SageTV transcoding

[sacrament055]

Originally Posted by jvl711

Good news everyone!

I have completed coding what I believe is the last major feature, Media Format Detection. I have pushed another Alpha to my Patreon supporters to try out. If I do not hear any negative feedback, I plan to publish this as a plugin. It will be a beta for a while....

At first I am only going to release x64 windows build. The x64 build will work with 32bit SageTV as long as your OS is 64 bit. I know I am not showing a lot of love for the linux users... I am sorry, it just happens that my development platform is windows, and I need to get a decent working Linux machine to do the Linux builds.

Let me know if you guys have any questions.

Josh

Does that mean it will correctly detect .AVI files now? Just wondering because the version I'm currently running will play .AVI files but will not track with playback meaning you cannot skip. It will only allow play or pause.

[jvl711]

Originally Posted by sacrament055

Does that mean it will correctly detect .AVI files now? Just wondering because the version I'm currently running will play .AVI files but will not track with playback meaning you cannot skip. It will only allow play or pause.

That is interesting. I am not sure if that is a SageTVTranscoder thing or not. What device are you playing back the AVI on? Does SageTV properly detect the duration of the file?

[sacrament055]

It's happening on both Windows clients and Android clients and I believe it started around the time of an update to the server that allowed it to correctly detect HEVC files.

Timeline shows the video as 0 length.

I do recall that there was an option used when the HEVC detection came out to tell sage to re-detect all videos (maybe I need to do that again?)

[jvl711]

Originally Posted by sacrament055

It's happening on both Windows clients and Android clients and I believe it started around the time of an update to the server that allowed it to correctly detect HEVC files.

Timeline shows the video as 0 length.

I do recall that there was an option used when the HEVC detection came out to tell sage to re-detect all videos (maybe I need to do that again?)

Is it possible for you to share an example with me. I have a Nextcloud server if you need a place to upload too. I can send you a link in a private message.

I would be willing to attempt to figure out what is going on. I might be able to at a minimum provide some insight.

Thanks,
Josh

[jvl711]

I am super close to posting a beta for the new SageTVTranscoder. I am just working on automating as much of the build and publish as possible as part of the first release. I am hoping to have something out this weekend if things go as planned.

Josh

[jvl711]

Hi All,

I have released the SageTVTranscoder Plugin to the repository. This is available for use. This is currently only available for Windows x64 bit systems. You can use it on both x32/x64 SageTV installs. We should be able to compile this for linux without much issue.

Question: Where do you guys think I should post this on the forums? This should work for most version of SageTV. Should I make a new post under GitHub development? Should I place it under one of the Customization sub forums?

Why should I care about this?: Good question. I will try and post some of the reasons this plugin is important.

• SageTV can now transcode/encode with newer codecs like h265
• SageTV can now identify newer codecs like h265 and others (I still recommend my other plugin for this)
• Performance increases. It is able to identify some content in fractions of a second that used to take many seconds. I would think that encoding/decoding performance in some circumstances may be quicker.
• Stability. This is based on the most up to date version of FFmpeg (4.3.1). This version is many years newer, and should be much more stable.
• I am sure there are more that I am not aware of.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by jvl711

Hi All,

I have released the SageTVTranscoder Plugin to the repository. This is available for use. This is currently only available for Windows x64 bit systems. You can use it on both x32/x64 SageTV installs. We should be able to compile this for linux without much issue.

Question: Where do you guys think I should post this on the forums? This should work for most version of SageTV. Should I make a new post under GitHub development? Should I place it under one of the Customization sub forums?

Why should I care about this?: Good question. I will try and post some of the reasons this plugin is important.

• SageTV can now transcode/encode with newer codecs like h265
• SageTV can now identify newer codecs like h265 and others (I still recommend my other plugin for this)
• Performance increases. It is able to identify some content in fractions of a second that used to take many seconds. I would think that encoding/decoding performance in some circumstances may be quicker.
• Stability. This is based on the most up to date version of FFmpeg (4.3.1). This version is many years newer, and should be much more stable.
• I am sure there are more that I am not aware of.

Hi. So for Windows 7, 32 bit users, the new features do not function, but it is installable and still useable as it previously was?

[jvl711]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

Hi. So for Windows 7, 32 bit users, the new features do not function, but it is installable and still useable as it previously was?

I am a little confused by your question.

This SageTVTranscoder.exe is compiled as a 64bit executable. It will only run on a 64bit windows OS.

I am going to expand with more builds over time. x32 and Linux.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by jvl711

I am a little confused by your question.

This SageTVTranscoder.exe is compiled as a 64bit executable. It will only run on a 64bit windows OS.

