SageTV on PC; possible playback on Pi3?

[rfeyer]

Hello all,
I seen several posts on getting sageTV onto an RPI, but I simply just wish to play back some SageTV recorded Video on the RPi3+.
I have a great connection between RPi and PC (mounting) and am able to play audio just fine, but the video studders at best (a picture every second or so).
I did purchase the Mpeg2 codec from raspberrypi.com, but that made minimal if any improvements.
So, now I do not know if it is simply impossible, or if I also need to download the IC-2 codec?
BTW- I did also install VNC on the pi, made no difference.

[jchiso]

I assume you are running a Linux desktop on the pi. I do not have a pi3, but my earlier version pis don’t do too well with desktop video. I would suggest you try a native Kodi distribution to test the potential playback quality. You may also have issue with your network setup. I would recommend setting up an NFS share for the Sage media, if possible, as it is a much faster protocol than SAMBA. I’m not sure how well the pi3 renders mpeg2, but it should not have any issues with h264 files from an HDHomerun or HD-PVR ...

[rfeyer]

TY tons for reply.
Could you or anyone tell me exactly which format SageTV is recording?
The setup of SageTV has too many options which are confusing to me. I believe I read that there is no changing the format it records in.
The file extension is mpg, but I do not know which exact format it is.
Would like to do more research to see what I could possibly do.

The LAN work perfect - my dual core laptop with Linux Mint runs the files seamlessly.

[KryptoNyte]

I'm guessing it's mpeg2. Download and install a program called MediaInfo and you can get all the info you need from any video file.

Which tuner are you using to bring TV into Sage?

[wayner]

Check out RasPlex - which is Plex for the Raspberry Pi.

[rfeyer]

TY all -
the tuner is a SiliconDust HomeRun HD Dual (external).

I have done a little research into Plex (the main unit) - not the RPI version

There must be a way to do this, otherwise the RPi HomeEntertainment versions wouldn't be able to pull it off either?

[Tiki]

Sage doesn’t have a single defined recording format. It depends completely on the source and the type of tuner you use.

The silicon dust HDHR devices normally just capture the stream as it is broadcast. Right now all broadcast TV in the US is transmitted in MPEG-2 format. So if you are using the HDHR with an antenna, that’s probably what you will get. But this could change in next few years as the new ATSC3 standard starts to roll out.

Most cable tv is also MPEG2, but many cable providers are switching some of all of their channels to h.264. So if you are recording clear from cable clear QAM, it could be either. The same is true if using a cable card with the HDHR Prime.

Some of the HDHR models can also transcode to h.264. This is meant for use with phones and tablets. From the posts I’ve seen, it is tricky to get this working with Sage because Sage defaults to a container type that doesn’t support h.264 when using HDHR.

[KryptoNyte]

Originally Posted by Tiki

....
Some of the HDHR models can also transcode to h.264. This is meant for use with phones and tablets. From the posts I’ve seen, it is tricky to get this working with Sage because Sage defaults to a container type that doesn’t support h.264 when using HDHR.

Tiki, could you please expand on this a bit? I'm wondering if this isn't the problem that I'm having getting their Quatro tuner running in SageTV (with their Premium TV subscription service) in some of the last few posts here;

https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/sho...62774&page=122

[rfeyer]

Is it possible to change the recording format? I know it is not in SageTV, but does anyone have experience with HDHomerun Duo?
Internet search noted that there should be a MythTV choice (apparently fro linux) but I do not have that choice in my HDHomeRun software (updated today). Not even sure if those choices make a change in recording scheme, have not found any documetnation

[KarylFStein]

The device that transcodes is the HDHR Extend. And I don't think it works in SageTV.

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

Tiki, could you please expand on this a bit? I'm wondering if this isn't the problem that I'm having getting their Quatro tuner running in SageTV (with their Premium TV subscription service) in some of the last few posts here;

https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/sho...62774&page=122

First, let me say that I do not own an HDHR-Extend - my knowledge is 2nd hand based mostly on what others have posted on this forum. But, here is my understanding:

The original HDHR was released while Sage was still actively developed as a commercial product, and so support was added to handle it directly. The HDHR Prime (for Cable Card), and Extend (with built-in transcoding) both came out much later and Sage has not been modified to handle these devices directly (so Sage either doesn't recognize them, or thinks they are the original HDHR).

When you create a digital video file, there are at least 3 things that must be determined: the video codec, the audio codec, and the container.

The original HDHR and the HDHR Prime do not alter the audio or video codecs - they just pass them through as-is. But Sage determines the container (it could be either MPEG-PS, with .mpeg file extension, or MPEG-TS, with .ts file extension). There is a setting in the Sage properties file that determines this, but I don't remember which one it defaults to. The Extend is able to transcode the video to a different format (h.264).

My understanding is that the TS (transport stream) container should support almost any combination of audio and video codecs and can even support multiple items in the same container. But, the PS (program stream) container was really only meant to work with MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 video.

So, if the HDHR is transcoding to h.264, but Sage is expecting MPEG-2 and is configured to put all recordings into PS files, the files it creates won't be playable.

Changing Sage to use TS, should fix this, but I'm not 100% certain that it does, because I have seen mixed posts about this on the forums.


As an alternate solution, I have seen it posted that it is possible to use Open-DCT as an intermediary. So, instead of having Sage directly configure the HDHR-Extend, you have Open-DCT capture from the Extend and present the results to Sage.

The problem with this is that Open-DCT was originally intended to work with Cable-Card tuners. The author added the ability to use QAM tuners, but he intended that you would have at least one cable card tuner and he could then read the configuration info from the cable card to determine how to tune the QAM tuner. If you don't have a cable card, I'm not sure how this is handled. I'm also not sure how it is handled, if you are using OTA, rather than QAM.

[rfeyer]

Tiki,
that is a load of VERY useful information!!!
I was getting spaghetti brain not really understanding the basics of SageTV's recording practice.
This helps enormously - TY again!
TY to all others as well.

[KryptoNyte]

That is some good info, Tiki, thank you. I did finally get the Quatro working, took some fooling, but so happy to have OpenDCT to make the handshake with Sage.

[HuMan321]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

That is some good info, Tiki, thank you. I did finally get the Quatro working, took some fooling, but so happy to have OpenDCT to make the handshake with Sage.

I don’t want to step on this thread, but do you have a posting going showing how you accomplished getting SageTV to work with HD Homerun Live?

I have been reading KarylFStein posts and hope to read/hear more as this is where I want to get to.
Thanks,

[KryptoNyte]

Originally Posted by HuMan321

I don’t want to step on this thread, but do you have a posting going showing how you accomplished getting SageTV to work with HD Homerun Live?

I have been reading KarylFStein posts and hope to read/hear more as this is where I want to get to.
Thanks,

My troubleshooting started with this post the main OpenDCT thread;

https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/sho...postcount=2418

Just to be clear, the intent was to get the HDHR Quatro tuner working with the HDHR Premium TV monthly subscription service, in SageTV.