No sound in SageTV playback

[notfromhere]

I've recently moved my Sage setup to 64-bit Vista. I'm using an HDHomerun and an HD-PVR to record shows, and for the most part everything was working fairly well. But the machine has been crashing a lot more than I'd like, so I've been trying to figure out the problem. I noticed an incompatible Arcsoft file in my logs, so I upgraded Total Media Extreme. That proved to be a bad idea, so I uninstalled and reinstalled the earlier version of the software, and ever since, SageTV doesn't have sound when replaying its own recordings.

If I play back an MKV or AVI or Youtube video in SageTV, everything is fine. Also, the Sage recordings do contain sound, because WMP and TME can both play them back okay.

Here's what I've got:

Vista Ultimate 64-bit
SageTV running as a service
Radeon 4670 with sound through the HDMI connector
HD Homerun
HD PVR
USB-UIRT to control my cable box

Any ideas? So far I've totally uninstalled and reinstalled the HD PVR drivers and software, uninstalled and reinstalled the Catalyst drivers, tried various combinations of video and audio filters, and so far nothing has helped.

Thanks!

[cmotors]

I've run into this problem myself, and it was from working with the arcsoft software I now believe. I'm trying to get this Firefly Blu Ray to work, and the only software that will do it is the Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre. The version of that Arcsoft software that came with my HD-PVR is OEM, and doesn't have support for Blu Ray. So, I bought the upgrade. Installed the upgrade, but then TotalMedia Theatre (TMT) wouldn't run, and would get an unhandled exception. So I uninstalled the TMT, then installed just the TMT upgrade. That got the TMT working, but now my SageTV is also not playing sound. Mucked with the sound driver to use in the Sage settings, same problem. Tried installing community codec pack, same problem. I'm thinking that a shared file got removed when I uninstalled the TMT. There was a whole whack of messages asking if certain shared files should be removed when I was uninstalling TMT. After clicking yes like 15 times and saw that all of them were in the \Common Files\Arcsoft folder, I just started clicking yes like crazy, and the last few that blurred past were from the Windows folder, which from past experience, can cause a pain in the arse much like the one I have now.

I did a repair install of SageTV, but that didn't help. I'm about to kill the sage service and re-do the install, hoping that whatever file got whacked will be re-installed. Sigh

[cmotors]

Well, re-doing the sage software hasn't helped. To clarify the issue, it is confined to .TS files. I have some recording in my list that are .mpg files left over from when I used a different capture than the HD-PVR, and Sage plays audio from them no problem. The only files that don't play sound are the .TS files captured from the HD-PVR. Playing those files from an external player works fine with full sound.

[HelenWeathers]

The original .ts files were recorded in stereo with aac audio format. If you have not done so, install the Total Media Extreme software that came with the HD PVR, which will give you the aac audio codecs. It won't conflict with your TMT as it installs in a different folder by default. I have both on my clients (I use TMT for BD playback).

Once installed you'll have to add this line in your sage.properties (or sageclient.properties) to use the aac codec:

videoframe/aac_audio_decoder_filter=ArcSoft Audio Decoder HD

This may have changed in the 6.5 SageTV software but was needed with the 6.4 version.

EDIT: also make sure this line is in your properties file: videoframe/ac3_audio_decoder_filter=AC3Filter

[cmotors]

Thanks for the suggestion! That corrected the audio issue. Even though I did install the TME to a different folder, now the TMT doesn't work. However, I'll figure that out later. As long as I have the sound working in Sage, that's plenty good enough for now. Especially since the video players I've tried choke on this particular brand of .TS file, it is nice to be able to watch my shows once again.

[HelenWeathers]

Both TME and TMT work for me, but I did install TME first and then TMT. Uninstall both and then try it that way if you get a chance.

[chrisc983]

I am having a similiar issue but I am not using arcsoft. After I upgraded to 6.5.3 my .ts files and music files don't play but video from online services do.

edit: weird I just restarted Sage and the audio started working. I didn't change any settings or anything and I restarted sage a couple times before and it didn't work.

[cmotors]

Thanks Helen. I got around to doing that, and now all is good. Sound is working good in Sage, and TMT with BD is working. I made sure to install them into separate folders just in case.