DVBViewer Recorder: Network encoder

[logsvp]

I was wondering how I select the BBC HD AC3 channel?

If I go into DVBViewer native and look at the channel list I can 'BBC HD(NAR)' and if I click on the + sign beside it, the list expands to show 'BBC HD(AC3,Eng)'. I can then select this and watch it via DVBViewer and lsiten to the audio in Dolby Digital 5.1

However, when I look at the channel list in the DVBViewer Recorder Network Encoder setup, I just see the 'BBC(NAR)' listed and no listing for 'BBC HD(AC3,Eng)'.

The only difference I can see is that the Audio Pid is 2330 for 'BBC HD(NAR)' and 2329 for 'BBC HD(AC3,Eng)'.

Not sure what NAR stands for but it just seems like standard audio.

I was hoping that by being able to select the AC3 audio I might get round the problem of some BBC HD programs having an Audio Description commentary running?

Any ideas / suggestions on how to select the AC3 audio would be much appreciated

[logsvp]

Originally Posted by logsvp

I was wondering how I select the BBC HD AC3 channel?

It is amazing sometimes how just writing a problem down can make one think of the answer

To get this working, I went into DVBViewer (native) and ticked 'Options | Recorder | All Audio Tracks' and then applied the change.

Now with the latest firmware in the HD Extender, pressing the Audio button flips between the two audio tracks and I can now get Dolby 5.1

Obviously this will only work on recordings you make after doing the change.

I wait to see if it resolves the Audio Description problem.

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by logsvp

To get this working, I went into DVBViewer (native) and ticked 'Options | Recorder | All Audio Tracks' and then applied the change.

Yes, this way you are able to change audio tracks with SageTV.

However, sometimes SageTV get the audio tracks wrong to the point you'll not be able to select the one you want (especially if you also have other streams in the TS like DVB subtitles). If this is the case you can very well change the audio PID within DVBViewer and delete the "sub" channels (those DVBViewer display in the channels tree for audio tracks). This may work, though I have not tested this setup.

Regards,
Stéphane.

[gzelesnik]

StephaneM,

I am having the exact same problem in my software product that you had with the Everyone user / group on IPC channel initialization causing the "Some or all identity references could not be translated" error. In a later post, you say you fixed the problem with release 1.2 of you product. Could you describe the change you made that fixed this problem?

I would be very grateful!

Sincerely,
Greg
(gzelesnik)

[StephaneM]

Hi Greg,

Originally Posted by gzelesnik

I am having the exact same problem in my software product that you had with the Everyone user / group on IPC channel initialization causing the "Some or all identity references could not be translated" error.

Send me an e-mail at lmgestion@hotmail.com and I will send you a code snippet.

Regards,
Stéphane.

[rtengvad]

Hi Stephane
According to the last release notes:

Added : The recorder service will shutdown the recorders when your PC is suspended (DVBViewer will shutdown as well). Upon resuming, the recorder service will resume the recorders

But I still can't make my system go to standby automatically when using your plug in. If I use the build in support in Sage I don't have that problem ( I get other problems thats why I use your plug in )

The standby issue is the last little thing I would like to see working in this great plug-in!

Rasmus

[StephaneM]

Hi Rasmus,

Originally Posted by rtengvad

But I still can't make my system go to standby automatically when using your plug in. If I use the build in support in Sage I don't have that problem ( I get other problems thats why I use your plug in )

Sorry, I understood that you were able to go into standby but having issues on resume.

So, your issue is easy to fix: DVBViewer prevents your computer to go into standby. For fixing this:

* shutdown SageTV
* shutdown DVBViewer Recorder Service
* Launch DVBViewer
* Go the Settings / Options menu, then uncheck the "Prevent Screen Saver" check box.

Regards,
Stéphane.

[rtengvad]

Originally Posted by StephaneM

So, your issue is easy to fix: DVBViewer prevents your computer to go into standby. For fixing this:

* shutdown SageTV
* shutdown DVBViewer Recorder Service
* Launch DVBViewer
* Go the Settings / Options menu, then uncheck the "Prevent Screen Saver" check box.

Thanks Stephane. You are right. It seems to be DVBviewer that is preventing my system to go to standby.

Sage only : standby ok
Sage + Recorder service : no standby
Sage + Recorder service with DVBviewer killed : Standby ok

So I followed your advice and unchecked "prevent screen saver" but it changed nothing. Any other ideas? I searched the DVBviewer forum but did not find anything.

