HDHomeRun EXTEND H.264 and SageTV

[Telecore]

MPEG-4 content takes up about half the storage space vs. MPEG-2 and I noticed that I can stream MPEG-4 channels from my SageTV server to work and other places over the internet to a SageTV Client. Can't do that with MPEG-2. I did notice that picture quality is not as good when the transcoding is turned on vs. off. For now, I've allocated the extend to use with the Nvidia Shield or PCs running the HDHR app and not SageTV.

[glenner]

Originally Posted by brandypuff

I've got an Extend but I am using it directly through SageTV and not OpenDCT. Seems to work fine. Not sure why I would need to transcode the shows, anyway.

If you go the Extend webui (http://<extend_ip?>/transcode.html), what is your default transode profile? I would assume it is "none", as we all seem to generally have trouble using any transcode profile other than that.

Why I would need to transcode the shows comes down to just "because I can"? Or at least "I should be able to". :-). The Extend comes with hardware transcoding and so it would be nice if it worked. Main advantages would seem to be:

1. Much smaller recording size for each and every recording (~50% smaller)
2. Less disk i/o writing and reading each recording. Means faster i/o and less disk usage generally.
3. Less network bandwidth required, means less taxing on your LAN.

But you are right... everything works pretty well without transcoding... for me mostly only because I have a massive unraid server to drive everything at the moment. And when I need transcoding to serve a recording to an iPad, Plex does a good job of that for me. Otherwise, I'd be stuck on my iPads, especially if I am remote out of my house.

It just seems like it should work, and it would be cool if it did. The Extend seems to be the current top of the line HDHR model, so it would be nice if the transcoding feature ultimately can be supported to work SageTV.

Eventually I'll get back to tinkering with my Extend with transcoding turned on and see if I can make any progress. If anyone has any suggestions on things I can try, let me know, and I'll experiment.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by brandypuff

Not sure why I would need to transcode the shows, anyway.

Less space and greater compatibility.

[nyplayer]

This was posted by Jason in the Silicondust forum just FYI


I have a slightly-educated guess of what might be happening. I don't have any knowledge of the internals of SageTV, but I do know what the HDHomeRun sees when it tunes and how transcode works. When SageTV first tunes a channel, it gets the full unfiltered, unmodified broadcast stream, including MPEG2 video and the original PAT/PMT from the broadcaster. It then sets the program number, which tells the HDHomeRun to only stream the particular subchannel you want. On an EXTEND, this is what activates the transcoding, which means it generates a new PAT/PMT and outputs H.264 video. So, there's a very brief period where SageTV is getting MPEG2, and may be setting things up internally based on that, and then doesn't update when the video changes. If this is the case, it is something that would have to be changed on SageTV's side.

[Monedeath]

In that case, I would think that playing with the tuning delay should potentially resolve the issue in the interim until/unless someone plays with the internals within SageTV. Find out the duration for that "moment" where no transcode is happening, and go for just after that.

Then again, as I reconsider, is tuning delay a buffer or a "wait before looking" limiter for SageTV? I never looked too hard at that.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by Monedeath

In that case, I would think that playing with the tuning delay should potentially resolve the issue in the interim until/unless someone plays with the internals within SageTV. Find out the duration for that "moment" where no transcode is happening, and go for just after that.

Then again, as I reconsider, is tuning delay a buffer or a "wait before looking" limiter for SageTV? I never looked too hard at that.

The tuning delay doesn't do anything for direct tuning devices. It is a delay between when sagetv sends out a channel change request (via and IR blaster, firewire, etc) and when it starts up the encoder to start recording the channel. This process is not used for actual tuners.

The better 'fix' here would probably be to just use OpenDCT for this tuner, as I'm thinking it asks the tuner for the specific channel, and doesn't go through a process like Jason was describing.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

The tuning delay doesn't do anything for direct tuning devices. It is a delay between when sagetv sends out a channel change request (via and IR blaster, firewire, etc) and when it starts up the encoder to start recording the channel. This process is not used for actual tuners.

The better 'fix' here would probably be to just use OpenDCT for this tuner, as I'm thinking it asks the tuner for the specific channel, and doesn't go through a process like Jason was describing.

OpenDCT runs on your SageTV server? Where's the best place to look for info on the ins and outs of just what OpenDCT is? I have no use for it from what I know so far, but I'd like to get a HDHOMERUN Extend for OTA abilities, AND the mp4 conversion option. There seem to be some people in this thread who may have got the conversion option working within Sage and WITHOUT OpenDCT - did I read those correctly?

[Telecore]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

There seem to be some people in this thread who may have got the conversion option working within Sage and WITHOUT OpenDCT - did I read those correctly?

My understanding, and my personal experience is that no one has the extend working with SageTV when transcoding is turned on. For me, it works with transcoding OFF with both the native SageTV software drivers or via OpenDCT, but when I change transcoding to "heavy" via the device's web page, neither method worked.

NOTE: if you install the HDHR software and install OpenDCT, then you will have two different methods to add the extend as a video source to SageTV.

[glenner]

Originally Posted by Telecore

My understanding, and my personal experience is that no one has the extend working with SageTV when transcoding is turned on. For me, it works with transcoding OFF with both the native SageTV software drivers or via OpenDCT, but when I change transcoding to "heavy" via the device's web page, neither method worked.

That would be my understanding as well. I've never seen any evidence that anyone has an Extend with "heavy" transcoding enabled "working" with SageTV, with or without OpenDCT.

I don't have OpenDCT and to this day I'm a little fuzzy as to why I would want or need it given my setup works efficiently without it. My understanding is that it might be useful if I had some kind of digital card tuner setup which I don't... if there was evidence that OpenDCT does in fact support mp4 recordings via a transcode enabled Extend, I might have a reason to use OpenDCT...

