Problems with UNE

[JeffAlso]

Hey all.

I'm having problems getting the UNE working properly. I've installed meistb and am able to watch live HDTV using VLC, and can record a to a .TS with CapDVHS and watch it with VLC.

I can also watch live HDTV and record to a .mpg using graphedit, using the filter graphs provided in the 'How to set up Sage to record from a firewire port on a Set Top Box rev 4-25-05.pdf' found in these forums. The recorded mpg files play fine in WMP.

I've followed the instructions in the PDF, including adding the UNE to the sage.properties file, but just cant seem to get it working. Heres what keeps happening:

In the setup video sources wizard, SGR on localhost:6969 shows up as available. When selected, I'm given 1394 as the only device input available, so I select it. "Loading preview, please wait" is displayed. I see activity in the UNC debug window, but never get a preview. A file is created in the recording directory named "SGRonlocalhost69691394-0.mpgbuf", but it is 0 bytes in length.

Heres a snip from the debug window:

VERSION 7:38:09 PM
BUFFER SGR 1394|65|16777216|C:\Recordings\SGRonlocalhost69691394-0.mpgbuf|DVD Standard Play 7:38:09 PM
BUFFER SGR 1394|65|16777216|C:\Recordings\SGRonlocalhost69691394-0.mpgbuf|DVD Standard Play 7:38:25 PM
GET_FILE_SIZE C:\Recordings\SGRonlocalhost69691394-0.mpgbuf 7:38:40 PM
GET_FILE_SIZE C:\Recordings\SGRonlocalhost69691394-0.mpgbuf 7:38:40 PM
GET_FILE_SIZE C:\Recordings\SGRonlocalhost69691394-0.mpgbuf 7:38:40 PM
<continues firing GET_FILE_SIZE until shutdown>

If I select 1394 at the bottom, I'm taken to the audio input selection window, where my only option is "SigmaTel C-Major Audio". This is the built in sound card. If I select this I'm able to finsh the setup wizard.

At this point, if I watch live TV from within Sage, the screen is black for around 30 secs, and then the HDTV video comes up, delayed about 30 secs, and has no audio. After a short period of time (15 secs or so), the video freezes. At this point SGraphRecorder is consuming 99% of the CPU. An mpg file is created in the recordings directory (with the name of the show being watched), that plays fine (audio and video) from WMP.

I cant for the life of me figure out whats going on. I've read over everything I can find, but nothing I try seems to make any difference. All software installed is the most recent available.

Please help!!!

[Bohica]

Hey -- I would first look to your audio and video decoders in sage. The audio decoder can have quite an effect on decoding the file in sage -- for instance I have one installed that will -- if the active decoder for mpeg playback - give me a spinning sage icon for 30 seconds and then completly crash sage. Have you tried the ac3 audio decoder? Have you tried selecting the manually selecting the Sage MPEG decoder? This is done in the mpeg2 audio decoder section...

Also -- dont test on live tv. Record something in high def and test in playback only mode first. It is quite taxing on the system to use SGR on live tv, and playback at the same time on the same system. Dont get me wrong -- you should do this but just for troubleshooting start with something recorded.

[JeffAlso]

Thanks for the advice, unfortunately I havent been able to make much progress.

I uninstalled and reinstalled Sage 4.0, and used a different source for the UNE stuff to enter into sage.properties. The video acted the exact same way it did before, but this time it didnt prompt me for an audio input (the only option it provided before was motherboard audio, and isnt used for anything).

I'm currently using the Cyberlink video and AC3Filter audio decoders for both multimedia and DVD. Heres the fun part:

I decided to take your advice and verify that Sage is able to play various kinds of recorded content, and deal with live viewing once thats all working.

DVDs and AVI files (Xvid and DivX) play flawlessly in Sage, all with AC3 audio.

The problem seems to be MPEGs with AC3 audio in Sage. The audio doesn't play. MPEGs with MP2 audio seem to play fine. All play fine in WMP.

So, heres my next question - why is it that AVIs with AC3 audio play fine, while MPEGs dont?? Why is it that DVDs play fine (which are MPEG2), but MPG files dont??

I'm hoping that once this problem is fixed, that playback of live TV will work fine, and that SGraphRecorder wont suck up all processing cycles.

NOTE - when SGraphRecorder eats up all my processing cycles, it will continue to do so until it is manually exited. Even after exiting Sage, its eating up 99%.

Thanx again for your help

EDIT - if I build a filter graph for playing one of the MPEGs that dosnt work in Sage, using the same filters Sage is using, it plays perfectly in GraphEdit. ??!!??

[JeffAlso]

Worked around the problem. Seems I'm not the only one having it either:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14519

All I did was change my filter graph to dump the TS directly to file (oddly with an MPG extension). Both audio and video work fine.

It appears that Sage 4.0 is having problems with AC3 audio for MPEG2 files. Lets hope they release a fix soon, since people likely have some ofg these lying around yet.