713x (analog) (1 Viewer)

[sailort]

Giving up set it up to work... ;-(

My TV picture is still freezed on first (?) frame when previewing in setup and in MP itself.
After three weeks of fiddling with settings and digging source of problems, here are my observations and suggestions.

1. tv-server is recording into file (checked in MPC where I can play this file), but no way to play this within MP. I have also created manually a filter graph for reading this, and it worked).
2. quality of this recording is very poor (320x240) because there is no way how to set up properties for 713x BDA analog capture filter (which obviously set default values to 320x240 29.97) (anyone know how to change it within registry or somewhere? but this will be still just workaround, not a solution...)
3. no possibility to set parameters for other than intervideo encoder (I would like to use ATI mpeg encoder)

What I think, we will have a lot of troubles to get analog cards with SW encoding cards if we won't be able to specify filters for graph creations and their parameters for use within MP. I know there is some development of workaround ongoing, but I think, this should be treated really important (at least for us with those analog sw encoding cards with 713x).

This one problem is really a problem for me, which can prevent me to start using MP (I'm currently using no other sw, as my HTPC is just 3 week old, and I decided to use MP, which seems to be a really, really good piece of software)

I understand, that this feature(s) can make "general" setup of MP a little bit harder for regular users, but if implemented right, can help a lot of them (users).

I don't post any logs, because this is not a bug related, but rather architectural "flaw" in graph creation routines at least for analog cards with SW encoders. But if you will want to look at them, I can post it.

I made a lot of research within MP forum where a lot of people has these problems, but didn't find any solution, so if it exist, plase don't blame me, but point me to it.

Can anyone let me know, that if this feature will be possible in the feature?

Thanks for you attention and/or answers.

Regards

T.

just for info:
780G/4850w/4GB/Vista 32b/MP1RC1 (tried svn latest build also)

 

[ronilse]

Hi,
This is on it's way into TV Server setup, but will take some time since other things steel focus & we are in a feature freeze.
Have you tried setup your SW encoder in MediaPortal -> Configuration -> Encoder Filters(if i remember correct this will write the reg entries/filter)?

Regards
Roy

 

[sailort]

Hi Roy,

thanks for your reply. I'm glad to hear that this will appear (senses some indications in other posts too). I can't live without TV working in my HTPC ;-) Do we have some estimation when? (I understand priority in fixing other issues to final release).

Regarding encoder, yes, I have this option in MP setup, but only for Intervideo (I would like to use any encoder I choose [ATI]). What in this case is missing, is ability to setup all parameters of encoder (bitrate?...).
I don't see deeply into code of MP and TVE, but I don't think to have ability to call filter interfaces is really a hard problem. These should be part of .ax objects (COM). Internal configuration of encoders is I think overhead, as someone to need to code configuration pane which already exists within generic filter.

But problem is much more complex from what I see. We will have to able to setup parameters of other filters also (Analog capture, TV tuner, TV Audio, ...). Without this, we won't be able to set resolution and other parameters. To have working TV in MP but with 320x240 is as you have to agree with me a completely useless.

I would like to point to this problem, as have configuration of just some filters (encoders, muxers) is just half-way to success.

In my case (and I think in case of other users) configuration of MPEG encoder (A/V) and MPEG muxer isn't simply sufficient.

This should be considered during desing phase of filter configuration to not foget other implications other filters can have in picture quality and usability of TV feature.

Next, if we will able to configure whole filtergraph for capture we can for example make postprocessing on recording level (ffdshow deinterlace, denoise, sharpening, etc...) which seems to me quite reasonable.

Nextly, have to stick to just one recording format is also not perfect solution (yes, MPEG2 is standard). I can imagine better codecs/formats for recording (but yes, .ts stream is quite essential for timeshifting). What about MJPEG, DivX, DV? These can surely enhance quality of recording (on My 46" TV looks terrible, so one of reasons for me for HTPC was to have ability to postproccess anyway I like. MPEG2 artifacts on noisy analog without denoising it prior coding is horrible, unusable completely under 15Mbit).

But anyway, I have just one freezed picture during preview/playback, so some problems can lay also somewhere else (TSFileWriter (wrong TS stream if something into is missing - subtitles?), TSFileWriter (bad PID? missing substream? missing info? ...) and I'm unable to get at least "moving pictures".

If I only haven't left programming a years ago and if I have more time now, I could help, maybe... ;-(

T.

 

[misterd]

Hi,
first of all we have plans to improve the graph building and configuration options for analog cards. But the main problem is that we are in a feature-freeze for 1.0. So this won't be changed before the 1.0 release. Quality control was now only added, because we had it already for a long time on our list.

