OpenDCT: An open source digital cable tuner.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by AlphaCrew

What are the advantages of OpenDCT over SageDCT? My SageDCT is working well, with very little cpu consumption.

This question seems to be asked a lot. If all is well for you on SageDCT, there's no reason to rock the boat. If you're looking to be able to do more like running the network encoder on Linux, being able to share your HDHomeRun tuners with other programs and access them as like a pool instead of individually or live transcoding, OpenDCT has that and more.

[KarylFStein]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

This question seems to be asked a lot. If all is well for you on SageDCT, there's no reason to rock the boat. If you're looking to be able to do more like running the network encoder on Linux, being able to share your HDHomeRun tuners with other programs and access them as like a pool instead individually or live transcoding, OpenDCT has that and more.

I was happy with SageDCT, but switched to OpenDCT when I moved to v9. The reason I took the plunge on a BETA release is because of the support I saw here. I have had 0 problems with what is now an outdated version (0.4.18) even with music channels, (yes, there is a long delay to start when you think it didn't tune, but that was true of SageDCT as well). At some point I figure I'll upgrade OpenDCT and take advantage of the improvements, but why rock the boat? Support is the answer for why I switched.

[reccitron]

I've screwed up my system and need some guidance.

Last week I converted from sageDCT to OpenDCT. All was working well except the issue with music choice music channels. This morning I decided to upgrade to 0.5.0-Beta for the music channel improvements.

I stopped the sagetv and OpenDCT services then installed 0.5.0-Beta. When I checked the OpenDCT config file the new settings weren't in there. I then decided to uninstall OpenDCT and reinstall hoping that it would pick up the new settings. It didn't but I manually added the new settings. After the install I did rerun the console.

Now when I go into SageTV and try to tune to a channel I get the following error:

"Error(-10): No encoders can tune the selected station"

I tried removing the video sources in SageTv and then reinstalling them but that didn't work.

How can I get my video sources back?

By the way, I have a InfiniTV 4 PCIe running on windows 7.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by reccitron

I've screwed up my system and need some guidance.

Last week I converted from sageDCT to OpenDCT. All was working well except the issue with music choice music channels. This morning I decided to upgrade to 0.5.0-Beta for the music channel improvements.

I stopped the sagetv and OpenDCT services then installed 0.5.0-Beta. When I checked the OpenDCT config file the new settings weren't in there. I then decided to uninstall OpenDCT and reinstall hoping that it would pick up the new settings. It didn't but I manually added the new settings. After the install I did rerun the console.

Now when I go into SageTV and try to tune to a channel I get the following error:

"Error(-10): No encoders can tune the selected station"

I tried removing the video sources in SageTv and then reinstalling them but that didn't work.

How can I get my video sources back?

By the way, I have a InfiniTV 4 PCIe running on windows 7.

The first thing you need to know is that opendct.properties will not be deleted/overwritten if you uninstall or upgrade. You may at times need to add new settings because they will not populate on a preexisting properties file. If you really want to reset everything, rename opendct.properties before you install/reinstall OpenDCT.

Have you already tried restarting the SageTV service? Sometimes it gets into a strange state when a network encoder disappears.

[reccitron]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

The first thing you need to know is that opendct.properties will not be deleted/overwritten if you uninstall or upgrade. You may at times need to add new settings because they will not populate on a preexisting properties file. If you really want to reset everything, rename opendct.properties before you install/reinstall OpenDCT.

Have you already tried restarting the SageTV service? Sometimes it gets into a strange state when a network encoder disappears.

Yeah, I've restarted the service and also rebooted the computer

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by reccitron

Yeah, I've restarted the service and also rebooted the computer

Could you post opendct.log? I have a feeling you're running old firmware on your InfiniTV 4 that doesn't have the ability to set the RTP destination via the web interface. Starting with v0.5 UPnP tuning is no longer supported.

[reccitron]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

Could you post opendct.log? I have a feeling you're running old firmware on your InfiniTV 4 that doesn't have the ability to set the RTP destination via the web interface. Starting with v0.5 UPnP tuning is no longer supported.

It was the firmware version. I updated to the latest beta firmware via the ceton diagnostic tool and it is working again.

Thanks

[reccitron]

Originally Posted by reccitron

It was the firmware version. I updated to the latest beta firmware via the ceton diagnostic tool and it is working again.

Thanks

The music channels are also working.

Thanks for all the support and updates

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by reccitron

The music channels are also working.

Thanks for all the support and updates

No problem. You should be able to appreciate that the tuning speed is much faster without UPnP which is one of the reasons I dropped it. I honestly didn't think too many people were still using the InfiniTV 4 units, but I probably should have mentioned that you should be running the latest (unfortunately beta) firmware on your InfiniTV 4 to use OpenDCT starting on 0.5. The InfiniTV 6 comes out of the box with everything needed.

[reccitron]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

. I honestly didn't think too many people were still using the InfiniTV 4 units.

I've had it for a while and wouldn't even know what 4 or 6 runner options to replace it with.

