SageTV transcoding

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by jvl711

Hi guys,

I wanted to give an update on what I have been able to achieve without updating the FFmpeg library in sage. And where I am at in my development.

I have added a bunch of setting to the SageTV Android client to enable higher quality transcoding to
- HD resolutions (1080, 720).
- ac3 audio.
- I have added settings so that you can choose match source resolution and source FPS when transcoding.
- I have added MKV container as an output option. This works MUCH better
- Probably a few other settings I am not thinking about

On the SageTV side I have added the code to accept all of these new settings from the client and pass the appropriate values to the SageTVTranscoder.

Initial testing has been extreemly promising. I hope to have something ready to share in a few weeks.

Josh

This might fix the problems I am having sometimes with resuming a TVShow.

[jvl711]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

What kind of bandwidth does the miniclient pull when viewing at transcoded 1080? What kind of processor usage on the server (and what kind of processor is it)?

Hi Joel,

The CPU usage does seem to be reasonable on the system I am using. I am using a VM of Windows 10 hosted on Hyper-v as my development server. The CPUs on my server are Xeon E5620 CPU @ 2.4 ghz. It used ~50% cpu, but I have seen as low as 20%. I am wondering if you match resolution and fps if the transcoding might be a little quicker. While this is a server class CPU, it is also a CPU from a decade ago, and I am not sure if it was even a fast one back then.

On the bandwidth front I am not really sure, but I will make and educated guess... I was using 4000 kbps as the bitrate, and it seemed to create a passable picture. I am assuming with the audio it would probably be around 5mbit a second give or take. That gives some room for the audio and other possible overhead. Broadcast tv is generally around 12-15mbit per second. So that would be ~3 times reduction in required bandwidth. I was able to get this to work well on my cellphone which is AT&T prepaid.

[RonBoyd]

Originally Posted by trk2

I'm also interested and can contribute financially.

Me, too.

[Malfunction]

Originally Posted by wayner

I am in as well for financial support. Isn't the main issue the version of ffmpeg used and Jeff had to do a lot of customization to it to make it work for SageTV. So to use a more modern version of ffmpeg you need to redo all of these customizations.

The current version doesn't even work properly for 1080i files in PlaceShifter on your local LAN.

FYI - to play files remotely I use Plex and AirVideoHD (an iOS app). My unRAID server has dockers running Plex, AirVideoHD and SageTV. For movie and TV series files I use Plex. But for sports and other newer recordings that may not have metadata I use AirVideoHD to watch on my iOS devcies.

The other option that should work, although I don't know that I have tried this, is to use a VPN connection back to your LAN (I also have OpenVPN server running in a docker on unRAID). Then you should be able to use any video file player, even SageTV Placeshifter, assuming that it works for that type of file on your LAN.

Of course the downside to transcoding is that it wouldn't be as easy to skip forward through files. SageTV is better at this then pretty much any other software and I use this all the time as I primarily use SageTV for watching sports.

I second that. I've been unable to transcode 1080i.

[jvl711]

Originally Posted by RonBoyd

Me, too.

If you are interested in supporting the work I am doing with Transcoding and SageTV Android client please consider becoming a Patreon member.

https://www.patreon.com/jvl711

Thanks,
Josh

[KryptoNyte]

Never heard of Patreon before, but got all signed up, secure and painless. Keep up the good work, Josh!

[trk2]

Originally Posted by jvl711

- I have added MKV container as an output option. This works MUCH better

Does this mean that a .ts recording can be presented in a MKV container for compatibility reasons without additional transcoding/compression? Stream copy as ffmpeg calls it.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by jvl711

If you are interested in supporting the work I am doing with Transcoding and SageTV Android client please consider becoming a Patreon member.

https://www.patreon.com/jvl711

Thanks,
Josh

From the looks of Patreon, you can come and go as you please, so that’s nice.

Question about all the good things you’re doing: is there any way any of the changes could/would effect the way a HD300 responds to the server? I wouldn’t think so, but I’d like to rule it out as why all my HD300’s started acting wonky about a month ago, around the time the forum was down for repairs.
HD200’s work fine. Darndest thing...

[jvl711]

Originally Posted by trk2

Does this mean that a .ts recording can be presented in a MKV container for compatibility reasons without additional transcoding/compression? Stream copy as ffmpeg calls it.

Hi trk2,

Transcoding .ts to an HD output in MKV is something the current round of changes will be able to do. Stream copy is not currently on the list of this round, but should in theory be possible in a future release. I will add this to the wish list.

I have two main goals for this release.

1. Allow for remote view in HD (720/1080).
2. Transcode unsupported formats when possible (The ffmpeg in SageTV is old, so mileage may vary)

I have these things working now, I need to tidy up the code a bit, than I will release a Sage.jar and a SageTV Android client for alpha and beta testing. When most of the bugs are worked I will submit a pull request to the SageTV core, and publish a new version of the SageTV Android client.

Josh

[jvl711]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

From the looks of Patreon, you can come and go as you please, so that’s nice.

Question about all the good things you’re doing: is there any way any of the changes could/would effect the way a HD300 responds to the server? I wouldn’t think so, but I’d like to rule it out as why all my HD300’s started acting wonky about a month ago, around the time the forum was down for repairs.
HD200’s work fine. Darndest thing...

There is an outside chance that some of my changes could have an impact to other miniclients. I am making some minor changes to how SageTV is evaluating the media file to determine when/how to best transcode. I am trying my best to make the changes minimal and non-impactful. Hopefully if there are any issues they will be worked out as we test the changes.

