Xcard plugin (alpha 0.0.8 - Jan 16)

[kevthor]

See my issue is my PVR350 is very very very stable. Since I've switched to SHS's drivers I've never had it lock up on me. So I have to see some benefit of purchasing an Xcard. MP3 playback and DVD playback may do it for me.

Now if I could just get someone to write a plugin for sage to have call display information. (I know there are tons of call display programs out there) but none of them help us hardware decoder guys.

[ErsatzTom]

It's pretty low on my list of priorities but I did put a modem in my htpc specifically to accomplish that goal. So, after I get dvds, divx, and what not working on it that will probably make it on to my plate. Almost certainly hooked up through girder.

t

[justme]

Originally Posted by Opus4

I got mine a long time ago at Provantage; they have been reliable for me & have a decent price too.
- Andy

Thanks for the, always helpfull, advice. I've gone ahead and ordered one.

Originally Posted by kevthor

See my issue is my PVR350 is very very very stable. Since I've switched to SHS's drivers I've never had it lock up on me. So I have to see some benefit of purchasing an Xcard. MP3 playback and DVD playback may do it for me.

I'd say my 350 is stable as well. However I do get the EOF error every now and then. Still I love the picture of the 350, since all I have is an SDTV.

My purchase of the X-Card is based partly(smallest %) on the few EOF issues of my 350. But mostly on the extra playback capabilities of the Xcard along with my desire to use HW decoders on all my SageTV systems. Based on what Xcard capable software already exists(free, opensource, donation, and pay) I'm certian that ErsatzTom's plugin will eventually reach it's full potential. I'm constantly amazed at the level of skill/support the users of this forum are capable of. Til ErsatzTom gets everything working I'll gladly be a guinea pig. I'm confident of his abilities to get it all working as well as the HW permits and I'm sure Frey will gladly help out if he needs something from them, SageTV core wise. Besides I can always use a second HW decoder, now that I have the SageTVClient license/PC. So even if he never added any more support, I still think it will be an good/interesting purchase.

Big thanks to ErsatzTom for all his hard work. I look forward to using your app once my Xcard arrives.

/justme

[ErsatzTom]

Thanks for the vote of confidence!

t

[jughead]

tom, YOU ROCK! i wasn't expecting this to work or look nearly as well as it does! i'm glad that dvds, divx, xvid, etc are high on your list too.

my observations affter a few hours (some have been covered and some may be my fault):
+ OSD looks almost no different in 256 colors (in ways better for me bc my vid card uses composite & my xcard uses s-video)
+ i can now use vmr9 instead of overlay (clobbered my 1.2ghz cpu before)
+ spdif out works fine (i think you asked about that)
+ seems quite stable
+ it freakin works!

- commercial advance seems to have stopped working (cayars 16)
- i'm stuck in windowed mode on the computer
- long delays for OSD to react to remote
- no deleting "active" recording
- no divx, xvid or dvd (yet!)
- no ability to play a DVD w/ xmedia player while sage records TV
- crashes sage or video freezes but audio continues if i try to FF or REW recordings or TV at all!!!

that last problem is the only big deal right now for me. i'm trying a few things...

great job tom

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by jughead

+ i can now use vmr9 instead of overlay (clobbered my 1.2ghz cpu before)

Actually, you aren't using VMR9 or overlay -- the Xcard is handling all playback decoding & the transparent OSD is also drawn on the Xcard.

- i'm stuck in windowed mode on the computer

Like for the 350 OSD, the SageTV window is locked to be the same size as the Xcard playback size.

- long delays for OSD to react to remote

Noted above, but I think it is only less than 0.5 seconds for me. Here's something that might speed it up a little: put SageTV to sleep in the system tray. It will no longer have to draw its own UI on the monitor before sending it to the Xcard plugin, possibly saving just little time, I'm told. You have ot be able to control SageTV when it doesn't have focus for this to work.

- no deleting "active" recording
- no divx, xvid or dvd (yet!)
- no ability to play a DVD w/ xmedia player while sage records TV

Also noted above. To use XMedia Player, exit SageTV. If you use service mode, then SageTV will continue to record w/o the UI visible. You could also use it as a client installation w/o affecting recordings when you exit.

- crashes sage or video freezes but audio continues if i try to FF or REW recordings or TV at all!!!

OK, _this_ should not be happening. What are your settings in SageTV in tDetailed Setup for the Video and Audio tabs? The renderer & decoder on the Audio tab should be "Default". On the Video tab, the decoder should be the Xcard & all else "Default". [Edit: Oops - The plugin now handles the decoding, so you do NOT need to set SageTV itself to use the Xcard as the decoder.]

- Andy

[ErsatzTom]

Originally Posted by jughead

tom, YOU ROCK!

Thanks!

- commercial advance seems to have stopped working (cayars 16)
- crashes sage or video freezes but audio continues if i try to FF or REW recordings or TV at all!!!

I haven't experienced either of these. The first one I haven't a clue on but I'll cogitate on it. On the second, if you could startup sage, make it crash or freeze and then post the xcard_log_####.txt, the sage_0.txt (or sageclient_0.txt if you are running the client), and, if there was a crash, the hs_err_pid####.log file.

Also, please make sure you are running the most recent version. Thanks!

t

[ErsatzTom]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Actually, you aren't using VMR9 or overlay -- the Xcard is handling all playback decoding & the transparent OSD is also drawn on the Xcard.
<snip>

What he said.

On the Video tab, the decoder should be the Xcard & all else "Default".

