DVB Enhancer for SageTV

[bjkiller]

Originally Posted by elyl

What's the processor usage like decoding 2 or more NDS streams?
Anyone used emubox MDAPI with it yet?

on old dual core machine 1.8Ghz, I did test with 27 channels (4 from them HD) from 3 transponders.

something like 35-40% cpu load.

[elyl]

Not bad at all. I'm planning on rebuilding the HTPC soon, so will give this a whirl instead of my 2 Diablo wifi CAMs (which can be quite flaky).

One question, how would it deal with this situation in Sage:

Attempt to record 3 programs at the one time, with 2 physical tuners, but with the programs on 3 separate transponders.
Would Sage inform you on a conflict, or just fail?

Also, I'm not 100% sure how it deals with channel tuning. I know it uses SID, but how to I edit the channels I want, and remove the ones I don't? And how would I use Stephane's XMLTV importer without a .frq file?

[bjkiller]

Originally Posted by elyl

One question, how would it deal with this situation in Sage:

Attempt to record 3 programs at the one time, with 2 physical tuners, but with the programs on 3 separate transponders.
Would Sage inform you on a conflict, or just fail?

Also, I'm not 100% sure how it deals with channel tuning. I know it uses SID, but how to I edit the channels I want, and remove the ones I don't? And how would I use Stephane's XMLTV importer without a .frq file?

There a problematic situation. i beliave it's just fail.

with YES Israel it's able to tune by channel number, for all others it's work by SID. map channel (in SageTV source setup) to right SID.

[elyl]

I've tried running the latest version on my machine, running Vista, with 2x FloppyDTV-S2s, using Sky UK.

When I start the program up, it starts to log, but then blue screens with STOP code 0x50. A couple of times I managed to get it running OK, but when I went to Start Recording, the program stopped responding, and had to be closed.

Here's my .ini file:

; This is a sample configuration file for dvbe4sage
; There are several categories of settings, for each setting the value here is the default one

[General]
LogLevel=2
NumberOfVirtualTuners=1
DECSADllName=FFDeCSA_32_INT.dll

[Plugins]
;DCWTimeout=5

[Tuning]
InitialFrequency=10714000
InitialSymbolRate=22000
InitialPolarization=H
InitialModulation=QPSK
InitialFEC=5/6
LNB_SW=11700000
LNB_LOF1=9750000
LNB_LOF2=10600000
InitialRunningTime=20
NumberOfBuffers=400
TuningTimeout=20
UseSidForTuning=1
;ExcludeTuners=
DVBS2Tuners=1,2

[Output]
TSPacketsPerOutputBuffer=160000
TSPacketsOutputThreshold=70
DisableWriteBuffering=0

[Encoder]
ListeningPort=6969

[Recording]
PreferredAudioLanguage=eng

[Advanced]
; This setting tells the program to write down only one PAT packet of "PATDilutionFactor", this helps to reduce the recorded file size
;PATDilutionFactor=1
; This setting tells the program to write down only one PMT packet of "PMTDilutionFactor", this helps to reduce the recorded file size
;PMTDilutionFactor=1
; This setting is used to decide if the channel is FTA, that is, we consider is FTA if we haven't seen a CAT packet for "PMTThreshold" PMT packets
;PMTThreshold=20
; This setting tells the program to decide the PSI structures are mature enough to use for the next tuning operation after "PSIMaturityTime" seconds
;PSIMaturityTime=10

Here's one of the logs from when I managed to get it running (before it crashed when attempting a recording):

2009-04-26 23:45:43.475 Loading filter "FireDTV BDA Tuner DVBS2" - succeeded!
2009-04-26 23:45:43.497 Tuner Filter Info = "FireDTV BDA Tuner DVBS2"
2009-04-26 23:45:43.504 Loading filter "FireDTV BDA Receiver DVBS2" - succeeded!
2009-04-26 23:45:43.517 Loaded our transport stream filter
2009-04-26 23:45:43.523 Added demux filter to the graph
2009-04-26 23:45:43.526 Connected demux to our filter output pin
2009-04-26 23:45:43.530 Loading filter "BDA MPEG2 Transport Information Filter" - succeeded!
2009-04-26 23:45:43.565 Signal not locked, no recording done...!
2009-04-26 23:45:43.587 Loading filter "FireDTV BDA Tuner DVBS2" - succeeded!
2009-04-26 23:45:43.597 Tuner Filter Info = "FireDTV BDA Tuner DVBS2"
2009-04-26 23:45:43.602 Loading filter "FireDTV BDA Receiver DVBS2" - doesn't fit, unloading!
2009-04-26 23:45:43.649 Loading filter "FireDTV BDA Receiver DVBS2" - succeeded!
2009-04-26 23:45:43.660 Loaded our transport stream filter
2009-04-26 23:45:43.661 Added demux filter to the graph
2009-04-26 23:45:43.662 Connected demux to our filter output pin
2009-04-26 23:45:43.664 Loading filter "BDA MPEG2 Transport Information Filter" - succeeded!
2009-04-26 23:45:43.689 Signal not locked, no recording done...!

