Configuration: H.264/R5000 capture

[DualQuad]

I have been monkeying around with playing back H.264 captures snagged from an R5000 and trying various players/codec packs, etc. I am getting nowhere fast and begging for some guidance. I either have video and no sound or sound and no video. I have installed a good bit of stuff and am leaning toward a reinstall just to be assured that every unwanted thing is cleaned up.

If you have had success, please pass on your hardware and software configuration to help a newbie out.

Thanks in advance.

[Kirby]

I cant help you out yet. No MPEG-4 channels coming down to me until StarzHD and National Geographic start up in a week or so. I do know that myself, dbfresh23, and nextcom have been working on getting MPEG4 playback, but its really a pain in the #$%. I was close, using Elecard H264 filters, but not perfect. Until I get a consistent source of MPEG4 data, I cant really do much testing.

[DualQuad]

Weird that you mentioned Elecard. I just had partial success with Elecard and was going to report in. The video plays back fine but the audio is out of sync and distorted. System load was high, perhaps too high for playback.

System under test:
X2 3800+
2G ram
X1300 ATI video card
XP Home

Test Clip
1280x720 (clip with vertical black bars framing a 4x3 frame). 12 minute clip is about 800MB

[Kirby]

Originally Posted by DualQuad

Weird that you mentioned Elecard. I just had partial success with Elecard and was going to report in. The video plays back fine but the audio is out of sync and distorted. System load was high, perhaps too high for playback.

System under test:
X2 3800+
2G ram
X1300 ATI video card
XP Home

Test Clip
1280x720 (clip with vertical black bars framing a 4x3 frame). 12 minute clip is about 800MB

I've tried all the known filters out there it seems. Elecard worked the best for me, but that doesnt mean a lot. I was testing on a system like yours, except XP pro, and 7800GTX 256mb vid card. I could playback 720p H.264 files around 30% load. CoreAVC sucked hard for me. I also bought an ATI x1300Pro card to test with, along with Cyberlink's ATI H264 filter. That didnt work well either.

Dishnetwork's first two national MPEG4 channels are currently uplinked at 1440x1080i. Whether they stay at that resolution I dont know, but my guess is they are having issues with the encoders being stable at 1920.

I assume you are trying to test this outside of Sage right? To get it working in Sage right now requires changing the registry. I hope that once June 1 rolls around, I can get back to testing MPEG4 more, I've been fighting other (java?) issues the past few weeks, plus been sicker than a dog.

[DualQuad]

Originally Posted by Kirby

I've tried all the known filters out there it seems. Elecard worked the best for me, but that doesnt mean a lot. I was testing on a system like yours, except XP pro, and 7800GTX 256mb vid card. I could playback 720p H.264 files around 30% load. CoreAVC sucked hard for me. I also bought an ATI x1300Pro card to test with, along with Cyberlink's ATI H264 filter. That didnt work well either.

Dishnetwork's first two national MPEG4 channels are currently uplinked at 1440x1080i. Whether they stay at that resolution I dont know, but my guess is they are having issues with the encoders being stable at 1920.

I assume you are trying to test this outside of Sage right? To get it working in Sage right now requires changing the registry. I hope that once June 1 rolls around, I can get back to testing MPEG4 more, I've been fighting other (java?) issues the past few weeks, plus been sicker than a dog.

I like many others am dealing with Sage crashing issues possibly related to Java. Backing down the version one step hasn't really helped and I am torn between how to spend my limitied free time, experimenting with H.264 playback or trying to get Sage to crash less often through configuration.

I too have been less than impressed with Cyberlink's ATI filter. Currently all experimenting is outside of Sage. One hurdle at a time, you know. I live in an area where Dish carries the local HDTV channels as mp4 and the upcoming release (June 1 is the rumor) of some national channels has a lit a fire to get this working correctly.

[Kirby]

Originally Posted by DualQuad

I like many others am dealing with Sage crashing issues possibly related to Java. Backing down the version one step hasn't really helped and I am torn between how to spend my limitied free time, experimenting with H.264 playback or trying to get Sage to crash less often through configuration.

I too have been less than impressed with Cyberlink's ATI filter. Currently all experimenting is outside of Sage. One hurdle at a time, you know. I live in an area where Dish carries the local HDTV channels as mp4 and the upcoming release (June 1 is the rumor) of some national channels has a lit a fire to get this working correctly.

I hear ya! I "moved" to NYC so that I could get HD locals, thinking they would also be MPEG4, but of course NYC are still MPEG2. Didnt feel like having another short term "move" before Detroit going up, so I am without MPEG4 right now.

Which Java are you using? I've backed down to 1.4.2 as of yesterday, and its MUCH better.