I am going to expand with more builds over time. x32 and Linux.

Okay, that clears up my confusion with this sentence: “This is currently only available for Windows x64 bit systems. You can use it on both x32/x64 SageTV installs.”
thanks

[CptKirk]

(I still recommend my other plugin for this)

Can we have both of your plugins running at the same time?

MediaFormatParser Plugin and SageTVTranscoder Plugin

[jvl711]

Originally Posted by CptKirk

Can we have both of your plugins running at the same time?

MediaFormatParser Plugin and SageTVTranscoder Plugin

Absolutely. This is basically an updated version of the "CORE" SageTVTranscoder.exe that comes with SageTV. It should behave exactly as it does today, but better

Josh

[wayner]

Can you clarify when the transcoder is used? Is this just used for the Linux client? Is it used for other Miniclients like HD200 or HD300 extenders? What about the full Windows install or the Windows client? Do they use the transcoder?

[jvl711]

Originally Posted by wayner

Can you clarify when the transcoder is used? Is this just used for the Linux client? Is it used for other Miniclients like HD200 or HD300 extenders? What about the full Windows install or the Windows client? Do they use the transcoder?

Hi Wayner,

This will be used for HD100,HD200,HD300,Placeshifter or AndroidClient when transcoding is required. This is usually when the codec is not support by the device. Or when there is a low bandwidth connection.

If not using my Media Format detection plugin, this will be used to detect media files when the external format detector is called.

This is used in the internal encoder to reencode recordings and library content. I do not know the name of this in the frontend.

This is used to generate thumbnails for media files.

Thanks,
Josh

[graywolf]

This will be used for HD100,HD200,HD300,Placeshifter or AndroidClient when transcoding is required. This is usually when the codec is not support by the device. Or when there is a low bandwidth connection.

Do I understand correctly?
With this, would be able to watch HEVC files on the HD200/HD300 because it will transcode it to a format they understand?

What performance considerations would transcoding on the fly have?
Skip FWD/RWD impact/delay?

Sounds very interesting

[jvl711]

Originally Posted by graywolf

Do I understand correctly?
With this, would be able to watch HEVC files on the HD200/HD300 because it will transcode it to a format they understand?

What performance considerations would transcoding on the fly have?
Skip FWD/RWD impact/delay?

Sounds very interesting

You are correct. It will transcode h265 to something the HD200/HD300 can playback. h265 does need some considerable horsepower to transcode though. My older server can not do it reliably, but it can do it enough so that I can confirm that it worked, but not good enough to watch.

Each users mileage will vary.

Josh

[hb4]

Originally Posted by jvl711

Hi All,


Question: Where do you guys think I should post this on the forums? This should work for most version of SageTV. Should I make a new post under GitHub development? Should I place it under one of the Customization sub forums?

I've always thought of the 'Customizations' sub-forum as a place for 'user-developers' to announce their UI wares; and the Development sub-forums for 'core-developers' to advance the state of Open Source SageTV package; so Github Development?


What is the 'repository'? It doesn't look like I can install it via Setup>Plugins, even though it's called a Plugin.

[jvl711]

Originally Posted by hb4

I've always thought of the 'Customizations' sub-forum as a place for 'user-developers' to announce their UI wares; and the Development sub-forums for 'core-developers' to advance the state of Open Source SageTV package; so Github Development?


What is the 'repository'? It doesn't look like I can install it via Setup>Plugins, even though it's called a Plugin.

You should be able to find it. It is under general, and it is called "SageTVTranscoder (FFmpeg) Windows x64. Let me know if you are still having issues.

Josh

[hb4]

Found and installed it! Thanks, Josh. Hoping that it fixes the halts during the football game due the 6Mbs DSL service from my ISP.

[sic0048]

Originally Posted by hb4

Found and installed it! Thanks, Josh. Hoping that it fixes the halts during the football game due the 6Mbs DSL service from my ISP.

Unless you are trying to watch the game by streaming your video to an off-site location (somewhere not on your local LAN where the SageTV server is located), I doubt this plugin will help.

It sounds like your problem is getting a stable feed INTO your LAN over the WAN due to your slow internet speed. This plugin can't help that because it takes a file that is already on your LAN and transcodes it to send somewhere else. If you are having trouble getting a stable feed onto the LAN, that occurs before this plugin can do anything about it.

[hb4]

Originally Posted by sic0048

Unless you are trying to watch the game by streaming your video to an off-site location (somewhere not on your local LAN where the SageTV server is located), I doubt this plugin will help.

Sorry, I wasn't clear; The halts are showing up when trying to stream to a remote (off-site) location with poor (<6Mbs DSL) from a server location with pretty good bandwidth (~11Mbs upload).