MyTheatre DVB Network Encoder Plugin

[maclayer]

Does anyone know if this plugin will work with the latest beta release of SageTV? I'm following the instructions in the first post but I keep getting the error: "Error (-10): No encoders can tune the selected station".

I've doubled checked all of the settings according to the guide and I can watch everything nicely in MT. Only when I try to use the plugin with Sage does this error show up.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
ML

[Motofreak75]

if you follow the instructions correctly it will work. But IF you have your Sage server tuners setup to be a network tuner and MT plugin on the same machine, than change the TCP port that this plugin use and it should connect.

And yes the new beta works just like the rest of them.

[johnnytyler]

Motofreak, or anyone else for that matter, has tried the new TS plugin with the MDAPI directshow filters to see if that works with the new beta?

[maclayer]

Originally Posted by Motofreak75

if you follow the instructions correctly it will work. But IF you have your Sage server tuners setup to be a network tuner and MT plugin on the same machine, than change the TCP port that this plugin use and it should connect.

And yes the new beta works just like the rest of them.

Thanks for your reply.
SageTV and MT are on the same system.
I have a Twinhan 1025 in the system, no other tuners are in the system.
I am using port 6969 as specified in the manual. I opened that port in Windows Firewall.

Are you saying to use a different port, other than 6969? Can it be any number?

I start MT first, then start SageTV next. Does this matter?

Here is my card1.log contents. I don't see anything from Sage:
11/20/2007 12:51:23 PM: ====== P L U G I N S T A R T U P ==============================================
11/20/2007 12:51:23 PM: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11/20/2007 12:51:23 PM: Path - C:\Program Files\MyTheatre\MyTheatre.exe
11/20/2007 12:51:23 PM: Parameters - "C:\Program Files\MyTheatre\MyTheatre.exe" /toggle
11/20/2007 12:51:23 PM: Plugin - C:\Program Files\MyTheatre\Plugins\MTSageTV.dll
11/20/2007 12:51:23 PM: Card Type - Unknown
11/20/2007 12:51:23 PM: DVBCore - DVBCore v5.88.01.00 Copyright (C)2002,2003 Saar Software
11/20/2007 12:51:23 PM: TCP/IP Port - 6969
11/20/2007 12:51:23 PM: Plugin Enabled - True
11/20/2007 12:51:23 PM: MT Favourite - SageTV
11/20/2007 12:51:23 PM: Minimize MT - True
11/20/2007 12:51:23 PM: MyTheatre Test - False
11/20/2007 12:51:23 PM: Debug Trace - Active
11/20/2007 12:51:23 PM: MyTheatre Trace - Active
11/20/2007 12:51:23 PM: SageTV Trace - Active
11/20/2007 12:51:23 PM: Indy Trace - Active
11/20/2007 12:51:23 PM: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11/20/2007 12:51:23 PM: Started
11/20/2007 12:51:23 PM: MyTheatre - DVBPLGGetInfo Called
11/20/2007 12:51:23 PM: MyTheatre - DVBPLGInit Called
11/20/2007 12:51:24 PM: MyTheatre - FT_EVT_DISEQC_WILLBE_CHANGED Received
11/20/2007 12:51:25 PM: MyTheatre - FT_EVT_DISEQC_CHANGED Received
11/20/2007 12:51:25 PM: MyTheatre - FT_EVT_TRANSPONDER_WILLBE_CHANGED Received
11/20/2007 12:51:31 PM: MyTheatre - FT_EVT_DISEQC_WILLBE_CHANGED Received
11/20/2007 12:51:32 PM: MyTheatre - FT_EVT_DISEQC_CHANGED Received
11/20/2007 12:51:32 PM: MyTheatre - FT_EVT_TRANSPONDER_WILLBE_CHANGED Received
11/20/2007 12:51:35 PM: MyTheatre - DVBPLGCall Called
11/20/2007 12:51:37 PM: MyTheatre - FT_EVT_DISEQC_WILLBE_CHANGED Received
11/20/2007 12:51:38 PM: MyTheatre - FT_EVT_DISEQC_CHANGED Received
11/20/2007 12:51:38 PM: MyTheatre - FT_EVT_TRANSPONDER_WILLBE_CHANGED Received
11/20/2007 12:52:40 PM: MyTheatre - DVBPLGCall Called
11/20/2007 12:52:50 PM: MyTheatre - FT_EVT_DISEQC_WILLBE_CHANGED Received
11/20/2007 12:55:39 PM: MyTheatre - DVBPLGClose Called
11/20/2007 12:55:39 PM: Stopped
11/20/2007 12:55:39 PM: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11/20/2007 12:55:39 PM: ====== P L U G I N S H U T D O W N ============================================

