DVB Enhancer for SageTV

[soul_stalker]

When adding tuners to the sage properties file the instructions read

The 1111 number should be incremented for each tuner, and should be unique to the sage.properties file. so tuner two should read for example mmc/encoders/1112

Is this in reference to virtual tuners created for use on the same transponder? I have three genpix devices, and as such I set up the dvbe4sage config file for three tuners, but not three "virtual tuners"

NumberOfVirtualTuners=1

DVBS2Tuners=3

Are the directions for adding virtual tuners (same transponder) or actual tuners (individual devices)??

-Cheers

[zamar45]

Could you guys clarify a few things about DVB Enhancer?

- Is there a list of hardware it can support? Does it match SageTV Hardware List?

- Does it have any special Control Modules (Sources) for particular Sat TV Card Tuners?

- Will it support Twinhan 1020a DVB-S card? With what drivers: BDA or WDM type?

- If it doesn't support WDM drivers, can it take video & audio stream from TSReader instead?

- Does it have a GUI to control DiSEqC Switch and Motor? How it turns a motor - only when a new channel is selected? Can I select a particular sat in SageTV instead of a channel to see only its channels in TV Guide and have motor turned to that sat?

[boil42]

After a few days of hardware failure and a long weekend here I WA to work on it, I have finally got it all up and running on an HD Satellite connection. Many thanks to Mpog for his fantastic code and assistance throughout.

I will document my experience produce a customised updated install document for DVBS Satellite if anyone is interested.

[marsh9man]

I would be interested in seeing what worked for you.
TIA

[mtnz]

I've been trying to install DVB Enhancer (svn247), but it always crashes immediately on startup.

Windows (7, x64) gives me an error stating "DVB Enhancer for SageTV UI has stopped working"

If I ask for problem details it displays the following:
Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BEX
Application Name: dvbe4sage.exe
Application Version: 1.1.0.247
Application Timestamp: 4d412fb3
Fault Module Name: encoder.dll
Fault Module Version: 1.1.0.247
Fault Module Timestamp: 4d412fb1
Exception Offset: 000d46f3
Exception Code: c0000417
Exception Data: 00000000
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.1
Locale ID: 5129
Additional Information 1: ff08
Additional Information 2: ff08de95e0cf63cfa15112aea0f658de
Additional Information 3: dcf7
Additional Information 4: dcf75c536499560073f587850e4ccb38


Also, the link to the SkyUK setup guide on the first page is dead.

Finally, assuming I get this working, if anyone can forward me a working setup for Sky NZ it'd be highly appreciated.

Thanks.

[mpogr]

It's impossible to tell anything before you post the log...

[mtnz]

Originally Posted by mpogr

It's impossible to tell anything before you post the log...

If there was a log I'd post it. I get that error immediately. As far as I can tell there's no log file generated anywhere.

EDIT: It looks like I may have just had a corrupted file somewhere. Re-downloading DVBE4Sage fixed this problem.

I'd still like a Sky NZ config file, if anyone has one.

[mtnz]

Well, I can at least start DVBE4Sage now, so I guess that's progress. I don't get much farther than that though. I get the following error almost immediately after starting:

2011-04-03 19:04:06.970 #1: Cannot submit the tune request, error 0x80070006
2011-04-03 19:04:06.970 #1: Error: Could not Build the BDA filter graph
2011-04-03 19:04:07.001 #2: Cannot submit the tune request, error 0x80070006
2011-04-03 19:04:07.001 #2: Error: Could not Build the BDA filter graph

I've attached the full log as well.

I'm trying to set up DVB-S using a Hauppauge HVR-3000. I'd like to get the FTA channels working first. I have it working successfully on SageTV 6.6.2, Windows Media Centre and DVBDream.

I'm pretty sure nothing else is using the tuner at the moment. Any one of those programs can successfully access it, after DVBE4Sage fails to do so.

