SageMCTuner - anyone have this working with cablecard?

[Griff]

I will check to see if I can record 4 streams at once in media center (I will also check to see if I can view those clear qam channels in media center).

Ceton responded to my request to be added to the Beta list by asking for more specificity about my problem, and asking me to collect an InfiniTV Diagnostic capture for them. Any suggestions on how best to respond to get on the list?

[anosis]

Originally Posted by Griff

anosis - from my own experience, my first suggestion would be to go through the channel lineup within the tuner setup. First make sure the tuner is functioning. Thus far, only three of my Ceton tuners are functioning with Sagedct (one tuner - the last one on the listed tuners, which happens to be tuner 2 - says "false" in the "functioning" description within the tuner setup page). On the non-functioning tuner I get no signal for every channel. On the functioning tuners, I had to check each channel. Some channels that I know are clear qam (like the major networks for which I get a strong signal and a great picture on my HDHR) have no signal, and I had to exclude them from my channel line up for the Ceton tuners for the time being (if anyone has a fix for this, please let me know), but I get a signal on the great majority of the remaining channels in the lineup, and I am living with that setup for the time being.

The channel testing process was painfully slow, with constant wait circles. The Sage interface also is generally slow for me while using the Ceton tuners, particularly when stopping recordings and doing anything within the detailed setup screens. I don't know why, but it appears from this thread that we are not the only ones experiencing that problem. I am hoping the Ceton beta may help.

Thanks Griff... I did not even think that it could be just a single tuner that might be the issue. My assumption was immediately that if I don't get a signal on a channel that works in WMC that the setup overall is the cause.

Andy,
Am I correct that if I used the diagnosis tab on your configuration tool I can start a recording on any of the four tuners by issuing a "START" command to the localhost:Port and maybe 30 sec later a "STOP" command and see if your software will be able to tune and record that specific tunner and TV channel?

EDIT: So I did exactly the above. I went into the SageDCTConfiguration tool and used the start and stop command. While it was recording I went to the CETON web based diagnostic tool and the tuner 1 showed that I was indeed tuned to the correct channel and it showed signal strengh, etc. I then stopped the recording and the web page again showed the status of the tuner as 'STOPPED' and I went to the recording folder. There was a media file there that showed the correct timestamp, however upon opening (WMP is my default) all it showed as a blank black screen. Any ideas?



Do you have any input why I would get a "NO SIGNAL" in sage?

Another stupid question... Do I need to do the network bridging that is explained on another site if I use the card in the same PC as SageTV? I thought not, but maybe that is another reason why it is not working. My Ceton is still set to 192.168.200.1 be default. Should I remap it to my LAN?

Thanks.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by anosis

EDIT: So I did exactly the above. I went into the SageDCTConfiguration tool and used the start and stop command. While it was recording I went to the CETON web based diagnostic tool and the tuner 1 showed that I was indeed tuned to the correct channel and it showed signal strengh, etc. I then stopped the recording and the web page again showed the status of the tuner as 'STOPPED' and I went to the recording folder. There was a media file there that showed the correct timestamp, however upon opening (WMP is my default) all it showed as a blank black screen. Any ideas?

That's the weird PID/PAT problem. Sage's demuxer (7.1) can split the streams where WMP can't.

[AlphaCrew]

Originally Posted by Griff

I will check to see if I can record 4 streams at once in media center (I will also check to see if I can view those clear qam channels in media center).

Ceton responded to my request to be added to the Beta list by asking for more specificity about my problem, and asking me to collect an InfiniTV Diagnostic capture for them. Any suggestions on how best to respond to get on the list?

Just a heads up, it seems MUCH harder to get into the beta testing group now. I had some legit problems, which they did fix, but would not add me to the group..

YMMV

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by AlphaCrew

Just a heads up, it seems MUCH harder to get into the beta testing group now. I had some legit problems, which they did fix, but would not add me to the group..

YMMV

You shouldn't need to be in the beta anymore. Pretty sure that the latest general release incorporates the necessary changes.

[anosis]

Originally Posted by babgvant

That's the weird PID/PAT problem. Sage's demuxer (7.1) can split the streams where WMP can't.

Sure enough. I installed KMPlayer and now the file is fine. But why is it not working inside of SageTV?

I guess I will check the channel lineup again and make sure I have not missed something else.

I am glad I at least know SageDCT is able to communicate correctly with the card and start and stop recordings. I will try all four tuners just to confirm.

EDIT:
OK. All four tuners record a functioning TS file when I use the test tab inside SageDCTConfiguration. Inside SageTV, I go to the guide and select one of the calbe channels I still get a "NO SIGNAL" and I confirmed all four tuners are reported as working. A video file even gets recorded in the background but it will not show in Sage. If I use KMP and open the file it plays fine. This seems to me more and more like I have a video/audio decoding issue. I will try next to see if Sage will play the file it recorded if I placed it in the media library folder. I will report back with what I find.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by anosis

EDIT:
OK. All four tuners record a functioning TS file when I use the test tab inside SageDCTConfiguration. Inside SageTV, I go to the guide and select one of the calbe channels I still get a "NO SIGNAL" and I confirmed all four tuners are reported as working. A video file even gets recorded in the background but it will not show in Sage. If I use KMP and open the file it plays fine. This seems to me more and more like I have a video/audio decoding issue. I will try next to see if Sage will play the file it recorded if I placed it in the media library folder. I will report back with what I find.