Here's one of the logs up to the point it blue screens:

2009-04-27 00:25:12.740 Loading filter "FireDTV BDA Tuner DVBS2" - succeeded!
2009-04-27 00:25:12.771 Tuner Filter Info = "FireDTV BDA Tuner DVBS2"
2009-04-27 00:25:12.776 Loading filter "FireDTV BDA Receiver DVBS2" - succeeded!
2009-04-27 00:25:12.785 Loaded our transport stream filter
2009-04-27 00:25:12.789 Added demux filter to the graph
2009-04-27 00:25:12.791 Connected demux to our filter output pin
2009-04-27 00:25:12.794 Loading filter "BDA MPEG2 Transport Information Filter" - succeeded!
2009-04-27 00:25:12.827 Signal locked, quality=100, strength=100
2009-04-27 00:25:13.125 Got duplicate packet...
2009-04-27 00:25:13.150 Loading filter "FireDTV BDA Tuner DVBS2" - succeeded!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.161 Tuner Filter Info = "FireDTV BDA Tuner DVBS2"
2009-04-27 00:25:13.166 Loading filter "FireDTV BDA Receiver DVBS2"2009-04-27 00:25:13.173 TS packet messed up, fixing...
2009-04-27 00:25:13.206 TS packet messed up, fixing...
2009-04-27 00:25:13.239 TS packet messed up, fixing...
 - doesn't fit, unloading!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.243 Loading filter "FireDTV BDA Receiver DVBS2" - succeeded!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.250 Loaded our transport stream filter
2009-04-27 00:25:13.251 Added demux filter to the graph
2009-04-27 00:25:13.251 Connected demux to our filter output pin
2009-04-27 00:25:13.252 Loading filter "BDA MPEG2 Transport Information Filter" - succeeded!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.279 Signal locked, quality=100, strength=100
2009-04-27 00:25:13.306 TS packet messed up, fixing...
2009-04-27 00:25:13.407 !!! Warning: EMM PID has not been discovered after 20 PMT packets, assuming FTA!!!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.408 !!! Warning: EMM PID has not been discovered after 20 PMT packets, assuming FTA!!!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.440 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.441 !!! Warning: EMM PID has not been discovered after 20 PMT packets, assuming FTA!!!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.442 !!! Warning: EMM PID has not been discovered after 20 PMT packets, assuming FTA!!!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.453 TS packet messed up, fixing...
2009-04-27 00:25:13.476 !!! Warning: EMM PID has not been discovered after 20 PMT packets, assuming FTA!!!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.486 TS packet messed up, fixing...
2009-04-27 00:25:13.487 TS packet messed up, fixing...
2009-04-27 00:25:13.507 !!! Warning: EMM PID has not been discovered after 20 PMT packets, assuming FTA!!!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.508 !!! Warning: EMM PID has not been discovered after 20 PMT packets, assuming FTA!!!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.520 TS packet messed up, fixing...
2009-04-27 00:25:13.540 !!! Warning: EMM PID has not been discovered after 20 PMT packets, assuming FTA!!!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.576 !!! Warning: EMM PID has not been discovered after 20 PMT packets, assuming FTA!!!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.577 !!! Warning: EMM PID has not been discovered after 20 PMT packets, assuming FTA!!!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.597 TS packet messed up, fixing...
2009-04-27 00:25:13.676 TS packet messed up, fixing...
2009-04-27 00:25:13.677 TS packet messed up, fixing...
2009-04-27 00:25:13.677 TS packet messed up, fixing...
2009-04-27 00:25:13.689 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.689 TS packet messed up, fixing...
2009-04-27 00:25:13.753 TS packet messed up, fixing...
2009-04-27 00:25:13.754 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.754 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.754 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.787 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.787 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.787 !!! Warning: EMM PID has not been discovered after 20 PMT packets, assuming FTA!!!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.807 Found EMM PID=0xC0
2009-04-27 00:25:13.820 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.820 Found EMM PID=0xC0
2009-04-27 00:25:13.840 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.854 Got duplicate packet...
2009-04-27 00:25:13.854 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.874 TS packet messed up, fixing...
2009-04-27 00:25:13.887 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.888 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.888 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.920 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.921 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.954 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.955 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.955 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.987 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:13.988 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:14.021 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:14.021 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:14.055 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:14.056 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:14.088 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:14.089 TS packet messed up, fixing...
2009-04-27 00:25:14.122 TS packet messed up, fixing...
2009-04-27 00:25:14.123 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:14.141 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:14.154 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:14.188 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:14.188 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:14.223 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:14.254 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:14.254 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:14.291 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:14.291 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:14.291 Got duplicate packet...
2009-04-27 00:25:14.309 TS packet messed up, fixing...
2009-04-27 00:25:14.321 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:14.342 TS packet messed up, fixing...
2009-04-27 00:25:14.354 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:14.355 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:14.375 TS packet messed up, fixing...
2009-04-27 00:25:14.421 TS packet messed up, fixing...
2009-04-27 00:25:14.421 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:14.422 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:14.422 !!! CRC error!
2009-04-27 00:25:14.441 Got duplicate packet...
2009-04-27 00:25:14.441 !!! CRC error!

