Changing channels with R5000

[vorius]

I am having major problems changing channels with a R5000 setup.

I change channel and Sage gives me a small animated "waiting" notice while I see the channel being tuned on the set top box through R5000 then when Sage thinks its ready and tries to play video for the channel nothing happens... just sits there. and if I hit play it says "No Signal"

This is happening alot more often now than I remember and I really haven't changed anything. Today I upgraded to SageTV v6.3 (was v5) hoping maybe it would address this problem but it's the same thing. No difference.

I have also tried many times to modify the two SageTV properties suggested on the R5000 website:

seeker/fast_mux_switch=false
videoframe/fast_file_switching=false

and it makes absolutely no difference. I restart Sage and try to change channels same problem

The only thing I can do to fix this when it happens (which is way too often) is switch to channel 1 which is a separate video source for my satellite receiver then switch back to a channel handled by r5000. And even this does not always work...

please help!

is it even a SageTV problem or a R5000 problem? I emailed them there too hoping someone will help me

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by vorius

I have also tried many times to modify the two SageTV properties

Are you saying your modifications don't stick? If so, then you need to stop the SageTV service before editing the properties file.

Other than that, I've occasionally seen my R5000 get into a state where it won't change channels reliably. One solution that's worked for me is to reboot the R5000 hardware by unplugging the USB cable from the Sage box and power-cycling the R5000 STB before plugging it back in.

[vorius]

I mean I have set and unset those properties over the course of the last 10 months or so. I dont use the service so when I change the properties I just close the program, edit the file, then start up Sage again.

I have tried power cycled the set top box while rebooting the computer at the same time too, and it helped during v5 but now with v6.3 it seems a lot worse. Now instead of like in v5 where I was able to change channels by tuning to my satellite channel then go to a R5000 channel, I need to basically power cycle the set top box which included restarting Sage and the R5000 software. I can only load one channel now before it just craps out all the time

man this is depressing

[vorius]

yeah it's totally unusable right now. I can only tune to one channel on R5000 then it just dies on me. I'd have to power everything off and start over which takes a looong time.

I noticed something strange when changing channels too- let's say I power everything up and tune to channel 80 which is CNN. Since its a fresh load the channel loads and I can watch this channel for as long as I like, everything fine. Now I tune to channel 76 (Soccer channel)- I see R5000 changing the channel on my set top box then Sage turns to a black screen- nothing happens. I let it sit for a good 60 seconds or so. Nothing changes. Now I tune to channel 50, USA network. Again I see R5000 change the channel on the STB to 50 but this tie I see a few seconds of soccer before the screen freezes and nothing happens anymore. See it seems that it was in fact recording the soccer video from the last channel that I attempted to view but it's only trying to display on screen now when I changed channel. Very weird.

Anyway, if I want to watch TV right now my only choice is to downgrade back to v5 of Sage but even then this problem will still occur occasionally.

I hope I dont end up in a situation where the R5000 guys says its SageTV's problem while SageTV says it's R5000 problem.

[vorius]

The more I am playing around with this the more convinced I am this is a problem solely in SageTV's software.

Watching the R5000 program during this channel changes everything looks perfectly normal. It changes the channel on the set top box and starts streaming video. So the question is, why is SageTV unable to display this video?



Could it be something in my video settings?

My current Video Renderer is VRM9
MPEG2 Playback DirectShow
Audio Decoder Default
MPEG2 Audio AC3Filter

[GKusnick]

If it's just a display problem, then you should be able to set up a manual recording and play it back in some other player (e.g. WMP) after it's done recording. Have you tried that?

Have you tried using the R5000 software to view the live output? Have you checked the error count in the R5000 app to see if it's recording correctly?

[vorius]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

If it's just a display problem, then you should be able to set up a manual recording and play it back in some other player (e.g. WMP) after it's done recording. Have you tried that?

Have you tried using the R5000 software to view the live output? Have you checked the error count in the R5000 app to see if it's recording correctly?

Yes, I can hit the Record button in R5000's GUI and it saves a file called January.21.2008_14.16.41PM.ts to the directory I specified for it (E:\R5000) and I can double click it and VLC Media Player starts playing the video and it plays continuously... It's been playing now for several minutes no problem.


