PrimeNetEncoder - HDHomeRun Prime Network Encoder

[El Jeffe']

Rangerz - I'm certainly not an expert, but I took a look at your configuration and compared it to mine. One difference in our respective Sage properties files is that I used the internal nat'd IP address (192.168.0.x) for my Sage box rather than a local host IP address for my "encoding_host=" parameters value. Again, I'm certainly no expert and this may not resolve your problem. In fact, my config may be "wrong", but it is working quite well right now. Just trying to help...

[jgsouthard]

I'm seeing a really odd problem with PrimeNetEncoder that I'm hoping someone can help me with.

After a couple of years of SageTV usage with HDHomeRun Prime and SageDCT (but lots of recording hiccups), my SageTV/SageDCT setup with HDHomeRun Prime tuners failed altogether from the recent SiliconDust firmware updates.

I have spent many of the last 24 hours converting from SageDCT to PrimeNetEncoder.

After reading most of the relevant forum posts, following all directions to the best of my ability, correcting the error in the downloaded PrimeNetEncoder.properties file to enable the tuners, and trying a few of the "fixes" for various issues, I found that I could get SageTV to recognize the tuners and I THOUGHT everything was working fine (all tuners worked, I could record, video looked good).

But then after a reboot to make sure all was stable, I started getting persistent "ERROR (-10): No encoders can tune the selected station" whenever I tried to access a tuner (e.g. go into Program Guide and try to "Watch Now" on a specific channel). Subsequent restarts showed that accessing the tuners ALWAYS failed after restart, but I could SOMETIMES get them to work (somehow), after which point they kept working until the next restart.

After much testing, what I found is that after any SageTV restart, any attempt to access the tuners will fail UNTIL I go to Setup > Setup Video Sources and immediately back out by selecting "Finish Source Setup." I don't need to actually change the setup -- everything is already set up -- but just the act of OPENING Setup Video Sources somehow gets the tuners to start working. It doesn't seem to matter what else I do -- the tuners constantly throw Error -10 -- but as soon as I open Setup Video Sources they magically start working.

Any idea what may be going on, and how I can get SageTV to work reliably on startup?

I've attached my PrimeNetEncoder.properties file and my sage.properties file.

Jim

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by jgsouthard

I'm seeing a really odd problem with PrimeNetEncoder that I'm hoping someone can help me with.

After a couple of years of SageTV usage with HDHomeRun Prime and SageDCT (but lots of recording hiccups), my SageTV/SageDCT setup with HDHomeRun Prime tuners failed altogether from the recent SiliconDust firmware updates.

I have spent many of the last 24 hours converting from SageDCT to PrimeNetEncoder.

After reading most of the relevant forum posts, following all directions to the best of my ability, correcting the error in the downloaded PrimeNetEncoder.properties file to enable the tuners, and trying a few of the "fixes" for various issues, I found that I could get SageTV to recognize the tuners and I THOUGHT everything was working fine (all tuners worked, I could record, video looked good).

But then after a reboot to make sure all was stable, I started getting persistent "ERROR (-10): No encoders can tune the selected station" whenever I tried to access a tuner (e.g. go into Program Guide and try to "Watch Now" on a specific channel). Subsequent restarts showed that accessing the tuners ALWAYS failed after restart, but I could SOMETIMES get them to work (somehow), after which point they kept working until the next restart.

After much testing, what I found is that after any SageTV restart, any attempt to access the tuners will fail UNTIL I go to Setup > Setup Video Sources and immediately back out by selecting "Finish Source Setup." I don't need to actually change the setup -- everything is already set up -- but just the act of OPENING Setup Video Sources somehow gets the tuners to start working. It doesn't seem to matter what else I do -- the tuners constantly throw Error -10 -- but as soon as I open Setup Video Sources they magically start working.

Any idea what may be going on, and how I can get SageTV to work reliably on startup?

I've attached my PrimeNetEncoder.properties file and my sage.properties file.

