Problem saving to DivX (ConvertX TV402U / Sage 2.1)

[tenly2000]

I've had both products for almost a week and have only been able to successfully create 3 DivX files from about 100 attempts.

I've updated the firmware on the Plextor unit.

Problems:
I select a DivX profile. As the files are created, they are created as an .MPG file (or series of files) and then converted (transcoded?) to an .AVI file after the recording is complete. This step is consistently failing. (Doesn't this step defeat the purpose of having a hardware encoder in the Plextor unit itself?)

If I change the Mpeg4 Timeshifting setting to false, then I am unable to watch anything - "no renderer can play the file type while recording". Am I missing something that will enable me to do this? I don't care so much about the ability to pause/ff/rew, but I would at least like to be able to watch it live as it's recorded.

In any case, the biggest single problem at the moment is that the conversion from .MPG to .AVI fails more than 95% of the time. It's been successful 3 times out of about 100 attempts). I end up with the original .mpg file and a .tmp file. This happens with large files (1 hour captures 1.6 GB) as well as small files (5 minute capture, 50MB) and it happens whether I'm watching as it records or not (sleep mode). It happens on all different types of shows.

Running on 3.0 GHz Gateway computer system.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I'm 5 days in to my 15-day Sage Trial period and would like to get this problem addressed so I can go ahead with the purchase - but right now I'm not sure if the problem is with Sage or with the ConvertX...

Thanks in advance,
Jim

[Opus4]

A similar discussion can be found in another thread, from around this post & on. Others were mentioning the files not unwrapping (be sure WinDVD Creator is installed for pre-v2.2 SageTV) and were asking about it using an MPEG2 wrapper (it is still hardware encoding; it just wraps it as an MPEG2 file to play it 'live'). I'm not sure if everyone solved the unwrapping problems.

- Andy

[nexx9]

I've mentioned the same thing here:

http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...ead.php?t=9122

I've found only two ways to goose SageTV into creating those avi files, and they only partially work:

- Wait. If you wait 24-48 hours and reboot your machine a few times, those files are eventially bound to get finalized into avi format. Rebooting 5 times in a row won't give you the same success for some wierd reason.

- While watching a channel in SageTV, go to your service management menu from windows (right-click my computer/manage/services and applications/services/sagetv service), and stop the service. Your channel viewing STV screen will display a msg that connection has been lost. Start the service. Wait about 1 minute or so to get your ability to go to the main menu back in SageTV, then go back to viewing a channel live again. I've found that more often than not, a minute or three after that your avi file will have been created.

It's messy, and it doesn't always work. Apparently this is not high on the features list for SageTV since no responses have been forthcoming. (or are we supposed to email them? I haven't - thought they monitored their forums)

When set to timeshifting=false yes, playback isn't possible on the card. But worse, when it's set to 'true' you'll also get the same (nothing can render etc) message from time to time. There is no clean way to switch watching from the 402 to your other card (in my case a pvr-250). Switching channels can work but sometimes you still get the playback no render error. There also isn't a clean way to force STV to use a specific card to record unless you specify Divx, or have different defaults on either card. I think.

So I use STV with these limitations. Work around them. I still like SageTV a lot. BeyondTV doesn't have 402 support, and the programs that came with the device, quite frankly suck. Nex

[korben_dallas]

Try using SageTV as a service. I haven't experienced any problems with recording/watching DivX files.

[nexx9]

I run it as a service. It's when I restart the service several times while watching livetv that *sometimes* the mpg files get finalized into avi files. Nex

[tenly2000]

Thanks for all the replies (and for the links to the other thread), but so far I'm still out of luck.

I am running SageTV as a service. I've tried stopping and starting the service many times - twice via a system re-start. I have the following results to report:

1,324,035 - Original size of .mpg file (kiloBytes)
1,150,335 - First attempt after reboot (size of .tmp file in kiloBytes)
980,143 - Failed attempt after restarting SageTV service (size of .tmp file in kiloBytes)
937,967 - Failed attempt after restarting SageTV service (size of .tmp file in kiloBytes)
979,334 - Failed attempt after restarting SageTV service (size of .tmp file in kiloBytes)
947,882 - Failed attempt after restarting SageTV service (size of .tmp file in kiloBytes)
982,872 - Failed attempt after restarting SageTV service (size of .tmp file in kiloBytes)
1,040,963 - Failed attempt after re-booting to disable hyper-threading (size of .tmp file in kiloBytes)
1,079,642 - Failed attempt after restarting SageTV service (size of .tmp file in kiloBytes)

The size of the original .MPG file doesn't seem to make a difference. I've seen similar results with much, much smaller files...the .tmp file stops at approximately 75% of the size of the original .mpg file - but I've never seen the exact same size twice.

After running the above tests, I'm convinced that the problem lies with the Sage software. If there was a problem in the .mpg file itself, I would expect consistent results from SageTV trying to convert it to the .AVI - but I'm not seeing that.

Any more ideas would be greatly appreciated. Does anyone from Sage monitor this forum?

Thanks again,
Jim

[nexx9]

I know the feeling of frustration. Been through all that, watching the files grow and grow, and then STOP in their tracks as mpg files.

