An Ordeal - Migrating from VMC to SageTV (Calling Ghostlobster)

[T^2]

I'm looking into making the move to SageTV. VMC is falling behind the times and required new features (native H.264 + QAM support to name a few) are slow in coming (if they ever will).

So I came across Ghostlobsters guide on migrating from VMC to SageTV. I was hoping that following this guide would make things go smoothly. After last nights attempt, I can say my hopes were dashed. It appears that this may become and painful ordeal. I understand that more flexibility and capability comes at the cost of more complexity in terms of setup and use. I would have thought however, that generic setups - like what I'm trying to accomplish - would have been easier and better documented.

Following GL's guide - my problems started when I got to the part about setting up LM Remote. Specifially, when I got to the "Change Tuning Device" option on this page:

http://www.lmgestion.net/@en-us/4/22/60/81/article.asp

MCERemote did not show up as a selectable option. So, I must have missed something.

So here is what I have:

Acer x1200
AMD Athlon X2 64 4850e
Nvidia 8200 IGP
Aver M780 (came with generic MCE remote and blaster)
ATI 650
Vista Home Premium x64
Comcast STB - Motorola DCT-2224

I guess my first question is: Is there any problem with my setup? Is Vista x64 a problem?

If not - then I like to get some help with LM Remote and the remote and blaster that came with my Aver M780. More questions:

a) Do you need to have the "donator" version of LM Remote for things to go well?
b) One thing that wasn't clear from GL's guide of for LM Gestion's website was how LM Remote is configured to control a particular STB. Sure LM Remote's configuration setup says that Vista Media Center remote is ready and it may see it, but how does one setup up LM Remote to send the right codes to the STB?

My next major issue is QAM. How does one setup the above tuners for QAM in SageTV?

If there is someplace or thread that I can be pointed to that would be good - as long as it's not 3000 replies long and outdated.

[T^2]

Ok - I took some time and read the online (on the LM Gestion website) documentation for LM Remote. I got the gist now. I was expecting to be able to select an IR device (i.e. my DCT-2224 STB) with the standard version of the software. That's a no-go. You have to get the 'donator' version to download preconfigured IR devices. One can only add and edit an IR device manually with the standard version of the software.

I do have a question: It's noted on the SageTV Channel Change Plugin page (http://www.lmgestion.net/@en-us/4/22/60/81/article.asp)that:

"SageTV will now list all the devices you created in LM Remote KeyMap (if you add a device after installing the plugin, you'll need to copy the .ir files produced by LM Remote KeyMap in the RemoteCodes\LM Remote KeyMap folder). Simply select the device you want to change channels on."

My question: It appears that the source folder for these .ir files is RemoteCodes\LM Remote KeyMap. Great. So into what destination folder should these .ir files be copied to?

I guess a more general question concerning LM Remote would be: Is LM Remote still necessary. IOW's, Is using LM Remote doing things the "old hard way" when SageTV might now have a built in "new easy way"?

Still research the clear QAM issues with the tuners that I have. Any help here would be appreciated.

I can see that getting sage to work with the EVR renderer is coming up on "questions" radar as well...

[SWKerr]

Here is a link on the subject from not to long ago. When I researched it back then people had mixed results.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36457

I personally have not tried to run SageTV as a sever in Vista64 but I was able to get it to work fine as a client. I had a lot of issues with things not working right unless I ran them as administrator. There were also rights problems to certian files where I would have to explicitly give write access to a config file etc. Real pain in the ???.

If you can get Vist driver for the card I expect you should be able to get it to work in Sage but it will probably require more effort than just using Vista32 or XP.

[T^2]

I've installed the latest beta.

What I've got working (if only temporarily):

LM Remote
Clear QAM w/Aver M780 (video but not audio)
ATI 650 w/STB feeding it S-Video
EVR (although there seems to be a problem with HWA).

What I'm having problems with:

- Although it was initially working, I can no longer get SageTV to change the channel on my STB. LM Remote will do it from it's config screen, but SageTV refuses.
- No audio with clear QAM and the M780.

Any help?

update: Ok channel changing started working again after deleting all sources, reconfiguring the ATI 650 for s-video from STB, and then rebooting. However, once I tried to configure the m780 for clear QAM - channel changing stopped working again.

I'm trying to setup the ATi 650 from s-video/stb and the M780 from clear QAM using the same program guide. Can anybody help?