Actually, while this doesn't seem to cause any harm, I wouldn't recommend it. You are basically telling sage to do its version of the render using the xcard decoder which will already be in use by the plugin. I suppose if you had two xcards installed, it would result in the video + osd on one and video only on the other. Maybe.

t

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by ErsatzTom

Actually, while this doesn't seem to cause any harm, I wouldn't recommend it. You are basically telling sage to do its version of the render using the xcard decoder which will already be in use by the plugin. I suppose if you had two xcards installed, it would result in the video + osd on one and video only on the other. Maybe.

Actually, things went so smoothly for me that I forgot all about the fact that the plugin is actually in charge there! I _think_ that when an external plugin is in use, SageTV's internal decoder usage is turned off. (I believe the 350's decoder is different in that you can use both the hardware & software decoders with various SageTV settings, but in that case the 350 decoder plugin is built into SageTV.)

So, even though my system still lists the Xcard as the video decoder, I'm sure it isn't being used by SageTV itself -- you can confirm that by setting it to a software decoder & noting that playback still doesn't get shown in the SageTV window on the monitor.

- Andy

[jughead]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Actually, you aren't using VMR9 or overlay -- the Xcard is handling all playback decoding & the transparent OSD is also drawn on the Xcard.

that makes more sense... i should've taken a second to think about it but i got distracted by the pretty transparencies

Here's something that might speed it up a little: put SageTV to sleep in the system tray.

will give it a shot. sometimes the delay gets up to 2 or 3 seconds.

Also noted above. To use XMedia Player, exit SageTV. If you use service mode, then SageTV will continue to record w/o the UI visible.

i'm not familiar w/ service mode... will investigate

OK, _this_ should not be happening. What are your settings in SageTV in tDetailed Setup for the Video and Audio tabs? The renderer & decoder on the Audio tab should be "Default". On the Video tab, the decoder should be the Xcard & all else "Default".

that's how i had it, now i have everything in the Audio & Video tabs set to default that can be

[jughead]

Originally Posted by ErsatzTom

The first one I haven't a clue on but I'll cogitate on it.

the commercials were marked purple, but since switching to the xcard display that has disappeared & the bar at the bottom is all green

On the second, if you could startup sage, make it crash or freeze and then post the xcard_log_####.txt, the sage_0.txt (or sageclient_0.txt if you are running the client), and, if there was a crash, the hs_err_pid####.log file.

ok, i made the video freeze while audio continued. i've included the xcard_log from that event and two hs_err files from earlier in case they can help. i'm not finding any sage*.txt files though.

Also, please make sure you are running the most recent version. Thanks!

i'm running 2.1.10

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by jughead

my 1.2ghz cpu
- long delays for OSD to react to remote

Originally Posted by jughead

sometimes the delay gets up to 2 or 3 seconds.

One of the idiosyncracies here is that while the Xcard handles the video decoding/playback in its own hardware, thus using no cpu time to play a video, the cpu has to be used to reduce the UI image from 32 bit color (argb) to 256 colors. This color conversion process has to be done using the cpu, so the UI display process now uses more cpu time than video playback. The longer delay you are experiencing might be related to the slower cpu -- the 0.5 second or so delay I mentioned is on my 2.8 Ghz p4.

- Andy

[jughead]

oh, i didn't mean to make it sound like the delay was always 2-3 seconds. usually it's about .5 seconds as you mentioned, even with a 1.2ghz athlon. i have seen it get REALLY slow though. maybe bc of the mem leak that tom mentioned?

[rsagetv99]

Hey, I noticed this has component out and it mentions HDTV scaling. Anyone testing this with and HDTV? If so how is the PQ?

[jptaz]

The PQ on HD is very good. I think it is actually better than my DVI connection. But part of the reason for that is how smooth the playback is on sports and high motion as opposed to my software decoders on my P3 733.

John

[ErsatzTom]

Originally Posted by jughead

oh, i didn't mean to make it sound like the delay was always 2-3 seconds. usually it's about .5 seconds as you mentioned, even with a 1.2ghz athlon. i have seen it get REALLY slow though. maybe bc of the mem leak that tom mentioned?

If the ui starts out faster and the gets slow, that could definitely be it. The memory leak has been fixed but I have other concerns about the current build so I haven't put it into general release yet.

After looking at the logs you posted, I'm wondering if you are running the most recent version of the plugin? I posted 0.0.4 and 0.0.5 pretty close together but .5 has an important fix. Check SageTV\org\sagecommunity\xcard\XCardAPI.class it should be dated something like 1/8/2005 8:57pm not 1/3/2005 5:26. Let me know!

t

[jughead]

ok, i checked and i do have v.5 (1/8/05). i tried un/reinstalling the xcard driver & apps but i still got it to freeze quite easily. i have tried & can't re-create the freeze w/ xmedia player. usually if i stop the playback, i can play the file again w/ no problem as long as i don't try to navigate much.

i just noticed that on the hour, when i'm watching tv and sage creates it's new file, it does it as well. the display doesn't jump to the new file & the picure goes black but i can still timeshift the audio. hit 'stop' then 'live tv' and it's ok again.

i hope something there helps! anything else i can try?

[jughead]

!!! hmm, i just got tvedia (joveplayer) to choke while navigating a sage recorded file twice. seems like a different flavor crash, but it could mean the problem is on my end. now i'm getting confused.

[ErsatzTom]

I'll try letting it play live tv during a show cutover. If neither of us can figure it out maybe you can get me a copy of one your mpegs and I can see if it gives me a problem too.

t

[soulprops77]

This may be a dumb question, but is there anything other than the Xcard will not be able to display (other than windows obviously)?