Here is what I added to sage.properties:
mmc/encoders/12345/1/0/available_channels=
mmc/encoders/12345/1/0/brightness=-1
mmc/encoders/12345/1/0/contrast=-1
mmc/encoders/12345/1/0/device_name=
mmc/encoders/12345/1/0/hue=-1
mmc/encoders/12345/1/0/last_channel=2
mmc/encoders/12345/1/0/provider_id=8829789
mmc/encoders/12345/1/0/saturation=-1
mmc/encoders/12345/1/0/sharpness=-1
mmc/encoders/12345/1/0/tuning_mode=Cable
mmc/encoders/12345/1/0/tuning_plugin=
mmc/encoders/12345/1/0/tuning_plugin_port=0
mmc/encoders/12345/1/0/video_crossbar_index=0
mmc/encoders/12345/1/0/video_crossbar_type=1
mmc/encoders/12345/2/0/available_channels=
mmc/encoders/12345/2/0/brightness=-1
mmc/encoders/12345/2/0/contrast=-1
mmc/encoders/12345/2/0/device_name=
mmc/encoders/12345/2/0/hue=-1
mmc/encoders/12345/2/0/last_channel=
mmc/encoders/12345/2/0/provider_id=0
mmc/encoders/12345/2/0/saturation=-1
mmc/encoders/12345/2/0/sharpness=-1
mmc/encoders/12345/2/0/tuning_mode=Cable
mmc/encoders/12345/2/0/tuning_plugin=
mmc/encoders/12345/2/0/tuning_plugin_port=0
mmc/encoders/12345/2/0/video_crossbar_index=0
mmc/encoders/12345/2/0/video_crossbar_type=2
mmc/encoders/12345/2/1/available_channels=
mmc/encoders/12345/2/1/brightness=-1
mmc/encoders/12345/2/1/contrast=-1
mmc/encoders/12345/2/1/device_name=
mmc/encoders/12345/2/1/hue=-1
mmc/encoders/12345/2/1/last_channel=
mmc/encoders/12345/2/1/provider_id=0
mmc/encoders/12345/2/1/saturation=-1
mmc/encoders/12345/2/1/sharpness=-1
mmc/encoders/12345/2/1/tuning_mode=Cable
mmc/encoders/12345/2/1/tuning_plugin=
mmc/encoders/12345/2/1/tuning_plugin_port=0
mmc/encoders/12345/2/1/video_crossbar_index=1
mmc/encoders/12345/2/1/video_crossbar_type=2
mmc/encoders/12345/3/0/available_channels=
mmc/encoders/12345/3/0/brightness=-1
mmc/encoders/12345/3/0/contrast=-1
mmc/encoders/12345/3/0/device_name=
mmc/encoders/12345/3/0/hue=-1
mmc/encoders/12345/3/0/last_channel=
mmc/encoders/12345/3/0/provider_id=0
mmc/encoders/12345/3/0/saturation=-1
mmc/encoders/12345/3/0/sharpness=-1
mmc/encoders/12345/3/0/tuning_mode=Cable
mmc/encoders/12345/3/0/tuning_plugin=
mmc/encoders/12345/3/0/tuning_plugin_port=0
mmc/encoders/12345/3/0/video_crossbar_index=0
mmc/encoders/12345/3/0/video_crossbar_type=3
mmc/encoders/12345/audio_capture_device_name=
mmc/encoders/12345/audio_capture_device_num=0
mmc/encoders/12345/broadcast_standard=
mmc/encoders/12345/capture_config=2058
mmc/encoders/12345/default_device_quality=
mmc/encoders/12345/device_class=
mmc/encoders/12345/encoder_merit=0
mmc/encoders/12345/encoding_host=localhost\:6969
mmc/encoders/12345/encoding_host_login_md5=
mmc/encoders/12345/last_cross_index=0
mmc/encoders/12345/last_cross_type=1
mmc/encoders/12345/live_audio_input=
mmc/encoders/12345/multicast_host=
mmc/encoders/12345/never_stop_encoding=false
mmc/encoders/12345/video_capture_device_name=MTSageTV Card 1
mmc/encoders/12345/video_capture_device_num=0
mmc/encoders/12345/video_compressor=
mmc/encoders/12345/video_encoding_params=

Please help.