[Telecore]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

The first thing you need to know is that opendct.properties will not be deleted/overwritten if you uninstall or upgrade. You may at times need to add new settings because they will not populate on a preexisting properties file. If you really want to reset everything, rename opendct.properties before you install/reinstall OpenDCT.

I wonder if this has been causing me some problems. I have never renamed or deleted the opendct.properties file over many version changes/upgrades. Last night I had another case of the red/green striped playbar on some recordings - it looks like they were split into many files. Log file attached. In the meantime, I have renamed opendct.properties, uninstalled and re-installed the latest 04.47 version. I now have a different looking opendct.properties file. Will see how this works. I am now down to 1 Sage server running Win10 + SageTV V9 with opendct. Thanks for all the hard work and support.

[gprichardson1]

I've been running on 0.3.17 w/ SageTV 7 on win7 for quite a while now with no hiccups since I went from 0.3.16 to 0.3.17. I was just thinking last night "Man, OpenDCT has been a game changer for Sage". Boy, did I jinx myself!

Last night I got a Halt Detected while recording The Blacklist. The show is listed in the Recordings list. When I try to play it, it looks like the first minute or so wasn't recorded. Past that I just get a black screen. If I open the .ts file in VLC it plays ok.

I've attached last night's log file. Any chance you can take a look for me? I'm hoping it was just a one-time fluke that happened, but it'd be nice to know. Maybe it's time I upgrade to the new stuff? Thanks!

[tmiranda]

I installed the latest beta on a linux system and it works for some channels but not others.

I have a few very basic questions, sorry if you've answered them before but this is a long thread

Does the user have to handle remapping of the channels or does the software do it automatically?

Is it necessary to run a channel scan in SageTV?

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by Telecore

I wonder if this has been causing me some problems. I have never renamed or deleted the opendct.properties file over many version changes/upgrades. Last night I had another case of the red/green striped playbar on some recordings - it looks like they were split into many files. Log file attached. In the meantime, I have renamed opendct.properties, uninstalled and re-installed the latest 04.47 version. I now have a different looking opendct.properties file. Will see how this works. I am now down to 1 Sage server running Win10 + SageTV V9 with opendct. Thanks for all the hard work and support.

I'm still baffled by what the issue could be when that happens to you. OpenDCT is showing no struggles and yet it would appear that somehow the file isn't growing. I can't think of any other reason for SageTV to make it tune the channel in again. I'll put this on my list of things that need better monitoring/handling. I just don't understand why the Java API wouldn't be at least throwing exceptions if it's not actually writing to the file.

Originally Posted by gprichardson1

I've been running on 0.3.17 w/ SageTV 7 on win7 for quite a while now with no hiccups since I went from 0.3.16 to 0.3.17. I was just thinking last night "Man, OpenDCT has been a game changer for Sage". Boy, did I jinx myself!

Last night I got a Halt Detected while recording The Blacklist. The show is listed in the Recordings list. When I try to play it, it looks like the first minute or so wasn't recorded. Past that I just get a black screen. If I open the .ts file in VLC it plays ok.

I've attached last night's log file. Any chance you can take a look for me? I'm hoping it was just a one-time fluke that happened, but it'd be nice to know. Maybe it's time I upgrade to the new stuff? Thanks!

It looks like the timecode jumped really far ahead. The FFmpeg muxer tends to freak out when that happens, you probably noticed the constant 'Delay between the first packet and last packet in the muxing queue is' messages in the log. The new FFmpeg consumer (opendct.consumer.FFmpegTransSageTVConsumerImpl) is able to handle these situations. You would need to upgrade to the latest stable (0.4.47) to have it as an option.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

I installed the latest beta on a linux system and it works for some channels but not others.

I have a few very basic questions, sorry if you've answered them before but this is a long thread

1) Does the user have to handle remapping of the channels or does the software do it automatically?

2) Is it necessary to run a channel scan in SageTV?

1) This depends on what you're trying to do. ATSC and CableCARD don't require anything special. ClearQAM on the other hand will automatically map the channels for you as long as you have a CableCARD tuner available. I can probably help clear things up for you if you post a log file.

2) It is not required and at least for one person, they ended up with some strange channel mappings after doing it despite the logs showing that OpenDCT returned normal channels to SageTV. Sometimes I don't understand how for example it can take the channel 508 directly from a channel scan and somehow decide that it must have meant 10-8-1.

EDIT: About the thread size. I am truly astonished at the amount of attention this network encoder has received. I figured several people might find it useful/interesting, but after a little over 4 months, it's amazing to me how many times this thread has been viewed.

[cat6man]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

I'm still baffled by what the issue could be when that happens to you. OpenDCT is showing no struggles and yet it would appear that somehow the file isn't growing. I can't think of any other reason for SageTV to make it tune the channel in again. I'll put this on my list of things that need better monitoring/handling. I just don't understand why the Java API wouldn't be at least throwing exceptions if it's not actually writing to the file.



