Hauppauge HD-PVR & Colossus Support (4 Viewers)

[ehfortin]

Hi,

I've read most if not all of this thread while doing the installation for 1.2 beta with HDPVR. I would say that based on the first post, most of the process went fine. Like some others have said, there was some part that are far from being evidence but in the end, I now have a setup that is giving me EPG, is able to record show and changing channel on the STB with the Hauppauge IR Blaster.

Now, the interesting part is that I can't do live TV neither can I play recorded TV on my client (didn't tried on the server, it is a headless box). I've recorded the news yesterday and I was able to play the .TS on Win7 directly without issue. However, if I try to play it from MediaPortal Client, it just seems to hang there for a few seconds and then come back with nothing. Based on the logs, lot of activities are going on in the backend but it just doesn't seems to complete. As an additional test, I've copied the recorded .TS to my video folder and it was able to play but without sound.

So, in short, here is what is working and what is not:

EPG: Yes
Channel changing on STB: Yes
Scheduled recording: Yes
Live TV: No
MPEG2 Video: Yes
H264 through Video (as recorded with HDPVR): Image but no sound
Music: Yes
H264 through Win7 directly (as recorded with HDPVR): Yes

I'm including some logs I've done this morning. I'm not sure they are fully representative of this as I had issue with the "No Channel/Program" but I figured it was because of the PMT timeout that I had put back to 5 seconds. I now changed it to 20 seconds and I'm not getting the "No video/audio" which is strange as I did record a show from the same channel and it has sound. Yesterday at night, I saw some log that were saying "Video and Audio recognized in 0.024 sec" or something like it so it seems I may have lost sound after the reboot I've done this morning.

At least, it may give some hint on why I'm unable to play a recorded show as I tested this as well in this log set.

Hopefully it will talk to you as I'm not fully aware of what I'm supposed to understand from the log.

Thank you for your time.

ehfortin

 

[mm1352000]

Hi and welcome to the forum ehfortin

Firstly I would suggest that you change the pause/stop mode for the HDPVR to stop mode. You can do that from the tuner list in TV Server configuration under "TV Servers" -> "xppro". Select the HDPVR from the list and click "edit", then under "adv. tuning options" select "stop card (more compatible)". Hopefully that should kick live TV into gear.

Regarding playback of recordings without audio: I'd say that you have some codec issues there. What have you got set as the audio codecs in MediaPortal configuration in the TV tab of the "codecs and renderer" section?

mm

 

[ehfortin]

I'll have a look at the option you are mentionning. I remember I saw this while looking around but figured the default was fine.

For the playback, I'm pretty sure I've used the Microsoft codec for just about everything except the AAC that I left at the default value (sorry, can't remember the name right now). I'll look into this tonight and will try all the option. Is there any option to have the client use the "default" codec? I know there is no such thing but by "default" I mean the one that WMP is using which are based on the codec with the highest merit I think?

Do you know if the HDPVR is the one handling the audio encoding based on what it detect (AC3 vs AAC) or if it has anything to do with MediaPortal? As it is a hardware encoder, I would assume it is handling that part and only sending the stream to MediaPortal to be written on disk but I may be wrong.

Thank you.


ehfortin

 

[mm1352000]

Hi Henry

My apologies for the delayed response. I have done some investigation and I believe the problem is down to something on your local system. Did you install a MC plugin or something for the Colossus?

wilee: I take it your system doesn't detect a "hauppauge hd pvr software tuner" device in the BDA tuner category?

mm

 

[mm1352000]

For the playback, I'm pretty sure I've used the Microsoft codec for just about everything except the AAC that I left at the default value (sorry, can't remember the name right now). I'll look into this tonight and will try all the option.

Right, that may explain things, because unfortunately the Microsoft audio decoder doesn't support AC3/DD in anything other than MC. It is a licensing thing. You could try installing FFDShow or AC3Filter (I use AC3Filter, but I also have FFDShow installed and can recommend both) for MPEG/AC3 audio...

Is there any option to have the client use the "default" codec? I know there is no such thing but by "default" I mean the one that WMP is using which are based on the codec with the highest merit I think?

For video there is. Just tick the "automatic decoder settings" option on the video codecs tab. I'm not sure if that applies to TV codecs though...

Do you know if the HDPVR is the one handling the audio encoding based on what it detect (AC3 vs AAC) or if it has anything to do with MediaPortal? As it is a hardware encoder, I would assume it is handling that part and only sending the stream to MediaPortal to be written on disk but I may be wrong.

Correct - the HDPVR does the encoding and TV Server just takes it as-is.

mm

 

[WileECoyote]

@WileE: I take it your system doesn't detect a "hauppauge hd pvr software tuner" device in the BDA tuner category?

mm

No, it doesnt. It only detects the Crossbar device(s).

