Using the OpenDCT Generic HTTP Capture Device

[egeller]

@enternoescape
I have set up a test of connecting an IPTV data source to SageTV. I think I am seeing some of the things that @rickygillon, above, is seeing. I am attaching logs and config and hoping you can tell me what configuration to change.

The simple use case for IPTV is to use VLC to view a playlist of streams. With VLC, you can stream a source via HTTP. If there is no data, you get an error, so you shut down VLC, or go to another stream in the playlist. If a stream halts, the play button changes from playing to halted. In many cases, you can press the play button to restart the stream. What I am hoping that OpenDCT can do is the same sort of things I do when I use VLC to stream the playlist interactively. That is, when a stream halts, try restarting it. If, after so-many milliseconds of trying, the stream cannot be restarted, then report the error.

I am using TVHeadend (TVH) to organize my playlists and EPG. In my config, I point OpenDCT to the TVH server. It provides the streaming.

When I connect to a stream, TVH has a status page that shows the active stream and the bit-rate. If the bit-rate is zero, I know that the stream is dead. My current issue is that, in some cases, I can see an active stream in TVH's status page, but OpenDCT is not serving data to SageTV. Also, the Unraid / Sage / OpenDCT server seems to be locking up, with OpenDCT activity seeming to be the cause. See the bottom of the log for where I had the issues.

The attached logs are from a session where I started OpenDCT and SageTV, tuned to a channel, stopped the recording, then went to another channel and tuned it. I did this several times. Occasionally, a stream would not have data, so I stopped it and went to another channel. At the bottom of the log I tuned a dead (zero bit-rate) channel. Then I went to a channel I saw was active (from TVH's status) but all I saw in SageTV was the "No Signal" message. I also saw, on my Unraid CPU status, that the CPU activity in several of the cores was pegged to 100%. Restarting OpenDCT resolved the CPU activity issue and at this point I ended the test.

As you recommended above, I tried changing the producer to opendct.producer.HTTPProducer. OpenDCT flags this as an error and changes it back. See my log, near the top, I think, for the message.

I have attached my current config and the logs. There is an FFMpeg log included, but that was from a few minutes before the main issue, I think. Let me know if you need more information.

[rickgillyon]

As you've seen, I tried for ages to get Sage and openDCT to play nice with IPTV. It just doesn't work, and for whatever reason the community support isn't there. This isn't a criticism of the community, I understand people have lives.

I have IPTV working reliably with SageTV now for recording, and 50/50 for live TV. This is how I did it. Install the node-ffmpeg-mpegts-proxy docker. You'll need to change settings on the Apps screen in unRAID to "Enable additional search results from dockerHub." This docker simply ffmpegs all input and outputs a TS, restarts stalled streams, cleans up. This means you're passing openDCT a clean stream and it doesn't have to restart etc. I realise openDCT is supposed to do this job, but it just can't do it reliably with iptv.

I have set this docker as the source for all IPTV, i.e. Plex, openDCT etc. It's rock-solid in Plex, Emby etc. for recordings and live TV; and in Sage for recordings only. Maybe it'll be better for you in live TV, it's not important enough for me to bother as I don't really use Sage any more, I only keep it for my wife who doesn't want to move. Once Plex does keyword recording I expect we'll dump Sage. Unless SWMBO says otherwise.

[egeller]

Originally Posted by rickgillyon

As you've seen, I tried for ages to get Sage and openDCT to play nice with IPTV. It just doesn't work, and for whatever reason the community support isn't there. This isn't a criticism of the community, I understand people have lives.

I have IPTV working reliably with SageTV now for recording, and 50/50 for live TV. This is how I did it. Install the node-ffmpeg-mpegts-proxy docker. You'll need to change settings on the Apps screen in unRAID to "Enable additional search results from dockerHub." This docker simply ffmpegs all input and outputs a TS, restarts stalled streams, cleans up. This means you're passing openDCT a clean stream and it doesn't have to restart etc. I realise openDCT is supposed to do this job, but it just can't do it reliably with iptv.

I have set this docker as the source for all IPTV, i.e. Plex, openDCT etc. It's rock-solid in Plex, Emby etc. for recordings and live TV; and in Sage for recordings only. Maybe it'll be better for you in live TV, it's not important enough for me to bother as I don't really use Sage any more, I only keep it for my wife who doesn't want to move. Once Plex does keyword recording I expect we'll dump Sage. Unless SWMBO says otherwise.

Thanks for the ideas. I will give it a try.

[sdsean]

I'm having a strange issue that I can't figure out. The network tuner seems to work fine, records fine and on my pc/server I can watch and play stuff back with out a problem.




But when I try to watch such a channel via one of my HD-300s it just fails with the spinning circle of death. I shut off the HD-300 but then it takes a long time for Sage/OpenDCT to recognize the client was powered off (though that's a 2ndary problem).


Any ideas as to why my HD-300 wouldn't be able to play the stream coming from OpenDCT? What things can i check?