Though I guess we need to define what "working" means. This is what it looks like when I try to get this "working". I tried this again today:

1. Confirm my long time stable SageTV setup is able to record raw mpeg2 based shows. Quickly tested a recording via an HD300 connected to my TV... My setup is plain vanilla SageTV 9 on unraid, with no OpenDCT. Tuners were configured normally. Extend transcoding is set to "none".
2. Stop the SageTV service
3. Edit Sage.properties
4. Change mmc/encoders/<encoder_id>/100/0/encode_digital_tv_as_program_stream=true to mmc/encoders/<encoder_id>/100/0/encode_digital_tv_as_program_stream=false for each of your EXTEND entries
5. Saved Sage.properties
6. Started SageTV docker.
7. Record show via HD300. Manual record from guide.
8. Note that .ts file is being generated on filesystem. Playback of show on HD300 looks normal. Note transcoding is still set to "none".
9. Goto HDHR Extend webui. Change default transcode profile from "none" to "heavy". This presumably ensures that h264 encoding is turned on.
10. Record another show from guide.
11. Notice that .ts file is being created.
12. confirm via Extend webui that it does appear to be using the heavy encoding on the tuner in use.
13. .ts file seems to generate less MB/sec than a regular .mpg file. So I believe transcoding is on.
14. .ts video is choppy and freezes when watching using HD300. audio is ok and steams correctly.
15. tested playback on same recording using VLC on a laptop. Same choppy start, and frozen video after a few seconds. VLC has the same playback issues.
16. View .ts media info. Seems to indicate it is an mpeg2 file? I'm not an expert on video metadata... It seems to indicate this is still a mpeg-ps recording?
17. Posted .ts file to google drive in case anyone can look at it and check the media info metadata. You need to download the .ts file and play it locally using VLC or KMP to see what I'm seeing. Don't play it in a browser. Note the media info says the file is 39s long, but the video is only 2s long. And this is a 40MB file.
    https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-...zNGREwyQlJaYXc
18. Reverted everything back to as it was... mpeg2 recordings with no transcoding enabled.

So it seems like it might want to work... but the recorded .ts file is unusable as it stands.
I don't follow the tuner delay issues mentioned here... My tuners can tune to any channel with the Extend heavy transcoding enabled. It will even start recording the show and generate a .ts file. It's just not a usable recording.

Any suggestions on anything else I can try?

[Ol'Guy]

Folks I have trying to set up Sage to serve as a DVR for my HDHomerun Connect. Sage does not find my HDHR device and I do not know why. Most of the pages I find are 5-6 years old and have broken links. Do I need to set up SageDCT or OpenDCT first? Do I need the HDHR DVR subscription to make this work? I am running Sage V9.1.7.757 Server without services activated.

Is there anything up to date that you could point me to?

[BobbyDing]

Originally Posted by Ol'Guy

Folks I have trying to set up Sage to serve as a DVR for my HDHomerun Connect. Sage does not find my HDHR device and I do not know why. Most of the pages I find are 5-6 years old and have broken links. Do I need to set up SageDCT or OpenDCT first? Do I need the HDHR DVR subscription to make this work? I am running Sage V9.1.7.757 Server without services activated.

Is there anything up to date that you could point me to?

I'm no expert on this but if all you are using is a Connect, then sageTV should see that natively. You should not need either DCT encoders. They are for Digital Cable Cards. However openDCT is capable of using connects as well and may give you some extra benefits over the stock save software.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

It's not that SageTV doesn't support H.264 playback, it's because it defaults to an MPEG-PS container and you can't encode H.264 into MPEG-PS. You can change a property on your capture device to enable the use of MPEG-TS which does support H.264.

1. Stop the SageTV service
2. Edit Sage.properties
3. Change mmc/encoders/<encoder_id>/100/0/encode_digital_tv_as_program_stream=true to mmc/encoders/<encoder_id>/100/0/encode_digital_tv_as_program_stream=false for each of your EXTEND entries
4. Save Sage.properties
5. Start the SageTV service

Hi. If you're not using an EXTEND, but instead a Dual or Duo, which natively record in mpg format, this changes the recording format to mpeg-TS? What, if any, would be the benefit for making this change using the latter units - file size?

[BobbyDing]

Is there a way to force SageTV without OpenDCT to save the recordings as .TS? I have the tuners "encode_digital_tv_as_program_stream=false, but the recordings (from HDHR 3) still save as mpg. Any suggestions?

Thanks

[Telecore]

The HDTC-2US with transcode set to "heavy" now works with my HD-300 using OpenDCT (also with the Windows client and Nvidia Shield-miniclient*). I am not sure what changed but I just tested all 4 networks and was able to see video, hear audio and they were sync'ed on the HD300.

The SageTV detailed info indicated I was watching h.264 in an MPEG-2 transport stream. The HDTC-2US web page indicate transcoding was set to "heavy". I am running the latest SageTV version for Windows and have the latest firmware on the HDTC-2US (with the HDHomerum premium demo).

I was actually experimenting with the miniclient to see if it could play back MPEG2 content better after running through OpenDCT/ffmpeg when I made this discovery. *The miniclient has an a-v sync issue, but otherwise seems to be able to play the content.

[brandypuff]

Hah, i posted this reply myself but forgot how to use the EXTEND without using OpenDCT. Can anybody share light on this? I recently started having problems recording from the EXTEND after a recent new Sage install on a different computer.

Do i need to use OpenDCT on the HDHomerun Prime tuner?

[KryptoNyte]

The Prime cablecard tuner requires OpenDCT. Can you go into the program area where you can add new tuners and take screenshots of the available tuners and post them here?