DVBViewer Recorder: Network encoder

[owilsky]

Hi Stéphane,

I edited my post, but you were too fast for me ;-)

I found your post in the other thread (XMLTV importer). I edited the permissions for C:\ProgramData\LM Gestion\DVBViewer Recorder and it worked.

Thanks!!!

[waltraud]

Hi,

I hope someone can help me because I am having a hard time trying to get DBViever Recorder working.

I t seems like the recordings are created in the wrong directoy.

I setup everything according to the instructions on Stephane's web page. For debugging I am currently running in standalone mode and also display video in DVBViewer.

SageTV is seeing the Network encoder and when I switch channels in Sage I can see the correct channel in DVBViewer but no output in Sage.

I get the following errors in the monitor log.

Standalone - 14:53:51.080 - Verbose - DVBViewer1  - START DVBViewer1  Digital TV Tuner|1|2549065662174|F:\shows\159_1_0522_1453-0.ts|DVD Standard Play
Standalone - 14:54:21.362 - Warning - DVBViewer1  - Recording 'F:\shows\159_1_0522_1453-0.ts' could not start, check that DVBViewer is creating the recording in the right directory, or has enough permissions to do so.
Standalone - 14:54:21.421 - Verbose - DVBViewer1  - current recording = 'F:\shows\159_1_0522_1453-0.ts'
Standalone - 14:54:21.457 - Verbose - DVBViewer1  - 'H:\shows\159_1_0522_1453-0' is the current recording, stopping...

If i get this correctly then the recorder is trying to start a recording in F:\shows but is actually recording one H:\shows and SageTV cant start playback because its trying to access F\:shows.

I running Sage 7 Beta and DBViewer 4.2.1


Edit: I added the Sage recording directories to DBViwer manually and also edited the setup.xml file to add the slashes but it didnt help

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by waltraud

It seems like the recordings are created in the wrong directoy.

Yes, it seems to be the case.

Make sure you are using the latest version of the DVBViewer Recorder (2.5 actually)

Edit: I added the Sage recording directories to DBViwer manually and also edited the setup.xml file to add the slashes but it didnt help

It tested DVBViewer Recorder on SageTV V7 and it works.

Go to the DVBViewer Settings, and make sure you remove all path but the SageTV recording directory and let me know (it seems that the with SageTV V7 the recorder fail to select the right recording directory, I'll investigate the issue)

Regards,
Stéphane.

[waltraud]

Hi Stephane,

thanks for the quick reply.

I removed V7 und installed 6.62 but the results are the same.

PS: I only have my SageTV recording directories in DVBViewer. There are 4. E:\shows, f:\shows, g:\shows and h:\shows. Also check the version of Recorder. its 2.5.

[waltraud]

I switch to an earlier version of DVBViwer. I think 3.94. And now its working. Still on Sage 6.62. I will do a proper setup with XMLTV, EGP etc and test again.

[waltraud]

I'm back

I got everything up and running now. Still using Sage 6.62 but now I have a new problem.

Some of the channels take very long to tune. Maybe a minute or two.
Switching to those channels in DVBViewer is much faster.

Is there something I can do about it?

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by waltraud

Some of the channels take very long to tune. Maybe a minute or two. Switching to those channels in DVBViewer is much faster. Is there something I can do about it?

Well, sometimes SageTV can take a long time before playing back live recordings, eventhoug the recording has started in a few seconds.

You should update the SageTV demux (the "Native 10" pack you'll find in the beta forum) and also make sure that in DVBViewer you have selected the option "Adjust PAT/PMT" in the Settings / Options / Recorder.

Also DVBViewer Recorder restart a recording when it has not started within the restart delay (you can set a restart delay for each recorder). So if you choose a very short restart delay : DVBViewer Recorder may restart your recording too early because there is an incompressible time needed for starting a recording.

For instance if a recording takes 10 sec to start, and you set a restart delay value of 5 => DVBViewer Recorder will restart the recording endlessely (in this case a value of 15 sec for the restart delay is needed)

Regards,
Stéphane.

[waltraud]

The restart time is set to 0 seconds. Must be the default because I haven't change it. I guess this means disabled, right?

I also update to v7 which I think already includes the native recording patches.