Jim

Nothing wrong with what you are doing that is just 1 disadvantage of running PrimeEncoder as a runnable task. It takes a while for it to run and recognize the tuners.... you have 2 options.

1. If you autologon to the server you can setup a batch file to run at logon and remove it from the runnable classes.

2. If you do not use autologon at boot time ... you need to setup a task to run the batch job at startup whether user is logged on or not.

I chose not to run it as a runnable task so maybe a user that does run it as a runnable task has a workaround.



All other network encoders do not run within Sage Sagedct runs as a service outside of SageTV. SgraphRecorder runs outside of Sagetv.

see this thread more info.
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...&postcount=126


PS this is not really a PrimeNetencoder problem but a problem the way SageTV loads runnable processes and the way it rediscovers network encoders.

[jgsouthard]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

Nothing wrong with what you are doing that is just 1 disadvantage of running PrimeEncoder as a runnable task. It takes a while for it to run and recognize the tuners.... you have 2 options.

1. If you autologon to the server you can setup a batch file to run at logon and remove it from the runnable classes.

2. If you do not use autologon at boot time ... you need to setup a task to run the batch job at startup whether user is logged on or not.

I chose not to run it as a runnable task so maybe a user that does run it as a runnable task has a workaround.



All other network encoders do not run within Sage Sagedct runs as a service outside of SageTV. SgraphRecorder runs outside of Sagetv.

see this thread more info.
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...&postcount=126


PS this is not really a PrimeNetencoder problem but a problem the way SageTV loads runnable processes and the way it rediscovers network encoders.

Thanks -- I'll have to give batch startup a try. But the issue I'm seeing appears to be event driven, not time driven. I can start up SageTV, confirm in the PrimeNetEncoder logs that it started up and threads are running for each tuner, leave it running for any length of time, and it will never recognize the tuners. But if I go into Setup Video Sources briefly, even immediately after starting up SageTV, it will immediately start recognizing the tuners.

I was just curious if that was characteristic of PrimeNetEncoder or something weird about my setup that I could somehow fix or work around.

Jim

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by jgsouthard

Thanks -- I'll have to give batch startup a try. But the issue I'm seeing appears to be event driven, not time driven. I can start up SageTV, confirm in the PrimeNetEncoder logs that it started up and threads are running for each tuner, leave it running for any length of time, and it will never recognize the tuners. But if I go into Setup Video Sources briefly, even immediately after starting up SageTV, it will immediately start recognizing the tuners.

I was just curious if that was characteristic of PrimeNetEncoder or something weird about my setup that I could somehow fix or work around.

Jim

Nope that is a SageTV issue and cannot be fixed.

[Monedeath]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

Nope that is a SageTV issue and cannot be fixed.

...Well, at least until Narflex posts the OS code for Sage. But yeah, unfixable for now.

[KryptoNyte]

nyplayer, is there a list of clear instructions for moving from SageDCT to this network encoder, with all the little tips and tricks, in one place that you could point us to, or link to in your forum signature perhaps?

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

nyplayer, is there a list of clear instructions for moving from SageDCT to this network encoder, with all the little tips and tricks, in one place that you could point us to, or link to in your forum signature perhaps?

I will put something together .... but if you already have a working SageDCT .... there is really not much you have to do. You can use your sagedct entries.

You would just use the SageDCT ports and replace the ones in the primeencoder.properties. That way your tuners are already setup with the guide data etc..

If you get a chance you can post your sage properties files and I will post the changes you would need to do to the prime entries which is only changing 3 ports and no changes to sage properties.

You do not even have to uninstall sagedct just disable the service that way you can revert back right away by just enabling and restarting the SageDCT service.

Here is a preliminary you can look through it and let me know anything else you need.

[KryptoNyte]

Thanks. Is there anything that we need to do regarding ffmpeg files, or firewalls, etc?

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

Thanks. Is there anything that we need to do regarding ffmpeg files, or firewalls, etc?

