HDHomeRun (HDHR) Prime + SageDCT

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by RangerZ

I have been following this for some time (read it all) and experience the same issues using RCN Digital Cable Boston.

I noticed today while catching up on Continuum that the files I was unable to play in SageTV (render error) were all recorded at 30.00 FPS. The episodes of the same show that played fine in Sage were 29.97 FPS. I can play the 30 FPS episodes in VLC.

Multiply the .03 x 3600 (sec/hr) appears to be the missing time (1.8 minutes) in episodes that end early.

Unclear if this is a cause or result, but a bit of info I do not recall having been discussed.

Indirectly related is Direct-X. I think somewhere in the DCT logs there is reference to Direct-X 9, but my Vista-64 is on 11 (I not sure when it was upgraded from 9) and I know Win 7 loads at 11. Is this an issue?

Finaly, I recently found this link to an SD document "HDHomeRun Troubleshooting Guide [20090415]".
http://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun...leshooting.pdf. While old, it does reference the "No Signal" Issue and discusses the format of the channel numbers needing to be in "cable channel format" but is not really clear on what that is or how to validate it.

I am relectant to make substantial changes to my config for channels as there are a large amount of config and mappings that I have done, and the Channel Export Plug-in does not work with the Prime config. Does anyone know if I can copy a portion of the config file and as a back-up, and if so what? Lets assume I do not reconfig the tuners for now.

That document is for clear QAM not cable card. have you tried FFMPEG in SageDCT it is the donator version.?

[hendercc]

Checking in again to see if anyone has been able to get the Ffmpeg option of SageDCT to work with WHS? I posted earlier on this thread at message 1910...

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...postcount=1910

I'm not able to record or play the clear QAM channels (702 through 707 on SF East Bay Comcast) but upper channels work fine. I'm running the donor version of SageDCT and using the Dump method. When I use the Ffmpeg capture method, the error I'm getting in the SageDCT log is: Error starting FfmpegRtpWriter: Unable to load DLL 'LibFfmpegMux.dll': The specified procedure could not be found. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x8007007F). I was not able to successfully load the XP dll from the babgvant site.

[Sparhawk6]

Originally Posted by hendercc

Checking in again to see if anyone has been able to get the Ffmpeg option of SageDCT to work with WHS? I posted earlier on this thread at message 1910...

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...postcount=1910

I'm not able to record or play the clear QAM channels (702 through 707 on SF East Bay Comcast) but upper channels work fine. I'm running the donor version of SageDCT and using the Dump method. When I use the Ffmpeg capture method, the error I'm getting in the SageDCT log is: Error starting FfmpegRtpWriter: Unable to load DLL 'LibFfmpegMux.dll': The specified procedure could not be found. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x8007007F). I was not able to successfully load the XP dll from the babgvant site.

I had that problem and realized that I made a mistake and installed the 32 bit version on my 64 bit Windows 7. Once I installed the 64 bit version, ffmpeg recording worked.

[KryptoNyte]

This setup was working well for a couple months, then all of a sudden, I'm starting to get some strange behavior. I don't see how this can matter, but it seems to have occurred when I moved the SageTV server computer from the office to the basement, closer to the incoming cable feed, eliminating one splitter, shortening cables, using the original splitter at cable into the home.

SageDCT on Charter Cable (ffmpeg recording)
(2)Primes with (1) cablecard each = 6 tuners
Windows 7 64bit dedicates SageTV server, Intel Core i5 4th gen quad core, 4GB RAM
Gigabit Ethernet router and switch (changed out both once to resolve), on-motherboard Ethernet used on Server
Signal Strength, anywhere from 87% to 100% (usually above 97%, depends on channel)
Signal Quality, always 100%
Symbol Quality, always 100%
On both Primes, Card Authentication = success
Card OOB Lock = success
Card Activation = success
Tuning Resolver = ready
Comskip Plugin = yes, live, allowed to process 2 shows at one time


When viewing SageTV, I do not see any reports of problems in the SageTV system messages.

Problems that seem to occur randomly, can't find repeatable pattern:

1) A recording will begin just fine, then at some point during the recording, it will poop out (sometimes at the beginning, sometimes at the end), and Sage will attempt to tune again, sometimes with success, and continue recording (again, no report in Sage's system messages of any failures.)

2) A recording can't tune immediately, tries another tuner (on the same Prime), succeeds.

What I have attempted to resolve:

1) Switch tuner priority to the other Prime, seem to get same results.
2) I do have an Intel NIC on order, will give that a shot.
3) Change out both router and switch with brand new devices

This does not appear to be the same problem that others report, where the screen is black and can't be resolved.

