Watching slingbox streams in SageTV?

[morikaweb]

I'm going out on a limb here and assuming the answer is a big no...

But if anyone knows if it is passable to watch Slingbox streams in SageTV please let me know.

[mikejaner]

No, they don't allow anything but their software to access the streams. I am pretty sure it's in an encrypted, and/or proprietary format.

[stuckless]

I own a slingbox pro, and I was pretty annoyed when I took the firmware upgrade which encrypted the stream. The performance after that degraded... basically you had to sacrafice bitrate in order to accomplish this. They did this to stop 3rd party applications from creating recorders on the Slingbox Stream. Bascially my slingbox sits in a box right now... Sage does what I was using the slingbox for... and Sage does it better in my oppinion.

[morikaweb]

I thought not. Oh well thanks for the answers.

BTW the reason I was asking is I am thinking of subscribing to this service and wanted to integrate it with my sage server.

http://www.thetelly.net/

[ozfiles]

It will be good when the Slingcatcher is released then you will have no problem getting the stream into sagetv.

[onesubject]

I thought I would post with the experiments and trials I have been doing to get slingbox streaming to SageTV. It's not in any shape that I would call functional in SageTV, but I have been able to get a stream going to SageTV.

There are a few components I am using to get at least somewhere in the process and I admit it seems like a very round about way to go, but here are the programs I am using:

Slingbox SDK (Project in sourceforge that has a VLC plugin which can work with a slingbox)
VLC (this received the slingbox stream and then restreams it using mms)
Graphedit (build a graph that takes the mms stream, muxes an MPEG2 stream and dumps the result to a .TS file)
SGraphRecorder (uses the graphedit file and works as a network source for SageTV network encoder)

As you can see a lot of people have put in a lot of hardwork into some very nice projects, and I have managed to cram them together to form a barely functional system

The main problems with this solution right now are I can't change channels through sage (this is a big problem), but when I disabled the channel change system in SGraphRecorder I was able to see whatever slingbox channel was already streaming. Also the MPEG2 mux I am using is a trail SDK. I would love to move to a freeware version if one existed.

My current tests for channel changing involved using a batch file to kill the VLC progress and restart it with a new command line. I believe this is causing a problem with SGraphRecorded as the directshow graph doesn't know how to resync with the mms stream.

If anyone is still interested in slingbox on SageTV and would like more specifics of my testing I would be glad to post them. Also if anyone has any suggestions or ideas on how to improve this system feel free to post them. I would love to have more people trying various combinations and solutions to get this working (if the interest is even there).

[mikejaner]

I am interested! I would love to have my Slingbox act as a tuner for SageTV. I am surprised they are letting people use an SDK to get to the streams. I will test things for you if you want, whenever you get it to a testing state, so just let me know. Thanks for working on this!!

[morikaweb]

Our answer is finally here. It is a bit expensive but for the convenience factor its worth it:

Presenting the Sling Catcher:
http://www.slingmedia.com/go/slingcatcher-purchase

[mikejaner]

Originally Posted by morikaweb

Our answer is finally here. It is a bit expensive but for the convenience factor its worth it:

Presenting the Sling Catcher:
http://www.slingmedia.com/go/slingcatcher-purchase

[FLAMEBAIT]
What answer is that? The answer to me needing to plug up yet another box to my TV to play video, or that I need to connect it via HDMI to get it to output HD video (Component outputs are SD only). Or maybe it's that it only works with a slingbox (natively) over the network, and you have to plug up an external device like a memory stick or hard drive to play anything else natively (it can cast from the PC, but can you imagine the overhead, and good luck with DRM like Netflix etc..). Oh yeah, the price is VERY attractive. I couldn't build a PC for that price, which does all of the above and more, like SageTV, Netflix, Amazon Unbox, etc.......
[/FLAMEBAIT]

Edited for accuracy

[jrog]

I waited for this device for almost 2 years, and it should be about 1/2 to 1/3 the cost. It's also a bloated piece of crap. Who needs another device to bridge from their PC to the TV? This is getting ridiculous.

Slingbox needed to focus on what made them great in the first place... simplicity. The box should be able to just stream from a remote, or local network slingbox, and send IR to control the remote box if need be, and be done with it. Had they been able to do that, I would have likely stuck with my Tivo, and just used sling devices for multi-room viewing, but instead, I went with Sage, and realize how much better the system is, and the HD-100. I have not tried connecting an HD-100 to a remote server, but I can imagine it's every bit as good as placeshifter.

[morikaweb]

I'm confused. Why would you connect this device to your TV directly?

I plan to have this device connected via component to my HDPVR unit and controlled via a USB-UIRT from SageTV. It will then allow me to use a Slingbox feed just like my local cable feed.

But to each his own I suppose, if you want to use this separate from SageTV feel free.