I'll check the DVBviewer settings later.

Thanks again for the help and the great software!

[waltraud]

Setting "Adjust PAT/PMT" in DVBviwer seems to have done the trick. Switching channels is much faster now.

[real_per]

I've been trying to get this to work in sage for a long time now, but I just can't. I read this entire thread, and tried setting everything up as it should be, and also error tested the best i can..

Standalone - 13:56:32.827 - Verbose - NewRecorder - BUFFER = ERROR Not supported
Standalone - 13:56:33.030 - Verbose - NewRecorder - STOP
Standalone - 13:56:33.030 - Verbose - Current recording file is the one SageTV think is going on
Standalone - 13:56:33.045 - Warning - NewRecorder - Not currently recording, nothing to stop
Standalone - 13:56:33.061 - Verbose - NewRecorder - STOP = ERROR
Standalone - 13:56:40.764 - Verbose - NewRecorder - BUFFER = ERROR Not supported
Standalone - 13:56:53.436 - Verbose - NewRecorder - STOP
Standalone - 13:56:53.452 - Verbose - Current recording file is the one SageTV think is going on
Standalone - 13:56:53.452 - Warning - NewRecorder - Not currently recording, nothing to stop
Standalone - 13:56:53.467 - Verbose - NewRecorder - STOP = ERROR

Standalone - 14:49:49.858 - Verbose - NewRecorder - START NewRecorder Digital TV Tuner|3|2552002779600|F:\Recordings\10_3_0608_1449-0.mpg|Great
Standalone - 14:50:22.342 - Warning - NewRecorder - Recording 'F:\Recordings\10_3_0608_1449-0.mpg' could not start, check that DVBViewer is creating the recording in the right directory, or has enough permissions to do so.
Standalone - 14:50:22.374 - Verbose - NewRecorder - current recording = 'F:\Recordings\10_3_0608_1449-0.mpg'
Standalone - 14:50:22.405 - Verbose - NewRecorder - 'F:\Recordings\NCIS' is the current recording, stopping...
Standalone - 14:50:22.936 - Info - NewRecorder - Recording stopped: F:\Recordings\10_3_0608_1449-0.mpg
Standalone - 14:50:22.983 - Verbose - NewRecorder - START = ERROR
Standalone - 14:50:23.014 - Verbose - NewRecorder - GET_FILE_SIZE F:\Recordings\10_3_0608_1449-0.mpg = 0
Standalone - 14:50:52.999 - Verbose - NewRecorder - STOP
Standalone - 14:50:53.030 - Verbose - Current recording file is not the one SageTV think is going on
Standalone - 14:50:53.061 - Warning - NewRecorder - Not currently recording, nothing to stop
Standalone - 14:50:53.108 - Verbose - NewRecorder - STOP = ERROR

To me it seems like Sagetv (or DVBviewer Recorder ?) isn't getting the filename it's expecting ie. " F:\Recordings\10_3_0608_1449-0.mpg "

Instead DVBviewer is recording the file as " F:\Recordings\NCIS " , which DVBviewer really is, since I can see the file increasing in size in F:\Recordings\ and I can also watch the recording afterwards in VLC.

I've tried getting DVBviewer to name the files in all sorts of different ways, but I'm still stuck.

Any help would be MUCH appreciated, since I feel I'm sooo close to getting DVB-C to work in Sage!

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by real_per

To me it seems like Sagetv (or DVBviewer Recorder ?) isn't getting the filename it's expecting ie. " F:\Recordings\10_3_0608_1449-0.mpg "

That's the file name requested by SageTV. When DVBViewer Recorder receive it, it will:

1) Switch DVBViewer to record in PS mode (because of .mpg). DVBViewer will only record mpg if the channel is a MPEG2 channel. That's why it's best to choose TS as the recording format

2) Change the naming scheme in DVBViewer (otherwise DVBViewer use the EPG to name the recording)

3) Add the SageTV folder directory to DVBViewer recording folders (otherwise the file will be saved in another place)

4) Creates a timer in DVBViewer with the description being equal to the filename (10_3_0608_1449-0 in this case) and with the recording folder index equals to the SageTV recording directory previously created

Instead DVBviewer is recording the file as " F:\Recordings\NCIS " , which DVBviewer really is, since I can see the file increasing in size in F:\Recordings\ and I can also watch the recording afterwards in VLC.

