STB Firewire (IEEE-1394) Support

[turak]

DFA,

Video 2 is what I need, but I think the 1033 firmware uses different discretes then the 3.xy. I have a HLP6163W. At the moment I have my harmony remote sending a Video 1 then a toggle input. It works, but it's slow. Thanks for the offer of help, but I don't want you do go to all the trouble of creating a UIRT command when it probably wouldn't work on my TV. I'll just keep watching the avsforums for a code that works.

[LaVike]

Just wanted to let folks know that I'm trying this Sage-HD capture also. I've been using SageTV for a while, but don't really "mess" with it. This is my first time really mucking around.

Anyway, I'd recorded via CAPVHS from firewire before (AVS Forum) approach and had some problems so I stopped. I'm trying this now. Hopefully I'll learn more.

I've installed DFA's .inf to recognize my Moto6412. It went much easier than the AVS approach. Great job on that.

My next step is to build the graph. I know almost nothing about this type of thing so if I end up doing it, the audience for this thing will be pretty large. I've started trying to build a graph, but can't find any "TS Info Parser" much less one from Nvidia. Can anyone point me in the right direction on this? Do I need to invest in some kind of software for this?

Thanks!

[Naylia]

The filter in question is found under Graph -> Insert Filter -> Direct Show Filters -> Nvidia TS to Info Parser. I believe you'll need the nvidia dvd decdoders installed to have this filter available to you.

There is a 30 Day trial of the decoders available here.

I also just got my cable box and connected it to my computer while both were powered off. Turned on the box, then the computer. Windows XP found it on booting. I disabled the 'AV\C Panel' and an extra 'Unknown Device'. Dane's drivers worked great on my remaining unidentified 'AV\C Tuner' which was a Moto6200.

Dane suggested trying the following graph to see if it works:
Cable Box -> Nvidia TS to Info Parser -> MPEG 2 Demultiplexer -> Video Renderer
which should just make it display to screen to see if it works. I'm gonna give this a shot tonight.

[spaceghost]

DFA-
Any luck with Moonlight?

[Naylia]

I think Dane was having luck with the Moonlight dump.

I get stuttering highpitched sound from what I would consider regular channels, digital and HD channels are just fine. Has anyone else encountered this or does anyone have any ideas?

EDIT: It's not actually stuttering, it sounded like stuttering when i sent it straight to DirectSound Output. I got it to record to an mpeg2 file, and it's like someone has turned the rpm up on a record player. The entire thing is in fast motion, which is weird because it's encoding realtime. Anybody seen this? Any ideas?

For the record I use comcast in the boston area and I get channels 2-71, some digital PBS stations, and about a half dozen broadcast HD channels. Unfortunately 2-71 sound like they're being acted out by the chipmunks.

[DFA]

Naylia:
I'm not sure what you mean by "regular channels". If you mean lower channels that come to you in analog form and are then encoded by the STB, I have not even looked at those. Some STB's do not have the capability to encode the analogs. The PVR STB's should have encoders or they would not be able to record any analog stations.

I have only looked and spent any time with SD and HD digital (channels that arrive encoded). I mostly have the HD channels assigned to the SGR. I still have more that I need to investigate myself.

Spaceghost:
The Moonlight Mux will connect but not process anything when connected to MS's DeMux. When connected to Moonlight's own DeMux it works, but the Moonlight DeMux will not connect to the "TS Info Parser"!! Arrrgh.

I have tried quite a few Mux's, including some other versions of Cyberlink, and have not found a single other one that works. The CL Mux we have I think is marginal; just doing the job and a little shaky when the graph is first started up. We have three dump filters identified and all seem to work equally well for me (Moonlight's, Sage's (Mainconcept), and CL's (version specific).

I was excited about the Moonlight Mux because of what I read about it and noting that it has seperate and adjustable video and audio buffers. I plan on dropping a line to Moonlight asking for assistance with the filters; I bought a license for the Moonlight MPEG Player believing I could use the filters for more than just their player. I may also drop a line to Mainconcept. I am hoping that maybe one of them might be interested in putting a small filter pack together for a small fee that is aimed at our application.

I'm out of town currently so not in HTPC mode.

DFA

[travisbell]

Hello again!

After some more testing I would like to share my experiences so we can try and get this working properly.

I have more or less given up with watching TV for now but would love the ability to record. So I went in a scheduled a test recording, SGR kicked in and everything looked it was going to work... until I saw the file it created was 0KB. Sooo...