[elyl]

I tried a different version of the drivers for the FloppyDTV, and managed to get the program running stably, and I could actually attempt a recording.
The .ts file came out with just 0 bytes, however. I tried chaning the tuner to my other FloppyDTV and trying again, this time it gave a blue screen 0x0A, and the very last log entry I saw on the screen (which wasn't written to the file) was:
Catastrophic error - TS packet has wrong sync_byte!


Is anyone else using the FloppyDTV-S2, and if so, which driver version are you using? The blue screen errors I'm getting seem to be driver related.

[mpogr]

The version 1.0.1.0 doesn't work with Sky UK. I'm currently working with someone to get it fully working and we're almost there. In fact, we managed to get it 100% working on one computer but there are some strange problems on another one, which we're trying to troubleshoot.
If you want to get this version, please, send me your email address via PM and I'll send it to you with all the necessary instructions.
FireDTV should be fully supported with that version, including DVB-S2 tuning.

[elyl]

How's development on this coming along (for Sky UK)?
I've tried the latest version, and can grab FTA channels, although they are very jumpy. I've not got a Phoenix reader, so no luck decoding the NDS channels yet - trying to find a reliable plugin that will use my Dreambox's CAM (cccam/gbox/newcs).

[Whitey]

Are there any users of DVBE4sage successfully using it on WHS? I can't get it to tune correctly on my WHS server but had it working on windows xp.

Thanks

Whitey

[Bacon2002]

Hi,

This looks like a great plugin, I would love to give it a go when the Sky UK version is ready.

Do you have a setup guide yet?

Many thanks,

David

[mpogr]

Bacon2002,

Sky UK version is ready for all practical purposes. The problem Whitey is having is related to WHS.
Please, send me a PM with your email address and I'll send you a version working with Sky UK alongside recommended settings and the installation guide.

Thanks,

Michael.

[mpogr]

elyl,

First of all, DVBE4SAGE has never been tested in an environment supporting EMM updates. It does contain the code necessary for sending EMM packets to the currently loaded plugins, but it has never been tested.
If you find a MDAPI plugin that works with your Dreambox, you can try testing it yourself. I'll be glad to assist you making it work.
This is what I personally do in terms of card updating:
1. I figured out the update frequency required by my provider (YES Israel), it seems to be 49 days (7 weeks). I also figured out that the updates are usually sent early in the morning (between 5 and 8 AM).
2. I have the STB to which this card belongs connected to power, LNB and a TV set, but most of the time turned off.
3. I put a reminder for the evening of the day prior the update.
4. On the update evening, I take the card from the Phoenix reader and put it back into the STB. I make sure no recording are scheduled in Sage between this point in time and tomorrow 9 AM.
5. In the morning (~8 AM) I check if the card is already updated. If yes, I put it back into the reader. If no, I call YES and tell them one of my decoders stopped working after being disconnected from the power for long time. They send manual update immediately (within a couple of minutes) and that's it.

[elyl]

Hey mporg, I've been playing about with DVBE4Sage and some MDAPI plugins, I managed to get the NDS channels decoding fine, and things are starting to look good!
To get everything working, though, I had to change the CAID from 0963 to 0961.

Sky UK are in the process of updating all the viewing cards. I suspect that the old viewing cards are 0961 CAID - I'm currently using the old card while it's still active in my Dreambox, because the new card doesn't work in it yet. I'm guessing the new cards will move over to 0963 CAID (I think this is NDS3 like used in Sky Italia).

Is it possible to set DVBE4Sage to deal with multiple CAIDs?

