app and permissions perspective. Disabling UAC will also prevent is from dreating or using the virtualstore directory.

Gerry

[pleyraki]

Originally Posted by michaeldjcox

Hi,

The CPU intensive part is adding the video. Processing the audio doesn't seem to need much CPU.

I have found that to play successfully on a PC without chopping up you need video bitrate of 800, to play on extenders you can afford to have more - I was using 4000 before but 800 works too.

I've never really had a problem playing on extenders or with CPU when I had a 3Gz single core box.

Another factor that seems to help is whether the container is MPEG-TS or MPEG-PS. Worth playing with that to.

Audio bit rate doesn't seem to matter match.

I think the size of the video in terms of height and width makes a differernce of course.

There are also settings about how often the logo image is reinjected into the feed - might be worth playing with that - not sure what I've got it set up at at the moment as I'm at the gym.

Michael

Thanks for that info! I tweaked the video size (one third in each dimension, that's 9-fold reducing) and it works on my humble server and MediaMVP! Every other setting I left as is.

Now if someone can tell me how I can also make my SqueezeServer stream work (that is http://localhost:9000/stream.mp3 maybe koelec)? I understand that it is choppy because all Squeezeserver, VLC, SageServer and WebRadioEncoder work on that poor server of mine. Any ideas I could use?

Of course I could make a brand new server... But the one I now have is completely silent and fanless. I am not that cheap you know

[PiX64]

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=49138

[koelec]

Originally Posted by pleyraki

Thanks for that info! I tweaked the video size (one third in each dimension, that's 9-fold reducing) and it works on my humble server and MediaMVP! Every other setting I left as is.

Now if someone can tell me how I can also make my SqueezeServer stream work (that is http://localhost:9000/stream.mp3 maybe koelec)? I understand that it is choppy because all Squeezeserver, VLC, SageServer and WebRadioEncoder work on that poor server of mine. Any ideas I could use?

Of course I could make a brand new server... But the one I now have is completely silent and fanless. I am not that cheap you know

You can use squeezebox server's stream like this:


Start the channel in sage and start playback in Squeezebox server's web interface. I tested it with WFE 0.9.6 RC4.
But, you won't get commercial music services (slacker, lastfm, etc) with this setup. Only local content and ShoutCast. For the other services you need a real squeezebox device or emulator like slimplayer plugin.

- Chris

[michaeldjcox]

Originally Posted by koelec

But, you won't get commercial music services (slacker, lastfm, etc) with this setup. Only local content and ShoutCast. For the other services you need a real squeezebox device or emulator like slimplayer plugin.

Please expand on this statement Chris - why would it not be possible?

Michael

[Lester Jacobs]

Firstly I'd like to thank Michael for this excellent addition to SageTV. I have finally had some free time to play with this in order to have my network cameras interfaced to SageTV.

I have setup WFE on two boxes. First I did a quick install on my test box (I always do this for any new program just to make sure there are no installation quirks I need to be aware of). Everything worked fine there and my network cameras were playable using the SageTV Program Guide. Next I installed WFE on my main box and there's where the trouble started. The Test Channel functionality in the WFE Config Tool worked fine but the cameras were not playable from the SageTV Program Guide. After some troubleshooting I discovered that the issue could be traced to the fact that I use UNC paths for recording directories on my main box (WFE worked on my test box because I use physical directories as opposed to UNC paths there).

I tested this hypothesis in VLC directly. I used its Convert/Save feature with a physical path and it worked fine. However when I used it with an UNC path it did not create the transcoded file in the destination directory. Further, when I specified the destination UNC path as \\<server>\<share> it did not work. Strangely though, if I specified the UNC path as //<server>\<share> then it did work as expected.

So, my questions are, do I have something configured incorrectly in WFE or VLC? Is there a workaround for this issue? Does anyone have WFE working with UNC paths successfully?

Just to deflect one possible suggestion, I'd prefer not switch from UNC paths to physical paths on my main server since I am using the UNC paths in order for Comskip to function correctly.

Cheers
Lester

[SteveW]

Interesting. I have the same setup and having the same problem between my test box non UNC and my production box which is using UNC, and trying to look at my Axis IP camera...

