SageTV v3.0.5 Beta

[stanger89]

The switching is a new thing, if you're having trouble I'd submit a bug report.

[rhsmcc]

Has it been established that HDTV support is active in this release? I tried to setup my A180 and ran into the same problems that (agover) had ie:

Selecting "Digital_TV_Tuner" simply places a "Loading Preview. Please Wait..." message forever. You can force it through at which point you are prompted to select input type (aka Cable/Sat or OTA) followed by a lineup choice. Unforunately once you hit this point it seems that Sage has NO idea what to do. The program will show an on screen channel selection, but does NOT allow you to scan for active digital channels.

Also tuning to a channel on the A180 only shows a black screen. File size is 0.0

Stanger89 seemed to indicate that he had his up and running but I see little info on HDV setup. I have to admit I’ve been to lazy to go thorough the new manual.

2nd Question. I use cable and when I had tried (HDNE) I would have to disable the cable channels that carried the same number as my OTA channels so they would show up in the guide. MCE 2005 had a nice system for creating a new remapped channel at the end of the EPG. Now the remapping in Sage wouldn’t work in this same way would it? It actually would tune to the channel number your remapping it to?

[dagar]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Shhhh! That's the magical one with extra powers.

- Andy

lmao, so what do we need to slay the DRM beasts and free the cablecard princess? Maybe some +4 Gauntlents of Lawyer might?

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by rhsmcc

Has it been established that HDTV support is active in this release? I tried to setup my A180 and ran into the same problems that (agover) had ie:

Selecting "Digital_TV_Tuner" simply places a "Loading Preview. Please Wait..." message forever. You can force it through at which point you are prompted to select input type (aka Cable/Sat or OTA) followed by a lineup choice. Unforunately once you hit this point it seems that Sage has NO idea what to do. The program will show an on screen channel selection, but does NOT allow you to scan for active digital channels.

Also tuning to a channel on the A180 only shows a black screen. File size is 0.0

Just ignore the preview/channel scan. Pick "don't configur tuning" then pick your local broadcast lineup.

Stanger89 seemed to indicate that he had his up and running but I see little info on HDV setup. I have to admit I’ve been to lazy to go thorough the new manual.

It's probably not in there yet, because it's not done yet.

2nd Question. I use cable and when I had tried (HDNE) I would have to disable the cable channels that carried the same number as my OTA channels so they would show up in the guide. MCE 2005 had a nice system for creating a new remapped channel at the end of the EPG. Now the remapping in Sage wouldn’t work in this same way would it? It actually would tune to the channel number your remapping it to?

What you do is:
Add New Source
Pick AVerTVHD A180 A180 Video Capture
Digital_TV_Tuner
Pick Device Input to Use: Digital_TV_Tuner (ignore the preview window)
Pick Don't Configure Tuning
Use US, Canada... Guide Data with this Source
Local Broadcast (Over-The-Air)
Pick your city
...It will download the lineup
You should be promted with a lineup from which you can enable the channels you get.
Select done and you should have a guide before too long.

If after that you can't tune anything, and you know graphedit you can try the attached graph to see if the A180 is tuning (you'll need to change the decoders if you don't have the ones I'm using). And you'll have to "regsvr32 propage.dll" to get the Network provider properties page displayed.

[mkanet]

I finally tested SageTV 3.0.5 with two BDA Fusion 5 lite cards + 1 Happauge WinTV USB2 in one PC. It looks like almost all my results are general SageTV 3.0.5 bugs and not specific to my capture devices. I already submitted all my bugs in the bug report form. I am putting them here for others to confirm:

I am listing the bugs in order of priority:

1) If I am recording an HDTV show and try to watch another HDTV show, my entire PC will blue screen and complain about the Fusion driver. The multi-card driver I'm using is already certified for MCE (having 2 fusion BDA cards in one MCE PC).

2) If you change to a digital channel which the signal isn't strong enough or isn't available at that time, SageTV will hang indefinately. There should be a relatively short time-out period.
NOTE: This doesn't happen to may any more. But, I think there should still be a timeout period so the black screen isn't there forever. No mater what, a signal strength meter is needed otherwise, it will leave the SageTV user clueless as to why it's not working.

