HDTV Firewire Support on The Mac

[karljayne]

I'm seeing this issue too:

SageTV Firewire Network Encoder
Copyright (c) 2007 Hugo Lyppens. All rights reserved.
This software is free for personal use only.
Notification controller DCH-3200
Starting SageTVFirewireNetworkEncoder, listening for commands from SageTV.
Received command: START DCH3200 Digital TV Tuner|668|2415039795268|/Users/Shared/SageTV/TV/KingTutsMysteryTombOpened-194204-0.ts|Great
Notification deviceDCH-3200, message type: 3758096641
Response: Error 'Cannot open file '/Users/Shared/SageTV/TV/KingTutsMysteryTombOpened-194204-0.ts'

Was this determined to be a permissions issue and if so would that have any impact on using directories other than the default one SageTV creates?

On a couple attempts configuing this for local recording I didn't get a "Response: Error 'Cannot open file…" but the ts file never grows beyond zero k. It looks like system is the only one set with write permission on the ts files.

Suggestions?

[guho]

Did you redownload the firewire network encoder recently? I thought I fixed this problem.

Originally Posted by karljayne

I'm seeing this issue too:

SageTV Firewire Network Encoder
Copyright (c) 2007 Hugo Lyppens. All rights reserved.
This software is free for personal use only.
Notification controller DCH-3200
Starting SageTVFirewireNetworkEncoder, listening for commands from SageTV.
Received command: START DCH3200 Digital TV Tuner|668|2415039795268|/Users/Shared/SageTV/TV/KingTutsMysteryTombOpened-194204-0.ts|Great
Notification deviceDCH-3200, message type: 3758096641
Response: Error 'Cannot open file '/Users/Shared/SageTV/TV/KingTutsMysteryTombOpened-194204-0.ts'

Was this determined to be a permissions issue and if so would that have any impact on using directories other than the default one SageTV creates?

On a couple attempts configuing this for local recording I didn't get a "Response: Error 'Cannot open file…" but the ts file never grows beyond zero k. It looks like system is the only one set with write permission on the ts files.

Suggestions?

[karljayne]

I believe I have the latest version, I downloaded it again yesterday. I suppose it's possible I don't have the latest version somehow. I went ahead and downloaded it again, same issue.

I tried recording to a different directory, same issue, the .ts file is created, yet never grows past zero k.

The folder permissions are:


The ts file permissions are:


Unless there is some issue with the encoder not having permission to write to the .ts file, the only other thing I can think of is somehow SageTV and the encoder are not "looking" in the same directory.

I have had success encoding to a PC, unfortunately the PC chokes on HD stuff. Back to the Mac, AVCVideoCap can capture from the device. SageTVFirewireNetworkEncoder has no trouble changing the channels on the DCH-3200.

Thanks in advance for your help. This network encoder is simply awesome.

[karljayne]

For kicks I messed around with directoryprefixmap and I get an entirely differnent message when the SageTVFirewireNetworkEncoder doesn't see the ts file.

Performing stat:/localhost/Volumes/Jellyfish2/JellyfishTV/TheNewsHourWithJimLehrer-276182-0.ts
Response: Error 'Error stat /localhost/Volumes/Jellyfish2/JellyfishTV/TheNewsHourWithJimLehrer-276182-0.ts'


I also tried absolute UNIX paths and was back to the zero k file issue:

SageTV Firewire Network Encoder
Copyright (c) 2007 Hugo Lyppens. All rights reserved.
This software is free for personal use only.
Notification controller DCH-3200
Starting SageTVFirewireNetworkEncoder, listening for commands from SageTV.
Received command: START DCH3200 Digital TV Tuner|109|2415236458176|/Volumes/Jellyfish2/JellyfishTV/TheNewsHourWithJimLehrer-276182-0.ts|Great
Response: Error 'Cannot open file '/Volumes/Jellyfish2/JellyfishTV/TheNewsHourWithJimLehrer-276182-0.ts''

Performing stat:/Volumes/Jellyfish2/JellyfishTV/TheNewsHourWithJimLehrer-276182-0.ts
…
Performing stat:/Volumes/Jellyfish2/JellyfishTV/TheNewsHourWithJimLehrer-276182-0.ts
Received command: STOP
Response: Error 'Not Recording'

[guho]

What is your umask setting? What user does the encoder run as?

I'm opening the file with

_fileDesc = open( fileName_.c_str(), O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_TRUNC, S_IRUSR|S_IWUSR|S_IRGRP|S_IWGRP|S_IROTH|S_IWOTH );

The latter argument should evaluate to 0666. I have no clue what's wrong with this and why the permissions would be nonwritable to anybody other than 'system'.

Reference: http://developer.apple.com/documenta...n2/open.2.html.

Please tell me where I am going wrong.

[karljayne]

I'm using the default umask of 022, I haven't customized this at all. I have the encoder running at login from the same user account as SageTV. Do I need to declare it to run as a specific user?

