New DVB(T/S/C) Network Recorder

[svalmorri]

Stephane,

I am still testing your application with limited success so far.

I have bought a different card (Technisat Skystar HD2 - dvb-s2 pci card) and started testing it. I have also upgraded to the latest version of your app (1.6 atm). Looks like to me that the card cannot tune the dvb-s2 channels (8PSK): I am wondering if this version has introduced a bug making it impossible to tune HD channels.

Looking at the logs I get the following (basically no signal):

20100912 22:54:07.350 - Info - Acquisition Thread Started on TechniSat Mantis DVBS BDA Receiver #1
20100912 22:54:07.363 - Info - Tuning to channel (SID : -1) on TechniSat Mantis DVBS BDA Receiver #1
20100912 22:54:07.364 - Info - Tuning to channel with SID -1 on freq. 10834000, pol. LinearV, sym. 27500, fec. Rate3_4, mod. Mod8Psk, lnb Universal, hof 10600, lof 9750, lofsw 11700 on TechniSat Mantis DVBS BDA Receiver #1
20100912 22:54:07.466 - Info - Running graph on TechniSat Mantis DVBS BDA Receiver #1; Thread n°8, STA
20100912 22:54:13.114 - Warning - Tuner TechniSat Mantis DVBS BDA Receiver #1 got no signal on freq. 10834000
20100912 22:54:17.349 - Info - Signal Quality 0.00 % on TechniSat Mantis DVBS BDA Receiver #1 (0 wrong packets received)
20100912 22:54:17.350 - Info - Stability of signal 0.00 % on TechniSat Mantis DVBS BDA Receiver #1 (0 bytes discarded)
20100912 22:54:17.351 - Info - Acquisition Thread Ended on TechniSat Mantis DVBS BDA Receiver #1
20100912 22:54:17.352 - Info - Stopping graph on TechniSat Mantis DVBS BDA Receiver #1; Thread n°8, STA
20100912 22:54:17.355 - Info - Graph stopped on TechniSat Mantis DVBS BDA Receiver #1

Please note that the card is perfectly working with DVBDream 1.5 either SD or HD. Installed drivers are the latest available (1.3) and OS environment is Win7 Ultimate.

I have also changed the PCI port ... same results.
What else could I do to troubleshoot this issue?

Thanks, regards
SV

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by svalmorri

I have bought a different card (Technisat Skystar HD2 - dvb-s2 pci card) and started testing it. I have also upgraded to the latest version of your app (1.6 atm). Looks like to me that the card cannot tune the dvb-s2 channels (8PSK): I am wondering if this version has introduced a bug making it impossible to tune HD channels.

Does the previous version was able to tune a S2 transponder with this card? The changes in 1.6 is likely to not change anything regarding tuning, the STA thread change was added to ensure that bad DVB drivers will behave properly with LM DSR.

Usually the COM directshow filters used in a DVB graph does have a threading model set to "Both": it means they can be used in a MTA thread or STA thread (MTA = Multi Threaded Apartment, STA = Single Threaded Apartment)

If you have one STA COM objects, then the application consuming the object must manipulate this object on the thread used to create it.

LM DSR is multithreaded and the graph is accessed from mutliple threads (creating, starting, stopping, destroying, checking signal...). In previous versions of LM DSR : the COM call were made from any thread and this was bad with some cards (usually when destroying the graph => LM DSR was freezing). So now all COM calls are made from one and only one STA thread (calls are marshalled from tho original LM DSR MTA thread, to a main STA thread dedicated to COM directshow objects)

DVB-S2 tuning can be an issue because the modulation used and Pilot/RollOff settings were not available initially and each DVB-S2 cards requires specific settings for modulation / pilot / rollof. There is none currently for Technisat devices in LM DSR...

Does the card tune DVB-S transponders?

Regards,
Stéphane.

[svalmorri]

Hello!

DVB-S transponders are locked and tuned without any issue, only the DVB-S2 don't. I cannot tell you if the previous version had the same issue with my card because I upgraded before testing it.

The fact that DVBDream works fine let me think it's not a BDA driver issue but an application one. Maybe the problem was there already and it's my card not being compatable ...

Regards

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by svalmorri

The fact that DVBDream works fine let me think it's not a BDA driver issue but an application one. Maybe the problem was there already and it's my card not being compatable ...

I'm not sure DVBDream is using the BDA drivers for this card. Usually other application are using the WDM driver... LM DSR only use BDA drivers.

Anyway you can try to scan the DVB-S2 transponder without setting the modulation (set it to "Auto", it may work this way...)

Regards,
Stéphane.

[svalmorri]

Originally Posted by StephaneM

I'm not sure DVBDream is using the BDA drivers for this card

DVBDream does use the BDA driver, I can't have BDA and WDM drivers installed at the same time and with WDM drivers LM DSR won't work at all.

I have tested with modulation in auto and it's the same.
Also have tested all combinations of Pilot and Roll Off, nothing happens.

Finally I uninstalled 1.6 and reinstalled 1.5 and tried the card again: only DVB-S channels are discovered. There is definitely an issue with the DVB-S2 handling with SkyStar HD2 cards!

Regards

[svalmorri]

Hi Stéphane,

is there any plan to extend DVB-S2 compatibility of LM DSR to Technisat cards?

Thanks & regards

[owilsky]

Hi Stéphane,

I read this in the release notes of the new release candidate 7.0.17 of SageTV:

7. Added experimental property "fast_network_encoder_switch" which is capture-device specific. This will enable using seamless file transitions with network encoders. This is NOT officially supported and is intended mainly for 3rd party network encoders that wish to support this capability. It should however work with regular SageTV network encoders, however this has not been tested and is not supported.

Any idea what this means or could mean for Smart Recorder?