I'm really struggling for solutions here. Does anyone have any ideas that I could try next? Is there an internal Sage Logging that I can enable that might show something, anything? Are there other settings in SageDCT that I should try (dump had random problem once in a while, ffmpeg worked fine for a couple months before problems started after hardware move to the basement).

[KryptoNyte]

I don't know if anyone is still pursuing issues with some of these recordings, but if there was someone smarter than myself that had a moment, please have a look at the 700mb video that I posted a link to below. This is a news recording that just decided to stop about 18 minutes in, and I am not able to determine how or why - the file size is way too small and no software can accurately report the actual length of the video.

On the server, I have all 6 tuners showing their signal %'s in 6 separate windows simultaneously, and then I have software taking a screenshot every 60 seconds, so that when a bad file is identified, I can determine the time that it actually occurred and go back to the screenshots to study signal strength. I am not finding any problems with signal strength at this point.

<link removed by KryptoNyte, PM me for link>

[KryptoNyte]

Attached is a screenshot of tuner status at/around the time of the problem.

[KryptoNyte]

I did as much troubleshooting with Charter as they were willing to do and we couldn't find a single issue with the quality of their services, so I headed on over to Silicondust and Jason seems to have confirmed that their hardware is not the issue.

http://www.silicondust.com/forum2/vi...p?f=44&t=17855

I'm fairly sure at this point that the solution is some adjustment to the ffmpeg encoding.

I believe my last ditch effort here is to disable all liveTV comskip operations to ensure they aren't an issue, and then ask the user to stop watching any problem absolutely live (which is when this issue always seems to occur).

Wish we had FIOS around this joint.

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

I did as much troubleshooting with Charter as they were willing to do and we couldn't find a single issue with the quality of their services, so I headed on over to Silicondust and Jason seems to have confirmed that their hardware is not the issue.

http://www.silicondust.com/forum2/vi...p?f=44&t=17855

I'm fairly sure at this point that the solution is some adjustment to the ffmpeg encoding.

I believe my last ditch effort here is to disable all liveTV comskip operations to ensure they aren't an issue, and then ask the user to stop watching any problem absolutely live (which is when this issue always seems to occur).

Wish we had FIOS around this joint.

Great effort on trouble shooting ... unfortunately I have had the same problem on certain channels and the FFMPEG in SageDCT is an old version and has not been updated. I see no chance on this ever getting fixed.

[KryptoNyte]

I realize there's no way small donations can make these Sage developers work feasible, but you don't think that someone could offer Andy enough cash to get interested in resolving the ffmpeg issue? Give the user some control over the ffmpeg encoding? Possibly another method?

[KryptoNyte]

I'm not sure that too many folks are still around these parts, or using SageDCT, but thought I'd give an update on the issues faced with a new system setup. I'm a layperson, so please forgive me if I use the wrong technical terminology here and there, or if my troubleshooting methods seem strange.

This is a system that I built for relatives specifically for their media center only, headless, remotely management, purchased used SageTV Server license from another SageTV user. It has a 250GB Sammy Evo SSD as the boot drive (Win7 Home Prem 64bit), and one 3TB Western Digital Green drive (with head parking disabled) - having Sage record all programs to the 3TB WD drive. This home only uses extenders (two HD300's and one HD200) to view content (okay, very rare client use on one laptop). No windows or software updates are allowed on this system since it's installation.

I encountered the following issues after setting up this system on Charter Cable, after this specific area made the upgrade to digital services, signaled by a mass changeout of set-top-boxes required by Charter:

1) Black screen (No video/audio) on extenders: If there is a problem, this seems to be the most common. There was an occasional recorded program (and/or live TV) where the tuned station/recording would only appear as a black screen on HD200 and HD300 extenders. It also occurred randomly on any given station, even the local stations once in a while, and could change from day to day, station to station, and show to show. The problematic recorded file would play fine in VLC. Switching SageDCT's recording method to ffmpeg resolved the black screen issue completely on this system. It did slow down tuning significantly, which could be an issue for those folks who like to channel surf by using the channel up/down buttons, a minor issue.

2) Halted Recordings: Two to three recordings a week would halt, stop producing data, and *seemingly* this would occur near the end of the program in most cases. On rare occasion, the station wouldn't tune at all at the very beginning of a program. I had Charter out to check the signal which they indicated was in a good range. I also cleaned up internal wiring, installing this system in the basement where Charter's own cable enters the house and goes to a three-way splitter (Charter's splitter), one to the cable modem, and the other two to the (2)HDHR Prime devices with tuning adapters (so only one splitter in the path). I never really tracked down what caused the recordings that SageTV claimed were halted.