[michaeldjcox]

Originally Posted by Lester Jacobs

Firstly I'd like to thank Michael for this excellent addition to SageTV. I have finally had some free time to play with this in order to have my network cameras interfaced to SageTV.

I have setup WFE on two boxes. First I did a quick install on my test box (I always do this for any new program just to make sure there are no installation quirks I need to be aware of). Everything worked fine there and my network cameras were playable using the SageTV Program Guide. Next I installed WFE on my main box and there's where the trouble started. The Test Channel functionality in the WFE Config Tool worked fine but the cameras were not playable from the SageTV Program Guide. After some troubleshooting I discovered that the issue could be traced to the fact that I use UNC paths for recording directories on my main box (WFE worked on my test box because I use physical directories as opposed to UNC paths there).

I tested this hypothesis in VLC directly. I used its Convert/Save feature with a physical path and it worked fine. However when I used it with an UNC path it did not create the transcoded file in the destination directory. Further, when I specified the destination UNC path as \\<server>\<share> it did not work. Strangely though, if I specified the UNC path as //<server>\<share> then it did work as expected.

So, my questions are, do I have something configured incorrectly in WFE or VLC? Is there a workaround for this issue? Does anyone have WFE working with UNC paths successfully?

Just to deflect one possible suggestion, I'd prefer not switch from UNC paths to physical paths on my main server since I am using the UNC paths in order for Comskip to function correctly.

Cheers
Lester

Seems its a known VLC problem:

http://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic....+paths#p244034

I can probably fix this in WFE.

Can I have your encoder.log for a tuning attempt with UNC paths that goes wrong pls.

Michael

[pleyraki]

Originally Posted by koelec

You can use squeezebox server's stream like this:
IMG

Start the channel in sage and start playback in Squeezebox server's web interface. I tested it with WFE 0.9.6 RC4.
But, you won't get commercial music services (slacker, lastfm, etc) with this setup. Only local content and ShoutCast. For the other services you need a real squeezebox device or emulator like slimplayer plugin.

- Chris

Thanks for your reply.

My problem is not the settings you sent, I have them working ok. The problem is I have severe stuttering/brakes and a veeeery long delay from the time I click something in slimserver to the time it "comes" to the output in SageTV. But the problem is the stuttering.

I was thinking maybe someone would have a solution by tweaking some settings...

Thanks again,
Antonis.

[Lester Jacobs]

Originally Posted by michaeldjcox

Seems its a known VLC problem:

http://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic....+paths#p244034

I can probably fix this in WFE.

Can I have your encoder.log for a tuning attempt with UNC paths that goes wrong pls.

Michael

Hi Michael,

I've attached the encoder log for your perusal. I did a bit more investigating and discovered that if I supply vlc with \\\<server>\<share> instead of \\<server>\<share> then it works successfully (note the extra starting backslash on the sucessful UNC path). Thus it might be as simple as having a configurable option for the encoder to add an extra backslash to the beginning of any UNC recording path.

Thanks for taking the time to investigate this (especially when it's not an issue in your code)

Cheers
Lester

[koelec]

Originally Posted by michaeldjcox

Please expand on this statement Chris - why would it not be possible?

Michael

You need a real squeezebox device or emulator like slimplayer(softsqueeze) to get access to squeeze network services. Problems are for one technically (VLC cannot play the slimprotocol) and and also policy by Logitech.

- Chris

[SteveW]

Originally Posted by michaeldjcox

Seems its a known VLC problem:

http://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic....+paths#p244034

I can probably fix this in WFE.

Can I have your encoder.log for a tuning attempt with UNC paths that goes wrong pls.

Michael

Hi Michael,

Any news on this front? Are you going to try to work around it on the WFE side, or a you pushing for a fix with the VLC folks?

Tnx

-S

[michaeldjcox]

Originally Posted by SteveW

Hi Michael,

Any news on this front? Are you going to try to work around it on the WFE side, or a you pushing for a fix with the VLC folks?

Tnx

-S

Hi workaround I think.

I'm looking at this now.

Michael

[scanner95]

Hello Michael,

I wonder: do you still plan to implement multi-tuner WFE so we could watch/record several streams at the same time? And another question: any hopes for faster tuning (which for me is currently around 10s)?

Thanks!
Yuly