[ghostlobster]

Sorry I missed your post yesterday...things got a little nuts around here with holiday stuff.
OK, so, if I understand correctly, you can get your STB changing channels prior to installing your QAM tuner, correct? If so, I'm not certain how much help I'm going to be, as I don't have either of those tuners, but I can tell you what I did to get my STB channel chaging working in my setup.
I'm changing channels with an HD-PVR right now, so I'm no longer using LMGestion. However, I remember the headache of setting it up, believe me! When I was using the Hauppauge 150s, I went through everything on the LMGestion site, and was able to get it working. Then, when I added my QAM tuners (HDHomerun) I went in and selected Digital Tuner, the told it not to use program guide data for this tuner. I know, it does not make sense, but that worked fine and the program guide data was just fine. Also, make certain that you do not have an external tuning device selected for the QAM tuner. That might be what's stepping on it. One other thing you might want to try is removing all your tuners from your Sage setup, then add the QAM tuner first. Once that is set up and working, then go in and set up your analog tuner with the LM Remote tuning plugin.
Who knows, maybe changing the order of setup will set things right.

On a side note, I'm doing a total overhaul of the document...a LOT has changed in the few months since I wrote it.

[T^2]

I finally got everything to work. Both the M780 and ATI 650 work peacefully together (M780 used for QAM and ATI for STB/S-video). Channel changing works from SageTV (via LM Remote). I also got sound working for the M780.

So am I happy?

No.

What's the problem. Playback of HD material from clear QAM is poor. By poor I mean the video playback is not smooth. It's jerky as if therewere frames being dropped.

I've reformatted a partition for 64k clusters and it's being used for SageTV video recording/live TV. I didn't see much improvement. I set SageTV to use Microsoft's, Cyberlinks, and SageTV's MPEG-2 decoders. None solved the poor playback experience (Microsoft's decoder worked best). I played around with different renderers and turning HWA o and off, but nothing fixed the issue (EVR seemed to work best, but still was poor).

I don't understand why SageTV would need 64k clusters when VMC works just fine with the default cluster size.

I also note that there must be a HWA issue with the EVR renderer. My CPU usage can be anywhere between 30 and 50% when watching QAM HD. In VMC my CPU usage is around 10 to 15% for the same content.

For right now - baring some revelation that leads to improvement - I'll most likely head back to VMC. VMC may not yet have H.264 support and may suffer from hookie tuner card manufacturer support for clear QAM, but at least it works and works well for what it does.

[T^2]

Per the recommendations - formatted a partition with 64k cluster size for use with SageTV. My understanding is that it would help with jerky playback with HD material. In my case it did not.

So my question is: Why does sage require 64k clusters when VMC works perfectly with the default cluster sizes (4k)?

What's my setup?

Acer x1200
AMD Athlon X2 64 4850e
4GB DDR2
Nvidia 8200 IGP
320GB SATA HDD
ATI 650 (used for SD Svideo from my Comcast STB).
Aver M780 (used for clear QAM from Comcast).
Vista x64 Home Premium

I had SageTV setup with these options:

- EVR
- Microsoft MPEG-2 decoder
- HWA on

I tried all avaliable decoders with no improvement.

[Brent]

It's not "required" exactly, but definitely recommended - not just for SageTV, but for BeyondTV, MediaPortal and even Media Center...

If you're still experiencing jerky playback with HD, I'd guess it has to do with a codec or setting issue. Have you tried playing around with the playback settings at all?

[T^2]

In VMC my CPU usage with HD content w/clear QAM ranges from 10 to 15%. With SageTV the CPU usage with the same content is 30 to 50%. EVR should be using DXVA2 correct?

SageTV looked like it might have potential. But I can't seem to even to perform well at doing it's most basic job.

HD content (from clear QAM) played back in SageTV is jerky - as if frames are being dropped. I have setup a partition for SageTV with 64K clusters but this hasn't improved matters. I've tried various settings for Video/Audio renderers and decoders. I set HWA on and off. Still HD video is jerky and unwatchable.

The same content in VMC works perfectly.

[babgvant]

Is playback jerkey when played with a different application?
Do you have any codec packs installed?
What decoder are you using?

[ghostlobster]

A couple questions:
1 - When HD gets jerky, is it live, ro recorded or both? It it's live, what happens if you pause for a few seconds, then unpause? No, that's not the final solution, but if it not jerky after a pause/unpause, then there's a setting in the Sage.properties file that can be altered.
2 - Do you have your Sage server also acting as your playback device, or do you have a seperate client for playback?

I see you're running an integrated nVidia 8200 video chip. That should be enough to handle HD, but you might have to tweek it out a bit. That chip is darn close to the bottom of the 'acceptable' list for HD, right next to the ATI HD2400 pro I'm using in my bedroom PC. And that one works fine. Ensure you've got the latest chipset drivers for your mobo, as well as the latest nVidia video drivers.

