Interest in HDHomeRun Prime Network Encoder

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I don't know.. the end of the document says to direct all questions to some Jeff guy at "freytechnologies.com". I don't think that's a thing.. :-)

I thought about editing it out, then figured I would leave it alone for historical reasons.

- Andy

[jvl711]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

I am getting this error.

03/19/2015 15:22:36 - Setting local IP address to: 192.168.0.104
03/19/2015 15:22:36 - Starting encoder thread: 13147C7B-0
03/19/2015 15:33:17 - Unknown Command: BUFFER HDHomeRun Prime Tuner 1 TV Tuner|2|16777216|C:\Users\Edwin\Videos\SageTV\HDHomeRunPrimeTuner1on19216801047000TVTuner-0.mpgbuf|Great
03/19/2015 15:33:19 - --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
03/19/2015 15:33:19 - Stopping Recording: 13147C7B 0
03/19/2015 15:33:19 - --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have not seen this command being sent on my system. Was this while previewing a channel, or while watching live tv? I am not sure why it does not have a ShowName. If it was a preview. Preview is not supported. You can skip preview during tunner setup.

From the documentation I just got from Andy (Thanks again Andy) It looks like that command is only sent during Channel Setup and Color Calibration. Those functions are not supported.

1. There's 2 new commands BUFFER and BUFFER_SWITCH. These are just like START and SWITCH, but instead of the end time it sends the buffer size. The data should be written to a circular file with a file size matching the buffer size. This is only needed for direct stream viewing which occurs in Channel Setup and in Color Calibration, otherwise this call is never used. File size calls in these modes should return the accumulated bytes written, not the file size or file position.

Josh

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by jvl711

I have not seen this command being sent on my system. Was this while previewing a channel, or while watching live tv? I am not sure why it does not have a ShowName. If it was a preview. Preview is not supported. You can skip preview during tunner setup.

From the documentation I just got from Andy (Thanks again Andy) It looks like that command is only sent during Channel Setup and Color Calibration. Those functions are not supported.



Josh

Yes You are right it was sent During Calibration.
It is working Now I just had to restart SageTV and it is working just great. CPU Usage is minimal... Very Little. This was run from the console I will try Sagetv runnable and see what happens a little later.

03/19/2015 15:57:04 - Setting local IP address to: 192.168.0.104
03/19/2015 15:57:04 - Starting encoder thread: 13147C7B-0
03/19/2015 15:57:56 - --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
03/19/2015 15:57:56 - Switching Channel for Tuner: 13147C7B 0
03/19/2015 15:57:56 - --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
03/19/2015 15:57:56 - Local IP: 192.168.0.104
03/19/2015 15:57:56 - Listening Port: 7000
03/19/2015 15:57:56 - ffmpeg Transcode Port: 5000
03/19/2015 15:57:56 - Starting transcoder: C:\Users\Edwin\Videos\SageTV\TheIronPetticoat-57866-0.mpg
03/19/2015 15:57:57 - Switch channel: 501
03/19/2015 15:57:57 - Send stream to transcoder: 5000

PS I was able to record 2 shows and watch another fully using my Prime and very low CPU usage ... plus no artifacts like I was getting with SAGEDCT probably because they were using an old FFMPEG.

[kchase56]

I'm ready and willing to test this if needed.

[jvl711]

I am having a hard time getting sage to record with a .ts file extension. Can someone check my properties and let me know if I am doing something wrong.

I thought I just needed this setting to be false: mmc/encoders/1012343955/1/0/encode_digital_tv_as_program_stream=false

mmc/encoders/1012343955/1/0/available_channels=
mmc/encoders/1012343955/1/0/brightness=-1
mmc/encoders/1012343955/1/0/broadcast_standard=
mmc/encoders/1012343955/1/0/contrast=-1
mmc/encoders/1012343955/1/0/device_name=
mmc/encoders/1012343955/1/0/encode_digital_tv_as_program_stream=false
mmc/encoders/1012343955/1/0/hue=-1
mmc/encoders/1012343955/1/0/last_channel=828
mmc/encoders/1012343955/1/0/provider_id=1981238176869
mmc/encoders/1012343955/1/0/saturation=-1
mmc/encoders/1012343955/1/0/sharpness=-1
mmc/encoders/1012343955/1/0/tuning_mode=Cable
mmc/encoders/1012343955/1/0/tuning_plugin=
mmc/encoders/1012343955/1/0/tuning_plugin_port=0
mmc/encoders/1012343955/1/0/video_crossbar_index=0
mmc/encoders/1012343955/1/0/video_crossbar_type=1
mmc/encoders/1012343955/audio_capture_device_name=
mmc/encoders/1012343955/broadcast_standard=
mmc/encoders/1012343955/capture_config=2050
mmc/encoders/1012343955/default_device_quality=
mmc/encoders/1012343955/delay_to_wait_after_tuning=0
mmc/encoders/1012343955/device_class=
mmc/encoders/1012343955/encoder_merit=0
mmc/encoders/1012343955/encoding_host=192.168.0.15\:7001
mmc/encoders/1012343955/fast_network_encoder_switch=false
mmc/encoders/1012343955/forced_video_storage_path_prefix=
mmc/encoders/1012343955/last_cross_index=0
mmc/encoders/1012343955/last_cross_type=1
mmc/encoders/1012343955/live_audio_input=
mmc/encoders/1012343955/multicast_host=
mmc/encoders/1012343955/never_stop_encoding=false
mmc/encoders/1012343955/video_capture_device_name=HDHomeRun Prime Tuner 0
mmc/encoders/1012343955/video_capture_device_num=0
mmc/encoders/1012343955/video_encoding_params=Great

