Support for newer HDHomeruns

[taylormadearmy]

I've recently purchased a HDHR4-2DT(UK) which support DVB-T2 HD UK Freeview channels. I've been using one of their older DVB-T devices for years with Sage v7.

I had a quick play with Sage v7 and it did not seem to manage to pick up the newer HD channels.

Is there any work going on with Sage 9 that would/could add support of newer HDhomerun devices including this?

Thanks!
T

[wayner]

The newer HDHRs in NA support transcoding to h.264 - so that would require changes as well.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by wayner

The newer HDHRs in NA support transcoding to h.264 - so that would require changes as well.

They SUPPORT transcoding, but it is not required. I was under the impression the new units still, if accessed with the traditional tuner drivers, would still send the stream unaltered, and therefore still work with sage.

[wayner]

I think you are correct but some (many?/most?/all?) might prefer the file in h.264 format since that is more supported than MPEG-2 these days especially when it comes to mobile devices, RPis, etc.

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

They SUPPORT transcoding, but it is not required. I was under the impression the new units still, if accessed with the traditional tuner drivers, would still send the stream unaltered, and therefore still work with sage.

They work with SageTV but you are still defeating the purpose of owning one. If I have one I want it fully supported. Transcoding is why I would buy one. There are cheaper connects if using sageTV.

[taylormadearmy]

And in the UK if it is not supported we do not get HD channels at all...
(Far rather use network tuners - and this is the only one available for DVB-T2).

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by wayner

I think you are correct but some (many?/most?/all?) might prefer the file in h.264 format since that is more supported than MPEG-2 these days especially when it comes to mobile devices, RPis, etc.

Oh, I agree most would prefer the transcoding. The thing is, though, that they do not provide this h.264 transcoding via 'standard' tuner protocols, so I'm not sure it's appropriate to build it into the sage core, and makes more sense to roll it up as a network encoder (it likely would not take much of a change from the few Prime network encoders already available).

[mwnswiss]

Originally Posted by taylormadearmy

I've recently purchased a HDHR4-2DT(UK) which support DVB-T2 HD UK Freeview channels. I've been using one of their older DVB-T devices for years with Sage v7.

I had a quick play with Sage v7 and it did not seem to manage to pick up the newer HD channels.

Is there any work going on with Sage 9 that would/could add support of newer HDhomerun devices including this?

Could be more root causes. I have as well the HDHR4 but for DVB-C, but that should be more or less the same, and I get all HD and normal channels. Check if all frequencies are set in default frequency file - the source in the opensource version is
https://github.com/google/sagetv/blo...efinedDVBT.frq

Could be that newer channels use newer frequencies not yet in this file (affects as well SageTV v7). If so add it and do a full rescan (I usually delete the tuner and add it again with full scan). That was in the beginning my root cause in both versions - I missed as well HD channels.

On which operating system do you run Sage? Windows or Linux. If on Linux, do you use the DVB kernel module for HD HomeRun or the native one (which you would use if you did not install the DVB kernel module). That could indicate other issues.

I did quite some work on the native linux HDHomeRun support, I still face some issue but getting closer to fix them. On SageTV7 I run as well HDHomeRun but all on a Windows XP box and using the DBA driver which gets installed if you install the Silicon Dust Windows driver/software.

I don't think it relates to any transcoding or so, as you would face the issue on all HD channels and not only on new ones. Can you watch them on the Silicon Dust software?

[taylormadearmy]

Originally Posted by mwnswiss

Could be that newer channels use newer frequencies not yet in this file (affects as well SageTV v7). If so add it and do a full rescan (I usually delete the tuner and add it again with full scan). That was in the beginning my root cause in both versions - I missed as well HD channels.

Thanks! It was as simple as that - added the newer frequencies and can now pick up those channels.

All is not totally rosey however - it seems the EPG for the new DVB-T2 channels cannot be decoded by Sage - it just shows seemingly random characters. I vaguely recall they are encoded differently to the original DVB-T channels EPG. I know I could use an external guide etc, but that's such a pain compared to the over the air one...

Also Placeshifter cannot playback the HD channels without transcoding - I'm guessing it does not have the required codecs as part of its player?

[brewston]

It's the HD channels which have an encoded EPG but when I tested it last, once I'd enabled a HD channel the SD channel EPG entries were scrambled too.

I'm still using Stephane's importer with digiguide

[Fuzzy]

You could always look into using Schedules Direct for your EPG source.

[mwnswiss]

Originally Posted by brewston

It's the HD channels which have an encoded EPG but when I tested it last, once I'd enabled a HD channel the SD channel EPG entries were scrambled too.

I'm still using Stephane's importer with digiguide

I think it is just "something" not quite right with HDHomeRun2.0. I tested the same with the https://github.com/h0tw1r3/dvbhdhomerun (DVB linux kernel driver for the libhdhomerun - the same libhdhomerun which HDHomeRun2.0 is using) and it works well, EPG and HD. So it's on my todo list, but it quite hard to get into and I didn't figure out the logic how the EPG data gets read by the HDHomeRun2.0 data passed to the JAVA part.

There are other issues, which are not present with the DVB linux kernel version. See my other thread http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=62569.

You could simply try to use the linux DVB kernel, but I wanted to use it within virtual containers like docker and those do not support kernel modules. And quite some work is already available with HDHomeRun2.0, so it would be nice to complete it and being independent of the DVB kernel module. It is as well not clear to me who is managing the DVB kernel module and how sustainable that is.