First of all, I stand by my observation of SGR being somewhat the problem here. As proof of this let me tell you an experience I had earlier. For the past 2 months I have been using CapDVHS to record my shows. It has worked more or less flawlessly, I just don't like the interface very much. I finished a recording earlier, and without closing it down (the recording had stopped many hours previous) I opened up SGR and Sage and went to watch some TV... I could NOT get it work. I would get the Audio error on my first attempt every time (I think I tried about 5 times). Then it occurred to me... I wonder if the fact CapDVHS is open has anything to do with it. It wasn't recording, just simply open. I closed the app, and bango.. first try SGR & Sage worked. So I tested this a little further... I recorded something for a few secs with CapDVHS, stopped it then tried the process again. Sure enough SGR & Sage wouldn't work. So I opened up my TStoPS.GRF and noticed something VERY strange. My graph was all dismantled. I thought, to myself WTF! Then tried to re-assemble it. I got nothing but errors. Always an error when trying to connect the Motorola to the Nvidia TS Parser. Then I thought.. hmmm.... CapDVHS is still open... acted up before... I closed CapDVHS and re-opened my TStoPS.GRF and boom.. the graph was perfectly fine... just as before.

So after all that blabbering, what am I getting at? I would say SGR is doing the same thing to itself, that CapDVHS does to SGR. Get me? I watch a show, first try... works. Lets say my system goes to sleep, I go to watch it again... nothing but errors. That's because even though the graph has stopped (file no longer gets any bigger), that graph is still (in some way) still connected to my DCT.

So my question to Anders is: Your "stop" command doesn't seem to be "disconnecting" itself from my DCT/graph/not sure what but is there any way in SGR that this could be alleviated?

Thanks guys,

[AndersNolberger]

The tuner can only be used by one application at a time. The CapDVHS is obviously not closing the device and no other program can use it while it is open. There is nothing to do about that but close CapDVHS.

As for SGR, it works the same way! I open the device when the program is started and close it when it is shut down. Or actually I load the graph when SGR is opened and close the graph when it is shut down. The graph can't connect to the Firewire port if it is in use so it can't determine a correct output format. And therefore the next filter in the graph can't connect to it and so on.

If no other program is running that stops the graph from connect it should work since I never disconnect it. But as we all know, computers does not behave as we want them to. If one of the filters in the graph starts behaving "strange" the graph will not work until SGR is restarted since I don't reload the graph.

The possible solution is, as you suggests, to load the graph on a start command and unload it on stop. That way a new fresh graph will be loaded each time and it will hopefully work better. Since some graphs will work everytime and also can take some time to load I will add a setting in the ini file to select the desired behaviour.

I have a lot to do so check for the update some time later this week (or sooner if I get the time). You should also know that I am not using SGR myself since we don't have firewire on our set top boxes in Sweden. So I can not test this and am making changes on request from you that actually use it.

[Naylia]

Originally Posted by DFA

Naylia:
I'm not sure what you mean by "regular channels". If you mean lower channels that come to you in analog form and are then encoded by the STB, I have not even looked at those. Some STB's do not have the capability to encode the analogs. The PVR STB's should have encoders or they would not be able to record any analog stations.

I have only looked and spent any time with SD and HD digital (channels that arrive encoded). I mostly have the HD channels assigned to the SGR. I still have more that I need to investigate myself.

DFA

So I took it one step further connecting the Box -> TS to Info Parser -> MPEG2 Demux -> CL Mux -> Moonlight Dump -> show.mpg

When I run the graph it records to the file. Hip Hip Hooray!!!!. For some reason though the analog stations that are being encoded by the STB run in fast motion. Something that is 10 seconds in real time plays in about 8 seconds. Both audio and video are sped up together. Is it possible that something is set wrong and that maybe my video is being treating like 30fps when it's being recorded at 24 fps. Is there any way to get info from an mpeg about what the encoded settings are?

The few digital channels that are not encrypted and the 5 HD channels I get are perfect.

[spaceghost]

I think Bitrateview can do that.

What is this setting for, in client.properties?
fps=0.2622286

That's not Frames Per Second is it?

[jvheitz]

Just an FYI to keep you all updated on my status:

I am using the attached graph. I am currently using Sage 2.2 beta, SGR ver 1.05. I do not have any IR blaster, so I am tuning my STB (moto 6412) manually with my remote.
Kind of a pain since I have to change channel in Sage, and then change channel on STB, but this is once again for testing first (I am working on a way to control the STB via firewire).
So I was watching the Fox pregame show on sunday, and wanted to see how it looked on my computer. I started Sage, tuned it to FoxHD, and got the Audio error. I was pissed because I thought I had resolved this by changing my codecs. So I changed the STB to the regular fox broadcast, changed Sage to Fox and I could watch with no problem (non-HD broadcast). I then changed the STB BACK to FoxHD, and Sage tuned into it without error. So then I noticed that if I had sage thinking it was tuned in to a SD channel, I would get no errors and could tune in to anything I wanted.
Other than that, I have had no other problems.

