BDA DVB Network Encoder (2.0.0.6 - February 12 2006)

[AndersNolberger]

I am looking into DVB-S support but since I don't have a DVB-S card myself it is a little difficult! Is there someone with some knowledge about the different settings for DVB-S that feels like helping me with testing and possibly advice on how the different settings should work? If you have a FireDTV-S (I am aiming for DISEqC support in that card) it would be perfect but other cards are interesting to. Later I can consider DISEqC on other cards to but I have the specification for FireDTV and am familiar with its API.

Anders

[voidpt]

One feature request Anders,

When I'm watching Eurosport over CanalDigital (DVB-C) here in Norway I get a selection of 2 Audio Pid's (645: nor & 644: swe). But the funny part, depending on how you look at it , is that 'nor' gives norwegian & finnish, and 'swe' gives swedish & dannish. I guess this is part of the left / right property to cram as much data into different streams. Is this a feature you could make to selectively use mono/left/right or something ?

I must admit I've really tried to understand how the data is received, but I can't even get MyTheatre to function properly with left/right/mono to only get one language. Tried some demux, audio editors to also understand it, but no really luck. Too tired / late

Other than that, still using SBDARecorder 24x7, /Svein

[AndersNolberger]

I can probably change my code so that it shows both/all languages on the pid but it would be difficult to change so that only one channel is recorded. Have you tried to disconnect one speaker or something to verify that different languages is sent on left and right channels?

To get this working I would have to insert a filter of some sort that picks only the left or right channel and then reencode it before muxing and saving to disk. Do you know of any such filters?

Anders

[voidpt]

Don't bother about the pid and language tags. That's just visual stuff. Don't mind it.

Yes I've tried to verify left/right speaker. But that's one of the things I don't really understand. It seems that a little of the voice from one side is 'bleeding' over to the other and vice/verca. But it's definitly one language that has the 'major' volume on each side. Don't know if this is the mixing somewhere that does this. I had one try to rip out the audio track from a recording and isolate it. And then I seemed to get 'clean' language of one side.

About the mux'ing part. Sorry, can't help you there as of now. Not the best expert on the filter part. But the more I think of it, maybe this should be a feature of SageTV itself. Maybe to be able to 'tag' a channel to only use one channel and do 'fake' stereo.

In any case. I'll look more into it when I get some time. And come back with more 'hard evidence' if I find any. Isn't a major issue yet.

[AndersNolberger]

The 'bleeding' of channels is probably happening in your sound card or tv or amplifier. The channel data in the transmission is probably correct.

Yes it would be much simpler to handle this in Sage. Maybe you can ask for this since they are adding DVB-T support now and it is in the specification for all DVB but not used very much.

I will probably add proper detection of all languages in a later update but I will not hurry to fix it now.

Anders

[voidpt]

To enable the new options for CI on a FireDTV press the arrow on the tuner combobox and choose the same tuner again. Two new options to reset the CI should appear at the bottom of the screen. These should only be checked if you have problems with CI hanging since they slow down channel changes.
The option appears automatically on a new installation when you have a FireDTV.

One question about the new 'delay' features in 2.0.0.6. I cannot get the description above to work. I do have a FireDTV (FloppyDTV), but cannot get the 'reset the CI' option to show. Although I can see the following new data entries in Settings.xml:

<deviceManufacturer>0</deviceManufacturer>
<saveSI>0</saveSI>
<resetCI>0</resetCI>
<tempUnencrypted>0</tempUnencrypted>
<tempUnencryptedChannel>1</tempUnencryptedChannel>

Reason to test this is that I sometimes (not often) have to switch to a channel twice. So I would like to tune 'delay' to see if it helps. Can anybody tip me what values to set ? And what meaning they have ?

[AndersNolberger]

Try to set the option deviceManufacturer to 1 in the xml file and see if you get the new options.

The new options is only valid if you have a CAM and CI interface in a FireDTV or FloppyDTV box. There is no delay to set but if the resetCI option is used a reset command is sent to the CI on every channel change.

Anders

[voidpt]

That worked (deviceManufacturer to 1). Got the options. I'm running with 'Reset CI on every channel change' for now. For the little testing I've done now it seems to make it more stable. And the switch delay is not really noticable. Was slow enough from before (but that's more due to driver / hw / card / technology).

[voidpt]

One short observation of something that may have improved in 4.1.7 beta. Not a 100% sure. And I'm not going back on configuration to test

I'm using FireDTV (FloppyDTV) DVB-C tuning. SBDARecorder configured with Cyberlink PowerProducer Mux. Then on the PC-client I'm using Cyberlink PowerDVD as MPEG decoder/viewer for SageTV.

