HDTV Network Encoder v0.9.0 07-08-05 - HD Support for Sage!

[Kingjamez]

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried in both windowed and full screen mode. Still no luck, I get the same excepetion (-4.0x0).

Does anyone know how to get the codec that Fusion uses to work in Sage? It baffels me that the Fusion software works and Sage doesn't.

-Jim

[stanger89]

Just add them to the "videoframe/additional_audio(or video)_filters=" line in the properties file. Just remember to close Sage before editing the file.

[lovingHDTV]

I've moved my A180 card into my P4 2.0Ghz box and setup HDNE. It initializes correctly and sets up the port. I made changes to sage.properties to point to the new machine name instead of localhost. I can see that sage tells HDNE to record a show, it starts, creates the file in the recordings directoy but it is always zero length. It never actually streams anything to it.

Ideas on what to check next? The one good thing is that the utilization of HDNE is ~8% instead of 88% on my PIII 933. But then again, maybe it is not doing anything

EDIT: I figured out what was happening. The file was being created initially (is this done by Sage or HDNE?). Then HDNE was writing the file to what appeared to be the correct location, but I mistakenly mapped my video drive to the wrong place. So HDNE could not write the file as the directory did not exist. What through me off, was the fact that the file is initially created. When I fixed my mapped drive it wall works.

thanks,

[lovingHDTV]

Kingjamez,
I'm seeing the same thing now on recording over CBS. What is really wierd, is that the first time I played the show back it played ok. I then stoped it and checked my decoders, then went back and tried to play it again. From then on I get the same -4:0... error you are getting.

The file plays in ever other player I have, winamp, windows media player, graphedit, and zoom. Only Sage has problems with it. I think I'll send an email to Sage support, then I can get the "norma" we don't know anything reply, but I'd have done my duty as a paying customer.

[Kingjamez]

Thanks for the follow up Dave. I'll be interested to hear what they have to say. I've tried all sorts of things today and still have had no luck at all. Sage just refuses to play. It's ashame, I bought sage ONLY because of this thread. I had been quite happy with BeyondTV and Fusion but since it looked like I could have HDTV and a clean working PVR I shelled out the $80.00 for Sage.... man I wish I could get it working.

-Jim

[Stealth1971]

Originally Posted by sigma957

Hi, I posted the TS to MPEG filter on the firewire thread. Some people have tried it and so far we've had mixed success. There appears to be a problem with the method it uses to determine which PIDs to extract. If I can get it stable, however, it might be a good fit for HNDE.

sigma957 -
Very cool! this could save me from writing my own filters!!! Please keep me posted. I will give it a shot if you got it working the way you want it (not that my stuff is that production-ready either )

[rhsmcc]

I’m thrilled about trying this out with an A180 but already hit a snag. Some help would be very much appreciated. I’ve tried to start HDNE.exe and come up with an error message that I’m missing a file MSVCR70.DLL . I’ve installed .net Framework 1.1 , Powervcr II , and NDVD. What am I missing here? I’m running XP Pro.

[Stealth1971]

Originally Posted by rhsmcc

I’m thrilled about trying this out with an A180 but already hit a snag. Some help would be very much appreciated. I’ve tried to start HDNE.exe and come up with an error message that I’m missing a file MSVCR70.DLL . I’ve installed .net Framework 1.1 , Powervcr II , and NDVD. What am I missing here? I’m running XP Pro.

I thought this was installed with .NET 1.1?

[Stealth1971]

FYI - I have tried TS capture version of HDNE while using some new Sage demux filters... (Thanx to Jeff for supplying those!)

Results so far -
Capture & Playback are fine on some of my channels and some are not... not sure if its a Sage or HDNE issue or both... The good thing so far is that I haven't seen the "Audio Render" issue. The only issue so far is that the non-working channels are recording 0 length files. So this leads me to believe its an HDNE problem.

I am also hoping that sigma957's "TS to PS stream filter" possibly is a solution also!

