Plugin: DVB Decrypter & Card Client

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by wubdich

My card reader (Infinity USB Smart) arrived and I validated OSCAM and smartcard functionality with DVBViewer - everything was running fine.

Unfortunatly DVB Decrypter did'nt start to talk to OSCAM when switching to an encrypted channel (no log Output). Any special requirements with label property in card definition ? In customization Announcement you said
is this an hard requirement ?

Maybe someone else can find out what's going wrong - I will attach logfiles and configs.

I think the oscam.server is missing the ident, please add the following to your oscam.server:

ident = 1843:003411

Also, can I please see the oscam.user?

- Stop OSCAM
- Stop SageTV
- modify the oscam.server adding the "ident"
- Start SageTV first (it will generate the oscam.user and oscam.conf)
- Start OSCAM

Eddy

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by wubdich

My card reader (Infinity USB Smart) arrived and I validated OSCAM and smartcard functionality with DVBViewer - everything was running fine.

Unfortunatly DVB Decrypter did'nt start to talk to OSCAM when switching to an encrypted channel (no log output). Any special requirements with label property in card definition ? In customization Announcement it was mentioned
is this an hard requirement ? How to determine the correct "TV package Name" ? Maybee something else is wrong ... I hope somebody can find out what's going wrong - I will attach logfiles and configs.

I also noticed that the channel you're trying to tune in didn't sync properly and that could be down to the fact that the mod bits looks wrong, please replace the "mod:" part of channel 65 from "23" to "32", also a minor thing the "ctrl:" value should be 3 as encrypted and not 1 as clear.

Eddy

[wubdich]

Unfortunatly changing ident, mod: and ctrl: did'nt solved the problem - no requests shown in oscam log.

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by wubdich

Unfortunatly changing ident, mod: and ctrl: did'nt solved the problem - no requests shown in oscam log.

Are you Carsten or Frederik?

I'm going to send you some information to test further

Eddy

[wubdich]

I'm Carsten

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by wubdich

I'm Carsten

Carsten, I have access to all Astra 19.2ºE channels as I have a multi LNB dish therefore I'll perform some tests, however that particular channel is not parsed correctly by SageTV, no lock, it looks down, however I can correctly see other German clear channels and I can parse some but not all encrypted channels.

Will investigate, but it will require few days and don't worry I hope you'll have your encrypted channels natively

Eddy

[wubdich]

Great - I keep my fingers crossed.

Most encrypted HD channels are transmited clear in SD (simulcast) - so, take the time you need and have fun.

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by wubdich

Great - I keep my fingers crossed.

Most encrypted HD channels are transmited clear in SD (simulcast) - so, take the time you need and have fun.

Hi, been very busy recently so not much time to look into this, however I've successfully identified the cause of it, now I just need to find the time to fix it properly

Eddy

[wubdich]

Routerunner has done a marvelous job to fix issues of DVB Decrypter & Card Client plugin and my Digital Devices Cine S2 card. The new variable synchronization algorithm solved all my problems. The plugin is running very well now - SageTV is running as smooth as before installing the plugin, but now SageTV is capable to read a smartcard and decode encrypted channels.

[jamesdisco]

Do i dare update to this, ive now been running for 2 days with no tuning issues or errors, my system often seems to run better after being up for a few days.

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by jamesdisco

Do i dare update to this, ive now been running for 2 days with no tuning issues or errors, my system often seems to run better after being up for a few days.

The new version has a better CPU utilization and therefore should help to record multiple encrypted channels awaiting the "parallel bitslice" implementation that would cut down the cost of CPU per channel dramatically. Regarding the issue this release fixes, it has happened to me a couple of times, but as I said is very rare and I was lucky enough to be able to reproduce it.

I tend to be very careful and to perform lots of testing before issuing a new release, however I'm only human..

Eddy

[jamesdisco]

Originally Posted by routerunner

I tend to be very careful and to perform lots of testing before issuing a new release, however I'm only human..

Eddy

I had full confidence in you Eddy as i updated straight away

[bjkiller]

this support for sagetv running on linux? or this is only for sagetv for windows?

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by bjkiller

this support for sagetv running on linux? or this is only for sagetv for windows?

This is a DirectShow filter and therefore available on Windows platform only. There is the possibility that I'll support Linux in the future in the form of a library, but I cannot guarantee it, sorry

Eddy

[routerunner]

As anticipated, I'm working at implementing the parallel decryption algorithm into the filter and the first results are very encouraging.

My main motivation on doing this is mainly because of my old SageTV server that cannot decrypt more than two HD streams without maxing out the CPU and generally speaking, less power the better

I've completed part of it and given a preliminary build to two project's donor for evaluation. The first donor replied with quite interesting figures:

- With 1 HD recording the CPU usage dropped from ~40% down to ~15%.
- With 2 HD recordings the CPU usage dropped from ~80% down to ~22%.

