H.264 via R5000...working in Beta?

[camTexas]

Anyone get a chance to check .15 and R5000 operation yet? I didn't see in the notes so I'm not to hopefull but you never know.

Also, Kirby... any feedback on the new drivers you've been working with nextcom on?

Thanks, Chad

[Kirby]

No changes here, H.264 from Dish is not working at all. Nothing really to report on updated R5000 version either. Sorry folks.

[jdonovan]

Originally Posted by Kirby

No changes here, H.264 from Dish is not working at all. Nothing really to report on updated R5000 version either. Sorry folks.

Has anyone gotten any info from the sage team that there is a plan to actively support .264 in V6 ? It seems we are quite far into the beta process for new features being added that are as major as H264 playback. I'm beginning to think that H.264 support may not be making the cut for V6. The good news is I'm super happy with coreavc/mediaplayer with the exception of the deinterlacing/volume level.

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by jdonovan

Has anyone gotten any info from the sage team that there is a plan to actively support .264 in V6 ?

I am currenty submitting bug report regarding H.264 support. I have access to two DVB-T broadcast in H.264 HDTV and currently when SageTV try to tune to these two channels : nothing get saved to disk (the TS is written but stays at 0 bytes).

From my first bug report on this all that I know is that the MPEG TS splitter is not yet able to expose a H.264 video pin (it only knows how to expose a MPEG2 one). So that is one of the problem to be resolved to be able to play an already recorded TS stream with H.264 video by using DirectShow (and thus using either Cyberlink or CoreAVC decoder).

Now for acquiring the TS stream in the first place I supposed that it should have work but I was wrong (but was not able to put the beta on my main HTPC before last saturday).

Note: Cyberlink has updated PowerDVD 7 last week and the H.264 is now much more efficient (not necessarily CPU wise, but the decoder is less prone to deinterlace issues with live stream).

Regards,
Stéphane.

[Kirby]

I re-submitted my bug report as well. I have perfect H.264 playback on recorded shows if I use the Elecard MPEG Demultiplexer, which I can then feed the video pin into either Elecard or Cyberlink H264 decoder. WMP10 also works perfect. Its just an issue inside Sage. Mplayer refuses to work well, and so far I havent gotten the dshow player to play these either, however I am thinking about doing a registry hack to force the use of the Elecard filter and see how it does (but am concerned how it will affect other parts of Sage).

[Mark SS]

I exchanged emails with Qian regarding h.264 (and DVB-S2) while testing DVB-S some weeks ago. It is afaik on the todo list.

[toricred]

I just installed Cyberlink PowerDVD7 Deluxe, but I don't see any Video decoders with h.264 in the name. Should I have that decoder with Deluxe?

[Ralphjb]

Well I am just at the starting point with the H.264 stuff and Sage.

I too have the r5000 moded Dish box.

So my question:

Has anyone gotten this to work with mpeg4 files and SageTV?

[jdonovan]

Originally Posted by Ralphjb

Well I am just at the starting point with the H.264 stuff and Sage.

I too have the r5000 moded Dish box.

So my question:

Has anyone gotten this to work with mpeg4 files and SageTV?

Reliably... No. Passable... well it depends on your level of tollerance for rough edges.

If I had to do it over again knowing what I know now... I'd not have gone down this path.

R5000 is a good mod, Sage is a good recorder, but sage still isn't dealing with the R5000's recordings well. I find I watch alot of my HD content via an external player.

[Ralphjb]

Thanks for the post.

What external player do you use?

I have Theatertek, but have not figured out how to get that to work.

Thanks!

[jdonovan]

Originally Posted by Ralphjb

Thanks for the post.

What external player do you use?

I have Theatertek, but have not figured out how to get that to work.

Thanks!

I have used: elecard, media player classic, and a few others. I liked elecard's player for the easy 5/10/30 second skipping, but I liked the core avc codec that MPC can use. elecard has their own H.264 codec and its decent, just not as easy on the CPU as the core avc.

Right now most of my playback is via MPC/Core-avc.

[HawgGuy]

Originally Posted by toricred

I just installed Cyberlink PowerDVD7 Deluxe, but I don't see any Video decoders with h.264 in the name. Should I have that decoder with Deluxe?

No. The H.264/AVC codec won't show up in the list of MPEG-2 decoders, but sage will use it if it is the default (highest merit) codec for h.264 playback.

[HawgGuy]

Originally Posted by Ralphjb

Well I am just at the starting point with the H.264 stuff and Sage.

I too have the r5000 moded Dish box.

So my question:

Has anyone gotten this to work with mpeg4 files and SageTV?

Yes. Approaching excellent after lots of trial and error.

With the NVidia 7600GT I got good h.264 playback in Vista but not XP. With the 8500GT I get good playback in both Vista & XP. Processor use is high (45-50%) and there are occasional glitches.

The r-5000 app does not reliably detect h.264 streams and often a channel must be selected several times. I was given version 2.5r of the program which detects the proper stream 100% of the time.

[Fluffdaddy]

How do I get version 2.5R ?
thx

[HawgGuy]

Originally Posted by Fluffdaddy

How do I get version 2.5R ?
thx

Send email to Nextcomm support explaining your problem:

r5000support@nextcomwireless.com

[Fluffdaddy]

Well do

[Fluffdaddy]

"A new release is available from the downloads area of the support page. Addresses incorrect stream type indications (MPEG-2, 0x0). If a stream fails to be properly identified it is assumed to be MPEG-2 but will logged and notated as 'stream parsing failed'.

Other areas addressed are increased wait time for STB power up (reports of longer than normal power up from some 211 boxes). Stream restarts for PVR events are handled differently; the event cycle is completely re-initiated including power up and channel entry. Fixes incorrect path on PVR restart."


http://www.nextcomwireless.com/r5000...ial%20versions

[HawgGuy]

For straight-up MPEG-2 and h.264 HD recording and playback I am enjoying good success.

I still have problems with, what I call HD-lite for lack of a better term, h.264 programs. These frequently appear on the networks (CBS, NBC, ABC), NFL-HD and ESPN2-HD. These are the 4x3 SD programs converted to HD broadcast. Most of the time these will play for 10-20 minutes and then crap out and crash sagetv.

The windows crash message lists SageTV and cl264dec.ax from Cyberlink, but the files play fine in an external player - so I blame SageTV.

Using the Cyberlink Ultra 7.3 with the latest patches.

[Fluffdaddy]

Originally Posted by HawgGuy

Using the Cyberlink Ultra 7.3 with the latest patches.

With XP or Vista ?

My Hook-up is working so well I hate to touch it, but I know h.264 HD only date is coming with dish.

[HawgGuy]

XP at the moment. I have had similar success with Vista. The video drivers for my card (8500GT) are more mature,functional and stable with XP.

As far as I can tell the MPEG-2 HD is benefiting from hardware acceleration (Cyberlink codec 12-15% CPU, SageTV codec 40-50% CPU), no H.264 acceleration (50+% CPU).