Stealth

[lovingHDTV]

Stealth,
when I try to record my CBS station many times HDNE just dies with the message from XP asking if I should report the problems to Microsoft. Is there some logging I can turn on to help find the problem?

My PBS station always records and plays back without problems.

thanks,

[Stealth1971]

Originally Posted by lovingHDTV

Stealth,
when I try to record my CBS station many times HDNE just dies with the message from XP asking if I should report the problems to Microsoft. Is there some logging I can turn on to help find the problem?

My PBS station always records and plays back without problems.

thanks,

There is a debug file named "HDNE.DebugOut.txt" that is created in the same directory as HDNE.

You can send that to me for debug help

Stealth

[Stealth1971]

I wanted to give everyone an update -

Alright I have some small bugs worked out of HDNE. I also have an "almost" working version of the BDA capture piece that uses Sigma's demux/dump filter! much better than using NVidia/Cyberlink combo of filters!!! (faster too)

I will post as soon as I have a version that is a little more stable.

Thanx

Stealth

[paulbeers]

First off, I am excited! I love Sage and have been using it for about 8 months (best part is my wife loves it). Until about a month ago, I didn't own an HDTV tv (okay it's only HDTV ready) and so could care less that Sage did not support it, but obviously now I do! This is great that there is a "plugin" for Sage to add HDTV! Here are my questions (both are a BIT off top).:

Which card is better to purchase: ATI HDTV Wonder or Avermedia a180? I do not own an antennae so I am leaning towards the ATI HDTV Wonder so that I don't have to purchase a seperate antennae (and I am only about 5 miles from the towers so a basic antennae should work great!), BUT I currently own 2 Avermedia M150's and so have become very partial to Avermedia as per I have been very happy with my M150's. So which one is actually the better card?!?!

Next question: Anyone know what the minimum requirements would be for an HDTV client? Right now I have sage setup on almost the Bare Essecials box (766 mhz Celeron w/ 384 mb of Ram and an fx5200 w/ two m150s) and I am giong to go to a Client/Server setup (Server is a A64 3000+ w/ 1 gig ram that will have the m150's pulled from the current box and addting an hdtv card and the client will be my old Sage box). What should I upgrade my client box to? It will not do ANY recording, but just play the video from the Server.

Thanks in advance!!

[stanger89]

Get the A180. As for requirements, you'll need something like a 2GHz+ CPU and DXVA capable video card (like your 5200).

[Crazedz]

Originally Posted by paulbeers

First off, I am excited! I love Sage and have been using it for about 8 months (best part is my wife loves it). Until about a month ago, I didn't own an HDTV tv (okay it's only HDTV ready) and so could care less that Sage did not support it, but obviously now I do! This is great that there is a "plugin" for Sage to add HDTV! Here are my questions (both are a BIT off top).:

Which card is better to purchase: ATI HDTV Wonder or Avermedia a180? I do not own an antennae so I am leaning towards the ATI HDTV Wonder so that I don't have to purchase a seperate antennae (and I am only about 5 miles from the towers so a basic antennae should work great!), BUT I currently own 2 Avermedia M150's and so have become very partial to Avermedia as per I have been very happy with my M150's. So which one is actually the better card?!?!

Next question: Anyone know what the minimum requirements would be for an HDTV client? Right now I have sage setup on almost the Bare Essecials box (766 mhz Celeron w/ 384 mb of Ram and an fx5200 w/ two m150s) and I am giong to go to a Client/Server setup (Server is a A64 3000+ w/ 1 gig ram that will have the m150's pulled from the current box and addting an hdtv card and the client will be my old Sage box). What should I upgrade my client box to? It will not do ANY recording, but just play the video from the Server.

Thanks in advance!!

