DVB-S/T/C Support

[natesneat2000]

Can someone post a brief summary of this thread, maybe even start a new one? Also, would this be able to be used in the US?

[Brainwrek]

Sorry to be such a n00b but is there a "how to" for this? I would LOVE to try the solutions that AndersNolberger and Yoja have posted, but I don't know where to begin.

I have MT working just fine with my Nexus-s card, but where to go from there?

[jerhall]

I have everything sort-of working with my dvb-s card. When i launch Sage and go to the guide, the first channel that i select is tuned properly and the picture & sound comes up properly. However, I cannot tune to another channel afterwards without exiting and restarting Sage. i can tune to any of the channels in the list, but only one channel change per application launch.

I am using the dvbcore.dll from MT312 as I have been unable to locate the recommended version.

Any ideas? Has anyone seen this issue?

[Jkimmell]

I had similar results. I changed the following line to false (seeker/fast_mux_switch=false) in the sage.properties file. This setting seemed to help but channel changes are still a little buggy for me.

[foolio]

Originally Posted by jerhall

I have everything sort-of working with my dvb-s card. When i launch Sage and go to the guide, the first channel that i select is tuned properly and the picture & sound comes up properly. However, I cannot tune to another channel afterwards without exiting and restarting Sage. i can tune to any of the channels in the list, but only one channel change per application launch.

I am using the dvbcore.dll from MT312 as I have been unable to locate the recommended version.

Any ideas? Has anyone seen this issue?

Try "stop" command first and then change channel.. that should work. but not very useable especially for automated recordings.. oh well.. doesn't look like the guy who came up with this great solution is planning on updating it anymroe

[Bathman]

I think that it is about time DVB (particually T) was supported nativly within SAGETV.

The UK is certainly well on the way to using this as standard and I belive Germany is switching to this format within the next year.

[jerhall]

thanks for the suggestions. unfortunately i intalled sp2 and sage doesn't work at all now. i'll give your ideas a try when i get my computer back in order.

[foolio]

actually, with Jkimmel's suggestion - it's now working great for me! changes channel 100% without having to "stop/close" first. I even got dual DVB-S tuners working.. AWESOME!

[Bathman]

This is great news. Does it work 100% perfect - just like a PVR250?

Also is anyone prepaird to write out a 'How To' guide.

[Jkimmell]

Originally Posted by foolio

actually, with Jkimmel's suggestion - it's now working great for me! changes channel 100% without having to "stop/close" first. I even got dual DVB-S tuners working.. AWESOME!

Glad to see this is working for you.

Can you share your configuration? (DVB-S card types, Driver versions, dvbcore.dll version)

[foolio]

I'll post my configuration when I get home tonight. I'm going to schedule a bunch of various recordings overnight and see how it goes. but for live viewing with multiple clients, working just as well as a pvr250.

The only issues I have is when you load that SDVBCoreRecorder , it prompts you for a selection of which driver type you would like to load. This makes it so you can't automatically load the sdvbcorerecorder on windows startup without having to interact with it.

Once I get everything working the way I want, I'll post a How-To.

The only thing about this is, does sage serve up the mpeg stream as delivered by SDVBCORERECORDER? or does it try to re-encode the mpeg? I hope it's the former and that it is only serving the native mpeg stream and not degrading the signal by further re-encoding. if that is the case, then the quality/file size settings shouldn't ahve an effect right?

[AndersNolberger]

What message does SDVBCoreRecorder prompts with at startup. It should not do that. But as I have stated before I have not tried the modified version for DVB-S.

Sage is not reencoding anything. SDVBRecorder is saving the mpgeg file to disk and Sage is not changing this file in any way. So it is correct that the quality settinngs in Sage is not used at all.

I am interested in what cards you all are using. Are there BDA drivers available for them. I am thinking of writing a new verson of the recorder that use BDA but unfrotunately it would not support as many cards as DVBCore does. But I am not happy with the files created by DVBCore, they dont play nicely in all players. The tests I have done with BDA makes "better" mpeg files.

Also how many is interested in DVB support at all? Are there any users of my SDVBCoreRecorder?

If there are a DVB-S user in Linköping Sweden that is interested in helping make DVB support for Sage or a Delphi programming DVB-S user somewhere in the rest of the world, please contact me and I will se what I can do... But no promises at this time,

[Bathman]

Firstly Foollo thanks for willingness to write out a 'How to' guide.

And

Anders

I would expect a fair amount of interest in DVB support (pariculaly T) here in the UK. As in allows a significant increase in the number of (free) channels that can be received.

[jerhall]

with the seeker/fast_mux_switch=false change, channel change and LiveTV now works perfectly in the limited testing that I have done. Thanks for the assistance!

I have not yet tested scheduled recording, etc. I will try to do that sometime today and will report my findings.

