Using the OpenDCT Generic Pipe Capture Device

[SHS]

Originally Posted by wayner

Interesting so this is kind of an alternative to an HD-PVR, is it?

Take your ref to SlingBox M1 ? then yes that petty what it is.

[Jabroni]

Originally Posted by wayner

Interesting so this is kind of an alternative to an HD-PVR, is it?

OpenDCT project as a whole is a way to present several types of Tuners to the SageTV via the Network Encoder protocol. You could use HDHomeRun Tunners for OTA/Cable, HDMI IPTV Network Encoders (sold on Aliexpress), and some Generic Tunners that you could put (via HTTP or STDOUT). In my case I was able to use his STDOUT method to grab the stream from a Slingbox and use it as a tuner on SageTV. For best quality the HDMI IPTV Network Tuner is the best option, but you still need to figure out a way to change the IRD to your desired channel since the BM1000 doesnt support Infrared changing neither HDMI CEC channel change.

If you read the threads, ppl have connected ip cameras, twitch.tv streams, in my case slingboxes, all using this great software and some external scripts/utilities.

So to answer your question, yes you could have a solution with OpenDCT to replace your HDPVR, but it will depend on ur current hardware and budget what would u need

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by Jabroni

Finally had a chance to try a Perl script that connects to Slingbox and outputs its video content and interfaced it with OpenDCT w/ the Pipe Capture.. I must stay it worked GREAT I love that now on show change there is no video lag (tuner retunning) since my previous approach re-launches the script on every new program from the progrma guide.

The only thing I would like to know if there is a way to filter out the stderr to not write it to log, or at least just after X secs, since the script outputs stream stats to it and the log will get full of those entries

ie

12:53:42.322 [StreamLogger-152] DEBUG GenericPipeCaptureDevice - err:   Stream #0:1 -> #0:1 (aac (native) -> ac3 (native))
12:53:42.322 [RawSageTVConsumerImpl-154:SlingIzzi] DEBUG VideoUtil - PAT packet found at index 3836.
12:53:42.322 [RawSageTVConsumerImpl-154:SlingIzzi] DEBUG VideoUtil - PAT packet found at index 11732.
12:53:42.322 [RawSageTVConsumerImpl-154:SlingIzzi] INFO  RawSageTVConsumerImpl - Raw consumer is now streaming...
12:53:42.853 [StreamLogger-152] DEBUG GenericPipeCaptureDevice - err: frame=  168 fps=0.0 q=-1.0 size=    2073kB time=00:00:05.65 bitrate=3001.9kbits/s    
12:53:43.414 [StreamLogger-152] DEBUG GenericPipeCaptureDevice - err: frame=  185 fps=169 q=-1.0 size=    2407kB time=00:00:06.23 bitrate=3164.1kbits/s    
12:53:44.007 [StreamLogger-152] DEBUG GenericPipeCaptureDevice - err: frame=  198 fps=118 q=-1.0 size=    2622kB time=00:00:06.66 bitrate=3222.9kbits/s    
12:53:44.303 [UPnPDiscovery-40] DEBUG UpnpManager - Sending a SecureContainer search message for 'schemas-cetoncorp-com' devices...
12:53:44.662 [StreamLogger-152] DEBUG GenericPipeCaptureDevice - err: frame=  217 fps= 93 q=-1.0 size=    2835kB time=00:00:07.28 bitrate=3187.1kbits/s    
12:53:45.208 [StreamLogger-152] DEBUG GenericPipeCaptureDevice - err: frame=  236 fps= 82 q=-1.0 size=    3048kB time=00:00:07.96 bitrate=3137.0kbits/s    
12:53:45.707 [StreamLogger-152] DEBUG GenericPipeCaptureDevice - err: frame=  252 fps= 74 q=-1.0 size=    3225kB time=00:00:08.48 bitrate=3112.7kbits/s

Its no way the quality of the IPTV Network Encoders (since those are HDMI) but it makes some cheap way to add a IRD to Sage (if you can find some nice deals of SlingBox M1). The good thing is that it even handles the channel change via the built in Slingbox infrared (IRD must be supported by slingbox)

I don't know that it would be a good idea to turn it off after so many seconds. You could miss something of interest when things go haywire. Try adding -nostats right after ffmpeg.exe.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by Jabroni

If you read the threads, ppl have connected ip cameras, twitch.tv streams, in my case slingboxes, all using this great software and some external scripts/utilities.

