Universal Network Encoder (1.0.10 - Mars 20)

[AndersNolberger]

Originally Posted by naln

Hi,
The download link is not working for me. Could you please check the link/ server again.
Thanks.

I dont see anything wrong on the server and I have logs indicationg others downloading at about the same time as your post. Strange...

Anders

[naln]

Originally Posted by AndersNolberger

I dont see anything wrong on the server and I have logs indicationg others downloading at about the same time as your post. Strange...

Anders

Dunno what was wrong either- was able to download it successfully a little later- maybe some goof up on my end. Thanks for looking into it anyways-

[Kirby]

I've read this whole thread and several other encoder threads, and have a question. I have a few untis (cable STB and Dish STB) that have R5000 modifications. I am aware of timmmoore's efforts in the MCE world to get a working interface for the r5000, but I am not sure he is actively working on it anymore.

My question is, is there a way to use the UNE to send a TS file as its source (and not a tuner)? The r5000 folks have not written directshow filters yet, and probably arent going to. Furthermore, I didnt see any sort of Video Capture device filter or anything related to the r5000 in the filters menu.

My thought was, maybe take the r5000 and have it output a static file name (say dump.ts) and then use UNE in some way to send that back to Sage. Could something like this be done (or is already done) and have a control app written to start/stop the dump file, so that it doesnt grow forever, but rather would purge itself after each viewing of live tv or recording. I t would mean a few seconds added to a channel change, but I would think it could work. Anyway, its just whats been running through my mind since I got the firewire cable box thing going last night. I really want to get my other HD sources tied into Sage, and use its guide/recording capabilities as a single UI.

To further explain, one of my R5000's is a DCT-2224 cable box. My thought was to use the DCT-2000 plugin for control, but need someway to deal with the TS file that is being captured from it. Another option might be to use the R5000's built in output option to DVHS over 1394. I dont know if that could be made to work, but it does have the option to record directly to DVHS rather than disc, and uses ISO standard TS files. The question I would have is whether the DVHS commands sent over 1394 would interfere, or actually might be of use.

[ARMYB77]

This may be a little off topic but I was wondering if someone can create a script that will allow someone to change channels on their cable box Via USB? I know I can hook up a Keyboard to the Cable Box and change channels that way, so is it possible to create a driver for a USB port that will act like a keyboard to the Cable box, and then send commands via that dedicated port?

I know that USB is Host/Device dependent so I believe that making a driver to act like a keyboard device to the Host Cable box would work. But I’m no programmer.

If someone could help me out on this I’m sure it would be very beneficial to everyone.

If there is no chance in this ever working then I would like some feedback as to why this isn't feasible?

Thanks

Armyb77

P.S. I use SageTV 2.2

[potpiejimmy]

Originally Posted by deanm

Hi

Can UNA be setup to use Ethernet instead of IEEE-1394. I use a DBox2 STB and it can record via ethernet to a share on a pc. Would like to set Sage up to use this as an encoder.

Thanx

Hi deanm,

I'm currently working on a new network encoder for sage to support recording from a DBOX2. It will use udrec to stream the TS data over the ethernet.

I don't think you can use UNE because it receives its data by some sort of directx capture device (thru a user-defined graphedit graph) and you don't have that. Well, actually there IS a company that sells a directx input filter for the dbox2, but I don't trust it to be as good as a direct udrec streaming to a file - and it's also not free.

[Nightrader_]

Hello All,

I have been trying to get SageTV to work with my STB-PCITV card as a second tuner with out success (problem telling SageTV to use CD_IN instead of LineIn).
My last adventure has been with SGR. I downloaded SGR, built a graph, and all was good except for three issues.
1) No Tuning, no problem, dl'ed src and added code to support internel tuning using the IAMTVTuner interface. (works great).
2)Graph has mpeg file locked while recording, ??? can't watch live TV from SGR, no problem, I don't usualy watch live TV anyway, but will need to fix sooner or later.
3) The Big One, Audio/Video sync problem, if I manually set the properties of the SageTV Video Encoding filter (apparently Graphedit does'nt save these settings to the graph file.) then sync is perfect.

So how do I change these properties in code? I have looked through the MSDN docs, searched Google and I am unable to figure out how to change these setting in code. I have plenty of examples of how to display the properties page for the filter. But nothing to show how to change the settings without user intervention. If I can figure this out then I can add code to support the diffrent quality settings for the recording.
This code should support any software encoder with small changes to the graph to accomidate the hardware.

If someone has any info that might point me in the right direction, please post it.

