DTV 3250SD STB capture support via firewire / 1394 (1 Viewer)

ximmortal

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I'm still here and still willing to do some work.

I guess I can get started with tearing down VLC to see how it works and start looking at the MP guts to get familiar.

Changing gears here, but has anyone taken a look at the new ATI Wonder for Digital Cable? Looks like this would be a reasonable route, assuming that there is a recording capability. The spec for the ATI Wonder is a little vague regarding recording capabilities, i.e. can I just capture a .ts to the hard drive?

X
 

m0deth

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Unless you have a motherboard with an OCUR bios....you can forget getting that tuner to work, nevermind that you HAVE to use Vista, and even then, stories of getting these to work with the cable companies is tenuous at best, a complete waste of time/money at worst. You can thank MS, Hollywood, and Cable Labs for this DRM nightmare. These tuners are still subject to 5C encoding and thusly, even when you DO manage to get it to work, you may find it still won't record the show/movie you wish to. This product was designed to NEVER work with open source software, or even commercial software for that matter beyond VistaMCE.

I can help with any testing you need done.....my email is m0deth AT gmail.com, feel free to run ideas by me, any help I can provide, what limited it may be, will be forthcoming.

At this point, for the north american market, I'd stick to focusing on ATSC, QAM dig over cable unencrypted, DigSat cards and the like, oh, also, the HD Homerun....which seems to work dandy for alot of people for some unencrypted channels.

Tearing up VLC may not help, My guess is the maybe deconstructing the firestb.msi collection and figuring out how it talks to the guide and takes commands from MCE would be a better first step, if we can mimmick those to MP commands, then the TV3 engine might handle it. Once again, guesses on my part.

Hope this helps

thx

m0
 

ximmortal

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So I figured out how to use GraphEdt to make a working graph capturing and displaying via firewire.

I installed the HDTVPump TS filter from DVBPortal and things just work in GraphEdt.

I'm having some trouble figuring out what to do with the motorola.grf file, that I attached.

I started to add the device to the CaptureCardDefinitions.xml and I am getting the "Unable to load graph for this device!!" error. Obviously since I don't know how to make use of the grf file.

I'm probably barking up the wrong tree here. Can somebody help?
 

m0deth

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Um, the Cyberlink stream decoder wreaks havoc on my .ts files, no matter which card/device records them....this may be an issue, try to get the MPV/MPA decoder or dscaler working....that might be easier.
 

m0deth

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which 8200 is that?, DCP- or the QIP- model given to FiOS customers? once you are ready I can test on the QIP-6200 to see if it works.
 

ximmortal

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The Cyberlink decoder isn't a problem for me, but the MPV/MPA codecs work just as well.

Thanks madhoosier35. That was a useful link and helps describe some of the fields that I have been clueless about in the CaptureCardDefinitions.xml. Though, the device(s) for the Motorola DCT6412 that is presented to the Windows OS doesn't really match the DVB device or any other device defined in the CaptureCardDefinitions.xml.

The MPEG-2 Demultiplexer in the graph I have only has two pins {audio, video}. There is no mpeg2 and sectionsandtables pin or a capture interface, which I think is the real problem. The tunerdevice is the capture device, so what should the entry in CaptureCardDefinitions.xml look like? Here is my first cut:

<capturecard commercialname="Motorola DCT6412" capturename="Motorola AV/C Tuner Device" devid="motorola&amp;dct-6412&amp;typ_5&amp;id_0">
<capabilities tv="true" radio="false" mpeg2="true" mce="false" sw="false" bda="false"></capabilities>
<tv>
<interface cat="tunerdevice" video="2" audio="1" mpeg2=""></interface>
<filters>
<filter cat="tunerdevice" name="Motorola AV/C Tuner Device" checkdevice="false"></filter>
</filters>
<connections>
<connection sourcefilter="tunerdevice" sourcepin="0" sinkfilter="tunerdevice" sinkpin="0"></connection>
</connections>
</tv>
</capturecard>

The connections section doesn't really make any sense as there is no need for a connection, and I think MP throws exceptions without it. Also, given some trial and error, MP also doesn't like the fact that there isn't a capture filter defined. Maybe it is a simple as using the keyword capture instead of tunerdevice.
 

madhoosier35

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August 6, 2007
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I have no idea which 8200 I have, its the one Charter gives out to people who want HD, DCP I think. I passed on the Moxi due to the lack of 480P support with my TV (RCA MM36100, which only does 1080i with the OTA/Satellite receiver that matches the TV).

I haven't had the chance to even mess with the link I posted. I'll try it out most likely on Tuesday. Maybe I can get something going. Once I that working I'll post back. I need to install the firewire card in the MP TV Server first, then I can rock and roll with it. If I get a chace to play with it tonight or tomorrow I'll let you all know the results.

I wonder if we can mod firestb to work...I had it working in MCE, maybe it will do the same for MP......some many things to explore and too little time.
 

m0deth

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yeah, that was the general idea I had, as the firestb.msi is just an installation pacakage that uses the stb firewire drivers and automatically sets up MCE to control the box via firewire. DVHStool I believe is the record app in basic form which you can use on XP, I have it going on a QIP6200(HD box for FiOS, they use the 6412 for the dvr). It also has the little tray utility that monitors scheduled programs, that would have to be rewritten into the MP engine somehow I think tho.

what's cool is that you and I are already past that does it work at all stage with this and MCE...so we know how it's supposed to work. I fear getting the input into MP may be the easy part of this, scheduling and proper channel change support tied into a guide plugin will be the tough part. also writing the plugin like it is in MCE to capture from SVID when 5C is set to 1 or 2 instead of doing nothing would be good too, this way even if it does not record in HD, you'd have a DVD quality SD copy to watch at least.
 

madhoosier35

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August 6, 2007
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If I remember right, MCE can be configured to control the STB using a blaster as well as firewire. Its been a while since I had MCE and FireSTB working, so I am a little fuzzy. On the FireSTB web page it details how FireSTB works. MCE switches channels and starts a recording, FireSTB makes a request to the STB to send a 2nd recording over firewire. Then the MyTray app deletes the composite recording and saves the Firewire recording, assuming 5C doesn't get in the way. I wish I could program, maybe we can contact the original developer and seek his help in making work with MP.

The following is directly from here: http://home.comcast.net/~timmmoore/firewire/readme.htm

"What does it do?

When the MCE is using a STB, the MCE receives from the STB via the analogue tuner in the MCE. This video is SD composite or S-Video even if the show being received by the STB is in HD.

This package records from the STB in parallel to the MCE recording from the analogue tuner. It records from the STB via the firewire connection. This connection gives you a copy of what the STB receives, whether it is HD or SD.

The way the package works is that it monitors when MCE starts recording. It works out which tuner the MCE is using; from there it works out which firewire connection to use to talk to the correct STB. It then requests from the STB a 2nd copy of the show. This 2nd copy is put into a .dvr-ms file. When MCE stops the recording the firewire recording is also stopped. The meta-data in MCE recording is then copied into the firewire recording so the information such as Title, actors, etc. that MCE shows is also part of the firewire recording.


Once set up to use this package, there is little difference in using MCE. Recording is done using MCE as if you are recording as normal from a STB. The difference is you get a two recording for each show. If you only want one recording, see the FAQ for how to do this. You will always get 2 recordings during the recording of the show and you can stop the recording only via the MCE recording (the entry with the red mark).

If the show is protected with 5C=1 then recording via firewire fails and only the MCE recording exists. If the STB is a DCT-3412, SA3250HD, SA8000HD or SA8300HD and the show is analogue, there is no firewire recording."
 

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