ok need serious help getting Sage + Prime reliable

[ace007]

Originally Posted by MattHelm

OK, so anyone out there using FFMPEG with SageDCT, and what did they do to get it working?

Please speak up, as all the rest of us are

I think unless I find channels I cannot get I'll probably stay with dump since unless I'm wrong using FFMPEG would increase CPU load a little bit.

[sflamm]

That said, the best option is still to adjust it properly at the curb so that an amp is not needed in the home.

That is not technically feasible. The tech can only adjust the drop to your house not to all the outlets... there is always a passive splitter of some kind in the house and depending on the physical tree hierarchy of the splitters there is no way to balance at all the outlets from adjusting gain at the curb. Moreover, unless you are using special cable with a high dieletric, most likely even the cable length will significantly attenuate the signal on a longer run.

The only practical manner to do this is to put in place an active drop amplifier that has very high SNR and a unity gain output to each of the fanouts (drops throughout the house). Such an amp cost around $75-100 and is well worth the one-time investment.

OK, so anyone out there using FFMPEG with SageDCT, and what did they do to get it working?

Works just fine for me. Have tried it on Win2003R2 and Win2012R1

The "established connection aborted..." is usually a sign of a security/permissions issue. Is SageDCT being run under an account with the right permissions? And have you manually re-entered it ... as sometimes I have seen it look correct but for some reason it isnt taking it... Also the best place to set is is in the control panel -> services instead of under the SageDCT app, as I have seen it fail under the SageDCT app while it works as expected under the services panel.

[sflamm]

I'm thinking of ordering another 4 GB of RAM for the box. I'm afraid to increase the JAVA heap and totally run out of RAM. :<)

The max the Sage 32-bit Java app can take is 1GB of continuous memory... might not be worth adding additional memory...

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by sflamm

That is not technically feasible. The tech can only adjust the drop to your house not to all the outlets... there is always a passive splitter of some kind in the house and depending on the physical tree hierarchy of the splitters there is no way to balance at all the outlets from adjusting gain at the curb. Moreover, unless you are using special cable with a high dieletric, most likely even the cable length will significantly attenuate the signal on a longer run.

The only practical manner to do this is to put in place an active drop amplifier that has very high SNR and a unity gain output to each of the fanouts (drops throughout the house). Such an amp cost around $75-100 and is well worth the one-time investment.

That is why i said you adjust it at the curb to raise the weakest jack in the house to correct levels, and then attenuate the other jacks in the house down to proper levels. You also talk about gain at the curd. There is no 'gain' at the curb, there is attenuation (sometimes 30-40dB worth) that is adjustable to get the right level in the home. It would have to be a VERY poorly designed cable system for the curb attenuation to need to be dropped <10-20dB, meaning there is always enough headroom to compensate for whatever attenuation cabling and splitting in the home is causing - all without increasing SNR.

I find it odd that you say you HAVE to have an amp for good signals, as I have never seen this needed. The only time I've ever seen an amp needed in the home was when people who didn't know better were for some reason against calling the cable co to set it up properly. The only issue that can't be easily overcome with proper attenuation of a hot signal is slope - of course, at work we use slope equalizing attenuators to compensate for this.

[sflamm]

find it odd that you say you HAVE to have an amp for good signals

That is not what I said - I was responding to your statement that you would *never* recommend an amp.

That is why i said you adjust it at the curb to raise the weakest jack in the house to correct levels

of course the signal is not amplified at the curb... and can only be attenuated. but that isnt really the point...

my point is that most people have a series of chained passive splitters... and with a distribution amp those and their associated loss are removed.

and then attenuate the other jacks in the house

never once seen a common person who would have the slightest idea how too properly attenuate on a jack by jack basis.

the simplest and easiest methods for folks is to 1) adjust the signal at the curb appropriately to the jack most often used (e.g. going in to the hdhr prime) 2) put a distro amp in place to assure no further significant loss and maintain SNR


In the end it seems to me we are both saying almost virtually the same thing. Only difference is that I recommend an amp instead of passive splitting (which is amost all houses have - how does it get to all the rooms )

[mguebert]

Originally Posted by MattHelm

OK, so anyone out there using FFMPEG with SageDCT, and what did they do to get it working?

Please speak up, as all the rest of us are

I am using the FFMPEG option and I didn't do anything special to get it working. Uninstalled 2.6 and installed 2.72. Changed the option to ffmpeg after verifying that it worked with dump.

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by mguebert

I am using the FFMPEG option and I didn't do anything special to get it working. Uninstalled 2.6 and installed 2.72. Changed the option to ffmpeg after verifying that it worked with dump.

It would be nice if those using FFMPEG indicate the operating System. Just saying it works really doesn't help. I know there is a problem with FFMPEG and windows 8. The build of FFMPEG that Andy used is quite old.

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/For...withnativecode

[mguebert]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

It would be nice if those using FFMPEG indicate the operating System. Just saying it works really doesn't help. I know there is a problem with FFMPEG and windows 8. The build of FFMPEG that Andy used is quite old.

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/For...withnativecode

I am on Win 7 x64 Ultimate

[ace007]

I guess I spoke too soon about disabling a bunch of add-ons helping out. I've been fighting again with it over the past week. I think it may be some channels and maybe even some shows don't like the DUMP option and if the recording is no good it just freeks out Sage and everything freezes up and goes slow.

I was testing earlier and a bunch of the network channels in SD were fine and it even recorded ESPNHD for hours but tonight it was trying to record CBSHD and the whole thing came to a crawl.

I have not had any luck with the FFMPEG option. I know in one thread they said you did not need to install FFMPEG but I downloaded it to give it a shot.

Seriously think about taking a closer look at TIVO.