I just dont know how to test manual channel changes through this GUI

[GKusnick]

What about recordings made by Sage? Can you play those back in VLC? If you go into the recording detail, what file format does Sage think it is?

I don't remember offhand exactly how to change channels in the R5000 app (and I don't have it in front of me right now) but there's some button or Start menu item somewhere that brings up a viewer window and an on-screen remote control.

[vorius]

Hmm, OK check this out: I found the way to change channels via R5000- and when I changed the channel and waited while I was playing the video in VLC then after a short delay the vieo suddenly stops playing. Then I found that R5000 comes with some internal Player so I try the same thing using that. I watch a channel for a while then change channel using R5000's STB Control Panel, and same thing happens. The video just quits when it changes channel. It freezes on last frame.

I am not entirely sure how it's supposed to work but maybe this is a good clue on what's going on? Any idea what settings I can try to play around with in R5000?

And how can I tell what format SageTV thinks a video is while I am playing it?

[vorius]

And check this out, this is what is going on in SageTV via the debug log when I changed channel and nothing happens:

Mon 1/21 17:36:50.549 VF processing job VFJob[LoadMF r=0.0 t=0 file=MediaFile[id=3377168 A[3135539,2064884,"Fox 5 News at 5",11746@0121.17:00,60] host=htpc encodedBy=DTC100-100254C on 127.0.0.1:6969 Great format=MPEG2-PS 0:00:00 0 kbps [] E:\SageTV\Fox5Newsat5-3135539-0.mpg, Seg0[Mon 1/21 17:36:00.314-Wed 12/31 19:00:00.000]] ifn=null] nPlayin=false
Mon 1/21 17:36:50.549 VF network encoder playback detected: true
Mon 1/21 17:36:50.550 VF waiting for data to appear in new file...liveWait=-48735
Mon 1/21 17:36:50.550 VF thread is now waiting for 0:00:00.200
Mon 1/21 17:36:50.750 VF processing job VFJob[LoadMF r=0.0 t=0 file=MediaFile[id=3377168 A[3135539,2064884,"Fox 5 News at 5",11746@0121.17:00,60] host=htpc encodedBy=DTC100-100254C on 127.0.0.1:6969 Great format=MPEG2-PS 0:00:00 0 kbps [] E:\SageTV\Fox5Newsat5-3135539-0.mpg, Seg0[Mon 1/21 17:36:00.314-Wed 12/31 19:00:00.000]] ifn=null] nPlayin=false
Mon 1/21 17:36:50.750 VF network encoder playback detected: true
Mon 1/21 17:36:50.751 VF waiting for data to appear in new file...liveWait=-48936
Mon 1/21 17:36:50.751 VF thread is now waiting for 0:00:00.200

that is repeated over n over...

[mediahome]

I have also been having problems changing channels with an R5000 and Dish setup. What I was seeing that that when I changed to certain channels it would get a black screen. If I stopped play and then selected the channel again it would play fine. I thought that the R5000 software had changed channnels OK because when I looked at the R5000 app I could see that a file for the new channel had been created and the status showed it streaming away.

I went back and double checked everything again and found something. When Sage fails to change to a new channel the R5000 apps shows that it is streaming to a file named after the new channel but it does not actually save anything or if it does it is only a fragment of video. With further research on the forums I found that adding the parameter "RecDelay: 2000" in the R5000 config file adds a delay in the initiation of the recording by the R5000 software. This resolves this problem.

[vorius]

Originally Posted by mediahome

I have also been having problems changing channels with an R5000 and Dish setup. What I was seeing that that when I changed to certain channels it would get a black screen. If I stopped play and then selected the channel again it would play fine. I thought that the R5000 software had changed channnels OK because when I looked at the R5000 app I could see that a file for the new channel had been created and the status showed it streaming away.

I went back and double checked everything again and found something. When Sage fails to change to a new channel the R5000 apps shows that it is streaming to a file named after the new channel but it does not actually save anything or if it does it is only a fragment of video. With further research on the forums I found that adding the parameter "RecDelay: 2000" in the R5000 config file adds a delay in the initiation of the recording by the R5000 software. This resolves this problem.

Wow, thanks for this information! I will try this tomorrow when I come home from work!