[StephaneM]

Hi,

Originally Posted by svalmorri

is there any plan to extend DVB-S2 compatibility of LM DSR to Technisat cards?

Not yet. Though if you want to donate, this could speed things up.

Regards,
Stéphane.

[StephaneM]

Hi,

Originally Posted by owilsky

I read this in the release notes of the new release candidate 7.0.17 of SageTV: Added experimental property "fast_network_encoder_switch"

Any idea what this means or could mean for Smart Recorder?

This means that with LM DSR (with smart buffer enabled) the transition between shows during live TV will be made without a pause (I have not tested it yet, but the conditions required for this to work are verified by LM DSR)

Regards,
Stéphane.

[owilsky]

Originally Posted by StephaneM

Hi,
This means that with LM DSR (with smart buffer enabled) the transition between shows during live TV will be made without a pause (I have not tested it yet, but the conditions required for this to work are verified by LM DSR)

Thanks for your answer. However, I still did not understand what exactly is meant by "seamless file transitions".
Is this the feature that not a single second of the show is lost when recording two back to back shows? I thought this is achieved by your smart buffer.
What exactly has changed with this new property?
Should I enable it?

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by owilsky

However, I still did not understand what exactly is meant by "seamless file transitions". Is this the feature that not a single second of the show is lost when recording two back to back shows? I thought this is achieved by your smart buffer.

"Seamless transition" means that when SageTV switch from program A to program B during Live TV the playback is not interrupted. The playback is continuous as if there weren't two different files.

This is (should be) possible with LM DSR because of the smart buffer : not a single PACKET is lost for back to back recordings (so that you can really merge the file together with a DOS command to make it one file with perfect playback at "the cut")

So yes you should enable this property with LM DSR.

Regards,
Stéphane.

[svalmorri]

Originally Posted by StephaneM

Not yet. Though if you want to donate, this could speed things up.

Hi,

I would very much like to donate if I had a program working for my setup. I have 3 tuners to manage, the public version is only good for testing not for production server.

Regards

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by svalmorri

I would very much like to donate if I had a program working for my setup. I have 3 tuners to manage, the public version is only good for testing not for production server.

The free version is not only good for testing... it does limit you to one recorder but it can still use three tuners... The donators version allows for multiple recorders and also gives access to priority support.

Regards,
Stéphane.

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by owilsky

I still did not understand what exactly is meant by "seamless file transitions". Is this the feature that not a single second of the show is lost when recording two back to back shows?.../...Should I enable it?

By the way, I have now tested the fast_network_encoder_switch property with LM DSR and it works great even on H.264 HD shows (I see only a minor hiccup on show boundaries, but otherwise it's really working great)

Regards,
Stéphane.

[harco]

Stéphane

Genpix recently released a BDA driver for the skywalker-1 and I've been trying to test it with your free version. I'm having an issue with configuration. DSR detects the skywalker just fine but when I click on manage LNB or add channel it does nothing. What's your best guess here? A driver problem, .net problem (3.5sp1 installed), or something else?

[harco]

Ok, I figured out why I couldn't see anything when I clicked on manage LNB. This is running on a headless pc in the garage and Radmin wasn't showing me the drop down boxes. RDP worked fine.

Now that I can see what I'm doing I still can't tune anything...no channels found. The log shows it is not getting a signal from any of the transponders. I double checked it in dvbdream and it works fine there. I also noticed in modulation you don't show turbo-8psk. Will that work if I select just 8psk?

Thanks

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by harco

Now that I can see what I'm doing I still can't tune anything...no channels found. The log shows it is not getting a signal from any of the transponders.

LM DSR doesn't feature any support for the GenPix Diseqc so if you are using Diseqc this may be the source of the problem. Also make sure you use frequencies in KHz.

I also noticed in modulation you don't show turbo-8psk. Will that work if I select just 8psk?

I don't think so. I'll add in future version Turbo 8PSK.

Regards,
Stéphane.

[harco]

Well thats progress. The kz was the scanning problem. It scanned all the qpsk transponders on 110 but not the turbo-8psk as expected. Now the problem is I don't see any channels populating in the screen. I guess this could be another remote access issue. I'll have to pack a monitor down there to check.

Turbo-8psk is what we need in NA. Also turbo-qpsk is running on 77w for the locals. Right now I'm running it with a single LNB, no diseqc, just to test. In the zip file for his driver is a pdf file that is supposed to explain how to incorporate diseqc for the genpix devices. It's on DVBN also.

Looks pretty good. I've been looking for something to get away from DVBdream and that network encoder. If this works I'll definately be a donator. I would imagine you would see a lot of NA contributions.

Thanks for the great work

[StephaneM]

Originally Posted by harco

Now the problem is I don't see any channels populating in the screen. I guess this could be another remote access issue.

Not necessarily... If you mean that the lineup remains empty after a scan, then maybe the recorder is rejecting the scanned channel because they :

- don't have names
- are not recognized as TV channels

This can happens because the recorder is making assumption on what it should find (if channels are rejected this will be notified in the GUI logs). And maybe NA DVB is a little different from European DVB.

Turbo-8psk is what we need in NA. Also turbo-qpsk is running on 77w for the locals. Right now I'm running it with a single LNB, no diseqc, just to test. In the zip file for his driver is a pdf file that is supposed to explain how to incorporate diseqc for the genpix devices. It's on DVBN also.

I've checked and in BDA there is nothing for Turbo 8PSK, so for now I don't know how to add this modulation.

What is the zip file you are referring to?

Regards,
Stéphane.

[harco]

I attached the file. It shows the diseqc requirements not the modulation. I'm not sure where to find that info. I could check with genpix and see if he has the doc's on that as well. We need the Turbo FEC-8psk and the Turbo FEC-qpsk for dis*net