 

[ehfortin]

Hi,

Hi and welcome to the forum ehfortin

Firstly I would suggest that you change the pause/stop mode for the HDPVR to stop mode. You can do that from the tuner list in TV Server configuration under "TV Servers" -> "xppro". Select the HDPVR from the list and click "edit", then under "adv. tuning options" select "stop card (more compatible)". Hopefully that should kick live TV into gear.

Regarding playback of recordings without audio: I'd say that you have some codec issues there. What have you got set as the audio codecs in MediaPortal configuration in the TV tab of the "codecs and renderer" section?
mm

I've done some testing. Yes, changing the codecs fixed the issue for the videos. I now have audio and video.

Looking at Recorded TV, I got it once but never did since. As it worked at least this one time, I assume the codecs are OK. They are the same as for the Videos which work on the same file.

Regarding direct tv, the backend definitely works as it create files live3-0.xx.ts and it keep adding some until I changed to another activity (playing music, video, etc). As soon as I change activity, the files are erased.

I'm including the logs for both the server and the client. I started with empty logs and then, I did "watch" channel 2 (got the blue light and no error message but no image/sound), then went to "Recorded TV" where after a few seconds, it just did nothing but returned the control to me and then, I went to the video and watch a file for a few seconds before stopping it.

So, those are the testings based on "standard" setup.

I tried to use UNC for my recording/timeshifting folder and it doesn't seems to work. I always get an error saying that the MultiFileWriter (or something like it, don't remember the exact name) is not having enough space. I have a few TB available so I know it is not the issue. However, if I select the "quota" option, I can't see my UNC in the select box which seems to indicate it is not recognizing this. If I use a local drive, I can record, set a quota, etc. What is the story with UNC? Based on my search, it is supposed to work but I guess there may be some issue or trick to do that I didn't found.

Another thing is that everything is VERY SLOW. It take about 30-45 seconds to create the live.ts file when I'm trying to watch a channel. Just to change channel, it can take easily 15 seconds and I know my STB is faster then that (have 100ms configured in the Hauppauge IR blaster tool and it just switch channel that fast). When I select a recorded TV to watch, it take about 12-15 seconds before I can move the select bar again.

I'm wondering if it is because of the slow speed to react that I may have some issue with streaming? It certainly doesn't make sense that it is that slow, both my server and client are based on Quad Core 2. The videos are playing fine so it seems to indicate that server, client, network (1 Gbps) and just about everything is fast enough to support that kind of load.

If you have any suggestions/tips/hints, it would be appreciated.

Thank you.

ehfortin

 

[mm1352000]

Hi again

I've done some testing. Yes, changing the codecs fixed the issue for the videos. I now have audio and video.

Great.

Looking at Recorded TV, I got it once but never did since. As it worked at least this one time, I assume the codecs are OK. They are the same as for the Videos which work on the same file.

Um, so are you saying there is a difference between attempting to play *the same file* from the recorded TV section and the videos section?

Regarding direct tv, the backend definitely works as it create files live3-0.xx.ts and it keep adding some until I changed to another activity (playing music, video, etc). As soon as I change activity, the files are erased.

That is expected behaviour - we delete timeshifting files after TV is stopped.

I tried to use UNC for my recording/timeshifting folder and it doesn't seems to work. I always get an error saying that the MultiFileWriter (or something like it, don't remember the exact name) is not having enough space. I have a few TB available so I know it is not the issue. However, if I select the "quota" option, I can't see my UNC in the select box which seems to indicate it is not recognizing this. If I use a local drive, I can record, set a quota, etc. What is the story with UNC? Based on my search, it is supposed to work but I guess there may be some issue or trick to do that I didn't found.

Sorry, no idea about UNC.

Another thing is that everything is VERY SLOW. It take about 30-45 seconds to create the live.ts file when I'm trying to watch a channel. Just to change channel, it can take easily 15 seconds and I know my STB is faster then that (have 100ms configured in the Hauppauge IR blaster tool and it just switch channel that fast).

I can certainly see some sluggish stuff in the logs:

2011-07-13 14:48:16.640625 [(16)]: TimeShifter.OnAfterTune: resetting audio/video time

2011-07-13 14:48:23.593750 [Remote blaster(12)]: HCWBlaster: Finished Changing channels: 2

2011-07-13 14:48:23.593750 [Remote blaster(12)]: ServerBlaster:Send Finished

2011-07-13 14:48:24.593750 [(14)]: HDPVR: OnPMTReceived() subch:0 pid 0x100

That is the wait for PMT to be received from the device. I don't think there is too much that can be done about that, although you'd have to confirm with the others (I'm not sure if it is normal as I don't have a device myself).