Thanks,
ML

[maclayer]

I finally have it working... While trying to debug my initial setup, I inadvertantly grabbed an older version of the plug-in. Once I realized this and went back to version 1.0.0, everything worked nicely.

One question: How do you change the recording directory? When I record a show through SageTV (using this network encoder), the file ends up in the
~/Program Files/MYTheatre/Plugins/SageTV/Videos

How do I change this to a different drive?

Thanks,
ML

[maclayer]

It looks like I now have everything working great!

One issue I see is that occasionally, MyTheatre consumes 100% CPU Cycles. To fix this, I have done a few things:

1. Install CheckCPU from:http://www.serverautomationtools.com...cpuchecker.htm
2. Created a batchfile to kill MYTheatre (using cmd line "taskkill") when CheckCPU detects >95% CPU usage for more than 3 minutes (checking is done every 10 minutes). In a period of ~24 hours, it detected this condition about every one to two hours and recovered nicely.

This appears to fix the MYTheatre high CPU usage, but in order for it to fully work, I also need Kill and restart SageTV. If I don't kill SageTV, the plugin doesn't reconnect and SageTV doesn't communicate with MYTheatre anymore.

Questions:
1. Is there anyway to avoid killing SageTV, and have SageTV reconnect to the plug-in after MyTheatre is re-started?
2. Will killing SageTV using taskkill, corrupt or mess up the wiz.bin file?

When my batchfile is executed, the total time lost in a current realtime recording is less than 30 seconds, so not much is lost. The killing and restarting of MYTheatre is pretty fast so if I can avoid having to kill and retsart SageTV, this would make the 30 seconds even less.

Thanks,
ML

ps. if anyone wants my batchfiles, I can attach them.

[Motofreak75]

to reconnect Sage to the network encoder, just go into the source setup and select the tuner and once you open the tuner in sage, you'll see Network encoder: True and Functioning True and your all set.

Btw, there must be something wrong if MT is maxed out your cpu, I barely see above 40% on per core ( I have set each of my MT programs to use a different core)

[technazz]

Originally Posted by Motofreak75

( I have set each of my MT programs to use a different core)

How do I do that?



I agree. Even on a HD channel I don't get above 40%. Ensure you are running a registered version. The 'cracked' versions have a modified dll file that has some memory leaks in it that cause your same problem.

Technazz

[maclayer]

Thanks for the tip...I just purchased the legit version. I followed the instructions on some other thread for setting up MT step by step, and that's how I got the version of MT I'm currently using - I guess it has the mem leaks. I'll see what happens once I get the the license from Saar.

Have any of you been able to get two Twinhan VP 1020A's to work in one system? I can't get the second card to function, it has a "yellow bang!" in Device Manager due to the driver not loading for the second card.

For the "I have set each of my MT programs to use a different core", you would right-click MYTheatre in the Task Manager, and Select "Set Affinity", then chose which CPU for that process.

-ML

[Motofreak75]

maclayer:if you use MT for EPG xml info, then you will have a nasty memory leak, since I have turned off EPG parsing, my system up time with out a shutdown or killing mytheatre in 26 days and counting.


The expert tab in MT can be your friend for assignment of cpus.

technazz: I hope your kidding, I see we are from the same GTA region eh

[maclayer]

No, I unchecked all EPG items from MT. I use the built-in EPG (TVTV) from SageTV. Are you using the version of MT that was available from the MT step by step guide?

[Motofreak75]

I'm using the latest version from dvbcore.com 3.38 and so far its fine. Many people blame mt for bugs, but it usual other plugins that are the cause.

[technazz]

I was wondering how some of you handle two DVB sources that have some channels the Same and some different.

Im using /Card2 for my second instance

Card#1 Port 6969 Connected to 91/82/110/119

Card #2 Port 7070 Connected to 110/119/129 (Different SAT INIs)

I have one Favorite with some channels with 2 copies (most 110/119 channels) (SageTV) for all but I seem to have some channel switching issues once is a while. When I tested it the other night it worked perfectly but now Its like its not in sync.

Should I have 2 Favorites? One for each Card Profile?

If I have 2 Favorites that have some of the same channels how do I handle the EPGDATA thru xmltv2mtepg then SageTV XMLTV Importer?



Technazz

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by technazz

I was wondering how some of you handle two DVB sources that have some channels the Same and some different.

I don't know specifically what are the implication with MyTheatre, but here are a few advices:

* Your two DVB sources doesn't share the same lineup : you have to create in XMLTV Importer two lineups, one for each DVB source.