[mpogr]

Strange... are you sure you've got BDA drivers for your device? Also, what's you OS?

[mtnz]

Originally Posted by mpogr

Strange... are you sure you've got BDA drivers for your device? Also, what's you OS?

Pretty sure I have BDA drivers. I just checked if it'd work in DVB-T mode (set 'SetupType=DVBT') and it did. I had a similar problem setting up SageTV. It wasn't able to see my DVB-S card at all until I modified the preferences file manually.

The HVR-3000 is a hybrid tuner. It has a DVB-S, DVB-T and analog tuner, but is only able to use one at a time. For some reason, some software assumes it's a DVB-T and analog tuner only.

My OS is Windows 7 x64.

EDIT: Not sure why I tried this, but for some reason DVBE4Sage detected the DVB-S tuner when run in Sandboxie. It seems that tuner #1 is DVB-T and #2 is DVB-S. Haven't tested yet whether SageTV can connect to it, but it can definitely discover DVB-S channels. I'm at a complete loss as to why it'd work in Sandboxie but not directly. I imagine it's due to something on my computer, but I have no idea what.

EDIT2: DVB Dream definitely sees my tuners as a BDA device, so that's not the problem. Inside Sandboxie, DVBE4Sage launches successfully once, and detects channels. After that, it crashes on launch unless I delete all files in the sandbox, after which it'll start again. The error seems to be the same as I used to get when I started DVBE4Sage before re-downloading it. I'm not sure what the cause is as I don't know what changes DVBE4Sage makes when it first runs. I've attached the log from a successful run inside Sandboxie.

EDIT3: Deleting 'SbiePst.dat' (Sandboxie's implementation of Windows Protected Storage) from the Sandbox is all that's required to allow DVBE4Sage to run again. It seems that when DVBE4Sage runs successfully it writes something to protected storage that prevents DVBE4Sage from starting again. At this point I'm in well above my depth, so hopefully you can tell me what the problem is.

EDIT4: I'm even more confused now. Deleting SbiePst.dat isn't what fixes the problem. It seems that when I run DVBE4Sage.exe from Sandboxie's history, it crashes. If I manually navigate to the DVBE4Sage folder and run DVBE4Sage.ini, then it runs fine. This seems like a Sandboxie problem though, not anything to do with DVBE4Sage. At this point I'm tempted just to reinstall Windows and hope my phantom problem fixes itself.

EDIT5: I've restored Windows to an image I made when I first installed. Nothing's changed, unfortunately.

[mtnz]

Well, I just tried install Windows 7 x86 instead of x64 to see if that would make any difference. That was a completely clean install as well, just Windows 7 + TV card drivers + DVBE4Sage

The result was the same. It didn't work, with the same error message. When I installed Sandboxie and tried again inside Sandboxie, it did work.

If you have any suggestions as to how to proceed, it'd be greatly appreciated.

[soul_stalker]

Originally Posted by soul_stalker

When adding tuners to the sage properties file the instructions read


Is this in reference to virtual tuners created for use on the same transponder? I have three genpix devices, and as such I set up the dvbe4sage config file for three tuners, but not three "virtual tuners"



Are the directions for adding virtual tuners (same transponder) or actual tuners (individual devices)??

-Cheers

Seriously... nobody? Do mutiple identical tuners on the same provider require mutiple instances of Dvbe4Sage to be concurrently running? Ie three instances for three identical tuners all on the same provider?

edit - Okay I think perhaps I need to enter it as

DVBS2Tuners=1,2,3

Rather than

DVBS2Tuners=3

To specify three actual tuners.... Correct?

[banshee]

I only have one tuner, but yes, you would need to put:
DVBS2Tuners=1,2,3

If you're using Genpix, make sure you are using the driver version with the fix for multiple tuners.

[soul_stalker]

Originally Posted by banshee

I only have one tuner, but yes, you would need to put:
DVBS2Tuners=1,2,3

Thanks... I will give that a shot.