The other and larger delay is:

2011-07-13 14:48:24.625000 [(16)]: analog: Encoder mode setting to ConstantBitRate

2011-07-13 14:48:27.984375 [(16)]: analog: Encoder mode set to ConstantBitRate

2011-07-13 14:48:27.984375 [(16)]: analog: Encoder BitRate setting to Default

2011-07-13 14:48:27.984375 [(16)]: analog: Encoder BitRate Min 200000 Max 13500000 Delta 100000

2011-07-13 14:48:41.843750 [(16)]: analog: Encoder BitRate set to 9000000

That is almost certainly not normal. I'd say that you need to set your quality settings properly. That can be done in TV Server configuration on the quality control tab for the device (shown -->here<--).

I'm wondering if it is because of the slow speed to react that I may have some issue with streaming? It certainly doesn't make sense that it is that slow, both my server and client are based on Quad Core 2. The videos are playing fine so it seems to indicate that server, client, network (1 Gbps) and just about everything is fast enough to support that kind of load.

As explained above, the issues are with waiting for PMT (program map table - tells MP what video and audio streams are available) and setting the encoder parameters. Your system speeds specs have very little to do with this...

The final thing I notice is that MediaPortal is only inserting an audio codec when you try to view the stream. This will be the cause of the no video problem for live TV:

2011-07-13 19:49:30.237828 [Info.][MPMain(1)]: TSReaderPlayer play:rtsp://xppro:554/4EACDEED radio:False

2011-07-13 19:49:30.239828 [Info.][MPMain(1)]: TSReaderPlayer: live tv

2011-07-13 19:49:30.241828 [Info.][MPMain(1)]: TSReaderPlayer: Enabling DX9 exclusive mode

2011-07-13 19:49:30.243828 [Info.][MPMain(1)]: TSReaderPlayer:play rtsp://xppro:554/4EACDEED

2011-07-13 19:49:30.244828 [Info.][MPMain(1)]: TSReaderPlayer: GetInterfaces()

2011-07-13 19:49:30.249829 [Info.][MPMain(1)]: DirectShowUtils: First try to insert new audio renderer Default DirectSound Device 

2011-07-13 19:49:30.251829 [Info.][MPMain(1)]: DirectShowUtils: Found audio renderer

2011-07-13 19:49:30.253829 [Debug][MPMain(1)]: DirectShowUtils: added filter:Default DirectSound Device to graph

2011-07-13 19:49:30.271830 [Info.][MPMain(1)]: TSReaderPlayer: Add TsReader to graph

2011-07-13 19:49:30.273830 [Info.][MPMain(1)]: TSReaderPlayer: Open file: rtsp://xppro:554/4EACDEED

2011-07-13 19:49:35.446126 [Info.][MPMain(1)]: TSReaderPlayer: Add codecs

2011-07-13 19:49:35.449126 [Info.][MPMain(1)]: Added filter: MPC - MPA Decoder Filter to graph

2011-07-13 19:49:35.452126 [Info.][MPMain(1)]: TSReaderPlayer: Render TsReader outputs

2011-07-13 19:49:35.481128 [Debug][MPMain(1)]: Check graph connections for: Default DirectSound Device

2011-07-13 19:49:35.484128 [Debug][MPMain(1)]: Check graph connections for: MPC - MPA Decoder Filter

2011-07-13 19:49:35.486128 [Debug][MPMain(1)]: Check graph connections for: TsReader

This is the second time I've seen this recently with a Colossus/HDPVR setup (first time -->here<--), and I'm starting to wonder if there is a code problem here. I'm in a really difficult position because as much as I want to help, I have no ability to test with an HDPVR/Colossus *and* I only have one computer so I can't test streaming.

@everyone: does anyone have an HDPVR or Colossus working with a multiseat setup? Alternatively, has anyone else had problems with a multiseat setup?

mm

 

[GoldenEye]

@everyone: does anyone have an HDPVR or Colossus working with a multiseat setup? Alternatively, has anyone else had problems with a multiseat setup?

mm

Yes, I randomly face the same issue with my Colossus, mostly after waking my media center from standby. By now, I was not able to identify a pattern, though, and I asdumed this might be codec-related.

G.

 

[op48mo1]

Hi Henry

My apologies for the delayed response. I have done some investigation and I believe the problem is down to something on your local system. Did you install a MC plugin or something for the Colossus?

wilee: I take it your system doesn't detect a "hauppauge hd pvr software tuner" device in the BDA tuner category?

mm

Thanks for the reply. I did initially try installing the Windows Media Center drivers. I don't know anything about WMC; it looks like it only supports Live TV, not video capture, so I gave up on it. I then tried MediaPortal with the results I posted earlier.

I figured the problem might have something to do with WMC, so I disabled what looked like the related services (didn't help). I can't get to the machine right now, but tonight I'll see if I can do a better job of scrubbing. A fresh OS install is not out of the question, as I just configured this computer for the living room.

Thanks again for the input.

-Henry