[stuckless]

OK, now I'm confused

Isn't using the slingbox as a capture source the same as using the HDPVR as a capture source?

STB -> SlingBOx -> HDPVR -> Sage

STB -> HDPVR -> Sage

What value does putting the Slingbox give you in this setup?

[mikejaner]

Originally Posted by stuckless

OK, now I'm confused

Isn't using the slingbox as a capture source the same as using the HDPVR as a capture source?

STB -> SlingBOx -> HDPVR -> Sage

STB -> HDPVR -> Sage

What value does putting the Slingbox give you in this setup?

LOL, yeah

What I was referring to above though is where onesubject had written something to make the slingbox a tuner directly, therefore.

STB > SlingBox > Sage

I wrote him to see if he is still working on this. I would love to use my currently unused slingbox for that.

[stuckless]

I wrote him to see if he is still working on this. I would love to use my currently unused slingbox for that.

That makes sense... I have an unused slingbox as well... so yeah I can see where using that as a capture device would be nice.

[frostykev]

Could we have a slingbox call up, where sage just brought the Slingbox player up, like our other players do today, then switch away from the slingbox player when we needed to go to another screen?

I could really use this as I am tired of going over to the tv and using the mouse to load my slingbox player.

[shugrue]

I just looked on the "slingcatcher" web site.
Here is a cut and paste for you to read.

# All Slingbox generations are supported by SlingCatcher, including the new Slingbox ProHD. Note: full HD video streaming from a Slingbox ProHD to SlingCatcher is not supported at this time.

[onesubject]

OK it's almost a year later, but thanks to the michaeldjcox and all the names on the credits of the Webfeedencoder project (and of course the original VLC plugin from the SlingboxSDK at sourceforge) I have a mostly working setup.

Install Webfeedencoder per the instructions found in support thread except have the service run as the user you are logging into the machine with to use Sage.

Install VLC (0.8.6i seems to be the last version the slingbox plugin was compiled and working with) and install the slingbox plugin. Configure the plugin in VLC per the instructions that come with it.

Configure the lineup, and in my case I setup a new type of sling. (I can post my Webfeedencoder config files is anyone is interested). Change the url to be in the format of
url=sling://<address>:<port>/channel<number>

In Sage configure the new source and add an epg source. Remap the physical channels to the lineup set in Webfeedencoder.

Once these are setup you should be able to go to the guide, pick a channel, and begin watching (Preview in channel setup doesn't work). Channel playback has a start delay, and my setup seems to only change channels every other time (confirmed in the logs with vlc reporting nothing to display). I am still working with the tune and detune commands to see if I can speed it up and eliminate the every other time problem.


If anyone is still interested in this give it a shot as it is the most reliable way I have found so far (software only solution) and if you run into any trouble I will try to check back at the forums here to help. Maybe someone else can figure out the every other time problem

[Graygeek]

Great work onesubject, this looks interesting, I currently running a HAVA and very happy with it. The one issue is HAVA's drivers only allow one HAVA on a system. I'd like to add another Digital Cable capture device .... not convinced HD-PVR is for me! Please keep us posted on your progress, this could be a great alternative.

[michaeldjcox]

Originally Posted by onesubject

Configure the lineup, and in my case I setup a new type of sling. (I can post my Webfeedencoder config files is anyone is interested). Change the url to be in the format of
url=sling://<address>:<port>/channel<number>

hah - and I thought about 3 people were using my plugin.

Please post your config.

I will include your config changes in the next release of web feed encoder.

Regards,

Michael

[onesubject]

OK here is what I have so far... not to different from the original settings:

In the config folder I created a sling.props files which just contains
tune=tune.sling
detune=detune.sling

In the commands folder I have the tune.sling
WaitFor 60000
Exec cmd /c start "streamAsVideoCommand" "%vlc.exe%" "%url%" --sout="#transcode{vcodec=mp4v,vb=512, fps=30, acodec=mpga,ab=96,channels=2}:duplicate{dst=std{access=file,mux=ps,dst='%recording%'}}" --sout-transcode-audio-sync -I rc --rc-host=127.0.0.1:5002
# --extraintf=logger --logfile="%logfile%" -vvv

I needed to add the WaitFor to solve the problem of only tuning in every other channel change. I think it is because the slingbox I am testing with is not local and so the router doesn't close the connection right. I will be testing this theory by using a VPN and see if the long delay is still necessary. The mux type is set to ps instead of ts.

detune.sling
VlcCommand %streamAsVideoCommandPort% stop clear quit

Also I am transcoding the video into mp4v because it worked better with my placeshifter and sage clients (still have a problem with live tv on the client). The original video transcode of mp2v works fine on the local machine but caused stuttering on the client and wouldn't play on the placeshifter. Again I'm not sure why, I just know this setting is what best works for me so far.