3) Recordings that begin fine, but lose video: A couple times a week, there was a recording that would drop video about 2 to 5 minutes into the start of the program, but the audio would continue. The final recording file sizes reflected the loss of video (much smaller file for a 30 to 60 minute program, 700 megabytes perhaps), so the video was actually missing from the last 95% of the recording. Playing with VLC, the file would usually terminate as soon as the video dropped, however, playing in Windows Media Player, the file would continue playing with audio, but with frozen video at the 2 to 5 minute mark. I never found the real source of this problem, except that it seemed to happen if the user tuned to a recording very soon after it began (up to 5 instances of comskip run simultaneously on live TV on this system).

Steps took attempting to resolve:

1) As mentioned earlier, moved the system to as close as possible to cable service point of entry in the home. Purchased new, high quality coaxial cables.

2) Switched SageTV from recording to the 3TB WD Green drive, and started recording directly to the Sammy SSD instead. I do still move recordings from the SSD to the 3TB spindle manually while testing. My intentions are to switch this back once the problems are resolved and see if there are any new problems.

3) Added an Intel Network Interface Card and stopped using the motherboard's on-board NIC.

4) Installed a new switch, replacing a cheap monoprice gigabit switch (so this network now has one 4-port Asus router and one Netgear 8 port gigabit switch).

5) Added 4 more gigabytes of RAM bringing the 4th gen core i5 system to 8gb of RAM total.

6) Added an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) that supplies consistent, clean power to all devices that participate in recording video, computer, Prime's, and tuning adapters. Probably a myth, but I developed a hunch that the Prime devices may be susceptible to minor power fluctuations.

7) Removed tuning adapters completely (as users had mentioned in the SiliconDust forum as well as some mention here and there in the Tivo forums, with regard to Charter Digital Cable specifically), and running the cable service coaxial directly into the Prime(s). If you do this, I would urge you to run a channel scan in the HDHR Software prior to removing the tuning adapter, record all available stations, noting DRM stations if any, and then pull the tuning adapters and re-run the scan to compare and see if any SDV stations were lost. The tuning adapters can easily be added back into your system if you loose some stations due to SDV, either now or later.

Observations:

It's been almost a week now since the final step, adding the RAM, removing the tuning adapters, and introducing the UPS, and so far there hasn't been one instance of any halted recording, or bad recordings with lost video. I also noticed an improved signal on the HDHR config software monitor when the tuning adapters were removed, so I would agree with folks around other forums that the tuning adapters do seem further degrade the incoming signal as it tries to get to the Prime devices.

I don't believe there is anything else that I can do to make this system any cleaner, so we'll see how it goes over the next couple months.

[rickw]

Thanks for the update. I'm fighting a similar battle with my HD HomeRun Prime and have been following your adventures.

Most of the time my recordings will play just fine on my HD200's. But with what seems to be growing frequency they won't play. Starting a video will "Lockup" the HD200 (spinning wheel never stops) and I have to restart the extender.

The files play fine when I use VLC from the Server. So I'm thinking the recording itself is OK. But something about the file Sage doesn't like

Rick...

[KryptoNyte]

Rick, did you switch the SageDCT capture method to "ffmpeg?" It's set to "dump" by default, so if you haven't changed it, I would sure give that a shot.

[rickw]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

Rick, did you switch the SageDCT capture method to "ffmpeg?" It's set to "dump" by default, so if you haven't changed it, I would sure give that a shot.

Dump is the only thing that works for me. When I switch to ffmpeg all I ever get is 'No Signal'

My server is running WinXP so I'm wondering if something is missing or wrong for the ffmpeg library.

Rick....

[KryptoNyte]

Aw heck ... there was some post around here somewhere (probably somewhere in this thread) where Andy (SageDCT author) was trying to help someone with XP get ffmpeg going. Are you using the latest version of SageDCT?

Here's one from Andy that mentions the additional support software:

http://babgvant.com/forums/t/4914.aspx?PageIndex=2

[waylo]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

7) Removed tuning adapters completely (as users had mentioned in the SiliconDust forum as well as some mention here and there in the Tivo forums, with regard to Charter Digital Cable specifically), and running the cable service coaxial directly into the Prime(s). If you do this, I would urge you to run a channel scan in the HDHR Software prior to removing the tuning adapter, record all available stations, noting DRM stations if any, and then pull the tuning adapters and re-run the scan to compare and see if any SDV stations were lost. The tuning adapters can easily be added back into your system if you loose some stations due to SDV, either now or later.