3) Problems with rendering when switching fro
m windowed to Full Screen (using VMR 9 FSE). My setup is about as generic as possible in respect to VMR9 FSE (Nvidia 6600GT+Nvidia latest detonator certified driver+Latest Nvidia mpeg2 decoders). If it doesn't work cleanly for me, I doubt it will work for anyone else.
NOTE: Currently, it doesn't want to switch to Windowed mode from FSE mode. SageTV just locks up. I have to do a control-alt-delete and kill the app via task manager.

4) Subchannel data/channels missing in EPG. There are several subchannels which I watch (as if they were primary channels) but they aren't listed in the EPG. I don't think hacking config/EPG files is a reasonable solution.

5) Digital Channel remapping seems to change PID as well; causing the channel to change to a channel I don't have.

6) Volume drastically different between Satellite (external receiver) and HDTV BDA tuner audio. There NEEDS to be an audio volume setting for respective capture device (just like there are color controls). It's unreasonable to expect all sources have the same audio level.

7) EPG doesn't show if a TV show is in HD format or not. There needs to be an HD logo or something to indicate it's in HD.

[mkanet]

Is Digital channel remapping supposed to change the channel PID's in case PID info is incorrect on the EPG or is supposed to change it to a channel number displayed in the EPG (keeping the pid the same). Also, how do you add a sub-channel to the EPG (IE 48.2)?

Thanks

[stanger89]

Good question, especially because digital channel numbers are complicated. eg:

KGAN-DT, 2.1 and KGAN-TV 2.2 are actaully reside on 51.3 and 51.4

[lovingHDTV]

I just installed and had one issue.

Sage no longer runs, I get a blank screen after all the initialization stuff, then it hangs. The end of the log file looks like:

[Edit: Please include the logs in the bug report, not the forum. Thanks. - Opus4]

The Hang continues till I kill the process. I have filed a bug.

[mkanet]

Does anyone know how to force standard NTSC to "Fill" aspect ratio AND have ATSC as "Source". NTSC video when set to "source" puts an unecessary black bar at the top and bottom of the video squeezing the video vertically. This is on a standard 21" VGA monitor.

[stanger89]

You should be able to use source for both, what resolution are you running?

[sirpuffy]

I have a A180 scheduled to arrive today which I will be trying with the SageTV Beta. I am currently using SageTV V2 with a Hauppauge PVR250 and don't mind experimenting with this PC with the new beta and the HDTV card if things go wrong.

I was wondering if the SageTV 3.0.5 Beta would work with both the PVR250 and the A180 tuners installed (ie can you successfully tune with both of these cards).
Anyone have luck with this configuration?

[mkanet]

Stanger, I can use source for both. The problem is that when I select source for NTSC(hauppauge/external sat tuner svideo), I get a black bar on top and bottom. The correct setting for me for the svideo input is FILL. The correct setting for ATSC is "Source".

[mkanet]

Sirpuffy, I can confirm that I can record/playback both HDTV and NTSC with the Fusion card and Hauppauge. I'm sure you can do this with the A180+PVR250. You just wont be able to have more than one HDTV tuner apparently until the next beta. I get a blue screen crash if I try to record/live tv playback with two HDTV cards.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by mkanet

Stanger, I can use source for both. The problem is that when I select source for NTSC(hauppauge/external sat tuner svideo), I get a black bar on top and bottom. The correct setting for me for the svideo input is FILL. The correct setting for ATSC is "Source".

Thats' what I'm trying to figure out, if you're running a 4:3 resolution, Source should fill the screen with NTSC content. Now if there are bars in the recording it won't fill. And that can be a problem if you're running a 16x9 resolution/screen. In such a case I use 16x9 AR with vertical zoom = ~133%

[mkanet]

Stanger, my desktop res is indeed 4x3 (1920x1440). The black bars on top and bottom are very little, but they are enough to make a difference in the way the video looks. With version 2.2.8, I had the same problem. I had to set the AR to 4:3 or FILL. But since I have more than once source, fill will not work for 16x9 content since 16x9 content is handled correctly already.