Are you running the latest beta of Sage?

[babgvant]

1.4

- Fix a bug writing program number to packet indicator
- Double default RTP Buffer
- Try to recover from tuner disappearance
- Significant changes to UPnP Device caching

[anosis]

Originally Posted by babgvant

Are you running the latest beta of Sage?

No, I am on retail release, however I have copied the updated dll and ax files into the sagetv program files folders. Is that an issue?

Also I am running W7U 64bit.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by anosis

No, I am on retail release, however I have copied the updated dll and ax files into the sagetv program files folders. Is that an issue?

Also I am running W7U 64bit.

That should do it, but they may have updated the demux to fix other issues. I know that I've asked a few people to forward files that don't play to Sage.

[SuiDog]

Originally Posted by babgvant

1.4

- Fix a bug writing program number to packet indicator
- Double default RTP Buffer
- Try to recover from tuner disappearance
- Significant changes to UPnP Device caching

Ok.. upgraded. Spinning wheel of death again when I do anything. If I go back to 1.1 all works good (except for the memory leak and the HD recordings not working perfect).

What logs do you want me to send you and how do you want me to get them to you?

BTW do you have a PayPal or anything for a donation or something. I know you busting your arse on this and I'd like to so appreciation.

Sui

[kmp14]

Originally Posted by SuiDog

BTW do you have a PayPal or anything for a donation or something. I know you busting your arse on this and I'd like to so appreciation.

Sui

andyvt at babgvant.com

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by SuiDog

Ok.. upgraded. Spinning wheel of death again when I do anything. If I go back to 1.1 all works good (except for the memory leak and the HD recordings not working perfect).

What logs do you want me to send you and how do you want me to get them to you?

can you delete hklm\babgvant\sagdct to reset settings then start the service use the test tab in the config tool to send noop, firmware, start and stop commands and lmk how quickly they return.

Also, please check taskmgr to see if the service is running as a 32 or 64 bit process.

Send logs to andyvt at babgvant.com

[SuiDog]

Ok after upgrading to 1.4, setting my Ceton to bridging enable, and a full reboot, the circle of death has gone away. I haven't had any problems. Looks good. I haven't check my HD recordings yet for artifacts yet but I'll let you know.

[anosis]

Originally Posted by babgvant

That should do it, but they may have updated the demux to fix other issues. I know that I've asked a few people to forward files that don't play to Sage.

Andy,

I just don't get what the issue is with my setup. All seems fine. The .TS stream records but Sage will not render the media (No Signal icon). Outside Sage I can use KMP to play the file.

Just for fun I uninstalled SageDCT and installed your first project SageMCTuner and to my surprise it works. This is great news and most likely I will leave my server running with this setup, however I am curious what the real difference is in the file that is recorded?

Is there any way that SageDCT could create the same .MPEG stream as SageMCTuner does from the converted .WTV file? I know I am asking for a special case fix here, but I am just baffled on why my SageDCT setup will not work but SageMCTuner is fine.

If you have any input on this or are able to accomendate my request for generating the same .MPEG stream with SageDCT would be awesome.

[Griff]

Moving to 1.4 solved most of my problems, at least initially. All tuners are now recognized, and the wait circle problems appear to be gone. On my first recording after moving to 1.4, however, I had a loss of signal on the Ceton tuner for the recording, resulting in a yellow warning in my Sage messages. The signal was restored automatically, but there was a gap in the recording. I am not sure how much of the show was lost.

Thanks for all your hard work getting on this project.

Tom

[kmp14]

Originally Posted by anosis

Is there any way that SageDCT could create the same .MPEG stream as SageMCTuner does from the converted .WTV file? I know I am asking for a special case fix here, but I am just baffled on why my SageDCT setup will not work but SageMCTuner is fine.

If you have any input on this or are able to accomendate my request for generating the same .MPEG stream with SageDCT would be awesome.

This question was posed earlier in this thread. If I recall correctly, this would be a decent size, more complicated project that would require some external components that Andy would have to purchase (i think).

[anosis]

Originally Posted by kmp14

This question was posed earlier in this thread. If I recall correctly, this would be a decent size, more complicated project that would require some external components that Andy would have to purchase (i think).

Sorry, did not notice that. I thought I was pretty thourough in reading all the posts here. Can you please let me know which post # it was?

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by anosis

Andy,

Is there any way that SageDCT could create the same .MPEG stream as SageMCTuner does from the converted .WTV file?

It's on the TODO list. I've been able to get the capture graph built but haven't had any luck getting samples to stream so I'm missing something. Unfortunately the documentation on PBDA is very sparse.

Originally Posted by kmp14

would require some external components that Andy would have to purchase (i think).

If the AVIVO filter works, that is an option. But since I can't bundle it, and using it for this purpose is legally grey (but obviously that hasn't stopped me before ) it is less than ideal.

[kmp14]

Originally Posted by anosis

Sorry, did not notice that. I thought I was pretty thourough in reading all the posts here. Can you please let me know which post # it was?

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...&postcount=264