I have tested some MPEG4 HD captures from Dish (provided from another source) that I could get to play quite well in Sage, as well as some other MPEG4 files (nasa test clip from Apple for instance). Took a registry hack, elecard filters, and some testing in graphedit. I could get sound to come through good, but video was just a touch jerky at times. Let me see what files I still have available that you can try out, and I will pm you a link.

[DualQuad]

I am using 1.5.05 but just caught up on the thread for Sage Crashes. I will move to 1.4.2, hopefully I willsee the same stability you are experiencing.

Thanks again.

[Ryokurin]

tried what I posted a few months ago?

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...0&postcount=11

[Kirby]

where your MP4's HD or not?

[Ryokurin]

The ones I had back then was standard but I have played some hd ones without problems. Before this I couldn't get it to recognize any of them or they played with screaching sound.

[Kirby]

Ok, I am able to make this work, however what doesnt work is when the H264 stream is in a TS container. That is how the R5000 packages its streams, so somehow we need to get H264 inside a TS to play correctly. Right now, Sage just gives an error and wont play. Havent played around with it much, but hopefully something can be figured out.

[camTexas]

I'm also seeing problems playing H.264 from my R5000 (all my locals, both HD and SD). Downloading the sample files from Nextcom work fine with any of the Purevideo decoders (Cyber, Intervideo, haven't tried Nero yet). However these don't play in Sage. All of my H.264 files generated with my R5000 only have sound and no video with any player ourside of Sage and lock up Sage dead. I have been talking with Nextcom some trying to work through the issue (they have been very responsive and helpfull to this point). They did find an issue with the R5000 labeling Mpeg4 files as Mpeg2 files but this shouldn't be causing this level of issues. They said they would try and fix their software this week. They are looking at both the generated files and raw data files from my system. Others reporting problems should also let them know to help highlight a need for priority fixes. After their files are cleaner it will help to issolate if this is a R5000 issue or Sage issue or compatability between the two.

[Kirby]

I cant test anything until StarzHD and the other true MPEG4 channel comes online in the next few days. Seems like the other is NFL HD. National Geographic and HGTV are said to be in MPEG-2 format.

[dvd_maniac]

I assume you are trying to test this outside of Sage right? To get it working in Sage right now requires changing the registry. I hope that once June 1 rolls around, I can get back to testing MPEG4 more

What registry setting might this be? I encode my favorite recordings into either Nero Standard AVC or X.264 versions of mpeg-4. Would this registry setting allow me to play them inside of Sage? If so, what if any playback problems would I have with Sage Clients?

[camTexas]

comments from dialog with Sage is version 5.1 will support H.264 playback.

Can't wait... except I'm still having problems even playing my H.264 generated by my R5000s. No video and only audio no matter what external viewer or codec I use (including Elecard that Nextcom recommends). I think all my H.264 is coming across in HD so maybe that is the issue. The samples from the Nextcom site work fine (but are SD) in all the viewers I've tried but the new Nero 7.

What is everyone else using for codecs (or has anyone had success yet)?

[Kirby]

Originally Posted by camTexas

comments from dialog with Sage is version 5.1 will support H.264 playback.

Can't wait... except I'm still having problems even playing my H.264 generated by my R5000s. No video and only audio no matter what external viewer or codec I use (including Elecard that Nextcom recommends). I think all my H.264 is coming across in HD so maybe that is the issue. The samples from the Nextcom site work fine (but are SD) in all the viewers I've tried but the new Nero 7.

What is everyone else using for codecs (or has anyone had success yet)?

I used Elecard without much issue at all, and I used Ryokurin's link above just last week and it works fine as well.

[camTexas]

OK. I'll try it out again. When I used the Elecard I didn't have much issue with the SD H.264 files I downloaded but it wouldn't play video for files from either of my R5000 units (both Vip211).

Thanks - Chad

[NEOSG]

Recordings from a R5000HD-211 on Dish from StarzHD and NFLHD, using the build 24c SAGE and Multi-instance, seem to be audio only.

Installed coreavc pro. I get audio but no video

Tried dropping the files that i recorded into graphedit and they only show an audio out pin.

Any ideas?

[Kirby]

Have you tried another H264 sample in graphedit, other than from Dish?

[NEOSG]

I tried the sample from nextcoms site. That one played in sage, but it was SD. I can get the files to play in the elecard player with it's AVC plugin, but it stutters.

It should NOT stutter, as the box cranks

Pentium D 2.8
2GB ram
Nvidia 7600GT

With those specs I should be able to play them AOK.

Can you point me quickly to some other samples?

BTW, i alos posted the initial post in the AVS r5000 thread