[nyplayer]

[QUOTE=jvl711;570124]I am having a hard time getting sage to record with a .ts file extension. Can someone check my properties and let me know if I am doing something wrong.

I thought I just needed this setting to be false:


It Normally would maybe you are muxing to mpg? with ffmpeg.
It did not work for me either.

[jvl711]

[QUOTE=nyplayer;570125]

Originally Posted by jvl711

I am having a hard time getting sage to record with a .ts file extension. Can someone check my properties and let me know if I am doing something wrong.

I thought I just needed this setting to be false:


It Normally would maybe you are muxing to mpg? with ffmpeg.
It did not work for me either.

I am trying to re-encode in real time to h.264 but technically .mpg only supports mpeg1/mpeg2. I was reading that .ts file support h.264. I can not get sage to send the network encoder a file with that extension.

From doing some google research it appears sage always send .mpg to the network encoder. There is no property to change that .

If anyone has a suggestion on how I can send h.264 encoded files back to sage when it is expecting .mpg from the Network Encoder please let me know.

P.S. nyplayer, I am glad the Network Tuner is working for you. Are you using local or UNC paths for your recording directories?

[nyplayer]

[QUOTE=jvl711;570126]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

I am trying to re-encode in real time to h.264 but technically .mpg only supports mpeg1/mpeg2. I was reading that .ts file support h.264. I can not get sage to send the network encoder a file with that extension.

From doing some google research it appears sage always send .mpg to the network encoder. There is no property to change that .

If anyone has a suggestion on how I can send h.264 encoded files back to sage when it is expecting .mpg from the Network Encoder please let me know.

P.S. nyplayer, I am glad the Network Tuner is working for you. Are you using local or UNC paths for your recording directories?

I am using Local.

[Fuzzy]

Have you tried my suggestion of simply writing a transport stream to a file with the .mpg extension that sage is asking for? Most things will use the exact same source filter to open a .mpg file as they would a .ts, so it likely will not make a difference.

[Fuzzy]

A quick test i did (admitedly from a static file, not a live stream)

ffmpeg -i InputFile.wmv -vcodec h264 -f mpegts OutputFile.mpg

seems to work fine in wmplayer, vlc, and SageTVClient

[mechling-burgh]

I loaded sage on a spare computer for the 21 day trial in the basement. I then deactivated one tuners in the prime on the main sage server. I then installed the prime network encoder on the test machine and setup the network encoder to use that tuner on the prime. When I tune a channel I get a no signal error on the screen but the file is being generated in the recording directory. I can actually play that file in windows media player while it is recording in sage but it will not display in sage. No Idea I increased the tuning delay to 1500 but that did not help. I checked all the logs and there are no errors in the logs network encoder logs.

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by mechling-burgh

I loaded sage on a spare computer for the 21 day trial in the basement. I then deactivated one tuners in the prime on the main sage server. I then installed the prime network encoder on the test machine and setup the network encoder to use that tuner on the prime. When I tune a channel I get a no signal error on the screen but the file is being generated in the recording directory. I can actually play that file in windows media player while it is recording in sage but it will not display in sage. No Idea I increased the tuning delay to 1500 but that did not help. I checked all the logs and there are no errors in the logs network encoder logs.

You should post your encoder properties file and the tuner sagetv.properties files .... also make sure to open the ports on firewall. Also I had to ffmpeg to the firewall too.

[mechling-burgh]

I turned the firewall off first thing to see if that was the problem. I recorded a show for 15 minutes and ever 1 minute and 12 seconds it would halt recording and start a new file clip. I was able to play back the recording in sage after it finished recording but sections were missing because of the multiple files. here are the logs for your review.