[mkanet]

Has anyone been able to get in touch with the developers? I sent them a comprehensive list of reproducable bugs (also mentioned in this forum) but never heard back from them. This concerns me considering that the new TV season is getting closer and closer. There seems to be way too many bugs and missing features for HDTV to have SageTV 3.0 ready for dependable use. Currently, I have time to work with the devlepers one on one, but it looks like from their lack of response they don't need any help. I guess we will see how quickly they are able to get SageTV ready for primetime.

[Opus4]

The Bug Submission Form states, in part:

Please use the Bug Submission form below to submit any bugs you find related to Version 3.0 of SageTV. We will use this information to correct any possible bugs that appear in the new version of SageTV. Please note that we will not be responding to the information on this form.

From past experience with bug submissions, I've noticed that if further information is needed, you may hear from a developer. Otherwise, they go by the information submitted, as stated in the last sentence quoted; it is not ignored. And, a submitted bug may not be fixed in the very next beta version.

- Andy

[aperry]

Originally Posted by lovingHDTV

I just installed and had one issue.
Sage no longer runs...

That's a pretty major issue...

I hope they can get things working for you.

[CPA]

Playback Issues – At the End of My Rope!

Here’s the problem.

• Continuous lag/jitter about every 10 seconds (can really see it on CNN ticker). It is as though the frame freezes for a split second and then has to catch up.

• Some shows/commercials are producing a very quick continuous subtle white flash. (especially non-HD movie channels)

• Other content is causing a sort of “keystone cop” effect, almost like every other frame is being skipped. I can be watching a show that looks fine and then when it switches to commercial the “keystone cop” thing starts, or vice versa.

• Getting some banding on analog channels (Hauppauge) only (looks almost like a white shadow).

• HD recordings look unwatchable (lag/freeze) through sage but perfect through Zoom Player. Accept for some HD movies which are producing a very consistent freeze about every 2 seconds in all players, yet only on the movie material not on the intro (ya know, “this is an HBO feature presentation”, etc.)

• Rewind/Fast Forward is a disaster. Huge freeze ups. It’s quicker just to watch the commercials


I’ve done a lot of reading. Tried the quartz.dll thing; no change. Tried going back to Java 1.4; no change.

Been reading about 3:2 pulldown to convert 24fps film material to 30fps video material to properly display on a 60hz monitor (like what my set top dvd player does). I guess I was under the impression that my PC’s video card should do this. Am I wrong?

Tried smart and automatic settings on the Nvidia decoders; no change. Tried reclock and a warning comes up that says reclock is not compatible with my video board. Then I could not get reclock off my system. So, I did a fresh install of Windows to get rid of reclock and to hopefully take care of some of the above problems. Reclock is gone, the rest of the problems persist.

Is this a refresh rate problem? Should I be looking into Powerstrip? I thought the Nvidia 6600 series removed the necessity for power strip. Should I switch to ffdshow/dscaler? Help!!!!!

Setup:

PC:
MSI Neo4 Platinum
AMD64 3500+
1 GB Patriot RAM
Leadtek 6600GT/beta_driver/dual view (component/VGA out)

SOFTWARE:
Windows MCE 2005
SageTV Beta 3.05
Nvidia DVD Decoders (latest)

MONITOR:
Hitachi 36” 4:3 HDTV fixed 60hz (component/VGA in)

TUNERS:
Hauppauge 500 (latest drivers)
Motorola 6208 by firewire

[mostlyfodder]

with the old beta 3.0.3, my sage recordings had a frame skip or something about every 10 seconds. 3.0.5 has fixed that, but i still have a problem:

some sage recordings don't play. the audio sounds garbled and only the first frame of a recording is shown. this is for stuff i've recorded and played back both within 3.0.5 beta.

it's not a big deal, and if i exit out of the file and reload it, that sometimes works.