Thanks,
Nightrader

[AndersNolberger]

What file writer filter do you use. If you use the SBDARecorderDump the file should not be locked.

How to set parameters on the filter depends on what you want to set. I have some code here that is used in an application to control a web camera. The code sets the video mode of the capture, I don't know if that is what you are trying to do. It is also possible that I did not cut out all nedded parts of the program. The code uses DSPack:

FilterGraph: TFilterGraph;
Filter: TFilter;
SysDev: TSysDevEnum;
VideoMediaTypes: TEnumMediaType;

...

VideoMediaTypes := TEnumMediaType.Create;
SysDev:= TSysDevEnum.Create(CLSID_VideoInputDeviceCategory);


Filter.BaseFilter.Moniker := SysDev.GetMoniker(Parameters.CameraSettings.CameraIndex);
FilterGraph.Active := true;
PinList := TPinList.Create(Filter as IBaseFilter);
VideoMediaTypes.Assign(PinList.Items[0]);
with (PinList.Items[0] as IAMStreamConfig) do
if VideoMediaTypes.Count > Parameters.CameraSettings.VideoMode then
SetFormat(VideoMediaTypes.Items[Parameters.CameraSettings.VideoMode].AMMediaType^);
PinList.Free;

Anders

[Nightrader_]

Originally Posted by AndersNolberger

What file writer filter do you use. If you use the SBDARecorderDump the file should not be locked.

I will add that filter into my graph, (I had taken it out because SGR complained about "more than one dump filter", but I have since changed the code that locates the dump filter).

Originally Posted by AndersNolberger

How to set parameters on the filter depends on what you want to set. I have some code here that is used in an application to control a web camera. The code sets the video mode of the capture, I don't know if that is what you are trying to do. It is also possible that I did not cut out all nedded parts of the program. The code uses DSPack:

Thanks for the snippet. That looks like it might be close to what I want to do. Let me explain better. In Graphedit, if you start a new graph, insert filter "SageTV MPEG Video Encoder", Right click the filter and select "Filter Properties", those (all greyed out unless you connect pins of filter) are the settings I want to change from within my code.

Thanks again for the help.!!.
Nightrader

[Nightrader_]

I fear this might be a clue on how to change a filter's properties (copied from the SGR source), I would guess this changes the 'ActiveMovieGraph' property of the Graphbuilder using the IPersistStream interface. I'm guessing something like this is req. for changing the properties I want to change.

function TfrmMain.LoadGraphFile(GraphBuilder: IGraphBuilder; GraphName: string): HRESULT;
var
  Storage: IStorage;
  PersistStream: IPersistStream;
  Stream: IStream;
  hr: HRESULT;
  WGraphName: array [0..1024] of WideChar;
begin
  StringToWideChar(GraphName, WGraphName, SizeOf(WGraphName));
  if (S_OK <> StgIsStorageFile(WGraphName)) then
  begin
    Result := E_FAIL;
    Exit;
  end;
  hr := StgOpenStorage(WGraphName, nil,
      STGM_TRANSACTED or STGM_READ or STGM_SHARE_DENY_WRITE,
      nil, 0, Storage);
  if (FAILED(hr)) then
  begin
    Result := hr;
    Exit;
  end;
  PersistStream := nil;
  hr := GraphBuilder.QueryInterface(IPersistStream, PersistStream);
  if (SUCCEEDED(hr)) then
  begin
    Stream := nil;
      hr := Storage.OpenStream('ActiveMovieGraph', nil,
          STGM_READ or STGM_SHARE_EXCLUSIVE, 0, Stream);
      if(SUCCEEDED(hr)) then
      begin
          hr := PersistStream.Load(Stream);
      end
  end;
  Result := hr;
end;

[theriffmaster]

I can't get sage to display video from my usb camera, i just see the 'sage hourglass' (However, It does sucessfully record the video to the file specified in the graph) I have tried all kinds of filters in graphedit, and cannot seem to find the correct ones.

Could somebody who has had success with setting up a usb camera please post a graph file that is working for them, so that I can try it? (and if there are any special filters, let me know where i can find them)

I searched through the posts, but i couldn't find the example that i am looking for... sorry in advance if there already is an example.

[theriffmaster]

hmm... I guess that it was never meant to be... I will resort to using a separate service for monitoring the webcam...

[AndersNolberger]

I am not using any USB camera but I have heard reports of others getting it to work. So it should be possible!

Anders

[AndersNolberger]

New version. See first post

Anders

[dvsing]

Originally Posted by AndersNolberger

New version. See first post

Anders

Great! Thanks for fixing the negative file size bug =)

-Dan

[AndersNolberger]

I made a mistake when updating my homepage soo some of you might still be running 1.0.9.

