DVBViewer Recorder: Network encoder

[rickgillyon]

Path is there, latest versions of both in use, downloaded both on Friday...I've tried it with various ports/IPs, nothing seems to work. I've been through the common gotchas in the last few pages of this thread, no help there either.

Any more ideas? Any more debug I can provide?

[nick777]

Originally Posted by rickgillyon

Path is there, latest versions of both in use, downloaded both on Friday...I've tried it with various ports/IPs, nothing seems to work. I've been through the common gotchas in the last few pages of this thread, no help there either.

Any more ideas? Any more debug I can provide?

dvbviewer 4.0 or 4.1 ?

I tried 4.1 after it was recently released and had the same issue, reinstalled 4.0 and all good again

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by nick777

I tried 4.1 after it was recently released and had the same issue, reinstalled 4.0 and all good again

DVBViewer version 4.1, doesn't allow anymore that audio/video be enabled when starting a recording (I'll figure out a new way to do it in an upcoming version of the recorder)

So if you are using a SoftCam that needs a playback graph, DVBViewer 4.1 is a no go for now.

To verify that this is the case: use the Standalone recorder, and before tuning a channel in SageTV, use DVBViewer to view this channel, then tune it in SageTV, it should now work (because a playback graph of this channel exists)

Regards,
Stéphane.

[rickgillyon]

Yeah, that works! On the DVBViewer site they only have 4.1.1 or 3.9.4 for download, is 3.9.4 okay? Or should I wait?

I'm using vPlug, and I assume that I need video turned on because if I turn the video off I get nothing in SageTV either...

[rickgillyon]

Okay, working with v4.0.

If I have 4 identical tuners with the same lineup, I assume I need to create 4 network encoders in the tool. I don't want to put in the channel lists 4 times, I assume I can just edit the XML, or is there a simpler way?

[rickgillyon]

Not going well at all I'm afraid. I can sit and watch DVBViewer on its own for ages, get it to record a file for half an hour, but when I get it to record via SageTV I get a maximum of 12MB recorded - always between 7 and 12MB, then it seems to hang up, file doesn't get bigger - same if I watch it in Sage, it shows for around 30 seconds then the picture disappears, says it's recording but the file is getting no bigger. After a few minutes it retunes but I get another 30 secs only before it gives up again. Any ideas?

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by rickgillyon

I get a maximum of 12MB recorded - always between 7 and 12MB, then it seems to hang up, file doesn't get bigger - same if I watch it in Sage

That's because by default I destroy the playback graph after the "restart delay" is over. It seems that you need to have the playback graph always on. To do so, use a very huge "restart delay" in the recorder config (something like three hours: whatever longest duration you'll ever record).

However, this is not an perfect setup, since DVBViewer will always use a playback graph when you record (this use resources...). Also if you plan to use it in a multi-encoder scenario, this will not work: only one playback graph can exists. This is the limitation of DVBViewer with SoftCam (but the same is true when using a hardware CAM => the hardware CAM in most DVB CI module can only decrypt one channel at a time)

Regards,
Stéphane.

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by rickgillyon

I assume I can just edit the XML, or is there a simpler way?

copy / paste the XML is the quickest way.

[rickgillyon]

Originally Posted by StephaneM

Also if you plan to use it in a multi-encoder scenario, this will not work: only one playback graph can exists.

Ah, that's a gotcha then. I was hoping to use this with all 4 DVB-C tuners, so no way that can work?

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by rickgillyon

Ah, that's a gotcha then. I was hoping to use this with all 4 DVB-C tuners, so no way that can work?

No there is no way it can work. DVBViewer is not really the good application for using SoftCam as it is neither supported by the authors nor considered a legal usage... and that's the problem. Otherwise it would have worked very well.

[rickgillyon]

Damn, I wish they'd had a trial version!

Never mind, thanks for the help, back to MyTheatre...

[harco]

Could you not install multiple instances of DVBviewer and just have one encoder one each instance?

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by harco

Could you not install multiple instances of DVBviewer and just have one encoder one each instance?

No, it's not possible. Only one instance of DVBViewer can be programatically used with the DVBViewer COM API.

[MCE-Refugee]

Originally Posted by rickgillyon

Ah, that's a gotcha then. I was hoping to use this with all 4 DVB-C tuners, so no way that can work?

With USB tuners this might work within four separate virtual machines but no virtualisation software will handle the Firewire interface of the FloppyDVB devices. Presumably if money were no object you could simply have four little systems each with one tuner & instance of DVBViewer.