So to answer your question, yes you could have a solution with OpenDCT to replace your HDPVR, but it will depend on ur current hardware and budget what would u need

Thanks - I have followed this thread sporadically and I have tried setting up an IP camera but I was not successful, perhaps due to the type of cameras that I have.

[technazz]

Originally Posted by wayner

Thanks - I have followed this thread sporadically and I have tried setting up an IP camera but I was not successful, perhaps due to the type of cameras that I have.

What type is it?

I have used a HKvison and 2 Foscams.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by technazz

What type is it?

I have used a HKvison and 2 Foscams.

I have a few types, including a couple of Foscams. Can you post your config for the Foscams - don't forget to blank out any passwords? Thanks.

[technazz]

Originally Posted by wayner

I have a few types, including a couple of Foscams. Can you post your config for the Foscams - don't forget to blank out any passwords? Thanks.

rtsp://login:password@192.168.0.25:554/videoMain

Try that link in VLC if it works then insert into the code the @Fuzzy posted (post 35)

Follow the instructions on post #1 to generate the config in the properties file. Also make sure you have FFMPEG installed in the path stated.

Good Luck!

[Fuzzy]

So, playing around with this, and I started using one of my prime encoders to feed a prebuilt ffmpeg that is HW enabled (from: https://github.com/illuspas/ffmpeg-hw-win32). On my windows desktop, using nvenc_h264 (it's got a geForce GTX 660 Ti), and the 'fast' preset, it transcodes HD streams from MPEG-2 to h.264, using about 4% cpu on my AMD FX-3750. I'm sure further tweaks could be made to improve it.

sagetv.device.2126325048.streaming_executable=ffmpeg.exe -f mpegts -i http\://192.168.99.30\:5004/auto/v%c% -acodec copy -vcodec nvenc_h264 -preset fast -f mpegts -

By comparison, using the same command with the plain all software -vcodec h264 uses about 80% cpu. I wish I could figure out how to compile the linux version, because I'd love to use qsv in a linux vm on my unraid server, but it seems like intel has made it purposefully hard to build and distribute the hw enabled ffmpeg. I'll probably roll up a windows vm and try it that way.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

So, playing around with this, and I started using one of my prime encoders to feed a prebuilt ffmpeg that is HW enabled (from: https://github.com/illuspas/ffmpeg-hw-win32). On my windows desktop, using nvenc_h264 (it's got a geForce GTX 660 Ti), and the 'fast' preset, it transcodes HD streams from MPEG-2 to h.264, using about 4% cpu on my AMD FX-3750. I'm sure further tweaks could be made to improve it.

sagetv.device.2126325048.streaming_executable=ffmpeg.exe -f mpegts -i http\://192.168.99.30\:5004/auto/v%c% -acodec copy -vcodec nvenc_h264 -preset fast -f mpegts -

By comparison, using the same command with the plain all software -vcodec h264 uses about 80% cpu. I wish I could figure out how to compile the linux version, because I'd love to use qsv in a linux vm on my unraid server, but it seems like intel has made it purposefully hard to build and distribute the hw enabled ffmpeg. I'll probably roll up a windows vm and try it that way.

You need to build a custom kernel to use QSV in Linux. QSV would be the only reason I would ever go back to using Windows for anything PVR related. It would be nice if they could bake it into the next Kernel, but I highly doubt it will ever happen. I think there's some license compatibility issues. Also what they do provide only seems to work on very specific Kernel versions.

There is one downside to what you're doing there and you only need to look at the PNE threads to know what that is. You will have problems when FFmpeg misses a video/audio stream or doesn't stream at all because it didn't search enough into the stream.