Thanks to Dane and Anders for working this out.

Thanks,
James

[AndersNolberger]

Does the audio error ever happen if you change to SGR in Sage AFTER the STB is set to the right channel? Never change channel on the STB whith Sage and SGR thinking that the channel is not changing. First tune to a channel on a PVR card and then change on the STB and then change back to SGR.

[jvheitz]

Anders,
I had some problems with my tuner card, so right now it is not even in my PC. SGR is the only tuner installed in Sage. I do not have any problems when changing channels on the STB (without telling sage)- just a slight delay between changing channels - but it tunes in with no errors or problems.

[Naylia]

Originally Posted by spaceghost

I think Bitrateview can do that.

What is this setting for in client.properties?
fps=0.2622286

That's not Frames Per Second is it?

I don't know how you could have fps less than one so that has to be a different setting. But I'm not running sage yet. I was hoping to be able to get my graph working flawlessly before laying down money on sage. Also then I can more easily isolate problems as I tackle sage for the first time. Someone commented that I probably haven't chosen the easiest way to get aquainted with Sage but firewire from my stb is what made me decide to do it now instead of waiting a few months and getting a pvr500.

Is anyone else using a Moto6200 and having this trouble/not having this trouble with their analog stations?

Also are there any other TS to Info Parsers out there I could try?

[travisbell]

Thanks Anders, look forward to the update!

[travisbell]

Originally Posted by Naylia

Is anyone else using a Moto6200 and having this trouble/not having this trouble with their analog stations?

Also are there any other TS to Info Parsers out there I could try?

To my knowledge, there isn't any other TS parser. I currently have a Motorola DCT 6200 and am (sorta) able to use all this. I can use the graphs and watch live TV once, but then my system goes down. It seems weird that you have to use the Elecard dump to get things to work.

Just to confirm, you are using the following files right?

NVIDIA TS Info Parser: nvtsinfo.ax
MPEG-2 Demultiplexer: mpg2splt.ax
CyberLink MPEG Muxer: MpgMux.ax
Sage MPEG Dump: MPEG2Dump.ax

Reason I bring this up is because I have 2 CyberLink muxer's and 2 possible MPEG dumps. I was having a hell of a time for a while... that when I realized instead of MpgMux.ax, I was using the PDMpgMux.ax.

You can also use CyberLink's MPEG Dump but I haven't noticed any REAL difference between the two so for now I have chosen to use Sage's.

Cheers,

[Naylia]

Originally Posted by travisbell

To my knowledge, there isn't any other TS parser. I currently have a Motorola DCT 6200 and am (sorta) able to use all this. I can use the graphs and watch live TV once, but then my system goes down. It seems weird that you have to use the Elecard dump to get things to work.

Just to confirm, you are using the following files right?

NVIDIA TS Info Parser: nvtsinfo.ax
MPEG-2 Demultiplexer: mpg2splt.ax
CyberLink MPEG Muxer: MpgMux.ax
Sage MPEG Dump: MPEG2Dump.ax

Reason I bring this up is because I have 2 CyberLink muxer's and 2 possible MPEG dumps. I was having a hell of a time for a while... that when I realized instead of MpgMux.ax, I was using the PDMpgMux.ax.

You can also use CyberLink's MPEG Dump but I haven't noticed any REAL difference between the two so for now I have chosen to use Sage's.

Cheers,

I don't have sage yet, so I'm using another dump file for testing purposes. The Muxer and the Dump have no effect since I get the same output either way:
1) Box -> Nvidia TS Info Parser -> MPEG-2 Demux -> Audio Out/Video Out
2) Box -> Nvidia TS Info Parser -> MPEG-2 Demux -> CL MPEG Mux -> Elecard Dump

The elecard dump just happens to be the first one I tried. If I render straight to the screen I see exactly what I get if I record to the dump so the CL Mux and the Dump are not messing things up. Both ways are screwed up: Live Tv - sound glitches. Recorded Tv - runs in fast motion. Seems to me they could both actually be the same problem. Say it skips one out of four frames. This would cause glitching on the Live TV and increase the speed of the Recorded TV.

I think it might be possible that when analog channels are encoded by the stb they aren't encoded as transport streams. They may just be mpeg2 streams, and the TS INfo parser is messing with them. I'm going to see if tonight I can do something that leaves the parser out of the equation when watching an analog channel. Of course this will mess up my digital and HD channels. I really would like to get both working.

[AndersNolberger]

The update is now available on my homepage.

[travisbell]

Originally Posted by AndersNolberger

The update is now available on my homepage.

Beautacios! Fixed all my problems, thanks Anders!

[jvheitz]

Naylia,
Have you tried viewing the "regular channels" as you suggest in VLC? Also, have you used CapDVHS to record the streams?