You can follow the directions in the download you have to make sure the ports in the primeencoder properties are open. I am going to be busy with the HdHomerun DVR so my time here is limited.

[fresnoboy]

Hi. Primenet was working well for me, but no something has changed. I start it up not as part of SageTV but as a startup batch file. The log file is growing astronomically and is filled with lines that say:

"Unexpected error reading from console. The handle is invalid"

What am I doing wrong?

thanks!
Mike

[eobiont]

I was having the problem where PrimeNetEncoder was not starting in time and so I was losing recordings. I restart the computer nightly, so there was always a chance that the PrimeNetEncoder would start a little too late every day.

I switched to the batch script in all users startup, but I don't like the DOS windows left open.

Someone suggested it might be possible to make a JAR run as a service, so that is what I investigated. I ended up using YAJSW (yet another Java Service Wrapper) It is working great. Here is the web site for YAJSW -- http://yajsw.sourceforge.net/

There is a youtube video on the project's Quick Start page that was helpful.

[Deacon Crusher]

jvl

I'm considering testing the hdhomerun dvr package. I joined the kickstarter campaign to support their work and am about ready to test it out.

The big question is how easily can sage and this coexist when using the same tuners (can they coexist at all?)

Does your "tuner" create an identifiable lock on an individual tuner on the hdhomerun primes? I have a prime and an hdhomerun 3? ATSC tuner configured in sage, the prime is working via your package. I have a new prime in and configured to work with the hdhr dvr package, but I'd like to configure it to work with Sage also. It sounds like this is possible and likely would even work properly if your package "locks" a tuner when it is in use and would see and respect locks that are in place on a tuner from other apps/packages and skip/seek to a different tuner that is not locked.

Thanks

Originally Posted by jvl711

Hi,

First I would like to thank all of the forum members that beta tested for me. Their feedback was very helpful in ensuring that my first release was as stable as possible. I need to give special thanks to nyplayer. He went above and beyond in his testing efforts and helped me work through many of the issues.

Overview

PrimeNetEncoder is a network encoder for HDHomeRunPrime. It is designed to run on both windows and linux and to have minimal requirements. The encoder uses the hdhomerun_config application and ffmpeg to capture the stream. Since ffmpeg is only capturing the stream and writing to a file PrimeNetEncoder has very low overhead.

PrimeNetEncoder can be configured to handle any number of HDHomeRunPrime tuners. If you are going to use more than one HDHomeRun Prime you will need to modify the tuners.count property, and create new entries for the tunners in the PrimeNetEncoder.properties file, and create new tuner entries in the sage.properties. Forum members have tested and confirmed that PrimeNetEncoder can also work with other HDHomeRun tuners. Please check the forums for notes on compatibility.

PrimeNetEncoder also offers the option to transcode to h.264 in realtime. This does requires a reasonable amount of CPU resources to accomplish. Transcoding is configurable at the tunner level. There are settings available for quality and performance.

Note: Installation instructions are included in the download.

Known Issues

1. Channel tuning takes approximately 6 seconds on my system. I do not think there is much I can do to make this any faster. I think it takes time for ffmpeg to get enough data from the HDHomeRunPrime to analyze and write the stream to a file. Ffmpeg is perfoming minor corrections to the stream as it writes it.
2. When using the transcoding feature if there is not enough resources for ffmpeg to keep up with transcoding the stream in realtime it will just stop. You will get a no signal in Sage until sage realizes the stream has stopped and it restarts the stream again. I recommend only using transcoding if you have appropriate resources on your machine.

Changelog

Version 1.0.1 (Beta) - Download

1. Better error handling when binding port is already in use
2. Added setting for delay to wait for ffmpeg to fully start
3. Added scaling property to the transcoding to allow resizing video
4. Adding setting for changing codec used for transcoding

Version 1.0.0 - Download

1. Initial Release

[nyplayer]

Deacon Crusher,

Sage has no clue whether another application is using the Prime ... it does not test to see if a tuner is in use by another application and move onto the next tuner. So if the HDDVR is using a tuner Sage will not see it in use and will try to use it and this will cause a halt and recording failure. In my case I have 2 Primes and I have Segregated it to a different network and am using it on the HDDVR.