I don't know if it's something specific to your system and mine, or SageTv that's just not ready for prime time 402-wise. Reason I say this is that searching through the forums I can't find too many complaints about this, which is odd. So I'm basing my puzzlement on the possibility that a bunch of folks have not just bought the 402, but did so for the divx part of the equation. Or not. Perhaps they've all given up on the divx part. Or maybe sales are slow. Or perhaps they've mostly gone with the timeshifting=false rip. Who knows? In the inimitable words of Kevin Spacey in Wise Guys, only the toes nose. Nex

[tenly2000]

Well, thanks for the comiseration Nex...the main reason I bought the Plextor unit was for the hardware DivX encoding. I'll switch the timeshifting back to false and see if it at least works that way - but I think I tried that before and didn't have much luck with that setting either....

...the file sizes that are being created with the DivX Home Theater (High Quality) profile are larger than I expected also...I expected something in the order of 500MB for a 1 hour program but I'm seeing files more than double that...

The Sage TV interface is nice, but my overall impression of the combination of Sage and the Plextor TV402U is pretty sour right now...

If you stumble across some settings that make these problems go away....please let me know! (and of course I'll do the same - I'm not done trying yet....)

Thanks,
Jim

[korben_dallas]

Interesting. So these .tmp files are supposed to change to .avi files? I have about 6 or 7 of them in my video directory.

I'll submit a beta bug report, since I think it used to work for me some time ago.

[nexx9]

Yes Korben, those tmp files are the 'twins' of those mpg files with the same names; they're often about 4/5 of the mpg file's sizes. They sit there. And sit there. Each time you reboot or kill STV (or the service) and start up again, these tmp files get rebuilt, usually up to about 3/4 or 4/5 the size of their mpg brothers, and Stop.

There are also errors with viewing livetv where STV states you're recording with the 402u when you aren't (when timeshifting's set to false) and you can't even go to your other card to watch, even if it's not recording a thing. Errors when it's set to true. It's one holy mess. But one thing at a time.

Jim, will definitely post anything I find, but quite frankly, I've spend way too much time on this as it stands, so don't expect much. It's up to STV now to run the 402 (also in conjunction with a 250 or something similar) and see what's really going on. Nex

[korben_dallas]

As a follow up, I don't have any problems playing and timeshifting my DivX files inside SageTV. Since I don't normally watch videos outside SageTV, I wouldn't have noticed the .avi files not being created.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by tenly2000

Any more ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Just to reiterate: if you are using v2.1, make sure WinDVD Creator is installed, since some part of that is used in the process of unwrapping the mpg files to avi. This is not needed for v2.2.

Does anyone from Sage monitor this forum?

This is a user to user forum. While some things may happen to be seen, tech support doesn't monitor every post. Your best bet for that would be to contact them directly. (See the last line of my sig.)

- Andy

[tenly2000]

I'm using 2.1 and I have WinDVD Creator installed.
I just updated the Java Runtime Environment to ver 5 and have only run one test since installing it. It wasn't successful, but the .tmp file got up to 1,165,432 (which is the largest yet).

I've been trying to download the 2.2 beta to see if that makes the problem go away - but it seems like the link to the setup.exe is broken...

[nexx9]

I've had the same unfinalized behavior with 2.1, and the 2.5 as well as 2.6 betas With the two intervideo apps installed. Nex

[tenly2000]

Yep...

I was finally able to download and install the 2.2.6 Beta, I've got the 2 Intervideo apps installed, and the latest version of the Java runtime, and it still stops 75% - 80% of the way through...

I'm running out of things to try...maybe SageTV isn't the right product for me after all...thank goodness for the 15 day trial...at least it didn't cost me $80 to find out...

Thanks Nexx and everyone for attempting to help...

Jim

[korben_dallas]

Do the files not work at all, or just not change to .avi ?

I'm fairly sure Frey will have this ironed out before version 3 arrives.

[tenly2000]

If I want to view the files within SageTV, they seem to work okay...but if I play them with any other player, or try to convert them with VirtualDub or Dr. DivX, they only see the audio portion of the file....

I have an AveLinkplayer2 that I use to watch the content in my living room. It plays DivX files natively. I had hoped that with the Plextor and SageTV I'd be able to build myself a library of my favourite shows...

When is version 3 due out? Weeks, months or years from now?

[korben_dallas]

I just spent a half hour getting the files together and bundling an email to Frey beta bug support per their request on my SVCD, MPEG-4, and DivX issues.

Now we wait..

[tenly2000]

Please let me know if they offer up a solution (or workaround) for the DivX issue...

[nexx9]

It's been a few weeks and I haven't been here at the sage forum. I've looked around but can't find anything concerning this. Hence my question:

Has there been any feedback about this problem?

The latest beta isn't working either in this regard. I would really like to set timeshifting back to true for good.

A trigger for sagetv to do its described job, gentlemen? Or a utility to convert these blasted mpg and tmp files to divx? Don't care if it'll take longer. I'm willing to spend the time. Right now all I can do is keep these useless wrapper mpg files and their shadow tmp files sitting around doing nothing on my hd for weeks. Nex