Im using a Athlon 64 2800+ with a pvr 250 and a yuan 600 as well as a fusion 3 gold for HDTV along with a 5900 for my setup and it works fine even with all 3 recording at the same time and watching an already recorded show so you should have enough power to run any one of the 3 cards with (Edit: the setup your planing. The 766 celron system though I don't think will cut it as far as HD is concerned it just doesn't have enough power for playback unless the Fx5200's hardware assist is able to give enough of a boost to playback the HD recordings on that slow a proccessor but i haven't tried out such a setup so i can't say but im guessing no. The playback here is the real issue not recording on my rig i only get between 10 and 16% cpu usage with all three tuners recording but it's the playback that hits the system during playback i get between 24 to 34% cpu usage and thats on a 2800+ athlon 64 system overclocked to 3000+ speed so imagine what it will be like on a 766 cel thats at a quarter of that speed. At any rate my fusion 3 card setup have settings for a 1.4 gigahertz system with hardware acceleration (read hardware asissted graphics card) so i would look more at that as a guide for a minnimum system. But then again manufacturers minimum specs more often are not realistic so try to go better if possible. Like the system your planning thats a much better system for what you wanna do. The client I think you would easily be able to get away with a 2000+ to a 2500+ barton in it but i would still use a video card with the hardware asisst to lower the cpu useage. Anyway you could test it out with some test HD video clips off of like Divico's site to test weather or not your system will handle the playback as thats the big concern as i said recording takes almost nothing compared to playback. You would be better off useing the current system for the server system as it doesn't need so much power just to record the programs and the new system you proposed for the server as the client as it's the one that will need the power for playback as that's what needs the real power of the system. That way you also have the system that uses less power to run as the one thats up all the time making for a smaller monthly electric bill as well so it will save you money in the long run.)

As for which tuner card to go with and the antenna it depends on not only how far from the transmiters you are but whats between you and them. If you have tall buildings in the way it may give you some problems (edit: with an internal antenna) so be aware of that. But from what i have been hearing just about any of the three tuners ATI, Divico or the a180 should work fine. However if you want to make sure you have the best compatability with what the developer is useing for his setup and testing then you should go with the ATI as it's what stealth has. That being said i haven't had any problems with the fusion and the ati card doesn't support Qam which the fusion 3 has or at least atempts to use though it doesn't work for every cable company in avery area at this time. Im not sure about the Qam if any in the a180 so i can't comment on that. Having said that stealths network tuner program doesn't support Qam at present anyway so Qam isn't really a plus at this time but it may in the future. So bear that in mind when making your decision if you have any need in the future for HDcable.

I do think though that the ATI is the one you should get or try first off if it doesn't work well for recieving HD then look at getting a stronger antenna to boost the signal.

Sorry i was in a rush i had to go and didn't take enough time to proofread what i posted. When i got back i noticed how missleading some of my post looked so i edited it hope it didn't cause any confusion.

[paulbeers]

Thank you! That is exactly what I needed to hear. I agree with you entirely that if I can get away using my old Celery for recording, I am going to do that! It has a very meager 180 watt power supply and that would be great to use....I will defiantely have to give that a look! Based on your recommendation, at this time I think I will purchase an ATI as per I am only 5 miles from the TV towers (and mostly farm land between us!) so I should be able to use the basic indoor antennae. Thank you for the info! That was exactly what I needed to know!

[chrisc16]

Originally Posted by Stealth1971

I wanted to give everyone an update -

Alright I have some small bugs worked out of HDNE. I also have an "almost" working version of the BDA capture piece that uses Sigma's demux/dump filter! much better than using NVidia/Cyberlink combo of filters!!! (faster too)

I will post as soon as I have a version that is a little more stable.

Thanx

Stealth

Stealth,

Any more updates? I use HDNE daily, but it only works on 2 out of 6 HD channels (the other 4 don't play, probably due to Sage bugs).

-Chris

[stanger89]

Stealth!

CLEAN OUT YOUR PM BOX !!!!

[Stealth1971]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Stealth!

CLEAN OUT YOUR PM BOX !!!!

70 message limit?! what the ?!

[stanger89]

limit