The problem is not the HDDVR the problem is the way SageTV allocates it's tuners.


PS there is no way to limit tuners on the HDDVR at this testing level so you cannot assign say 2 to Sage and 1 to HDDVR.

[jgsouthard]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

Deacon Crusher,

Sage has no clue whether another application is using the Prime ... it does not test to see if a tuner is in use and move onto the next tuner. So if the HDDVR is using a tuner Sage will not see it in use and will try to use it and this will cause a halt and recording failure. In my case I have 2 Primes and I have Segregated it to a different network and am using it on the HDDVR.

PS there is no way to limit tuners on the HDDVR at this testing level so you cannot assign say 2 to Sage and 1 to HDDVR.

This matches what I've seen as well. I've seen SageTV generate recording errors if I was watching something on one of the tuners using HDHomeRun VIEW when SageTV tried to start recording. Even though there were other tuners available that SageTV could have used, it tried to use the same tuner that I was already using.

My SiliconDust Kickstarter donation wasn't high enough for me to see the HDDVR code yet (soon), but I'm also watching the development. I'd be very curious to hear of any comparisons between SageTV and what they are coming up with. I'm staying with SageTV as long as I can (highly flexible, invested in 4 HD300 media extenders), but HDDVR looks attractive enough to watch for potential future options.

[jgsouthard]

Originally Posted by eobiont

I was having the problem where PrimeNetEncoder was not starting in time and so I was losing recordings. I restart the computer nightly, so there was always a chance that the PrimeNetEncoder would start a little too late every day.

I switched to the batch script in all users startup, but I don't like the DOS windows left open.

Someone suggested it might be possible to make a JAR run as a service, so that is what I investigated. I ended up using YAJSW (yet another Java Service Wrapper) It is working great. Here is the web site for YAJSW -- http://yajsw.sourceforge.net/

There is a youtube video on the project's Quick Start page that was helpful.

I set up my batch file to kick off on startup in Task Scheduler, then checked the "Hidden" flag so that it would run silently without leaving a console command window open. That approach seems to be working OK, and it was simpler to implement than trying to wade through how to use YAJSW.

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by jgsouthard

I set up my batch file to kick off on startup in Task Scheduler, then checked the "Hidden" flag so that it would run silently without leaving a console command window open. That approach seems to be working OK, and it was simpler to implement than trying to wade through how to use YAJSW.

That is exactly how I run it Hidden.

[jm9843]

Originally Posted by jgsouthard

I set up my batch file to kick off on startup in Task Scheduler, then checked the "Hidden" flag so that it would run silently without leaving a console command window open. That approach seems to be working OK, and it was simpler to implement than trying to wade through how to use YAJSW.

Does this require a user to be logged on?

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by jm9843

Does this require a user to be logged on?

When you schedule a task in windows scheduler you have the option to run whether user is logged on or not.

[jm9843]

Originally Posted by jgsouthard

I'd be very curious to hear of any comparisons between SageTV and what they are coming up with.

There is no comparison. Currently the only way to interface with the recording engine or playback recordings is with the Kodi addon. The usability is really bad and would take years of development time to reach some kind of parity with Sage. That's only if they exposed an open API and got lots of community participation. Once Sage goes open source, the only thing HDHR DVR will have going for it is copy-once support. Full disclosure: I'm a backer at the $60 level and have been using the early builds.

Keeping it on topic, Prime Net Encoder has been working great for me. Recordings are perfect, none of the glitchiness I often had with SageDCT. The only issue has been the "ERROR (-10): No encoders can tune the selected station" after restarting the Sage service. Now considering the best way to try the batch method to make it perfect.