The TV-Server has atm a list of encoders that will be used as software encoders. These filters have a specific order and the intervideo filter is the first one in the list. I have created a patch for this, which can be found here:
https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/development-91/patch-improvements-analog-cards-33290/
With this patch you can define a priority for each encoder. But this patch won't be added to SVN, because we will use a different approach in the future.

The new quality control in TV-Server doesn't change any registry setting on your system. The TV-Server creates for each analog card a special configuration where the settings will be stored. The advantage of this is that the encoder can be changed and the same quality settings will still be applied to the new encoder. This is also the reason why you can't set bitrate in kBit/s. We don' use the configuration panes of the encoders, because not all encoders which support quality control have such a configuration pane.

I don't think that you will be able to use the configuration panes of the used filters in the future. But IIRC we had in the built-in TV-Engine of MP the possibility to set the resolution of the video. It might be added to TV-Server when we increase the graph building process after 1.0. You can find more informations about the planned changes for analog tv here: https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/development-91/planning-improvements-analog-cards-33630/

Regards
MisterD

 

[sailort]

Hi MisterD,

thanks for your reaction. I am aware of both threads of you notice and I really appreciate your contribution to this problem. I have already tried your patch and as it helped me to change used encoders, I had still problems with freezed and low resolution. Also adding option to select muxer would be really nice.

I'm not trying to argue, but approach to not have access to configuration panes is really bad decision (well, that's just an opinion). Resolution settings you mention is in MP config, but completely useless in running graph, because encoder at input pin receives video stream from previous filter, and if this filter (BDA Analog Capture) is presenting only 320x240, setting PAL in IV encoder settings can't help. Same with framerate. Next question is, what "High quality" in settings will mean? I'm really "a quality hunter" wherever I can, and even 8Mbit for analog TV isn't for me.

If there won't be any chance to set configuration parameters for these filters in MP (and it most probably won't be possible as you decided not to use "generic" setups I'm afraid, that write some other config panes for all different cards will be impossible) we will have to stick with defaults, and this is not good. I would definitely don't want to lose ability to tweak every offered encoder setting. Differences with encoders in these option makes me deciding which one to use (quality taken into account also).

I can't avoid raise this question (please, don't take it personally, really), which common encoders which we can use these days doesn't have these configuration panes?


Thank guys for your attention.

T.

 

[misterd]

Hi,
it will be possible to change many things in the graph after 1.0. This will also include the encoders/muxer etc.

A reason for not using the configuration panes of the filter is also that the configuration program doesn't have access to the filter atm. The whole graph handling etc. is completely done in the service. We try to make everything as simple as possible for the normal user. Also I'm not talking about the Intervideo encoder settings in MP. In MP you can define the frame size in the configuration dialog of an analog card.

There are interfaces for the filters of the card itself (tuner, capture, ...) which can be used to set the configuration options that are available for those filters. So we don't have to implement a configuration pane for each card. And there are also standard interfaces for the encoders which we are using now. Currently we have only implemented the one for video encoders. As already mentioned each encoder can have its own minimum and maximum bitrate, so we don't use exact bitrates in the configuration. When you choose "High" in the configuration, than the TV-Server will set the bitrate to the maximum value that is reported by the encoder itself. For example the M$ MPEG2 Video encoder which is included in Vista doesn't have a configuration pane but supports the interface which we are using. This filter can't be used with TV-Server atm, because it isn't in the internal list of supported encoders, but I think that it can be used in the future.

I understand that there users that want to control every possible option, but this makes it also more complicated for us to understand what is happening on the system when we get bug reports.

BTW: I had a look at the code and there is already some code which sets the frame size to 720x576 (640x480) on the capture filter. Unfortunately it will be only used with HW-encoder cards atm. When I have some time I will check if we can use it for software encoder cards too.

MisterD

 

[zdeny]

BTW: I had a look at the code and there is already some code which sets the frame size to 720x576 (640x480) on the capture filter. Unfortunately it will be only used with HW-encoder cards atm. When I have some time I will check if we can use it for software encoder cards too.

Hi MisterD,
do you thing that now(or in near future) -after the 1.0 was recently released- will be the option for resolution change for SW-encoder cards implemented ? (or even hardcoded to 720x576).
For me (and my card ) it is a biggest problem by using MP's client-(tv)server architecture...

Regards
Zdeny

 

[misterd]

Hi,
the features are on our internal roadmap, but as I don't know atm when I have time for it, it isn't in mantis already. There are some other modifications needed before this will be implemented.

MisterD