It looks like the timecode jumped really far ahead. The FFmpeg muxer tends to freak out when that happens, you probably noticed the constant 'Delay between the first packet and last packet in the muxing queue is' messages in the log. The new FFmpeg consumer (opendct.consumer.FFmpegTransSageTVConsumerImpl) is able to handle these situations. You would need to upgrade to the latest stable (0.4.47) to have it as an option.

the halt detected/gap problem was correlated with messed up timestamps that caused weird behavior with skip fwd/skip back........both were solved with new consumer (add "Trans" to all lines with FFmpeg consumer)......works great for me now

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by Cooper

We are still getting problems when watching live TV and pausing. 99% of the time if paused and once you skip ahead get the spinning circle and I need to kill Sage and restart. I am using the latest RC9 beta and Sage 7. I have attached the log file. Besides this problem everything else seems to work well.

I was testing MPEG-PS playback on the Android miniclient and it occurred to me that I might not have tested your scenario on the Windows SageTV Client using MPEG-PS. After a few tests, it look like .mpg files do not have the same issues on SWITCH. If you'd like to go back to using it again, the changes below will enable MPEG-PS.

1) Stop the SageTV service.
2) Open Sage.properties
3) Find all of the OpenDCT entries and change mmc/encoders/<unique_id>/100/0/encode_digital_tv_as_program_stream to true.
4) Start SageTV service.

[jgsouthard]

I've been running OpenDCT 0.5.0-Beta for several days now, and it looks really solid in my 6-tuner HDHomeRun Prime setup. No halts, errors, or glitches at all; and I love having Closed Captioning back after losing it for several years.

I realize that a few people are still having issues with OpenDCT; but for those pondering a change from SageDCT or PrimeNetEncoder, I think you'll be pleased. I'd never suggest changing if your current setup is working reliably (changes are never painless), but I'm really glad I made the change. I was having persistent serious problems with both PrimeNetEncoder and SageDCT (and had used both over extended periods of time), and OpenDCT has been light-years better.

I'm also finding that upgrading to the new beta versions of OpenDCT is both beneficial and simple. It takes only about 5-10 minutes: download new version, shut down SageTV, stop OpenDCT service, delete opendct.properties (I start with a fresh one each time), install OpenDCT, start OpenDCT service, start SageTV. Since in my case I'm using tuner pooling, and since the tuner section in opendct.properties doesn't get added until after you shut down SageTV the first time, I then need to shut down SageTV and OpenDCT again, make a quick change to opendct.properties, and then start them back up.

So far I haven't seen a case where a new beta of OpenDCT introduced a new problem I wasn't having before (although I leave open the possibility that it could happen), but EnterNoEscape is continuing to make significant improvements that I think are reducing the chance of errors.

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

I was testing MPEG-PS playback on the Android miniclient and it occurred to me that I might not have tested your scenario on the Windows SageTV Client using MPEG-PS. After a few tests, it look like .mpg files do not have the same issues on SWITCH. If you'd like to go back to using it again, the changes below will enable MPEG-PS.

1) Stop the SageTV service.
2) Open Sage.properties
3) Find all of the OpenDCT entries and change mmc/encoders/<unique_id>/100/0/encode_digital_tv_as_program_stream to true.
4) Start SageTV service.

I tested this and it introduces other problems like I get now Video on channels that are MPEG2-TS to begin with on my clients.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by jgsouthard

I've been running OpenDCT 0.5.0-Beta for several days now, and it looks really solid in my 6-tuner HDHomeRun Prime setup. No halts, errors, or glitches at all; and I love having Closed Captioning back after losing it for several years.

I realize that a few people are still having issues with OpenDCT; but for those pondering a change from SageDCT or PrimeNetEncoder, I think you'll be pleased. I'd never suggest changing if your current setup is working reliably (changes are never painless), but I'm really glad I made the change. I was having persistent serious problems with both PrimeNetEncoder and SageDCT (and had used both over extended periods of time), and OpenDCT has been light-years better.

I'm also finding that upgrading to the new beta versions of OpenDCT is both beneficial and simple. It takes only about 5-10 minutes: download new version, shut down SageTV, stop OpenDCT service, delete opendct.properties (I start with a fresh one each time), install OpenDCT, start OpenDCT service, start SageTV. Since in my case I'm using tuner pooling, and since the tuner section in opendct.properties doesn't get added until after you shut down SageTV the first time, I then need to shut down SageTV and OpenDCT again, make a quick change to opendct.properties, and then start them back up.

So far I haven't seen a case where a new beta of OpenDCT introduced a new problem I wasn't having before (although I leave open the possibility that it could happen), but EnterNoEscape is continuing to make significant improvements that I think are reducing the chance of errors.

Thanks for the endorsement!

You were commenting about how you need to start the service, then stop it to have the option for tuner pooling options to be present. You can alternatively remove the old opendct.properties, before you upgrade and the latest properties file should be put in its place by the installer. I've become a little better at making sure the most recent "static" options are already in that starting properties.