The second donor sent me a screen grab (in attachment) with the CPU usage when recording 4 HD streams simultaneously. The CPU usage on the left is the current version (single algorithm) and on the right the new version (parallel algorithm). What's interesting is, (a part from the CPU load being nearly half), the fact that the current plugin uses 22% of the total CPU using three cores, whilst the new plugin uses only 12% of the total CPU but with two cores, which means that over three cores it would be even less.

I'm very happy with the results so far, hopefully that figures can be improved, but at least I'm moving in the right direction, I think

Thanks
Eddy

[routerunner]

If you have never used a tuner natively in SageTV, but only networked solution and you have decided to move away from a network encoder in favor of the SageTV native to use this plugin, you must be sure to have valid .FRQ files being generated either via SageTV or via different plugins available.

Also, you might want to have a read HERE to help get you started, but if after that you have questions on how to get encrypted channels working natively on SageTV, please don't hesitate to post in the forum, I'm more than happy to help you out

It sounds complicated, but in reality isn't and you'll be able to watch encrypted channels natively on SageTV in no time...

Cheers
Eddy

[routerunner]

I thought that someone might be interested to know more about the parallel (bitslice) mode and how that works

Basically the parallel mode also known as parallel bitslice is a technique that uses SIMD instructions and 128 bit SSE registers to achieve parallel decryption of up to 128 buffers simultaneously. The number 128 is crucial and is very important to keep the decrypter busy at that level and failing to do so will dramatically impact the performance.

So the question is, how can I make sure the decryption engine is always "busy"? Well, there are many variable contributing here:

• The number of channels in a transponder determine the maximum bitrate a given channel can have.
• The maximum bitrate of a channel determine the average number of encrypted buffers can fit into a sample.
• The tuner manufacturer determine how big a sample can be and the size can vary greatly.

From the list you can easily spot that the tuner manufacturer has the greatest responsibility and I can tell you for a fact that the Hauppauges have a very small sample size (~15Kb) which translates to an average of 10-15 encrypted buffers per sample which is far to low to make the parallel decryption efficient, whereas the TBS have a quite big sample size (~130Kb) which normally "saturates" the decrypter engine achieving the lowest CPU usage.

The current parallel decryption implementation uses the sample size as given by the tuner manufacturer so that the performance can vary considerably and the expected CPU performance cannot always be achieved

So what's next?

Well, I've implemented an additional algorithm which I simply call "sample packing" aimed to pack together a certain number of samples before delivering the data to the decrypter increasing the chance of feeding the engine with a high number of encrypted buffers and therefore achieving the crucial 128 limit. The new mechanism is working really well and for the Hauppauges, in particular, the gain in performance reached an average of 6 times faster.

Unfortunately the new "sample packing" algorithm is not taking into account the significant variable bitrate of SD vs HD channels, so despite is performing very well is far to be optimal. The next step is to make the algorithm dynamic so that it will constantly adjust the sample packing size depending upon the channel being decrypted and therefore always trying to achieve the best performance, or at least, that's the idea ...

Eddy

[bjkiller]

hello,

after installing plugin - sagetv can't start normaly and restaring after intial flash screen.

any advice?

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by bjkiller

hello,

after installing plugin - sagetv can't start normaly and restaring after intial flash screen.

any advice?

Hi,

I suspect the DVBDCC.ax hasn't been registered properly. SageTV must run with administrator privileges.

Sat 11/23 19:23:16.673 [Scheduler@178b64b] AddFilterByName: Failed to find matching filter DVBDCC Transform Filter (SageTV).
Sat 11/23 19:23:16.697 [Scheduler@178b64b] AddFilterByName: Failed to find matching filter DVBDCC Transform Filter (SageTV).
Sat 11/23 19:23:16.697 [Scheduler@178b64b] Can not load Plugin Filter 'DVBDCC Transform Filter (SageTV)'

Alternatively, please register the filter manually:

- Run a DOS command prompt
- Change directory to where the DVBDcc.ax filter is located, typically <../SageTV/SageTV/>
- Type : regsvr32 DVBDCC.ax
- Restart SageTV
- You should see "DVBDCC-Tuner-xx.log" being generated one for each valid digital tuner.

Also, I noticed you have the TBS 6985, so please make sure that your "sage.properties" have the following entry for each of the four tuners. These setting have nothing to do with the decrypter but to have the card working better natively with sagetv, also you might consider to install the "Preroll Plugin" to avoid yellow/red icons with this card.

mmc/encoders/xxxxxxxxx/100/0/broadcast_standard=DVB-S
mmc/encoders/xxxxxxxxx/dshow_tv_type=DVB-S

Please let me know

Eddy

[bjkiller]

thanks you for the help! - now SageTV loading...

i have separate oscam server running linux computer.
can i just to configure newcamd ip, port, and username/password for access to my oscam server.
or i should use oscam chaining like this:

http://www.sat-dreambox.com/f643/osc...am-share-8478/