* In the XMLTV Importer you can precisely select what channels goes on to which lineup and choose the channel number (that is the MyTheatre favorite number if I'm correct).

* You do not need to have XMLTV informations for the duplicates channels. You can do it, but it is not mandatory. That is the MyTheatre XMLTV plugin can produce EPG XMLTV data for duplicate channels. But in the XMLTV Importer you MUST NOT use both of them, use only one and create a duplicate channel with the same xmltv id. This is because even though the two channels are the same, I guess that in the XMLTV they will have two differents ID and as such, the XMLTV Importer will create two distinct channels for SageTV. You obviously don't want to do this. That's why you instead duplicate one of the XMLTV channels with the same XMLTV ID. The channel number can be different, SageTV can handle this very well(for instance if Channel A is favorite number "110" on DVB source 1, but "125" on DVB source 2, you'll see only "Channel A" in the guide and SageTV will either tune "110" or "125" depending on tuner availability).

Regards,
Stéphane.

[technazz]

Originally Posted by StephaneM

I don't know specifically what are the implication with MyTheatre, but here are a few advices:

* Your two DVB sources doesn't share the same lineup : you have to create in XMLTV Importer two lineups, one for each DVB source.

* In the XMLTV Importer you can precisely select what channels goes on to which lineup and choose the channel number (that is the MyTheatre favorite number if I'm correct).

* You do not need to have XMLTV informations for the duplicates channels. You can do it, but it is not mandatory. That is the MyTheatre XMLTV plugin can produce EPG XMLTV data for duplicate channels. But in the XMLTV Importer you MUST NOT use both of them, use only one and create a duplicate channel with the same xmltv id. This is because even though the two channels are the same, I guess that in the XMLTV they will have two differents ID and as such, the XMLTV Importer will create two distinct channels for SageTV. You obviously don't want to do this. That's why you instead duplicate one of the XMLTV channels with the same XMLTV ID. The channel number can be different, SageTV can handle this very well(for instance if Channel A is favorite number "110" on DVB source 1, but "125" on DVB source 2, you'll see only "Channel A" in the guide and SageTV will either tune "110" or "125" depending on tuner availability).

Regards,
Stéphane.

I have created two lineups but with so many duplicate channels (600+)its alot of editing,So what I did was copy the channels.xml and renamed the copy to clone.xml (that may not be the exact name) but then I had a copy of my channels in the aditional channels. I removed the channels that had a red dot on them and Saved. I can see two lineup and then I can disable the channels i dont get for the respective tuners in SagetV. This seems to work for me( Is there a faster/better way.

But my issue is more a MT issue it think since I have All of my channels for both tuner in one favourite. So I have 2 copies of 600+ channels in my favourite (SageTV)


For Instance Channel 200 CNN is on Lineup 1 and Lineup 2. It shows up 2 times in my favourite but how does MT select which tuner gets selected?

Technazz

[insomniac]

Out of curiosity, do you have these cards configured with 2 lineups because of your channel changing issues?

If so, I may be able to help with that part, as to help you avoid the whole thing all together

Originally Posted by technazz

I was wondering how some of you handle two DVB sources that have some channels the Same and some different.

Im using /Card2 for my second instance

Card#1 Port 6969 Connected to 91/82/110/119

Card #2 Port 7070 Connected to 110/119/129 (Different SAT INIs)

I have one Favorite with some channels with 2 copies (most 110/119 channels) (SageTV) for all but I seem to have some channel switching issues once is a while. When I tested it the other night it worked perfectly but now Its like its not in sync.

Should I have 2 Favorites? One for each Card Profile?

If I have 2 Favorites that have some of the same channels how do I handle the EPGDATA thru xmltv2mtepg then SageTV XMLTV Importer?



Technazz

[technazz]

Originally Posted by insomniac

Out of curiosity, do you have these cards configured with 2 lineups because of your channel changing issues?

If so, I may be able to help with that part, as to help you avoid the whole thing all together

Yes 2 lineups.

Technazz

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by technazz

I .../... copy the channels.xml and renamed the copy to clone.xml .../... I removed the channels that had a red dot on them and Saved.

You can do it that way. You are then guaranteed that your duplicates are really duplicates because they have the same xmltv id as the original list. However, you have to set the lineup and the "same as" field (to point to the original xmltv id), this way the XMLTV Importer will copy the EPG, otherwise it will not.