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by sdsean

I'm having a strange issue that I can't figure out. The network tuner seems to work fine, records fine and on my pc/server I can watch and play stuff back with out a problem.




But when I try to watch such a channel via one of my HD-300s it just fails with the spinning circle of death. I shut off the HD-300 but then it takes a long time for Sage/OpenDCT to recognize the client was powered off (though that's a 2ndary problem).


Any ideas as to why my HD-300 wouldn't be able to play the stream coming from OpenDCT? What things can i check?

If this is an HDMI capture device, you may want to check that the video resolution is no higher than 1080p30. If the bitrate is too high you will have similar issues.

[sdsean]

Well the encoded size on the main stream of the device is set to 720p, and my stbs are all set to 720p output. Though directv stbs have a native setting that I guess I could try turning off.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by sdsean

Well the encoded size on the main stream of the device is set to 720p, and my stbs are all set to 720p output. Though directv stbs have a native setting that I guess I could try turning off.

Maybe the bitrate is too high? I would recommend < 20mbps.

[sdsean]

Last I remember it's only at like 5900. but any suggestions on what it should be for 720p?

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by sdsean

Last I remember it's only at like 5900. but any suggestions on what it should be for 720p?

720p30 or 720p60 should be fine.

[KryptoNyte]

Thanks for including this ability in OpenDCT. I use OpenDCT already with a Ceton6 pcie card in my SageTV server.

I purchased this recently:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07TKMPCZH
and just finished setting it up (settings per the attached image on the first of 4 channels) with WMC Live Tuner:
https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=63212

The setup was painless, and the video quality is excellent. Audio is stereo only as expected, which I can live with. The best part, OpenDCT controls the WMC extender and can issue the "stop" command when a recording is finished, something that I was never able to figure out with the Hauppauge HDPVR2 - so the extender would just play constantly.

If this interests you and you'd like to have a small sample clip (about 40 megabytes) PM me and I'll give you a directly download link and you can check it out. It looks as good as my 1080p HDPVR2 recordings and plays great on an HD300.

I imagine I'll have to dial back the bitrate as I add more sources, but if things go south I'll report back.

[EnterNoEscape]

If you're asking me, that's ok. It looks like these are all using very similar hardware encoders, so it likely doesn't look much different from what I get with the ones I own. The ones I'm using are at a high enough bitrate that I can't really distinguish between the source and the re-encoding. My only comment is that if you have any HD200's, 1080p60 likely will not playback. I took all mine down to 1080p30 because I have one HD200 in a bedroom.

[hvymetal]

For the life of me I can not get the Generic HTTP Capture Device to show up in SageTV. I have done this before but for some reason SageTV does not show the device I add. If finds my HDHR's so network discovery works. Using version 0.5.32 with SageTV Linux Docker V9.2.8.1

Here is my setting in the opendct.properties

generic.http.device_names_csv=xTeVe 1

sagetv.device.1627043753.pretuning_executable=
sagetv.device.1627043753.http_password=
sagetv.device.parent.1627043753.device_name=xTeVe 1
sagetv.device.1627043753.consumer=opendct.consumer.DynamicConsumerImpl
sagetv.device.parent.1627043753.local_ip_override=
sagetv.device.1627043753.tuning_executable=
sagetv.device.1627043753.encoder_merit=0
sagetv.device.1627043753.channel_padding=0
sagetv.device.1627043753.transcode_profile=
sagetv.device.1627043753.last_channel=-1
sagetv.device.1627043753.device_name=xTeVe 1
sagetv.device.1627043753.stopping_executable=
sagetv.device.1627043753.custom_channels=
sagetv.device.1627043753.http_username=
sagetv.device.1627043753.fast_network_encoder_switch=true
sagetv.device.1627043753.stopping_executable_delay_ms=15000
sagetv.device.1627043753.streaming_url=http\://192.168.10.175\:34400/auto/v%c%
sagetv.device.parent.1627043753.offline_scan=false
sagetv.device.1627043753.streaming_url2_channels=
sagetv.device.1627043753.tuning_delay_ms=0
sagetv.device.1627043753.streaming_url2=

FYI: This is my last step for getting XTeVe working with Plex, PlutoTV, SamsungTVPlus and many more with XMLTV guide data. I recompiled XTeve to tune with channel numbers as follows:

http://192.168.10.175:34400/auto/v1012

[boukmandutty]

I think this thread is for actual hdmi network tuners like the BM100 and BM3000. I could be wrong but it seems like what you are trying to do seems more consistent the generic http (virtual) pipe tuners the instructions for which are here:

https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=63823.

[something fishy]

I am trying to set up SageTV, OpenDCT and TVHeadend all in dockers to let SageTV use my SatIP tuners.