[bjkiller]

some strange issue:

The SageTV request recording of .mpg file

Standalone - 12:23:26.218 - Verbose - platformahd - START platformahd Digital TV Tuner|506|2493226012340|c:\temp\2--3937978-0.mpg|MPEG2 Max Quality

but DVBViewer recording .ts file

03/07/2009 12:23 1,604,956 2--3937978-0.ts

i use latest donated version of DVBViewer Recorder.
and i tested with DVBViewer 4.0 and DVBViewer 4.1


what the problem can be?

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by bjkiller

The SageTV request recording of .mpg file but DVBViewer recording .ts file

This is the case when the channel is broadcasting H.264. There is nothing that can be done about this, you must use TS recording format.

Regards,
Stéphane.

[plawlor]

Originally Posted by StephaneM

DVBViewer version 4.1 doesn't allow anymore that audio/video be enabled when starting a recording (I'll figure out a new way to do it in an upcoming version of the recorder).

Stephane,

Any update on this? I just recently got my DVB Viewer setup working again and made the mistake of going to 4.1.1. As you have noted, no go when my softcam is enabled. If you're close to having a workaround in place for this, I'll wait. If not, I'll roll back to 4.0.

Thanks!

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by plawlor

Any update on this? I just recently got my DVB Viewer setup working again and made the mistake of going to 4.1.1.

This has been fixed a long time ago in version 2.2.

Regards,
Stéphane.

[jeroen020]

Well I've spent two evenings trying to get it to work, but so far no sucess.

I have the latest versions of SageTV and purchased DVBViewer pro.
I run both SageTV and DVBViewer on Windows Home Server.
I have a FireDTV DVB-S2 and have compiled a list of channels I want to see across 4 LNB's switched via Disecq that all work well within DVBViewer.
I have installed the DVBViewer Recorder and can see the channels DVBViewer has found, and added SageTV channel numers to my liking in the last column so it for example:
1080037293|NED3 NED3 Astra 19.2 E ttSatellite 0 3
I followed the instructions in the documentation and in this thread for further configuration of DVBViewer Recorder.
After adding the recorder to SageTV, I run the Recorder Monitor, set this up for the recorder service, and start up SageTV.
SageTV asks me to configure a new tuner. I do this by selecting the tuner name (DVBViewerRecorder op 192.168.0.149:9090 in my case) --> Digtale TV Tuner --> Continue --> Amsterdam (selected as DVB-T Region) --> Use Tuner Or Capture Card to tune ..... --> Do Not Use Program Guide Data --> Yes - scan for all channels now --> Full Channel Scan --> The channel scan found 0 tunable channels.
I then add a channel manually to the lineup with name NED3, Logical channel number 3 and physical channel number 3, ID is empty.

The Monitor has given several errors by now, mainly "New Recorder - BUFFER = ERROR Not Supported", and then "STOP"

I then select channel 3 in the program guide and select 'watch'. After a few seconds I get a 'no signal' popup and the monitor shows 'NewRecorder START DVBViewerRecorder Digitale TV Tuner|3|2498675334906|E:\SageTVRecordings\3_3_0804_0014-0.ts|Fantastisch"
And on the next line "NewRecorder - No channel with number '3' in recorder lineup"

What am I doing wrong here? Do I need to enter the ID of the channels in a specific way?
Any help much appreciated!!!

Additional tests/scenario's tried without success:
I've tried 127.0.0.1 instead of 192.168.0.149, but them I'm not even getting error messages in the Recorder Monitor anymore, nothing seems to happen.
I've tried port 9091 instead of 9090
I've tried deleting all references to EPG etc from the sage.properties before trying the steps above again
I've tried the standalone recorder but nothing would happen in the DVBViewer
I've tried setting up XMLTV for EPG - the EPG data show up in the SageTV program guide, but I still can't watch any of the channels

[StephaneM]

Hello,

Originally Posted by jeroen020

I then select channel 3 in the program guide and select 'watch'. After a few seconds I get a 'no signal' popup and the monitor shows 'NewRecorder START DVBViewerRecorder Digitale TV Tuner|3|2498675334906|E:\SageTVRecordings\3_3_0804_0014-0.ts|Fantastisch"
And on the next line "NewRecorder - No channel with number '3' in recorder lineup"

It seems that you have not restarted the recorder after setting it up, that's why it doesn't see the channels you added in the lineup.

When you use the DVBViewer Recorder Configuration utility and when you are done with it click on the "Restart Recorders and Exit". This will restart the recorder and as a consequence will load its new settings.

Otherwise all your approach is ok (you can keep the XMLTV EPG as long as it show the right channel numbers : the same used in DVBViewer Recorder, but if you use my Importer it should be ok)

Regards,
Stéphane.