But my issue is more a MT issue it think since I have All of my channels for both tuner in one favourite. So I have 2 copies of 600+ channels in my favourite (SageTV)

You should not have in SageTV two copies of the same channels. Because when you copy the channels.xml to the clone_channels.xml file, you are keeping the same XMLTV ID, and when the XMLTV Importer import the lineup into SageTV, it pass to SageTV a unique channel ID, and for the duplicates this ID will be the same. SageTV then will "see" that the channels are the same and display only one of it in the guide.

For Instance Channel 200 CNN is on Lineup 1 and Lineup 2. It shows up 2 times in my favourite but how does MT select which tuner gets selected?

I don't know how it works in MT. But my best guess would be that you do not need two favorites. As you are loading two instances of MT, when SageTV will ask to tune for channel 200, it will use "200" as favorite number for MT, and MT will be able to tune this favorite in both instances.

I'm currently creating a DVBViewer recorder plugin for SageTV. And it works in the same way (except that you do not have to launch more than one instance): in DVBViewer you scan for channels (on one or more DVB cards), this create a big channel list. You can "split" this channel list in three groups for excluding some channels from some cards (you can associate one group to one card).

Now from the recorder plugin : you create "DVBViewer" lineups, that is select which channels from the global channels list you want included. So in your case you would create two lineups and select for each of them the same channel (eg: CNN) in the global channels list, even though CNN is to be found only one time (of course you can have two CNN in the global channels list : one DVB-S and one DVB-T for instance)

So I think that for MT the setup should be similar.

Note: the DVBViewer recorder is not yet ready to be released because SageTV cannot play the TS files recorded by DVBViewer (it works if you record MPG though).

Regards,
Stéphane.

[DreamWeb]

Hey guys.

I'm pretty new to SageTV and Mytheatre.. but here's my problem.

A fresh install of XP. Latest (registered) version of MyTheatre and SageTV (beta).

Everything seems to go smoothly when playing back the DVB streams from within Sage. Until about 10 minutes into each recording.. where it begins to stutter like MAD! And it's not just a playback thing.. if I copy the recorded show over to my main PC and play it back it shows tons of randomly placed corruption pixelation issues starting when the stutter began from within Sage.

My first guess would be that it may be a defective card.. But I just don't know about that. It's a brand new card and there probably shouldn't be an issue.

When I watch / record from within MyTheatre everything seems to be fine.

Could sage and / or the sage mytheatre plugin be corrupting the video somehow? Doesn't the stream from the satellite remain untouched and gets dumped directly to the HD? This problem only begins to happen on every recording about 7-10 mins in. At which point the corruption begins to happen about ever 3 seconds.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

I have attached a screenshot.

.david

UPDATE - I should also mention that this screenshot was taken from VLC. Within Sage I rarely see this corruption, it just manifests itself in a visual skip (the audio is fine, however)

[grooves12]

Originally Posted by DreamWeb

Hey guys.

I'm pretty new to SageTV and Mytheatre.. but here's my problem.

A fresh install of XP. Latest (registered) version of MyTheatre and SageTV (beta).

Everything seems to go smoothly when playing back the DVB streams from within Sage. Until about 10 minutes into each recording.. where it begins to stutter like MAD! And it's not just a playback thing.. if I copy the recorded show over to my main PC and play it back it shows tons of randomly placed corruption pixelation issues starting when the stutter began from within Sage.

My first guess would be that it may be a defective card.. But I just don't know about that. It's a brand new card and there probably shouldn't be an issue.

When I watch / record from within MyTheatre everything seems to be fine.

Could sage and / or the sage mytheatre plugin be corrupting the video somehow? Doesn't the stream from the satellite remain untouched and gets dumped directly to the HD? This problem only begins to happen on every recording about 7-10 mins in. At which point the corruption begins to happen about ever 3 seconds.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

I have attached a screenshot.

.david

UPDATE - I should also mention that this screenshot was taken from VLC. Within Sage I rarely see this corruption, it just manifests itself in a visual skip (the audio is fine, however)

Are you using a hacked copy of Mytheatre or a legitmate subscriberd version?? If it is hacked, that is probably your problem. The copy protection that is built into the program manifests itself in a way similar to the problems you are seeing. I had similar issues when "testing" out the program, and once I paid for the program they all went away. If you search here and through the Mytheatre boards you will see many others experiencing the same problem with the cracked version.

Edit: if you are using this for Pay TV in North America it could also be a problem with a certain "plugin" you are using... read up on some of the issues that have been cropping up with it over at dvbn.happysat.org