The only issue I have is that when launching sdvbrecorder a dialog box pops up for hardware options (same as foolio's issue I assume). I am using a technotrend 1.5 card, and the dialog box asks for:
- Force Open
- use BOB
- use Softscaling

I am not sure how to set these to a default value so that the dialog box does not come up. I could probably use a windows script or a girder event to hit enter; something for another day.

My config:
SageTV 2.1_10
jre 1.4.2_6
MT312 dvbcore.dll (3/3/2004)
Technotrend 1.5 DVB-S, 2.17g driver
Windows XP, SP2

[taylormadearmy]

Also how many is interested in DVB support at all? Are there any users of my SDVBCoreRecorder?

Anders - I have been using SDVBrecorder for months now - with very few problems.

I reckon there are quite a few users here in the UK - but would be far more if set up was a little more straight forward - ie automatic tuning and no playing around with text files.

There really isn't a combination that works as well as Sage and SDVBreorder once it is set up, for use in the UK - I have tried (and purchased) many apps, though Sage is the one I use every day.

The only problems I have is that channel changing is rather slow (it can take a few seconds to change channel) and occaisinally it crashes on startup of Sage.

I really believe that many more people would use this in the UK if it matured a little.

Anyway - thanks for all the work you have done up till now - it is greatly appreciated.

[Bathman]

Taylormadearmy

Are you receiving DVB-T and if so what type of card do you use?


Regards

[peterjb]

After completing the SDVBRecorder mods to work in Oz, I've been preparing ( slowly ) an update that includes the following :

-Modify Tuning Handling routine/Cache TP details for quicker programme changes
-Provide ability to tune programme by Service ID
-Return Errors to SageTV via Network Encoder Protocol
-Add 'About' function to provide System Information and Status
-A switch to Open Source JVCL JvTrayIcon component for System Tray Icon

I'm hoping I'll have finished testing it by next week. I'll then get Anders to make the release available. Other than possibly looking at adding a UI for tuning ( I've got some skeleton code already working ) I probably won't be doing any further work on it, but will fix any bugs that you find. This is primarily due to Saar dropping support for 3rd party software based on DVBCore. The latest version of DVBCore no longer supports the interface that allows SDVBRecorder to currently function.

I've also been looking at BDA alternatives and there are a number of solutions that would fit into the current SDVBRecorder framework. The only issues I can really see are : A) Limited support/availability for DVB-S & DVB-C drivers B) the reliance on 3rd party mux filters to produce the mpeg file and C) The reported buginess of Microsofts PSI Parser. Of course if someone would like to port the mpegtools code from Linux that would be appreciated

Having said all that, I'd be happy to be a part of the said project if/when it eventuates.

Cheers

Peter

[foolio]

Man, that sounds great- too bad we don't have the similar experienced people working on the DVB-S side of the mod.

for the most part, all my scheduled recordings worked great. Two main issues:

1. about 5% failure rate in channel changes - ie, didn't change the channel = incorrect recording
2. difficulty with the DVB-S sdvbrecorder on initial load - I need to change to about 5 different channels, before it works and tune to the correct channel. Once it does, alls subsequent channel changes are smooth.
3. Doesn't handle suspend/wake gracefully. It crashes on waking from a suspend. And with the problem describe above, I'm just going to leave the server with the tuner running full-time.

I will post a How-To/FAQ and destribute to other DVB-S users - hopefully one will have the programming expertise to modify and improve on Yoja's and Ander's work.

All-in-all, I'm very pleased. I've converted my computer from Mytheatre to SageTV and plan to buying sageclients for my other computers.

Originally Posted by peterjb

After completing the SDVBRecorder mods to work in Oz, I've been preparing ( slowly ) an update that includes the following :

-Modify Tuning Handling routine/Cache TP details for quicker programme changes
-Provide ability to tune programme by Service ID
-Return Errors to SageTV via Network Encoder Protocol
-Add 'About' function to provide System Information and Status
-A switch to Open Source JVCL JvTrayIcon component for System Tray Icon

Peter

[taylormadearmy]

Originally Posted by Bathman

Are you receiving DVB-T and if so what type of card do you use?

Yup - Hauppauge Nova-T PCI

[CarlG]

Anders-speaking for myself, I would be very interested in DVB-S support, I use a Hauppage Nexus-S, and I pray every night that you will help us Lol
I wish I could help, but I'm green like grass when it comes to that kinda stuff. ProgDVB along with it's plugins works pretty good; but it sure is heck is no SageTV. If sage would work with DVB cards I could see the Sage sales skyrocketing right out the roof-I for one know at least 5 people that would get in on it right away.

Maybe I can help in another way; I'd be willing to paypal you a little $ donation for the DVB fund, considering I wouldn't really think it would be fair for you to go buy one JUST for the sake of helping us out. Just trying to help out however i can, if something like that would interest you feel free to let me know

-Carl