[T^2]

Yes I've tried every possible combination that I have available for Video/Audio renderers and decoders. I've tried turning on/off HWA and FSE. The current MPEG-2 decoders that I have installed are Microsoft's, Cyberlink's, and SageTV's. FFDshow is also on my system but doesn't show up as an option (perhaps it needs to be added to sageTV's properties files).

[T^2]

The jerky HD content is with Live TV. If memory serves skipping back in time during live TV sessions doesn't seem to improve matters. I don't remember trying pausing to see what happens.

I've uninstalled SageTV for the moment so that I can use VMC. However, suggestions are still welcomed and I may give Sage another try if there seems to be a viable solution.

I don't have a sage client. I've tried running SageTV as both a service and not as a service (SageTV.exe only) on this machine. It didn't seem to make a difference.

[babgvant]

ffdshow might be the problem if it's not configured correctly. it can be agressive when joining the playback graph, and if it does, HWA will get disabled.

I saw the other thread that you started, and for mpeg playback your CPU utilization seems a bit high.

Take a look at this; what does the default graph look like?

If you swap out the default video renderer with the EVR, does CPU go down? Is playback improved?

[ghostlobster]

From personal experience, I can tell you that Sage is a very viable option to VMC. I've been running it exclusively at my home for months now. Yes, it took some tinkering to get it initially set up, but it was worth the effort.

[Brent]

Originally Posted by T^2

I've uninstalled SageTV for the moment so that I can use VMC. However, suggestions are still welcomed and I may give Sage another try if there seems to be a viable solution.

Makes it tough to troubleshoot a problem if you uninstall. If you ever reinstall let us know and we can probably help...

[T^2]

Originally Posted by Brent

Makes it tough to troubleshoot a problem if you uninstall. If you ever reinstall let us know and we can probably help...

Yes it does. The uninstall didn't leave me with any recorded TV from sage to mess with either (w/GraphStudio). I will reinstall when time permits, but other chores are beckoning at the moment (I used up all my daily allotted time for screwing off with this computer).

I did note that EVR's merit was set to do not use. However, I believe VMC uses EVR regardless. Is this correct. I also noted that the graph of a VMC recorded file (dvr-ms) used Avermedia's Mpeg decoder. It's merit was set higher (by 1) than Microsoft's MPEG-2 Decoder.

The brings up a question. Does an application like Sage or VMC use the same graph (live) that a graphed video file produced by that application does? My understanding is that VMC uses EVR regardless, even though a VMC TV video file - dvr-ms - produces a graph with an VMR renderer (and the Avermedia Mpeg Decoder). Same question goes for SageTV and a TV recording file made by SageTV.

I thought VMC used media foundation, not directshow....

[T^2]

I uninstalled SageTV because it was the only way I could get VMC to recognize that I had digital tuners installed when I was try to revert back to VMC.

[T^2]

Ok i reinstalled SageTV. I'm recording some HDTV right now to use in graphstudio. Will report results.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by T^2

I did note that EVR's merit was set to do not use. However, I believe VMC uses EVR regardless. Is this correct. I also noted that the graph of a VMC recorded file (dvr-ms) used Avermedia's Mpeg decoder. It's merit was set higher (by 1) than Microsoft's MPEG-2 Decoder.

The brings up a question. Does an application like Sage or VMC use the same graph (live) that a graphed video file produced by that application does? My understanding is that VMC uses EVR regardless, even though a VMC TV video file - dvr-ms - produces a graph with an VMR renderer (and the Avermedia Mpeg Decoder). Same question goes for SageTV and a TV recording file made by SageTV.

VMC always uses the MS decoder (although you can change this), it builds the tv graph explicitly so things like ffdshow will not muck it up. VMC uses EVR for playback, so does Sage (6.5.x+) if you ask it to.

The MS decoder has low enough merit that if you have another mpeg decoder installed, graphs built with IC will use the alternate decoder.

In Sage live tv and rec tv work the same, so if you fix rec tv live tv will follow (provided that it's a directshow issue).

VMC is easier to configure because you don't have any options, you have to accept their vision of how it should work. Sage is more flexible, but if you have stuff installed that can cause problems, the possibility exists that it will.

Originally Posted by T^2

I thought VMC used media foundation, not directshow....

WMP and VMC use MF for wmv playback, directshow for everything else. In Vista (this is changing in Win7) MF only supports ASF files with WM[A/V] natively.

Where Sage's model really shines is for video playback, each media type can have a preferred decoder (after you play it, an option is added to the properties file for the new media type) where VMC uses IC (for non-wmv content) so you have to get the merit perfect to make it work. Also, other file types are a PITA to get working (i.e. mkv playback) in VMC where it's easy to get working the way you want in Sage.