Up until 4.1.7 beta I've always had problems with jumping around in a recorded or recording session. Would always take some time for SageTV to 'get in sync' again. But for some reason I now have instant sync. And it all works ok.

Of curse there can be several explenations. But 4.1.7 beta seems the closest one without extra testing.

[archie658]

Originally Posted by AndersNolberger

I will probably add proper detection of all languages in a later update but I will not hurry to fix it now.

Hi Anders,

There's an intermittand problem scanning 329000 over here. I've attached the scan files and the setting files (good to have the check box!). There are 34 channels (mostly radio), but it sometimes finds only 4 by name and sometimes it finds the names all the others except for the 4 (radio) channels.
Playing around with recording seems to trigger the other behaviour. It looks as if a record is misinterpreted. Hope the information I'm sending is sufficient for you to find it.

Archie658

PS Would it be possible to log to a file as well as the debug window, including time stamps? That would make it easier to monitor my SageTV server. I was getting out of resources errors from SBDARecorder. I think I've found it (eHome services polling and not understanding the FloppyDTV), but it was hard to tell when it happened.

[AndersNolberger]

Most of the files in the a and b zip files are identical. I will look at them when I have time and see why you get different result when scanning.

Anders

[jonron]

Hi,

First, when I watched SVT (Boxer Sweden) broadcast today of the Olympics closing, the picture couldn't cope with the Mpeg2 stream. Very bad picture quality in fast movements and i tried both sage and cybelink mpeg2 decoder. The show before and after was very good so there seems to be some problem with some programs where the encoding may differ, anyone seen this before and found a resolution?

Second, Why do Sage make so fantastic picture quality with good coulor etc in comparision with MCE that have the details but the color is very soft (bleeched). Using the same FireDTV and BDA driver it seems odd but maybe there is a good explanation?

/Jonas

[AndersNolberger]

I don't know why you get bad picture quality from the olympics closing. I did not watch that myself but other sendings from the Olympics has worked fine here. Do you have it recorded so that you can watch it again, maybe with another player also to see if the problem was playing or recording?

The difference between Sage and MCE might be if MCE is using Overlay and Sage WMR9. You might be able to adjust your overlay colors to get better picture.

Anders

[Mahoney]

Hi Anders,

I'm trying to get this to work using my Terratec cinergy 2400i dual tuner in the UK. Unfortunately the Sage service runs on Windows Server 2003 box, and PowerProducer refuses to install on it (claims that Directx 9 isn't installed - it is, but I guess they have been lazy and just checked the OS id).

Anyone know how to hack PowerProducer so that it will install? Or hack the filter out of PowerProducer and just register it? Or another means of getting hold of a filter that works with this recorder?

Thanks,
Rob

[Mark SS]

PDMpgMux.ax is the file you need from PowerDirector, register with regsvr32

[Mahoney]

Thanks very much, Mark - all working now.

[Mark SS]

Might be useful to someone else....

I've setup the SBDARecorder to run as a service on XP, rather than being a systray application. Tried this after forgetting to login after reboots a couple of times and missing recordings as a result.

You need to download the Windows Server Resource Kit (link below) and use the srvany and instsrv tools, various guides for using them can be found using google.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

EDIT:
Warning - I've had the service crash a couple of times so am switching back to running the application normally.

[Mahoney]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for this; I'm running a Server 2003 box. Unfortunately having installed it as a service using instsrv, the service refuses to start, whether as the Local System or as me. Strangely I can still stop and start the program directly quite happily. Do you know anywhere where I might get some log output to explain what the issue is?

[Mahoney]

Ignore that last one - worked out what I was doing wrong. For those following - use instsrv to install a service called SBDAREcorder (or whatever you like) but which points at the srvany executable. Then you have to go into the registry to set up a parameter for the service pointing at the actual SBDARecorder executable. So the service itself actually starts srvany, and srvany starts SBDARecorder, if that makes sense.

[jonron]

Hi,

I now have two FireDTV running with the latest beta of Sage and SBDARecorder. Picture qualty is very good on my 32" CRT using an ATI-card VGA out to RGB cable!

I have two small issues:

1. Sometimes when the broadcaster switches to local commersial (e.g. TV4 in Sweden) the screen freezes or goes mad, a fast change back and forth of channel solves this but it is annoying. I believe it is a problem related to the stream coming from FireDTV which goes out of sync?? Anyone seen this and is there a resolution?

2. I am using AC3 in SBDA and I am using digital out from the comuter to my home-cinema. Sometimes, a small metallic glitch can be heard. Any idea what problem this is and how to solve it.

Another more generic Sage question when I writing. I am using a Celeron 2.7GHz. Would a P4 increase the performance in order to take take of video encoding, Firewire, streaming to Sage clients etc?

/Jonas