Network encoder for DBOX 2 DVB set top boxes...

[potpiejimmy]

Originally Posted by Alfiegerner

Suggestion for you: can you set ggrab_mod to run in above normal or maybe even high priority? Occasionally I'm getting pixelated smearing in the image when other processes are running. If I increase the running ggrab_mod priority this fixes it.

Oh, that's a good idea, indeed. I can do that with the next version 0.5, no problem. I also having some picture distortions from time to time...

[Alfiegerner]

Thanks for the release mate - I'll happily try it out now.

I put a new image on the dbox and I haven't been able to recreate the audio synch problem since.

Another suggestion from another forum: This is something else to consider if increasing the priority of ggrab_mod doesn't cure all of the distorted image problems. Some guy talking about streaming from the dbox using wingrab (not a program I know) says: 'I usually use "Kill playback before streaming", or I get a few video errors here and there.' Might be something to keep in mind although I'm not sure how to achieve it yet.

update: yep all working well. Raising the priority to above normal for ggrab_mod seems to get rid of all my visual glitches so far.

[potpiejimmy]

Version 0.5 starts ggrab in "above_normal_priority_class" and features a new command line switch -lr to lock the dbox remote while recording

[marneb17]

Originally Posted by potpiejimmy

If you don't use -a to record all pids, you may now specify an audio-preference list of "PID"-names by using the -ap command line option. You can say, for example, -ap "englisch,English,dolby" and it will prefer the audio PID that is contained in the list.

WOW, that is super!!!

[Alfiegerner]

0.5's looking good - no more image distortion for me in what I've tried so far. Not had a chance to have much of look but so far so good.

[garysbootlegs]

Many thanks for creating this great plugin, just managed to get it working with version 0.5. Does anyone else get jumps in the picture/sound every so often and noise on the picture sometimes? If i change the priority to High this seems to lower the amount of glitches but they still happen every so often.

Also are there any dbox settings which need to be changed? I.e. Turning spts on etc?

Thanks

[Alfiegerner]

Hi gary, good to see you here Did you get your xmltv stuff sorted out?

I'm not too hot on dbox settings but here are my thoughts:

I'm not sure why, but the video from ggrab seem seems to be much more easily distorted by signal quality then what you see if the dbox is connected direct to the tv. I guess the images have some other stuff to smooth out the video?

I'd focus on trying to get the SNR of your incoming signal as strong as possible (press red then blue on most images) by removing attenuators - I also found that removing any signal boosters also got me a better snr.

After getting my SNR up to a goodish level (its something like 61700) and with 0.5 release I'd say that for me the video quality is consistently spot on for the vast majority of channels - on one or two channels with a weaker signal I'm getting very occasional flutters.

When I get back tonight I'll experiment with stps settings etc.

[garysbootlegs]

Hi there yep all the xmltv stuff is working now, thanks again for all your help.

I really don't think it is a signal problem as there are no attenuators/boosters added and the SNR on the box is 64200 with a BER of 0. Also when using udrec with dboxwinserver it can record the stream perfectly (i only get a glitch once every 30minutes of so and its perfect quality when watching with bitcontrol) however with ggrab it seems to glitch every 30seconds or so.

Just out of interest could you let me know your settings heres mine.

Image - Latest Cryo Sportster Pro
Ucode - Ucode 14
Cam - Newcamd
SPTS - OFF at boot, OFF at recording start

[Alfiegerner]

Yep you're SNR and BER look damn fine . I've just made a post over at WOD about the best settings to use so hopefully some bright spark will give us a few tips.

edit: Okay checked my settings:

ucode 14
spts - was just on at recording start - just set it to be on at startup ...

Also in misc settings its tweaked to my nokia 2x box. Enx and philips watchdog off nokia watchdog on.

FWIW my setup involves a server and mvp client(s) So the dbox streams to the server and the server streams to the mvp. What's your setup like? If you're doing playback on the server I wonder if the cpu toll may be affecting it?

The only advice from WOD to clear up your video is to 'disbale tv playback when recording' - I think that might be dboxwinserver thing setting though rather than somethign we can set on the dbox.

[garysbootlegs]

Hi, i'm streaming from dbox to server and playing on the server. I'll try setting up a client.

Just out of interest whats the spec of your server/clients? My server is a Athlon XP2400, 512MB PC2100 RAM, 7200RPM ATA133 HD's.

Yeah i think the disable playback option was in some early images, it may also be there in the direct recording settings (i cant check as im not at home). This wont work though as the dbox doesnt actually start recording when streaming starts.

Maybe disable playback could be added in to the next version of grabrecorder?

Also is it possible to use udrec for the streaming? As this produces perfect mp2/mpv files in dboxwinserver.