Observations:

It's been almost a week now since the final step, adding the RAM, removing the tuning adapters, and introducing the UPS, and so far there hasn't been one instance of any halted recording, or bad recordings with lost video. I also noticed an improved signal on the HDHR config software monitor when the tuning adapters were removed, so I would agree with folks around other forums that the tuning adapters do seem further degrade the incoming signal as it tries to get to the Prime devices.

I don't believe there is anything else that I can do to make this system any cleaner, so we'll see how it goes over the next couple months.

Hi,

When you say tuning adapters, what are you referring to? Is this an extra piece of hardware between the coaxial and HDHR Prime?

Just to add on my experience, I was on XP but ffmpeg I could never get to work. On DUMP, the recordings would sometimes conk out and quit, or the CPU usage would jump very high, but at least they would all play provided they were recorded.

I upgraded my HTPC to Win7 in attempt to get some more stability. Changing to FFMPEG resulted in very choppy recordings, but they would reliably play. It was completely too choppy to use though. My PC isn't quite as powerful as the one you built for your relatives, so maybe that was the issue. On dump, I would have certain stations which just could NOT be played through SageTV though they would record okay. There was no rhyme or reason for which stations, as they would often times switch.

In desperation, I downgraded to SageDCT 2.6 and kept DUMP, and for some reason fewer of the stations had playable recording issues (may be a placebo), though I still see it from time to time.

Still use SageTV for daily viewing/recording, though I have WMC7 in the background, which doesn't fail in its recordings, but just isn't nearly as good.

Thank you so much though for detailing every step you did for stability.

[KryptoNyte]

Waylo, if Comcast in your area has made the change to Switched Digital Video (SDV), then your cable card may require the tuning adapter (we all originally figured it was mandatory, but apparently for Charter that's not entirely true). Yes, it's a device that fits in between the Prime and the cable service coaxial cable (and a USB cable between it and the Prime).

This is the Motorola MTR-700 that Charter gave us (the upper unit, showed connected to a Tivo, lower unit):
http://www.myaccount.charter.com/CMS...ngAdapter.ccom

The computer you refer to that has the choppiness in video playback - this is probably the server itself I assume. In any case, I don't know the horsepower of that machine with regard to it's video playback capabilities, but this must be something in the video rendering. What video renderer do you have selected in Sage, and have you tried any others?

[waylo]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

Waylo, if Comcast in your area has made the change to Switched Digital Video (SDV), then your cable card may require the tuning adapter (we all originally figured it was mandatory, but apparently for Charter that's not entirely true). Yes, it's a device that fits in between the Prime and the cable service coaxial cable (and a USB cable between it and the Prime).

The computer you refer to that has the choppiness in video playback - this is probably the server itself I assume. In any case, I don't know the horsepower of that machine with regard to it's video playback capabilities, but this must be something in the video rendering. What video renderer do you have selected in Sage, and have you tried any others?

Oh right, yes, I recall the SDV! Not needed in my area.

The video renderer is EVR. But I'm quite sure the choppiness was due to something in the encoding rather than the playback. There was a lot of reproducible image stuttering and missed frames/audio, rather than "lag" or screen tearing which I would attribute to a renderer.

(If you look at my signature, the server CPU I use was released in q3 of 2006! Good enough for most purposes still, but maybe not on-the-fly video encoding.)

[KryptoNyte]

I can't imagine there's much encoding going on with the ffmpeg. With 6 streams recording simultaneously, I'd say the core i5 is running right around 5% processor usage.

Another Sage user here pointed me to the LAV filter decoder, which allowed a very underpowered (atom based) tablet to just barely pull off smooth video. That processor + the radeon 6450 should be more than powerful enough to pull this off, even without the LAV filters. How long since you updated your AMD drivers?

[KryptoNyte]

I recall having a stuttering problem with an ATI card and it ended up being one of the driver settings. I don't remember which is was exactly, but the following settings in the driver should be disabled (unchecked):

Edge-enhancement
Denoise
Mosquito noise reduction
De-blocking
Dynamic contrast

AMD steady video (I think this was the one that caused stuttering on a 7970)

[waylo]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

I recall having a stuttering problem with an ATI card and it ended up being one of the driver settings. I don't remember which is was exactly, but the following settings in the driver should be disabled (unchecked):

Edge-enhancement
Denoise
Mosquito noise reduction
De-blocking
Dynamic contrast

AMD steady video (I think this was the one that caused stuttering on a 7970)

Appreciate all the trouble-shooting. I'll work through some of your suggestions when I have a few hours to spare =)

I got the 6450 probably 6 months ago? Maybe less. So I have the latest drivers from then. I think a new version has come out since then which I have not updated up to.