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by mechling-burgh

I turned the firewall off first thing to see if that was the problem. I recorded a show for 15 minutes and ever 1 minute and 12 seconds it would halt recording and start a new file clip. I was able to play back the recording in sage after it finished recording but sections were missing because of the multiple files. here are the logs for your review.

I noticed your tuner names are different. What I did was name them the same way they appear in the Sagetv.properties. In the PrimeNetEncoder.properties

tuner0.name=HDHomeRun Prime Tuner 1
tuner1.name=HDHomeRun Prime Tuner 2
tuner2.name=HDHomeRun Prime Tuner 3

#
#Mon Mar 16 20:38:01 EDT 2015
tuner0.name=HDHomeRun Prime 131C3300-0
tuner0.port=7000
tuner0.id=1312A0DA
tuner0.transcoder.port=5000
tuner0.number=0
tuner0.enabled=True
tuner1.name=HDHomeRun Prime Tuner 131C3300-1
tuner1.port=7001
tuner1.id=1312A0DA
tuner1.transcoder.port=5010
tuner1.number=1
tuner1.enabled=True
tuner2.port=7002
tuner2.id=1312A0DA
tuner2.number=2
tuner2.transcoder.port=5020
tuner2.name=HDHomeRun Prime Tuner 131C3300-2
tuner2.enabled=True
discovery.port=8271
ffmpeg.path=ffmpeg.exe
HDHomeRunConfig.path=C\:\\Program Files\\Silicondust\\HDHomeRun\\hdhomerun_config.exe

[mechling-burgh]

I thought about that but it's creating files they seem to be filling a buffer or something, 1:12 long files. i was wondering network card. This is an older dell with built in network card. I remember people having network card issues with sagedct and network cards.

[jvl711]

Originally Posted by mechling-burgh

I thought about that but it's creating files they seem to be filling a buffer or something, 1:12 long files. i was wondering network card. This is an older dell with built in network card. I remember people having network card issues with sagedct and network cards.

If you are getting a file with data in that you should be 99% of the way there. Are you playing back the file on the server, client or extender? If client make sure the date and time on the client machine matches the server perfectly . Also make sure your playback settings are working with MPEG files properly.

[mikejaner]

I was getting a no signal error like mechling-burgh last night. I put the 7000-7002 inbound and outbound and 8000-8002 ports in the firewall, replaced the Encoder lines in sage.properties, copied the files including ffmpeg in SageTV's directory, along with the .jar in the /jars folder. I was getting pretty tired, so I had to abort for the night.
I will try disabling the firewall tonight to see if that helps.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by jvl711

Just curious, why would you want to use a QAM tunner through a Network Tuner? Is there HDHomeRun tunners that do not work directly in Sage? Anyway, I think it should work. You just need to make sure all of the mappings are correct in the guide.

I get periodic glitches in my HDHR recordings that I've heard other programs (NPVR) don't have, I suppose I'm curious if a different recording method would fix that.

LOL... The main reason I asked for the documentation was for the transcoding. Sage sends me the filename, so I can not repackage the stream in another container. I tried stuffing h264 in .mpg container and nothing would play it back. Not even VLC. I was wondering if I could get sage to let me change the container. Possibly to MKV.

Could you just record a .ts even though Sage asked for a .mpg? There's also an "encode as program stream" (or maybe encode as transport stream, one of the two) property that tells Sage to record as a program/transport stream. With SageTV native recording that's supposed to cause problems, but maybe that would work with a network encoder. Sage can play back TS files just fine, I'm pretty sure that's what the HD-PVRs record to.

[mechling-burgh]

Everything thing is happening on one machine. I might see what is recording tonight on the main server and copy the sage directory over from the test machine to see if it works better on that unit. They are both core duo but the main server has a much better network card. Turning off the fire wall did not help me. Like I said the files are being created so it is working. The problem starts with the play back and the file only being 1 minute and 12 seconds long. That is the part I find weird. I also tried setting up a recording and tried to start playing in back after a few minutes that did not work. If I would wait for the recording to finish it would play back but it would have missing spots due to the recording stopping and starting.

[nyplayer]

mine is working I am on windows 8.1 64 bit. I have java 7 32 bit installed and I use the 32 bit FFMPEG. Also I use the console mode for the encoder for now.

cd "C:\PrimeNetEncoder v0.0.1"
c:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre7\bin\java.exe" -jar PrimeNetEncoder.jar

The only problem I have is that if the firewall is turned on and I finish watching a livetv show or a recording ends it will not release the tuner... The light stays on but if I turn off the firewall when a recording ends it releases the tuner. I am going to use Process Explorer to see if something else has to be unblocked from the firewall.

I attached a pic of SageTV with ports and all tuners recording.