My old Sky card is due to expire in a few days, so I'll hopefully be able to move over to your program completely, and do away with my hardware CAMs.

[mpogr]

elyl,

That's encouraging news! What's your exact configuration? With which plugin you use it?
Regarding multiple CAIDS, I haven't figured out yet how to submit this correctly to MDAPI plugins. This should be possible.
If you don't mind, I'd appreciate if you could send me some of your logs.

Thanks,

Michael.

[Whitey]

Originally Posted by elyl

Hey mporg, I've been playing about with DVBE4Sage and some MDAPI plugins, I managed to get the NDS channels decoding fine, and things are starting to look good!
To get everything working, though, I had to change the CAID from 0963 to 0961.

Sky UK are in the process of updating all the viewing cards. I suspect that the old viewing cards are 0961 CAID - I'm currently using the old card while it's still active in my Dreambox, because the new card doesn't work in it yet. I'm guessing the new cards will move over to 0963 CAID (I think this is NDS3 like used in Sky Italia).

Is it possible to set DVBE4Sage to deal with multiple CAIDs?

My old Sky card is due to expire in a few days, so I'll hopefully be able to move over to your program completely, and do away with my hardware CAMs.

I'm using on old sky card sucessfully with 0963. In the past I've had to use 0961 with some software to make it work.

BTW what OS are you running on? I've had success with win XP but not with WHS that my sagetv server runs on.

Whitey

[zzmystique]

Would like to automate the start of dvbe4sage, so it starts up before sagetv, after a reboot. Don't want a manual process, incase it reboots while I'm away.

Here is my batch, but it doesn't work quite right.

net stop sagetv
C:\batch\wait.exe 10
TASKKILL /IM sagetv.exe
TASKKILL /IM dvbe4sage.exe
C:\batch\wait.exe 15
cd\
cd "C:\Program Files\dvbe4sage"
start /b /min dvbe4sage.exe
C:\batch\wait.exe 5
TASKKILL /IM dvbe4sage.exe
cd\
C:\batch\wait.exe 5
net start sagetv

Has anyone already got the startup automated or better still to run as a service and are willing to share?

Thanks
Anne

[mpogr]

I have already created a service variant of DVBE4SAGE which is checked in into SVN. I also created installation package which registers this service and creates dependency of SageTV service on DVBE4SAGE one, so they are started in the right order.
This is not quite mature yet (the service sometimes hangs on restart for example) and the installation doesn't process the upgrade process right (e.g. it always overwrites the INI file), so I haven't made it available for public download yet. But if anyone wants to use it, please, let me know, and I'll send a compiled version via email.
I use service mode myself as well as several additional users. What is important to understand that there is no UI there (which, for example, makes manual recording imporssible), so I'd suggest everyone to stay in standalone mode until they fully debugged their configuration.

[elyl]

I just changed the .ini file in the Sky version you sent me - only changed the CAIDs line from 0963 to 0961 and it started working fine.

I am using FlyCCcam MDAPI plugin, and found out it was a CAID problem by checking FlyCCcam's logs and the logs on my Dreambox server. I've yet to try running it constantly in SageTV yet, and try multiple simultaneous recordings, so don't know how well the plugin will perform. I'll do a few different tests and mail you the log files.

Whitey, I'm using Vista 32-bit.

[mpogr]

elyl,

That's good to hear it works with FlyCCcam plugin, I think nobody tried it before. I'd suggest you to try manual simultaneous recordings before you move to Sage, as I've seen problems with plugins other than NDSCAM in this case. Some plugins just haven't been designed to handle this correctly.
Also, I'd like to know if EMM updates worked for you, as these haven't been tested as well.

[elyl]

Are EMM updates for the subscription entitlement? Like, the Sky card needs to be put back in the Sky box every few weeks to ensure the entitlement updates - is that an EMM update?

If it is, then I'm sure the Dreambox is the only box which can do this for NDS cards (I believe News Data Corp. tried to stop Dream Multimedia from selling the Dreambox because of this). This is done via the DreamCrypt internal CAM, and I'm not aware of anyone who's managed to emulate this.

[bjkiller]

Originally Posted by elyl

Are EMM updates for the subscription entitlement? Like, the Sky card needs to be put back in the Sky box every few weeks to ensure the entitlement updates - is that an EMM update?

If it is, then I'm sure the Dreambox is the only box which can do this for NDS cards (I believe News Data Corp. tried to stop Dream Multimedia from selling the Dreambox because of this). This is done via the DreamCrypt internal CAM, and I'm not aware of anyone who's managed to emulate this.

Try NDSCAM softcam, as i know it's update card for Sky UK and Sky Italia.