[Fuzzy]

Yeah, I'm not against running a VM to handle this, and frankly, the cpu load differences between this and the software encoder MORE than makes up for the inefficiencies of running a VM. I honestly think the javacpp could probably include the hwaccell options in their builds, which would allow this to be done all within opendct proper, just by making new presets. Even if QuickSync isn't an option because of intel's licensing, I'd gladly throw a couple mid-level nvidia cards onto my unraid machine to use nvenc instead.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Yeah, I'm not against running a VM to handle this, and frankly, the cpu load differences between this and the software encoder MORE than makes up for the inefficiencies of running a VM. I honestly think the javacpp could probably include the hwaccell options in their builds, which would allow this to be done all within opendct proper, just by making new presets. Even if QuickSync isn't an option because of intel's licensing, I'd gladly throw a couple mid-level nvidia cards onto my unraid machine to use nvenc instead.

If you have hardware that will do pass-through reliably, then that's definitely an option for you. I can bet that many people are not going to be able to follow you without buying new hardware. unRAID recently added the ability to pass-through the onboard graphics to a Windows VM, so that could be an option. I tried it myself for a PlayOn VM and the VM just hung. I personally haven't had a lot of luck getting pass-though to work reliably on consumer boards that allegedly have the ability. I have some server-grade motherboards that can almost certainly do it to varying degrees, but they are Core 2 Quad processors which for our purposes isn't very helpful. I think my AMD gaming computer was able to do it without too many issues when I played with it a few years ago, but I really don't want to use that for my server.

You continue to not understand that support in JavaCPP is not just build it in and change the codec. In my mind that's how easy it should be. It's much more elaborate than that likely out of necessity. The FFmpeg project for all of the great things it has given us is not nearly as elegant internally as we would like to imagine. Any codec that needs hardware requires setup beyond loading a codec and that often involves additional C code (nothing you can do in Java) just to start talking with the hardware accelerator. Everything you need is not in the libraries. I'm not against non-Java code, but there just isn't enough demand and it adds a great hassle to a project that I'm trying to keep simple.

Knowing all of that we could do kind of a "hacky" hybrid whereby we do the detection using JavaCPP, note how much data that actually took to get a correct result, force ffmpeg.exe to use that much data for detection, then stream from ffmpeg.exe. It will be a slower start, but it will be correct more often. This obviously isn't very efficient overall, but it would get you what you're looking for with minimal effort. My thoughts on this are that if we're going do this, we should be working on a replacement for the version of FFmpeg that SageTV is using for transcoding. We could then also make it an optional output step for writing with the built in remuxer. That way, we help everyone, not just ourselves in one scenario.

Edit: You're using the default software settings which are not tuned at all for realtime encoding (hence the really high CPU usage). This is hardly a fair comparison on CPU usage. Also if you even casually look around, you'll see plenty of reviews that still say x264 is superior in picture quality all around over consumer level hardware encoders. This of course has more to do with personal preference too. If you can't see the difference, it doesn't matter, but still I think you're dramatizing things a little.

[wayner]

Does anyone have this working with Blue Iris. I am just setting up BI and it seems that others here use it (like @Tiki for example) and it would be great to be able to see my IP cameras and a multi-camera view from within SageTV.

[Jabroni]

Originally Posted by wayner

Does anyone have this working with Blue Iris. I am just setting up BI and it seems that others here use it (like @Tiki for example) and it would be great to be able to see my IP cameras and a multi-camera view from within SageTV.

My suggestion would be to rather use SageTV Miniclient on android, and on your androidtv box install TinyCam (TV Version supported), that program has native support for Blue Iris so no need of jumping thru all hoops to get them "play nice" with sage

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by Jabroni

My suggestion would be to rather use SageTV Miniclient on android, and on your androidtv box install TinyCam (TV Version supported), that program has native support for Blue Iris so no need of jumping thru all hoops to get them "play nice" with sage

I did this with my zoneminder cams and it works great.