Originally Posted by banshee

If you're using Genpix, make sure you are using the driver version with the fix for multiple tuners.

Do you mean the latest BDA driver? Or is there something I'm not aware of?

[mpogr]

@mtnz,

The last log your posted seems pretty much OK. So I don't quite understand where are you now in terms of reaching a working solution.
Please, clarify.

[mpogr]

@soul_taker

About virtual vs. physical tuners. Virtual tuners are the ones Sage sees. You usually define an equal or greater number of virtual tuners to the number of physical ones you use, e.g., if you have 2 physical tuners, you can define 2 or 3 virtual ones.
The advantage of having 3 virtual tuners is that Sage will be, sometimes, able to record 3 programs simultaneously, despite the fact you have only 2 physical tuners. The disadvantage is that, sometimes, Sage will try to record 3 program simultaneously while all 3 of them are located on different transponders. In this situation, one of the recordings will fail. It's up to you to decide whether you want to take the risk or not.
From practical perspective, the more physical tuners you have, the safer having slightly more virtual ones is. For example, right now I have 4 physical tuners and I defined 5 virtual ones, and I don't think I ever had a problem during the last 3 month. But it all depends on your level of concurrency, the higher it is, the greater is a chance of recording failure. So, eventually, you might need to purchase more tuners.

As for DVBS2Tuners flag, you figured it our correctly. DVB4SAGE cannot decide by itself which DVB-S tuners are S2 capable and which ones are not, so, by default, it assumes a tuner is not S2 capable, unless explicitly specified using this flag. And yes, you can (and must) list all your S2 tuners, comma separated.

[mtnz]

Originally Posted by mpogr

@mtnz,

The last log your posted seems pretty much OK. So I don't quite understand where are you now in terms of reaching a working solution.
Please, clarify.

My problem is that in order to generate that log, I had to run DVBE4Sage in Sandboxie.

If I run DVBE4Sage directly under Windows, I get the following error:

2011-04-03 19:04:07.001 #2: Cannot submit the tune request, error 0x80070006
2011-04-03 19:04:07.001 #2: Error: Could not Build the BDA filter graph

What I'm trying to do is get DVBE4Sage to work natively, without Sandboxie.

[vividweb]

Is there a way to use DVBE4Sage to update select channels EPG info from the satellite? With dvbdream I was injecting some EPG data into the Sage EPG for a few channels that Zap2It does not provide updates on.

[bjkiller]

Originally Posted by vividweb

Is there a way to use DVBE4Sage to update select channels EPG info from the satellite? With dvbdream I was injecting some EPG data into the Sage EPG for a few channels that Zap2It does not provide updates on.

look into, here epg downloader from dvbs...
http://sourceforge.net/projects/dvbe4sage/files/

[ytulpan]

Hi mpogr,

I hope you are adjusting well to life in Australia.

I have been using your software with YES in Israel for a long time, but now I have some problems (I'm using the latest release, 247 with the VGCam option).

1) Up to sometime in February, I could play the *.ts files in VLC or DVBViewer with no problems and even get the DVB subtitles. Since then VLC won't play them at all and DVBViewer won't show the subtitles. This happens for *all* recordings, DVB-S and S2.

I have found a nice piece of software called TSDoctor that cleans up ts streams and rebuilds the tables. And it really works on the problematic recordings making them playable. It logs lots of errors on the stream, most of them look like just packet errors, but I attach the log so that perhaps you can see any systematic problems.

2) I have 2 dual tuner and 2 single tuner cards in my server. For some reason (hardware bugs in the dual tuner cards, and maybe YES changing FEC to 5/6 from 3/4) I cannot receive 2-3 YES transponders with them. I get a huge number of packet errors. I can receive those transponders with the other tuner cards. Is there any way I can tell dvbe4sage not to use a specific tuner with a specific transponder ? I would have solved this by myself with 2 instances of dvbe4sage, but than I have to share the CAM and this is too messy.