best way to record OTA material?

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by Monedeath

Edit: Minor note that SageTV directly using the tuners gives you access to signal strength details, while OpenDCT will mask that data. In most cases, it shouldn't matter, but there are exceptions that crop up.

This is a little misleading. SageTV just shows 100% for all network encoders; OpenDCT could certainly show signal strength if SageTV asked for it. I don't see any reason we couldn't fix this eventually, but right now there are no options.

[Monedeath]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

This is a little misleading. SageTV just shows 100% for all network encoders; OpenDCT could certainly show signal strength if SageTV asked for it. I don't see any reason we couldn't fix this eventually, but right now there are no options.

Not true, I guess I'll have to take, or otherwise obtain a screen shot in a couple weeks when I swing though home. Where doing channel lineup configuration for the HD Homerun on the SageTV install I handle, SageTV will report a signal strength for the specific channel being tuned into, and it is returning a value that does change, and isn't locked in at 100%

Where/how it is getting the information may be another matter. As I don't doubt you've been "in the guts" of the particular protocol that should be reporting this. I'm just reporting that in my experience, even with the most recent Open Source version, we can get a signal strength indication from the HD Homeruns that we are using, by way of SageTV.

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by Monedeath

Not true, I guess I'll have to take, or otherwise obtain a screen shot in a couple weeks when I swing though home. Where doing channel lineup configuration for the HD Homerun on the SageTV install I handle, SageTV will report a signal strength for the specific channel being tuned into, and it is returning a value that does change, and isn't locked in at 100%

Where/how it is getting the information may be another matter. As I don't doubt you've been "in the guts" of the particular protocol that should be reporting this. I'm just reporting that in my experience, even with the most recent Open Source version, we can get a signal strength indication from the HD Homeruns that we are using, by way of SageTV.

Are you talking about a regular HDHR (non-cable card)? Because those were supported natively by Sage. That's why they could report signal strength. They did not communicate via the Sage network tuner protocol.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

As far as the core sagetv is concerned, the HDHR4-2US, and the HDTC-2US, work identically. They will tune in and send the original unaltered stream to sagetv to record. The TC one can ALSO convert the file on the fly to h.264, but only if you are using openDCT, since sagetv itself isn't aware of this extra capability. If it was me, at those prices, I would buy the better model anyway, and use openDCT to use the h.264 conversion feature, just wanted to make sure you understood the situation completely before making your purchase.

the h.264 conversion feature - is the quality on par with things like Handbrake or VideoReDo? And the auto-conversion...does it convert on-the-fly as a recording is being made, or after the recoding is finished? My lowly quad, AMD would struggle I might think

[wayner]

The transcoding is done in hardware by the device so it doesn't use your CPU. I don't know about quality but it should be comparable.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

the h.264 conversion feature - is the quality on par with things like Handbrake or VideoReDo? And the auto-conversion...does it convert on-the-fly as a recording is being made, or after the recoding is finished? My lowly quad, AMD would struggle I might think

I use OpenDCT for on the fly transcoding and it works great. I don't notice a difference in quality.

[tvmaster2]

okay, thanks for that info.

[Tiki]

OpenDCT can make use of the hardware transcoding that is available in certain models of HDHR. This uses no extra resources from your PC, it is all done inside the HDHR. I haven't seen the results, so can't comment on quality, but the intended purpose of this feature from Silicon Dust was to allow you to watch live TV directly from a phone or tablet without first storing it on a PC and transcoding it there. With that intended audience in mind, I would guess that speed and bandwidth and power were higher priorities than quality, but I'm just guessing and quality may be great.

OpenDCT can also do on the fly software transcoding for any other device it supports. This uses ffmpeg as the transcoding engine and it requires CPU power. I believe you can configure custom transcoding profiles, so you can adjust quality to suit your needs. You will probably need a very powerful CPU to transcode multiple streams simultaneously.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

I use OpenDCT for on the fly transcoding and it works great. I don't notice a difference in quality.

Sorry for bringing up an older thread, but I forgot to ask...

when the h.264 conversions are done automatically, what happens to things like 5.1 audio streams? Can you set things up so that two audio streams are created, one a stereo mix-down for example, and one pass-through of whatever the original audio was (as is the case with the Handbrake app for example).

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

Sorry for bringing up an older thread, but I forgot to ask...

when the h.264 conversions are done automatically, what happens to things like 5.1 audio streams? Can you set things up so that two audio streams are created, one a stereo mix-down for example, and one pass-through of whatever the original audio was (as is the case with the Handbrake app for example).

If you're using OpenDCT, the audio streams all get remuxed unchanged with the re-encoded video.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

If you're using OpenDCT, the audio streams all get remuxed unchanged with the re-encoded video.

Thanks. I don't currently use OpenDCT

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

Thanks. I don't currently use OpenDCT

Sorry, I thought I saw something about that in there.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

Sorry, I thought I saw something about that in there.

yup, you did. I just wasn't sure if OpenDCT was the key to unlocking this device, which apparently it is I guess

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

yup, you did. I just wasn't sure if OpenDCT was the key to unlocking this device, which apparently it is I guess

When I looked at your post a second time, I didn't see OpenDCT for some reason which is why I thought maybe I'm just seeing things.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

When I looked at your post a second time, I didn't see OpenDCT for some reason which is why I thought maybe I'm just seeing things.

I see things everyday... lol
But seriously, do you know if this thing can be used with SageTV WITHOUT OpenDCT, and be set to auto-convert the .ts files to .mp4, with original audio? that would be cool

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

I see things everyday... lol
But seriously, do you know if this thing can be used with SageTV WITHOUT OpenDCT, and be set to auto-convert the .ts files to .mp4, with original audio? that would be cool

I do not do any conversions myself, so I cannot answer this with more than I'm fairly certain that you'll have 2 channel audio after some of the conversions and others look like the audio might be copied. It would really help if the transcoder formats also mentioned if the audio would be copied or not. Some of them say with AC3 which doesn't tell me much because that could mean it retains the AC3 audio if that the original audio format or it converts the audio to AC3 regardless of the audio format. The latter would not be preferred by me under most circumstances.

[glenner]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

I see things everyday... lol
But seriously, do you know if this thing can be used with SageTV WITHOUT OpenDCT, and be set to auto-convert the .ts files to .mp4, with original audio? that would be cool

Has this been sorted out? Now that my server is up... next on my list is to see if I can get SageTV to save my HDHR Extend recordings in h.264 using the Extend's built-in transcoding.

So I'm wondering:

1. Do I have to use OpenDCT to do this? Or can I get this working without OpenDCT?
2. If my recordings are being saved in h.264 (with or without OpenDCT), will comskip still work? I'd hate to have to decide between comskip and h.264...
3. If I need to setup OpenDCT (docker on unraid), is this an easy migration? Full disclosure: I have not tackled the 100+ OpenDCT post yet. Sounds like a large hill to climb. :-) Is there a OpenDCT cheat sheet around or youtube video that outlines what is required to set it up.

Cheers!