[wayner]

My clients are still primarily SageTV HD200 and HD300s. Besides the cost of buying Android devices, and I did buy a MiBox to try it out, I find the Sage extenders more reliable, especially with OTA MPEG-2 content. And you can't install a camera viewer on an extender.

[brbjr]

I have the generic pipe working on an iptv stream and cloned it to add a 2nd encoder. When I watch 2 shows at the same time the encoders are killing each other.

I created a .net app called steamer that uses the passed in parameter(channel) to locate the correct stream and encode it with ffmpeg outputting the stream to pipe -

I tried to copy the streamer.exe file and point the second encoder at streamer2.exe

What are the criteria opendct uses to consider an encoder process is stuck?

In the config file, it is iptv1,iptv2, and iptv3 configs.

Testing steps watched 629 on one tv and then watch 631 on another tv. Both TVs display the show correctly and play until opendct kills the first stream. The second stream continues to play.

You can see this behavior in the logs as "The consumer appears to be stuck at..."

System: Windows 10 64 bit
Sage TV: 9.1.9.778

Any help is appreciated.

[brbjr]

Originally Posted by brbjr

I have the generic pipe working on an iptv stream and cloned it to add a 2nd encoder. When I watch 2 shows at the same time the encoders are killing each other.

I created a .net app called steamer that uses the passed in parameter(channel) to locate the correct stream and encode it with ffmpeg outputting the stream to pipe -

I tried to copy the streamer.exe file and point the second encoder at streamer2.exe

What are the criteria opendct uses to consider an encoder process is stuck?

In the config file, it is iptv1,iptv2, and iptv3 configs.

Testing steps watched 629 on one tv and then watch 631 on another tv. Both TVs display the show correctly and play until opendct kills the first stream. The second stream continues to play.

You can see this behavior in the logs as "The consumer appears to be stuck at..."

System: Windows 10 64 bit
Sage TV: 9.1.9.778

Any help is appreciated.

I fixed my issue by moving my stream picker to a web server and redirecting to the video stream.

[brbjr]

Originally Posted by brbjr

I fixed my issue by moving my stream picker to a web server and redirecting to the video stream.

I spoke too soon. I am still having the issue.

New logs and config attached.

[technazz]

Originally Posted by brbjr

I have the generic pipe working on an iptv stream and cloned it to add a 2nd encoder. When I watch 2 shows at the same time the encoders are killing each other.

I created a .net app called steamer that uses the passed in parameter(channel) to locate the correct stream and encode it with ffmpeg outputting the stream to pipe -

I tried to copy the streamer.exe file and point the second encoder at streamer2.exe

What are the criteria opendct uses to consider an encoder process is stuck?

In the config file, it is iptv1,iptv2, and iptv3 configs.

Testing steps watched 629 on one tv and then watch 631 on another tv. Both TVs display the show correctly and play until opendct kills the first stream. The second stream continues to play.

You can see this behavior in the logs as "The consumer appears to be stuck at..."

System: Windows 10 64 bit
Sage TV: 9.1.9.778

Any help is appreciated.

Are you sure you provider allows more than one stream?

I have to pay per stream. If I want to tune 2 streams I have to pay for the extra connection. Otherwise your providers IPTV "Panel" will stop the old stream when you connect to a new stream.

Chris

[brbjr]

Originally Posted by wayner

Does anyone have this working with Blue Iris. I am just setting up BI and it seems that others here use it (like @Tiki for example) and it would be great to be able to see my IP cameras and a multi-camera view from within SageTV.

Here is a working config for Blue Iris:

sagetv.device.<unique_id>.consumer=opendct.consumer.RawSageTVConsumerImpl
sagetv.device.<unique_id>.custom_channels=3000
sagetv.device.<unique_id>.fast_network_encoder_switch=false
sagetv.device.<unique_id>.streaming_executable=c\:\\\\ffmpeg\\ffmpeg.exe -f lavfi -i anullsrc -i http\://username\asswword@serverip\:serverport/h264/cameraOrGroupShortName/temp.ts -f mpegts -codec\:a aac -
sagetv.device.<unique_id>.tuning_delay_ms=0

You will need to update your ffmeg path