The more I'm looking into this the more it appears to OS related.

Apparently Leopard default file setting work a little differently than in Tiger. In Leopard User Private Groups are depreciated and all users are members of the Staff group with files set to r-- by default.

I'm wondering if the SageTV service and encoder are running as the same user

For now, I'm back to encoding to a PC, which works great.

[paulmlawrence]

Hey guys,

i just moved and my new cablebox from Cablevision is a SA4200HD.

I followed the instructions that Diginerd posted on getting SageTV and firewire working and am having no luck.

When i get the encoder running it sees my cable box. I've inputed the mmc lines into my sage.properties file, but when i launch SageTV it doesn't find any video sources.

I tried this on a MacBook Pro running Leopard and on a PowerBook 12" running Leopard and no dice. The OS on the powerbook seemed to respond better to the coding. For instance when i input ./MacOS/SageTVFirewireNetworkEncoder –list on the MacBook Pro all it does is start the encoder. When i input that entry on the PowerBook it displays my CableBox info showing me what device and what ID it's on.

I'm wondering if my issues are more related to Leopard than anything else? Is it worth downgrading to Tiger to try or is there some additional stuff i have to do in Leopard to make this work.

Thanks!

Paul

[karljayne]

I was reading a little about file permissions and umask, it appears you are setting the permissions correctly and the OS is changing permissions with umask.

"By default, and with a umask of 000, files get mode 666 and directories get mode 777. As a result, with a default umask value of 022, newly created files get a default mode 644 (666 - 022 = 644) and directories get a default mode 755 (777 - 022 = 755)."

I'm not sure if there's a work around and setting umask to 000 is not a good thing appearantly.

I did notice that you have a O_TRUNC decalration, would that explain the zero file size? Or does that only truncate to 0 when initially opened/created?

[paulmlawrence]

So i wiped out my 12" powerbook and installed a clean version of tiger. ran all the updates.

I then followed diginerd's instructions to the letter and i'm still having no results. when i run the encoder it sees my cable box, but SageTV Server does not see any input device.

I'm attaching my properties and config files to see if i'm missing something.

Any ideas??

[guho]

In my opinion it is not worth it to downgrade to Tiger when using SageTV server on a PC. I run Leopard for the firewire encoder (writing to a PC) and it works fine. People are reporting file permission issues when encoding to a mac on Leopard.

Originally Posted by paulmlawrence

Hey guys,

i just moved and my new cablebox from Cablevision is a SA4200HD.

I followed the instructions that Diginerd posted on getting SageTV and firewire working and am having no luck.

When i get the encoder running it sees my cable box. I've inputed the mmc lines into my sage.properties file, but when i launch SageTV it doesn't find any video sources.

I tried this on a MacBook Pro running Leopard and on a PowerBook 12" running Leopard and no dice. The OS on the powerbook seemed to respond better to the coding. For instance when i input ./MacOS/SageTVFirewireNetworkEncoder –list on the MacBook Pro all it does is start the encoder. When i input that entry on the PowerBook it displays my CableBox info showing me what device and what ID it's on.

I'm wondering if my issues are more related to Leopard than anything else? Is it worth downgrading to Tiger to try or is there some additional stuff i have to do in Leopard to make this work.

Thanks!

Paul

[guho]

Could you try setting umask to 0 and encoding to the mac and letting us know whether it works?

Also I'm curious if AVCVideoCap also has the permissions problem. It uses fopen() to create the file.

O_TRUNC just truncates the file if it were to exist already.

Originally Posted by karljayne

I was reading a little about file permissions and umask, it appears you are setting the permissions correctly and the OS is changing permissions with umask.

"By default, and with a umask of 000, files get mode 666 and directories get mode 777. As a result, with a default umask value of 022, newly created files get a default mode 644 (666 - 022 = 644) and directories get a default mode 755 (777 - 022 = 755)."

I'm not sure if there's a work around and setting umask to 000 is not a good thing appearantly.

I did notice that you have a O_TRUNC decalration, would that explain the zero file size? Or does that only truncate to 0 when initially opened/created?

[karljayne]

I set umask to 0 in umask launchd.conf and the encorder started working locally (rw-rw-rw-). When i changed umask to 002 I was back to the zero k file issue. For security and stability reasons I'm back to 022.

Intersting thing, AVCVideoCap is writing files (rw-r--r--), but now I'm not able to view them. They will start with a little sound, but no video plays back. Something else must be going on, it was working just a few days ago.

One thing I did notice is that AVCVideoCap is writing to group Staff and the encoder ts file is group Wheel.

[guho]

Just edit the .command file that comes with the encoder to include a line at the top:

umask 0

then it will just be for the encoder process, and you do not have to worry about security and stability for other cases.

Everyone: this is the workaround then for using the encoder for local encoding onto the Macintosh file system as opposed to onto a mounted Windows file system. I just uploaded a new zip file that has this umask command in the command file.