Thanks

Rasmus

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by rtengvad

Thanks Stephane. You are right. It seems to be DVBviewer that is preventing my system to go to standby.

You're also right... DVBViewer prevent standby (well at least inactivity standby, because if I recall correctly during my tests I was able to put my PC into standby with the recorder and DVBViewer running).

From what I understand, DVBViewer must be closed for the PC to go into Standby... I'll try to see if something can be done here (I'll try to shutdown DVBViewer during the query suspend event and hope it will allow the PC to be put to sleep)

Regards,
Stéphane.

[rtengvad]

So, if the recorder could control the start and close of Dvbviewer that would do it?

I guess that there is no reason to have both the recorder service and Dvbviewer open when not recording, except that it might take longer to initiate the first recording of course. But that timer can be adjusted in Sage.

I would be very happy if you will look into this

Thanks
Rasmus

[rickgillyon]

I'm thinking of taking this for a test-drive, because I'm having some compatibility with my DVBDream recordings. Is anyone using this encoder with PAL MVPs? That's what gives me an issue with other encoders, also some FF/Rewind issues. So before going through all this work again, any issues?

Also, I see that you have to set up each "Recorder" separately. I have 4 identical DVB-C tuners, same lineup, do I have to go through the setup 4 times or can I shortcut that?

Thanks!

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by rickgillyon

I'm thinking of taking this for a test-drive, because I'm having some compatibility with my DVBDream recordings. Is anyone using this encoder with PAL MVPs? That's what gives me an issue with other encoders, also some FF/Rewind issues. So before going through all this work again, any issues?

I can't tell for sure.

All I can say is that the recordings can cause some issues with the SageTV client and none with SageTV Placeshifter. Common issues :

* Watching Live TV => you may have to suffer the "wait circle" for minutes with some recordings, then playback will start (this never happens with recordings)
* Audio Stream selection => for some shows, it will be impossible to change the audio stream (this is a SageTV issue and seems to be related to some elementary streams in the TS : TTX or DVBSubs or ?)
* Time Line issues => SageTV demux is not accurate so the reported position in the show is not the real one (but the offset remains approximately constant during playback)

All these issues are dependant of the broadcasted material (for instance I have less issues with DVB-T than with DVB-S...) and are all SageTV issues (if you playback those streams in Media Player with Haali Splitter they are 100% perfect)

However, if you do have problems with the recordings, you should submit them to SageTV (they are currently working on a new demuxer => it currently doesn't work with DVBViewer recordings)

Also, I see that you have to set up each "Recorder" separately. I have 4 identical DVB-C tuners, same lineup, do I have to go through the setup 4 times or can I shortcut that?

You can shortcut by manually editing the recorders.xml (ProgramData\LM Gestion\DVBViewer Recorder or Documents And Settings\All Users\Application Data\LM Gestion\DVBViewer Recorder) file. Create all 4 recorders in the UI but only define the channels for one of them, then copy/paste the channels list for the 3 "blank" recorders.

Regards,
Stéphane.

[rtengvad]

Originally Posted by rickgillyon

I'm thinking of taking this for a test-drive, because I'm having some compatibility with my DVBDream recordings. Is anyone using this encoder with PAL MVPs? That's what gives me an issue with other encoders, also some FF/Rewind issues.

I think you will find the same problems with this recorder because - as I have understood it - the problems you describe are all related to Sage having difficulty handling transport stream.

Rasmus

[rickgillyon]

Originally Posted by rtengvad

the problems you describe are all related to Sage having difficulty handling transport stream.

Not in this case. Because I have a lot of MVPs I use PS rather than TS. When using MyTheatre the files were fine, DVBDream's are a problem. I'm hoping that this one works...

[rtengvad]

OK I understand. In my case I have seen the HD-100 playback capabilities depend on the actual firmware from Sage. Maybe that is the diff between the MVP and the HD-100.

DVBviewer i capable of recording in ps (a MPEG 2 compliant file) but I did not find any difference in the ability for my system to play the files. I sometimes get recording that will not play at all on my extender (just black screen). PS or TS. Same files play fine on a client.

