What happened to custom quality settings?

[Capt Dean]

I used to use a custom bitrate to record my programs. Now that I am at version 5.x I don't see my option to select that setting anymore.

What gives?

[Opus4]

Are you still using your properties file where you defined the custom bitrate? If so, it should still be there. If it isn't, it sounds like perhaps you started with a new properties file at some point. You can always close SageTV (or the service) and add it to sage.properties again.

- Andy

[Capt Dean]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Are you still using your properties file where you defined the custom bitrate? If so, it should still be there. If it isn't, it sounds like perhaps you started with a new properties file at some point. You can always close SageTV (or the service) and add it to sage.properties again.

- Andy

I haven't done anything but upgrade my sage..... the same way I have always been doing for the last many, many releases. I looked in the sage.properties file. My entries are there.

Thoughts?

There is one other difference. I have added 3 extenders. Could that be the problem? BTW: I also notice my setting for preferred tuner isn't functioning either.

[Opus4]

Are you sure you installed the upgrade to the same directory where SageTV was previously installed? If not, it could be using a different properties file. I'm still using custom qualities & they do show up. I just added a new one & that one appeared too.

Also, the list of recording qualities isn't in alphabetical order, so maybe it is somewhere else in the list?

One more: are you setting the default for a specific tuner? If so, it only lists the qualities that tuner should be able to use.

- Andy

[Capt Dean]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Are you sure you installed the upgrade to the same directory where SageTV was previously installed? If not, it could be using a different properties file. I'm still using custom qualities & they do show up. I just added a new one & that one appeared too.

Also, the list of recording qualities isn't in alphabetical order, so maybe it is somewhere else in the list?

One more: are you setting the default for a specific tuner? If so, it only lists the qualities that tuner should be able to use.

- Andy

Looks like I had goofed and fixed the directory selection at one point. You nailed it on the head. It took me a while by looking at modified dates to the files to figure it out.

Thanks!

[BruenerXII]

Originally Posted by Opus4

I'm still using custom qualities & they do show up. I just added a new one & that one appeared too.
- Andy

This sounds interesting. How would i go about adding a couple of custom quailty settings?

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by BruenerXII

This sounds interesting. How would i go about adding a couple of custom quailty settings?

There is a blurb about it in Appendix H of the PDF manual, p. 249 for v5, but it mostly links to the Configuration support page where there are docs about recording quality.

Also, this FAQ has a few examples that should still work.

- Andy

[milos.sakovic]

Does this "hack" work for Hauppauge PVR 500?

No matter what I put in the porperties file I always get the standard ones... >.<
I really need to lower the quality

[Opus4]

You are trying to add custom recording quality properties, right?

Before editing the properties file, make sure you are exiting SageTV. If using service mode, stop the service. Also, make sure you are editing sage.properties, not sageclient.properties for this setting.

- Andy

[milos.sakovic]

Yes, I am trying to add a custom recording quality.

I add this line:

mmc/python2_encoding/W00t=videobitrate=256000|width=320|height=240|audiobitrate=96|vbr=0

I killed the service, closed the Sage... Still! No success..

[Opus4]

Did you check the Configuration support page, which contains a link to Hauppauge Cards & Recording Quality?

It looks like you have some invalid values on that line.

Edit: Did you try any settings from the FAQ in a post above, just to see if they are getting seen? (You only need the mmc/python2_encoding properties now.)

- Andy

[milos.sakovic]

Thank you kindly Opus4! Everything works well if you read the whole document

I was on a vacation and I couldnt reply sooner!

Thank you again.

[milos.sakovic]

Oh my, I must made some error!

The problem, now, is that I can see that video is recorded as lower quality (by watching at it there are blurred parts etc - which is not a problem, since I want it that way), however video file size remains unchanged!

So weather I select VCD (lowest predefined quality) or this new quality "w00t": ()

mmc/python2_encoding/w00t=videobitrate\=384000|width\=352|height\=240|audiobitrate\=192|outputstreamtype\=11|audiosampling\=32000

... i get the same file size, no matter what and quality (by watching a video sample) is visually different as it should be.

What to do, oh, what to do?