New FTA channel is mpeg4

[SimonH]

We just got a new FTA channel here in Australia (7food) - but after adding it to my lineup in SageTV, I get the following error while trying to preview it on my server:

There was a Playback Error in playback. Details: sage.PlaybackException: ERROR (-5,0x80040200): There was a problem rendering the audio portion of the content for playback.

Now I did some Googling and noted some comments online that the new channel is broadcast in mpeg4 and that some people with older TVs won't be able to play it.

So I'm guessing I'm hitting some kind of Codec issue?

Is there something I can change in the settings or install to allow SageTV to play/record this new channel?

[Tiki]

Rather than just previewing, you should make a short recording from the channel. Then see if you can play it back with another program. Assuming it is playable, you can use something like mediainfo to figure out what audio and video codecs were used. With that information, someone here might be able to tell you how to get Sage to play it.

[SimonH]

Good point - here is what Mediainfo reported about the created file.

General
Complete name                            : C:\Data\Recorded TV\TV1\TheKitchen-Season15Episode02FeastOfFullFlavour-10238339-0.mpg
Format                                   : MPEG-PS
File size                                : 31.2 MiB
Duration                                 : 2 min 32 s
Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 1 717 kb/s

Video
ID                                       : 224 (0xE0)
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : Main@L3
Format settings                          : CABAC / 4 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, RefFrames               : 4 frames
Duration                                 : 2 min 31 s
Width                                    : 640 pixels
Height                                   : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate                               : 25.000 FPS
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : MBAFF
Scan type, store method                  : Interleaved fields
Scan order                               : Top Field First

Audio
ID                                       : 192 (0xC0)
Format                                   : AAC LC SBR PS
Format/Info                              : Advanced Audio Codec Low Complexity with Spectral Band Replication and Parametric Stereo
Commercial name                          : HE-AACv2
Format settings                          : NBC
Muxing mode                              : LATM
Codec ID                                 : 2
Duration                                 : 2 min 32 s
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Channel layout                           : C
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 23.438 FPS (2048 SPF)
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Delay relative to video                  : -2 s 96 ms

Most of the other channels are using MPEG Audio or AC3

[SimonH]

Actually - crisis averted ... I just tried watching the new channel via the HD200 and it worked fine - that thing can do almost anything!

I don't watch via my server (I was only testing new channel lineups there), so doesn't matter if can't view stuff there.

[JREkiwi]

We ran into that problem quite some time ago. The link to the decoder codec seems to be long gone, but here's a copy that I use on my server.

And some instructions on how to register it.

John