Download the files and copy only the exe file to your install directory for the latest version.

Anders

[duwrt]

I've been working thru the "STB Firewire (IEEE-1394) Support" thread on how to record and playback HD and I've hit a snag. Specifically, I'm using the condensed instruction posted by Bohica (#831).

So far, I can view the HD channels thru FW using VLC media player.

The problem I'm having is with GraphEdit. I've gone thru the steps to register the .dll file, but for whatever reason, I can't see the SBDARecorderDump filter.

I've tried registering the file several times to no avail. Any ideas what I can do to make sure the filter is properly registered.

Thanks

[korben_dallas]

What would prevent the network encoder from showing up in SageTV as a new source?

1. Graph works fine, and I'm using SageTV's mpg file writer.
2. SageTV completely shut down before making properties changes
3. No debug msgs in networkencoder
4. Entries in properties files are unaffected by SageTV starting and stopping. First time, it resorted them, but did not remove them.
5. Set network encoding discovery=true, and made sure I unblocked the exe from the firewall. Not sure if either of these matter, since the network encoder is on the server.
6. Tried IP address with and without slash.

Still, no new source is showing up in SageTV when I click on Add New Source?

[gkearneyca]

1. korben_dallas: did you ever resolve the issue? Mine seems identical
2. Anyone else, any suggestions on what to try next?
3. Is there a way to determine whether sgraphrecorder is actually instantiating the graph?


Background:

I am currently hooking a web cam to be added.

Like korben this what has happened so far:

1. Graph works fine.
logitech quickcam fusion --> (vidin) SageTVMpegEncoder
logitech microphone --> (auin) SageTVMegEncoder

2. Testing within GraphEdit. File is created & can be viewed.

3. SageProperties file is updated per thread - that is updating the network address/ort.

4. network encoding discovery=true.

Thanks
gk

[heffe2001]

Lately I've noticed that alot of stuff I record via the UNE has bad headers. I'm using it for firewire capture from a Motorola box, and it looks like it's possibly starting the dump in the middle of a frame, and Sage has problems playing it back. I can run the recorded file through mpeg2repair and it fixes the header, then Sage plays the file just fine. Does the UNE do any sort of sanity checks to make sure it's starting at the beginning of a frame, or would that be something you'd have to do some way in the graph you're loading?

I am currently using the included dump filter straight from the capture device, no other processing (as a matter of fact, if I try to do any processing at all, it usually results in my box restarting), and have about a 50/50 chance of it producing good output.

At first I thought it was a 5c problem, but after running a few of the bad files through the repair program, I noticed a pattern for every one:

MPEG2Repair: D:\SageTV.PVR\HigherDefinition-7184511-0.mpg


Sequence Frame 0(0-X) / Time 0:00:00 :
Error: Packet at file offset 376912 has no TS Sync Byte

Sequence Frame 867(2-I) / Time 0:00:28 :
VideoError: Invalid Huffman code in intra MPEG2 block. MBA=831(1776,96)
VideoError: Failed to decode macroblock at MBA=831(1776,96)
VideoError: Missing 7330 macroblocks in picture slice(s) at MBA=830(1760,96).
FileInfo: Last video errors span 73 bytes at file offset 60929975

Sequence Frame 868(2-I) / Time 0:00:28 :
Info: End of MPEG2 sequence

Sequence Summary:

File Size Processed: 58.11 MB, Play Time: 00h:00m:28s
1920 x 1080, 29.97 fps, 25.00 Mbps (14.58 Mbps Average).
Average Video Quality: 59.19 KB/Frame, 0.23 Bits/Pixel.
AC3 Audio: 3/2 Channels (L, C, R, SL, SR) + LFE, 48.0 kHz, 384 kbps.
Dialog Normalization: -26.0 dB, Center Mix Level: -3.0 dB, Surround Mix Level: -3.0 dB
1 of 868 video frames found with errors.
0 of 902 audio frames found with errors.
73 corrupted video bytes in file.
0.000000 seconds of video timestamp gaps.
0.000000 seconds of audio timestamp gaps.

End of Log

[crmartin]

Has anyone found a solution to use the network encoder with an ethernet or wireless g webcam? I'm looking to mount a camera in a remote location, so a usb connected camera would not work. I'm not sure whether or not there is a method to get an ip addressable camera into graphedit, but seems feasible.

If there is no easy solution, then I may try a wireless camera, and an additional component video input into sage. It would just take more hardware, and I'm not sure if the wireless camera can reach the distance.

Thanks,

Craig