I went into a shell, just creating some files both under /Users/Shared/SageTV/... and my own home directory and did notice differences in the permissions. It must be driven by both umask setting and folder settings/ownership. I hope a Mac OS expert can shed some light on the wheel vs. staff group issue for instance.

Originally Posted by karljayne

I set umask to 0 in umask launchd.conf and the encorder started working locally (rw-rw-rw-). When i changed umask to 002 I was back to the zero k file issue. For security and stability reasons I'm back to 022.

Intersting thing, AVCVideoCap is writing files (rw-r--r--), but now I'm not able to view them. They will start with a little sound, but no video plays back. Something else must be going on, it was working just a few days ago.

One thing I did notice is that AVCVideoCap is writing to group Staff and the encoder ts file is group Wheel.

[karljayne]

No luck with your update on Leopard, still getting zero k files. Going to downgrade that machine to Tiger tonight and see if i can get this working.

Side note: I don't think Leopard supports per-user umask, and instead uses ACLs for file permissions.

[paulmlawrence]

Ok, So i finally got SageTV to recognize the CableBox as an input. Everything seems to be working except for the previously mentioned in the above posts.

getting the zero size files as well.

I added the umask line to the command file and I'm still getting the errors.

My machine is on 10.4.8 so far. might further update to 10.4.11 and see if issues get resolved.

any ideas?

[guho]

On my Mac there is no ACL on /Users/Shared/SageTV nor on /Users/Shared/SageTV/TV as evidenced by 'ls -le'. On my Leopard mac, I own directory /Users/Shared/SageTV but the group is shown as 'wheel'. All my other files in my home directory have group 'staff'. I am not even a member of group 'wheel'. I am confused by the whole deal.

I bet that if you were to put in a directoryprefixmap (case sensitive!) in the config file, such that instead of writing to this directory it wrote recordings to your home directory, you would not be getting 0-length files. Of course this is just an experiment, since you want the recordings written to this directory otherwise SageTV can't play them. But it could prove the problem is specific to this directory and could be fixed by changing some permission setting somewhere in the folder hierarchy.

Originally Posted by karljayne

No luck with your update on Leopard, still getting zero k files. Going to downgrade that machine to Tiger tonight and see if i can get this working.

Side note: I don't think Leopard supports per-user umask, and instead uses ACLs for file permissions.

[karljayne]

So i messed around with directoryprefixmap, including subsituting \ for / amoung other things until i had an interesting thing happen.

When I set directoryprefixmap to "/Users/Shared/SageTV/TV|/" and in SageTV the recording directory is "/Users/Shared/SageTV/TV", 2 files are created. A zero K one in the TV directory and another file with full RW permissions in the /root that is recording. I'm not sure what this means as I still can't view the recording. Maybe someone who understands all this stuff better than I do will have some insight. If I set directoryprefixmap to "/|/" and SageTV's recording directory to "/" I'm back to zero k files.

I'll add that I'm still encoding to an XP box with no problems, so thanks again for this encoder!

[guho]

Thank you for your in-depth research. It's helping me as I do not have this kind of setup; my SageTV server is on a PC. This is advisable anyway as SageTV LLC does not support the Mac very well, the current Mac OS version is a bit atrocious and no new beta seems to be forthcoming.

If you can swing the $150 for a basic headless PC to use as the server I would recommend it.

Back to this: I almost guarantee that SageTV Mac is doing it. It is somehow interfering with or overwriting the file written by the encoder. Would it be possible for you to run SageTV and the encoder as different users? And use the directoryprefixmap you used to map to /? Then the file in the TV directory should be owned by SageTV's user, whereas the file in / should be owned by whatever user the encoder runs as.

If this is confirmed could you file a support request and ask for a workaround or perhaps a Sage config file setting that makes SageTV not do this.

[bcjenkins]

Narflex has mentioned there is a new version in private testing. You might also apply to be a private tester if inclined.

B

[karljayne]

To get this working on the local machine I had to open up some permissions. I might have gone overboard with permissions but here's what I did to get this working on Leopard:

Tell SageTV where you want to save shows in Setup>Detailed Setup>General>Video Recording Directories

Next, open up terminal and become the super user: sudo bash
at the # prompt open up permissions for the directory you created with this:
chmod +a "everyone allow write,append,writeattr,writeextattr,file_inherit,directory_inherit" /Users/Shared
and change the /Users/Shared to the path of your new folder. For example, /Volumes/MyHardDriveName/MySageTVFolderName

Next I had to open up some permissions for my user, to do that I downloaded Sandbox. In Sandbox I created a new access control entry that enabled my account full read and write permissions for that directory.

This approach is simillar to the umask 0 approach and is not very secure. I'll probably go back and see what permissions need to be enabled to get this working.

Note: the recent SageTV 6.4.0b did not resolve zero k file issue, but did work with the steps above.