Josh

[jvl711]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

Never heard of Patreon before, but got all signed up, secure and painless. Keep up the good work, Josh!

Thanks Joel for you continued support!

[jvl711]

Originally Posted by Malfunction

I second that. I've been unable to transcode 1080i.

I have been able to transcode 1080i content to the SageTV Android client without any issues. It looks flawless. This may be more an issue with MPlayer and the Placeshifter.

But yes the FFMpeg is very dated and needs to be updated. I am getting a lot more out of it than I expected. I was actually shocked.

Josh

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by jvl711

There is an outside chance that some of my changes could have an impact to other miniclients. I am making some minor changes to how SageTV is evaluating the media file to determine when/how to best transcode. I am trying my best to make the changes minimal and non-impactful. Hopefully if there are any issues they will be worked out as we test the changes.

Josh

OK, thanks. Like I said, it’s probably something else, but I had to ask to eliminate possibilities.

On the Miniclient ‘where-you-post-it’ topic: I have two Samsung, SMART TV’s, who have a depository of apps like you’d find at the Android Play Store and Amazon App Store. What are the chances the Miniclient would be accepted by companies like Samsung or Vizio and their internal download app locations? That would be sweet. Are they running a similar version of Android? I just installed Starz, TuneIn Radio and The Weather Channel from their in-house app store yesterday. Would they even consider allowing the Sage Miniclient?

[KryptoNyte]

Originally Posted by jvl711

But yes the FFMpeg is very dated and needs to be updated.

If FFMpeg just an executable that's buried within the code, and easily to update, or is it far more complicated than that?

[trk2]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

If FFMpeg just an executable that's buried within the code, and easily to update, or is it far more complicated than that?

Much more complicated. See here for the previous attempts to update.

[KryptoNyte]

Originally Posted by trk2

Much more complicated. See here for the previous attempts to update.

It always is, eh. Crud.

Well, if Josh is getting good results with it as is, it'll be good enough for me.

[KryptoNyte]

Originally Posted by jvl711

Thanks Joel for you continued support!

I don't want to just single Josh out for this kind of thing. There are still a handful of developers making improvements and working on the SageTV software. When you see them doing so, don't be afraid to PM them for a Paypal email address if you are so inclined.

I love to see things still moving forward around here. It's amazing it's lasted this long - a testament to the quality of original design.

[jvl711]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

If FFMpeg just an executable that's buried within the code, and easily to update, or is it far more complicated than that?

I am honestly not sure how much effort it is yet. I will need to compare the SageTV modified version to the original FFMpeg version to determine how many changes were made. Than I would need to evaluate how many changes were made in FFMpeg since the version that SageTV uses.

Until that analysis is done it would be hard to determine how much work we are talking.

The good news is SageTV is just calling the executable, and the executable is just a modified version of the FFMpeg executable. I am learning more and more about how sage is utilizing it as I am making the other changes.

As you can see from the other replies, it is not a cake walk, hence the reason I am not jumping right in and tackling it. I am trying to work with it first.

Josh

[wnjj]

Originally Posted by jvl711

I am honestly not sure how much effort it is yet. I will need to compare the SageTV modified version to the original FFMpeg version to determine how many changes were made. Than I would need to evaluate how many changes were made in FFMpeg since the version that SageTV uses.

Until that analysis is done it would be hard to determine how much work we are talking.

The good news is SageTV is just calling the executable, and the executable is just a modified version of the FFMpeg executable. I am learning more and more about how sage is utilizing it as I am making the other changes.

As you can see from the other replies, it is not a cake walk, hence the reason I am not jumping right in and tackling it. I am trying to work with it first.

Josh

I found converting to be a ton of work though I think I got through all of it. There were lots of sections of code no longer there or completely rewritten. Also things like text names for formats changed spelling or case and the sage core expects certain ones. The ffmpeg code is modified to add support for SageTV’s custom server protocol (stv://) along with better FF/rew (I think) and bug fixes, which have likely been fixed in later versions anyway.

I painstakingly went through the diffs and did my best to apply them as needed to a more recent version. I have it on my machine in a repo and already promised to push it up to github for whomever wants to take it on.

Long story short: I got frustrated with the massively complex compiling system of automake and build options. The first time I tried compiling I ran into things that just wouldn’t work and even hung my PC, which is my main server. I suppose I should have just tried compiling stock ffmpeg first. It may also be the fact that I was doing this under MinGW when most users are in Linux. We do use MinGW to build the current “old” version for SageTV today.

I’ll see about getting the code and any notes I took uploaded.

[jvl711]

Originally Posted by wnjj

I found converting to be a ton of work though I think I got through all of it. There were lots of sections of code no longer there or completely rewritten. Also things like text names for formats changed spelling or case and the sage core expects certain ones. The ffmpeg code is modified to add support for SageTV’s custom server protocol (stv://) along with better FF/rew (I think) and bug fixes, which have likely been fixed in later versions anyway.

I painstakingly went through the diffs and did my best to apply them as needed to a more recent version. I have it on my machine in a repo and already promised to push it up to github for whomever wants to take it on.

Long story short: I got frustrated with the massively complex compiling system of automake and build options. The first time I tried compiling I ran into things that just wouldn’t work and even hung my PC, which is my main server. I suppose I should have just tried compiling stock ffmpeg first. It may also be the fact that I was doing this under MinGW when most users are in Linux. We do use MinGW to build the current “old” version for SageTV today.

I’ll see about getting the code and any notes I took uploaded.

I am interested in at least taking a look. Not sure what I will be able to add, but I will try.

Josh