It seems weird that the recording doesn't have an extension at all... Are you sure it is not a .TS file?

I've tried getting DVBviewer to name the files in all sorts of different ways, but I'm still stuck.

Usually the recorder does it all for you, but you can do a quick check:

In DVBViewer / Settings / Options / Recorder :

* Make sure the SageTV recording folder is in the list (if you only use DVBViewer to record in this directory, remove all other to be safe)

* Make sure the Output format is TS (change it in the recorder also and add it again to SageTV)

* Make sure all Format options are checked (Teletext, DVB Subs, All Audiotracks, Adjust PAT/PMT)

In DVBViewer / Setting / Options / Recordings :

* Make sure that the file naming scheme is "%event" (without the quotes)

Also, be sure to use the latest version of both DVBViewer and DVBViewer Recorder.

Regards,
Stéphane.

[bjkiller]

Hello StephaneM,

Could you please provide format of isub and if possible source code (with GPL license) that filter and extract dvbs subtitles into isub file?

i think it's nice idea to integrate this into GPLed dvbe4sage.

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by bjkiller

Could you please provide format of isub and if possible source code (with GPL license) that filter and extract dvbs subtitles into isub file?

The file format is quite simple, it is a text file (ASCII) containing the images to be displayed as well as when and where.

Each line of the file is one epoch (that is a whole screen state). A line start with the time of the epoch in milliseconds followed by a "|" (without quotes) and immediately after image data with its position like:

left,top,width,height,IMAGEDATA;left,top,width,height,IMAGEDATA....

IMAGEDATA = base 64 encoded bytes of a PNG graphic.

The format may change at anytime though.

However, I cannot forward source code for this. Basically I wrote my own demuxer in C#, the demuxer is heavily object based with self signalling objects.

i think it's nice idea to integrate this into GPLed dvbe4sage.

I guess DVBE4Sage will have to write it's own C++ decoder for decoding the subtitles.

Otherwise, I'm currently busy writing a new DVB-T/S/C SageTV Recorder (because I'm tired of the way DVBViewer is working for me). If all is right it will be ready in a couple of weeks. It will come with nice features such as : double buffering of TS packets, asynchronous disk writing, reduced fragmentation on recorded files, no lost video content on show boundaries or back to back recordings....

Regards,
Stéphane.

[iammike]

I've been trying to switch over from the MyTheatre encoder to DVBViewer. It's working okay, but I'm having issues with HD channels. The sound is about a second or so out of sync with the video. SD channels don't have any issue, they work fine. I've also had some stability issues when flipping between HD channels. Is there a trick to getting HD working? My source is CBand through a Technotrend card using a GBox to move the dish.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

[owilsky]

Originally Posted by StephaneM

Otherwise, I'm currently busy writing a new DVB-T/S/C SageTV Recorder (because I'm tired of the way DVBViewer is working for me). If all is right it will be ready in a couple of weeks. It will come with nice features such as : double buffering of TS packets, asynchronous disk writing, reduced fragmentation on recorded files, no lost video content on show boundaries or back to back recordings....

Wohoo... count me in for testing!
One question for this new recorder:
I sometimes record two episodes of the Simpsons which are aired back-to-back.
The end of the first episode is not exactly at the end of the first file, so you either have to watch the first minutes of the second file (no problem) or worse, you have to keep the first file which is marked "watched" if you later want to watch the second episode because the beginning of the second episode is at the end of the first file.

Question:
Would it be technically possible to copy a fraction of the airing (configurable, maybe 5 minutes) to both files while recording?

Regards,
Oliver

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by iammike

It's working okay, but I'm having issues with HD channels. The sound is about a second or so out of sync with the video. SD channels don't have any issue, they work fine.

First make sure that in DVBViewer / Settings / Options / Recordings, you selected Adust PAT / PMT (this will get rid of unneeded informations in the stream that sometimes confuse SageTV)

Though, I think this is a codec issue. What are you using as your H264 decoder (Cyberlink / Core AVC / FFDshow?)

I've also had some stability issues when flipping between HD channels. Is there a trick to getting HD working?