[Alfiegerner]

Hi gary,

There's an issue with how udrec forms the TS files for sage to playback.

Originally Posted by potpiejimmy

Actually udrec was my first choice. It would be great to use for streaming to TS files. I had it running and the result was Sage hanging using 99% cpu time. I took a while for me to find out that it's the missing PMT information in the TS files that Sage (and other media players, VLC for instance) didn't like. I haven't found a solution for it yet, and since udrec also doesn't multiplex mpegs, I had to switch to ggrab...

My server is athlon sempron 2800, 512 ram. The main client I use for playback is a hauppauge mvp extender - highly recommended by the way - looks great with the sage mc 16x9 stv.

So far working this setup's working really well for me. There was an issue earlier this morning when halfway through a program we got a sage exception on playback error. Apart from that 0.5 has worked excellently.

[potpiejimmy]

Check out version 0.6 to see if you have less video glitches. This version does not use UDP for streaming by default. If 0.5 worked fine or even better for you, use the command line option -udp to re-enable UDP streaming.

udrec also uses UDP, but has more sophisticated mechanisms to fix streaming errors than ggrab.

Good news: Latest Sage beta 4.1.6 supports playing files with multiple audio tracks and there will be an audio selection feature for playback in the future.

Anyway, I will also try to get Sage to have a look at those TS files produced by udrec to see if they can do anything about it. (Actually, Sage doesn't hang, it shows an ERROR -4,0x80004005: There was a problem rendering the video portion of the content for playback.)...

[garysbootlegs]

Just tried version 0.6 and it now works perfectly, no glitches or audio drop outs or anything. Thanks a lot for all your hard work potpiejimmy.

[Alfiegerner]

Yup, likewise thanks potpiejimmy, really appreciate your efforts here.

This has inspired me to get another box for sage as a capture card. I was going to get antother dbox but I in the end decided to spend a bit more money for a dreambox 500-c - looks really good and there's some solid neutrino images for it. Its meant to be a lot more reliable.

The dbox is great but for me it is definitely the weak link in my pvr chain. Sometimes I have to reboot it as it locks up and / or stops giving me a video image. I have it reboot every morning as part of cleanup script I run but it still now and then screws up. Do you guys suffer the same thing with your dboxes? It could just be my box but I've heard a lot of dbox owners saying the same thing

The first thing I'm going to do when I get the dreambox is flash it with a neutrino image and see if this plugin works well with it. It _should_, in theory,work the same as the dbox as the http commands are used and ggrab works exactly the same on it apparently.

I'll let you know how I get on with it. In the meantime, thanks again mate for this really great plugin we've got here

[Alfiegerner]

Just to let you know 0.6 is working really well for me. As a bonus, CPU usage seems to halve when not using the udp switch as well.

I've reverted to a stable version of sage now and will be using this as my main tuner for the next few days so I'll let you know it goes.

[Lucas]

This looks lke a really good way to add DVB-S to SageTV without using a capture card.

Guys, it seems that Dbox2 is really popular in Germany....

Could you please post more info on it so that I could find one to buy?

A link to a site that sells them would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

[marneb17]

Originally Posted by Lucas

Could you please post more info on it so that I could find one to buy?
A link to a site that sells them would be greatly appreciated!

The dbox 2 is not produced anymore. The best source would be ebay. But be aware that originally they have a different OS. Linux has to be installed which isn't all that easy. But with many ebay auctions linux is already installed.

Marneb

[garysbootlegs]

Yeah just make sure you buy a box that is in "debug mode" this means you can easily flash new images to the box.

[Lucas]

Great! Thanks guys.

[Alfiegerner]

Okay after trying this out for few days on my main setup I'm experiencing a few instabilities.

At various points ggrab seems to stop grabbing the video stream. The debug shows a steady "GET FILE SIZE n" but the actual file is not increasing in size and playback stops.

I'm also getting some Sage playback error messages from time to time. I haven't yet made a note of these but can do so - although these playback erros may be caused by issues with the mvp I am using.

My problem is how to debug what the problem(s) may be.

How are you finding this potpiejimmy, do you have these sorts of issues too? I am wondering if the instability is caused by my dbox rather than this plugin.


edited: had this morning off work so was able play with settings a bit.

Using udp is more stable for me - there are less (so far none ...) instances where ggrab just stopped grabbing the video stream.

After letting it run on live tv for a few hours I came back to find a error on playback message "playback. Details: ERROR (-3,0x80070005): There was a problem accessing the filesystem for capture".

I'm not sure why it would happen but it looks like sage had a problem accessing my video directory - which was unc mapped. I've tried mapping this directory directly now, i.e. D:\folder instead of \\machine\D, to see if this can clear it up.