Rasmus

[nickjp]

I'm having a problem getting the encoder to work. I must be missing something trivial and could use some hints!
I set it all up and sage sees a functioning network encoder according to 'video source setup'.
When I tune a channel, I see the message in the monitor utility that a channel is selected. Furthermore, also dvbviewer tunes to the channel (I see this because I enabled audio/video for testing).
However sage fails to show anything.
The most relevant messages from the sage logfiles seem to be:

Mon 9/29 15:00:06.246 Seeker awoken
Mon 9/29 15:00:06.246 MemStats: Used=85MB Total=111MB Max=266MB
Mon 9/29 15:00:06.246 Seeker removing dead Encoder: DVBC on 192.168.0.4:9191
Mon 9/29 15:00:06.246 Seeker.endRecord(Mon 9/29 15:00:06.246) currRecord=A[5006570,5006568,"Het eiland van Inis Cool",28114@0929.14:50,15]
Mon 9/29 15:00:06.247 VF.submitJob(VFJob[InactiveFile r=0.0 t=0 file=null ifn=F:\tv\HeteilandvanInisCool-5006570-0.mpg])
Mon 9/29 15:00:06.247 VF processing job VFJob[InactiveFile r=0.0 t=0 file=null ifn=F:\tv\HeteilandvanInisCool-5006570-0.mpg] nPlayin=false
Mon 9/29 15:00:06.247 VF discarding job VFJob[InactiveFile r=0.0 t=0 file=null ifn=F:\tv\HeteilandvanInisCool-5006570-0.mpg]
Mon 9/29 15:00:06.247 VF processing job null nPlayin=false
Mon 9/29 15:00:06.247 VF thread is now waiting for 0:00:00.000
Mon 9/29 15:00:21.755 Error communicating with encoding server:java.lang.NumberFormatException: For input string: "ERROR failed request"
Mon 9/29 15:00:37.273 Doing pre-emptive file format detection on recording MediaFile....F:\tv\HeteilandvanInisCool-5006570-0.mpg
Mon 9/29 15:00:37.278 Doing pre-emptive file format detection on recording MediaFile....F:\tv\HeteilandvanInisCool-5006570-0.mpg
Mon 9/29 15:00:37.278 MARK 1 currRecord=null enc=Hauppauge WinTV PVR PCI II Capture clients=[] ir=false
Mon 9/29 15:00:37.278 Seeker in AUTOMATIC mode nextRecord=null nextTTA=9223372036854775807
Mon 9/29 15:00:37.278 newRecord=null
Mon 9/29 15:00:37.278 NOTHING TO RECORD FOR NOW...

The third line says: "... removing dead encoder...." And in line ten the Error.

Anybody any clue as to what I am doing wrong here?

[rtengvad]

Check if you have something else that communicates on the same port. No clue if thats the problem, but it has caused me problems in the past

Rasmus

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by nickjp

When I tune a channel, I see the message in the monitor utility that a channel is selected. Furthermore, also dvbviewer tunes to the channel (I see this because I enabled audio/video for testing).../...Anybody any clue as to what I am doing wrong here?

You are doing nothing wrong. There is a bug in DVBViewer 3.9.4: it doesn't set the recording directory my plugin request. As a result, DVBViewer is recording in another folder (if it does) and SageTV doesn't see anything coming.

To resolve the issue, add your recording folder to DVBViewer:

* Shutdown SageTV, shutdown DVBViewer Recorder
* Launch DVBViewer and add the recording folder in Settings \ Options \ Recorder
* In DVBViewer click on the About \ Configuration folder menu, this opens an explorer window
* Shutdown DVBViewer
* In the Configuration folder opened previously, edit the setup.xml file to add a trailing slash to the recording folder you just added (at the very end of the setup.xml file)
* Restart DVBViewer Recorder, then SageTV and the problem should be fixed

Regards,
Stéphane.

[nickjp]

I already set the reording directory, the additional backslash in setup.xml did the trick.
Thanks!

I don't know if you are still looking into SoftCAMs. Vp**g runs for some 10 seconds fine (with video and audio enabled). After that it reports: "timeout on ECM-PID: [pid-id]".
I tried another softcam with the same result.
Happy to do more testing if that helps.

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by nickjp

I don't know if you are still looking into SoftCAMs. Vp**g runs for some 10 seconds fine (with video and audio enabled). After that it reports: "timeout on ECM-PID: [pid-id]".

I can't help you with SoftCAMs as I don't have anything to test them.

It is possible however that the SoftCAM requires a playback graph during the whole recording (the playback graph is stopped as soon as the recording is fine).

As DVBViewer will not help you with SoftCAM, the best thing to do is to try contacting the author of the SoftCAM plugin.

Regards,
Stéphane.