What is the stability issue exactly?

Regards,
Stéphane.

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by owilsky

Would it be technically possible to copy a fraction of the airing (configurable, maybe 5 minutes) to both files while recording?

Not within the recorder (the recorder will probably buffer 5 to 10 sec. I'm not sure yet because during the 5-10 sec. after a recording, the tuner will be locked and can only be re-used for channels on same transponder, this could be an issue with users having only one tuner)

Though, if you want to do this on a tuner that don't use a CAM, you may very well be able to do that with DVBViewer Recorder. You can create with DVBViewer Recorder more recorder than physical tuners. Though for this to work correctly totally depends on the number of tuners you have, the layout of the channels and the number of recordings you make at the same time.

With extraneous recorders, you can very well use SageTV padding for your recordings and don't use the "remove padding on back to back recordings". This way when SageTV record back to back show, SageTV will use two recorders during the 5 padding minutes at the end of the firt show : the original recorder for the 1st show (until it ends) and another one to record the second show (and in DVBViewer only one tuner should be used during the whole time)

With the new recorder it will be the same thing with added benefits : for each recorder you'll be able to choose what tuners to use or not. And whenever a recording start : it will get back buffered content if the tuner was busy during the last 5 sec (but as of right now: I discard this content, because I think it will be strange during live tv, to have a 2 sec repetition of the last scene before switching to the next show, so I only keep the content that was not previously saved in the last file.)

Regards,
Stéphane.

Regards,
Stéphane.

[owilsky]

Thanks for your explanations. Unfortunately I only have one physical receiver. Maybe I should buy another one ;-)

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by owilsky

Thanks for your explanations. Unfortunately I only have one physical receiver. Maybe I should buy another one ;-)

Well it depends...(it would be better), are you using a CAM on you TT card? Because this will be the main issue: with a CAM usually you can only decrypt one channel at a time (either because the CAM API doesn't support it, or because your provider card is not allowing multiple decryption). With a SoftCAM, I beleive multiple decryption is not an issue (if allowed by the provider card : some card can be blocked when decrypting more than one channel => this is for fighting card sharing)

So allowing the use of a virutal tuner in SageTV really depends on hardware capability / channel layout / viewing habits.

For instance, I have three tuner cards : two without a CAM, and one with a CAM. On the two tuners without CAM 90% of recorded programs are done on the same transponder => I could easily then add 4 recorders for those two cards.

For the tuner with the CAM : 100% of my recordings are done on the same transponder => I could add unlimited recorders for this card IF and ONLY IF the CI + CAM + provider card is able to decrypt more than one channel (I don't even know this myself, never tried)

Regards,
Stéphane.

[iammike]

Originally Posted by StephaneM

First make sure that in DVBViewer / Settings / Options / Recordings, you selected Adust PAT / PMT (this will get rid of unneeded informations in the stream that sometimes confuse SageTV)

Though, I think this is a codec issue. What are you using as your H264 decoder (Cyberlink / Core AVC / FFDshow?)

What is the stability issue exactly?

Regards,
Stéphane.

Hi Stephane,

Thanks for getting back to me. I'm actually using HD-200 extenders for playback. The stability problem I'm seeing is primarily when I change channels. If I'm watching one HD channel and change to another, Sage will just sit and hang with the green progress bar. I've been able to change channels once or twice successfully, but for the most part it won't work. I have to turn off the extender and turn it back on, but then when I try again Sage says the encoder isn't working. At that point, I have to go back to the server and reset the encoder. One time yesterday, it wouldn't reset and I couldn't even end the process. I had to reboot the server to get it to work again.

I was able to get one HD channel to work with proper sound last night, but when I tried to tune another one in this morning Sage said the encoder wasn't up again. I had to go to work at that point so I haven't been able to play with it since. So far my HD content has all been from the same transponder on the same satellite. I'm going to program in a few additional sats this weekend and see if I have better luck.

The weird thing is that this transponder and sat works fine in MyTheatre using the MT encoder with Sage. The MT encoder also gets flagged by my virus scan as containing a trojan and doesn't work with Sage 7. Right now I've rolled back to Sage 6 though. I want to get DVBViewer working so I can upgrade.

Mike