PS Splitter on SageTV Client

[sacrament055]

Anybody have any luck getting Sage to use LAV splitter for ATSC (Over the air) PS files? I can see from the tray icon that it works fine for MP4/H264 content but when I watch live TV or recorded TV it does not show LAV Splitter. I can see that it's also using the AC3 Filter no matter what my audio is set to use. I tried changing the reg setting (AlwaysSwapforAC3Filter) but I was getting playback exceptions related to audio after that so I had to switch back. I suspect that if I can get the LAV Splitter to work this won't be an issue.

[wnjj]

Maybe some help here:

https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=63094

[sacrament055]

that's helpful for the AC3filter.

Thanks

Any thoughts on how to get LAV splitter to work with MPEG2 (PS) streams?

[davidk21770]

I've been watching hopefully for an answer to this thread but it seems to have fizzled...

I'm having problems with freezing on some H.264 files and similar to this post, I wanted to try the lav splitter, but can't get Sage to use it. It appears to be using the lav video and lav audio codecs -- just not the splitter? (I can tell by the setup icons in my icons bar when sage is playing a movie).

Is there a way to convince Sage to use the lav splitter? I've made it the direct show splitter with the highest merit and it gets used when I construct a default directshow graph in graphstudio.

What splitter(s) does sage use? Maybe I can unregister it (them) and force sage in the direction that I want? I've renamed TSSplitter.ax to temporarily stop it from being used, but that didn't help.

[sacrament055]

Actually for H264 files my client is using LAV splitter just not for MPEG2 files. Have you set your registry to not use the Sage Splitter. I know I had some issues with it because of UAC settings I believe I ultimately used babgvant's registry setting tool from this site https://babgvant.com/files/10/default.aspx .

Hope that helps you.

[davidk21770]

Originally Posted by sacrament055

Actually for H264 files my client is using LAV splitter just not for MPEG2 files. Have you set your registry to not use the Sage Splitter. I know I had some issues with it because of UAC settings I believe I ultimately used babgvant's registry setting tool from this site https://babgvant.com/files/10/default.aspx .

Hope that helps you.

Thanks!

I actually had that tucked away in my sage tweaks folder, but haven't run it since way back in 2010/XP.

That got me using Lav splitter for MP4/H.264! but not TS/H.264 or MPG (which in fairness, I'm not having any problems with right now -- I just wanted to see the difference)

Sage loads TSSplitter.ax no matter what the registry is set for (checked with Process Hacker's find open file/DLL) and if I rename TSSplitter.ax to TSSplitter.ax.disabled, StageTV service won't stay started after I reboot.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by davidk21770

Thanks!

I actually had that tucked away in my sage tweaks folder, but haven't run it since way back in 2010/XP.

That got me using Lav splitter for MP4/H.264! but not TS/H.264 or MPG (which in fairness, I'm not having any problems with right now -- I just wanted to see the difference)

Sage loads TSSplitter.ax no matter what the registry is set for (checked with Process Hacker's find open file/DLL) and if I rename TSSplitter.ax to TSSplitter.ax.disabled, StageTV service won't stay started after I reboot.

Sage's dependence on it's own splitter is, as I understand it, an issue that was from early development, where there were not any other 'standard' splitters that would work well with the live playback while recording methods sage was using. While that is probably not the case anymore, as I'm certain with proper management, many modern splitters could deal with the situation just fine, it is nonetheless still intricately hard-coded into sage's core at this time. That, based on the lack of any developers familiar with directshow playback, and the lesser dependence on windows playback, is probably unlikely to change in the near future.

[davidk21770]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Sage's dependence on it's own splitter is, as I understand it, an issue that was from early development, where there were not any other 'standard' splitters that would work well with the live playback while recording methods sage was using. While that is probably not the case anymore, as I'm certain with proper management, many modern splitters could deal with the situation just fine, it is nonetheless still intricately hard-coded into sage's core at this time. That, based on the lack of any developers familiar with directshow playback, and the lesser dependence on windows playback, is probably unlikely to change in the near future.

I wondered about that. I hoped that since sage would use directshow filters for other media types, that it could be convinced to do so for mpeg & TS -- maybe just not for real-time playback. But I also remember the mpeg filter betas back in ?2008 trying to get smooth reliable playback, so I was prepared . (I stuck with some of the betas since they outperformed the final versions on my system).

[Fuzzy]

I guess the question becomes what is the stock SageTV splitter NOT doing for you that you want to change it for?

[davidk21770]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I guess the question becomes what is the stock SageTV splitter NOT doing for you that you want to change it for?

Right now, it performs admirably.

I've just been surprised in the past when I've switched to a recommended filter and had it be a little smoother, a little crisper, truer colors, more configurable, fixed a glitch that I was blaming on something else, handled a newer format better, etc. I was just checking to see if any of these were the case here.

Bottom line - no pressing needed! More of an exploration.
I got my need taken care of - I can play with mp4/h.264 filters.
Thanks!

[Fuzzy]

You can still fully use LAV decoders. All the splitter is doing is taking the file, and breaking the video and audio streams apart, and sending them down the line to the decoders and rederers - This isn't really something that you need LAV's splitter to do. Really, the only capabilities it adds is the ability to switch audio and subtitle streams from the system tray, but Sage can do that in the sage UI.

[sacrament055]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I guess the question becomes what is the stock SageTV splitter NOT doing for you that you want to change it for?

I was having audio sync errors when paired with LAV Video and Audio decoders. I have a workable solution now by using Microsoft decoders for MPEG2.

Problem seemed to pop up when my antenna signal would drop a bit and stutter and from that point the audio sync was off. Microsoft seems to handle it better.

In my opinion LAV has a little better picture but I'd rather have the audio stay in sync than have a little better video.