I have successfully done the TVHeadend parts of this and (thanks to Rickgillyon) I can stream from TVHeadend using this syntax:

http://[tvheadend_ip]:9981/stream/channelnumber/%c%.ts

However if I create HTTP capture devices and use this for the streaming_url OpenDCT does not load any tuners and there are no tuners visible in SageTV.

If I hard code the channel numbers, OpenDCT does load the tuner and it does appear as a source in SageTV and I can view it.

Although I've used SageTV for years, I've never used it in Dockers or with network tuners, so I'd like to double check the procedure. This is
1. Install the current OpenDCT docker and the current SageTV docker from the Unraid apps repository.
2. Install with network set as custom: Eth0 with 2 unused IP addresses on my subnet
3. Stop both dockers, edit the OpenDCT properties file as instructed in this thread to add the devices
4. Start OpenDCT, wait a little, stop it and add the streaming_url paths as above
5. Start OpenDCT, wait about 30 seconds
6. Start the SageTV docker
7. Attach a client to the SageTV server and run through the initial configuration.
8. Try to add a video source, at this point SageTV reports no sources available.

I've tried this process a few times while watching the live log file on the OpenDCT docker, there are no errors reported. Let me know if you need the log files and I will supply but a few things confuse me.

If I hard code the channel number in the URL it does work, but of course cannot change channels. However the device is added with input HDMI. If I associate with a schedules direct listing I can get to the set up channels screen but there is not an option to scan for channels.

I've added some channels as instructed here:

sagetv.device.<unique_id>.custom_channels=2000;2002;2003

but SageTV doesn't seem aware of them.

There is nothing in the OpenDCT lineups directory.

Is there a step that I have missed? I don't have any HDhomerun devices (my only source is free to air sattelite) but I do have an existing Win10 SageTV install using pci-e satellite cards if I need to pull any files from a working install.

Thanks for any help

Eric

[egeller]

Originally Posted by something fishy

I am trying to set up SageTV, OpenDCT and TVHeadend all in dockers to let SageTV use my SatIP tuners.


Is there a step that I have missed? I don't have any HDhomerun devices (my only source is free to air sattelite) but I do have an existing Win10 SageTV install using pci-e satellite cards if I need to pull any files from a working install.

Thanks for any help

Eric

I may have a similar setup to the one you have for an IPTV setup. I use TVH for the ability to collect EPG sources and send one EPG update to SageTV.

Did you remember to stop Sage, and flip network_encoder_discovery to true? You will probably not want to leave it that way, but I am not sure why.

[something fishy]

@egeller
Yes, that property is switched on by default on the docker.
Thanks
Eric

[boukmandutty]

I have never experimented with tvh configured as an iptv server but I suspect that you might have configured this as a hardware device (like a BMI 100 for example) instead of a virtual device (http pipe) as ENE gives instructions for in another thread.

This current thread is about the "...opendct Generic http capture device"

The one you might need is about the "...opendct Generic Pipe Capture Device"

https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/sho...01&postcount=1

To clear this up as you narrow down the cause of the problem, can you post a copy of the sections of your opendct config where you name the devices and where you put in the url to the tvh server?

[egeller]

Originally Posted by something fishy

@egeller
Yes, that property is switched on by default on the docker.
Thanks
Eric

I agree with @boukmandutty that it's time to post your OpenDCT config, and perhaps parts of logs from OpenDCT and Sage, so we can see what is happening.

I disagree with @boukmandutty that you want to switch to the generic pipe. As long as your signal is stable, then using the generic http device is simplest. The generic pipe requires an executable, not a URL to work.

Using the generic HTTP was the road I first went down (see above, my post from 2019) while I was trying to get it working. Unfortunately, with flakey IPTV streams being as they are, I switched to the generic pipe so I could call FFMPEG from OpenDCT to clean and transcode the streams on the fly. The TVH forums have posts discussing the merit of this for IPTV sources.

[boukmandutty]

I must admit I have never attempted to use tvh in the way suggested there. My thinking though, is that even when using a BMI device, a tuning executable is needed for the reason that all those devices do is to stream the feed that is sent to them. The user has to tune the channel at the source (cable box, wmc, etc). An executable does come into play and that is where the %c% command goes in such a config.

With the generic pipe you are able to put that %c% command in the url if the goal is to have tvh run the same way channels dvr does for some of us who feed it into sagetv. As he has it now that %c% command means nothing to tvh. If it was part of generic pipe config it would be telling opendct to change to a url with the number that corresponds to %c% and stream using ffmpeg.

[egeller]

TVHeadend allows streaming just from the URL, without an executable. No stopping executable is required, as far as I remember.

It has been a while since I've used it, so I retried it just now. The URL format, above, is
http://[tvheadend_ip]:9981/stream/channelnumber/%c%.ts

On my system I need to authenticate the stream. I did not realize that it could be set up with out authentication.

With authentication, the format becomes
http://myUID:myPW@[tvheadend_ip]:998...lnumber/%c%.ts

I wonder if it is possible that this is the issue. The URL can be tested with VLC.