initial support for Hauppuage HD-PVR (4 Viewers)

[sjeffrey]

Yea, I may wait for the next release to upgrade. There are a few guys having issues with their Schedules Direct account, and I dont feel like reaching into that can of worms... Which reminds me, Ixian, were you going to build the 1.1a Shedules Direct that Patrick posted against the latest SVN? Or maybe you did and I missed it?

What's the issue with SD?
I'm asking because I had problems last night with 4TR and SD, I thought I was either crazy or something had changed on he 4TR side. Maybe it had to do with MP and SD.
My problem was that my channels in MP are using {number} {callsign} while 4TR seems to use station name. None of my channels were linked to guide channels anymore. I don't know at what point this happened since I had only been using 4TR for a few days. In the end I used a SQL script to link the externalID with the xmltvID and I got everything back to normal.

 

[WileECoyote]

Hey sjeffrey,
Jump over to the SD forum and read the last few pages and you will see what I was referring to.

 

[sjeffrey]

I'm not sure what I did (again) but now I can't get TV to work.
It's a graph problem. The 2 suspected things are my upgrade to MP 1.0.2 and then uninstalling Arcsoft TME.
I know I probably shouldn't of done that, but I wanted to know if it had to be there or not.
Short answer is yes. So I reinstalled TME and got timeshifting working again.
Now my graph issue is I can't get a working image in MP.
If I look at the built graph I have all my codecs there and most of them unlinked.
I usually just have TME and SAF installed and never had problems.
I did read that there seems to be issues with TSReader and H.264 but following the advice of using PDVD codecs didn't help.

Can anyone post what their graph is? What codecs are installed?

Thanks!

 

[ixian]

Arcsoft and more Arcsoft. Which is sad, because the Arcsoft codecs kind of suck, especially with Hardware acceleration turned on.

MPC w/ DVXA is a no go, there's a problem with the TV Client in general regarding that (I think just with h.264).

CoreAVC works, and would be my preferred solution, but I have major lipsync problems on every PC I've tried it on with that. It doesn't matter what audio codec I use, even the Arcsoft one, it goes in and out of sync. That's the real annoying part - it's not consistantly ahead or behind (which I might be able to find a way around) but variable.

I'm considering giving the Reclock driver a try to see if that helps.

In the meantime, only Arcsoft codecs have worked well for me, and that's what I use now. If there's a way to use different codecs without sync issues I'm all ears.

 

[chesh]

For TV, here's my breakdown of codecs: MPEG-2= Cyberlink Video/SP Decoder (PDVD9), h.264= Cyberlink H.264/AVC Decoder (PDVD8), MPEG/AC3= Arcsoft Audio Decoder HD, AAC= MONOGRAM AAC Decoder, Audio Rendered= Default Directsound Device. I have SAF, TME, and PDVD 8 (for Blu-Ray) installed. Hope that helps.

Side question for those of you that purchased / setup the USB-UIRT. Is the only plugin you need for that to work with your MP setup is IRSS? I just ordered one today and I want to make sure I have everything ready for when it arrives. Also, how hard with 4TR to setup? Did you use the SD plugin that they provide? I heard that it's not working that great with 1.0.2, but I haven't updated yet anyway. Just hoping for any insight you guys can give. Thanks again.

 

[sjeffrey]

Thanks chesh I'll try to setup like your machine.

IRSS is the only thing required aside from the USB driver.
I used the hauppauge remote because my other remote is a JP1 remote and didn't like the layout as MCE type remote. The wierd thing about hauppauge is that each button alternates between 2 codes consistently.
IRSS was a little confusing to setup. You'll need to teach it your STB codes through the TVServer plugin.
For MP, I think if you use MCE remote it should just work as it has a "Virtual Asbtract Mode" or something like that which recognizes MCE remotes. IRSS installs a lot of little apps, the primary ones is the Server config, where you'll choose USB-UIRT and the Virtual Remote if you want to map buttons to actions like launch app, send IR...

4TR was so so to setup. It took me a few hours to wrap my head around it. The SD plugin is what gave me the most grief this weekend. The first time I set it up it was all fine, but then my guide stopped working. I tried to resync the guide with my TVServer channels but was unsuccesful. To make a long story short, I ended up writing a SQL statement to use xmltvid's to match TVServer channels with 4TR guide channels. BTW, 4TR has 2 kind of channels, the channels you will see in MP and guide channels. Guide channels just retrieve data from SD or xmltv. You then link each channel to a guide channel.

They have a MP plugin as well but as far as I can remember it was already configured properly. They also replace the TV portion in MP but it's far better IMO.

4TR are at version 1.3.3 with version 1.4 coming soon. If you give them a contribution you will have access to 1.4 RC which I think is definetly worth it. Even if 1.4 is coming soon you'll always have access to new features/betas before the public. I don't remember exactly what is new in 1.4 but for sure it's out of the box compatible with MP 1.0.2. If you decide to use 1.3.3 then go to their forums and get binaries for 1.0.2 (or 1.0.1 if you on that version)

Hopefully I covered it all, if not just ask more questions and I'll try to help. I know ixian also has 4TR so he might have some insight as well.

Edit:
I had the feeling both ixian and I were going to post a long one on this

 

[ixian]

For TV, here's my breakdown of codecs: MPEG-2= Cyberlink Video/SP Decoder (PDVD9), h.264= Cyberlink H.264/AVC Decoder (PDVD8), MPEG/AC3= Arcsoft Audio Decoder HD, AAC= MONOGRAM AAC Decoder, Audio Rendered= Default Directsound Device. I have SAF, TME, and PDVD 8 (for Blu-Ray) installed. Hope that helps.

Side question for those of you that purchased / setup the USB-UIRT. Is the only plugin you need for that to work with your MP setup is IRSS? I just ordered one today and I want to make sure I have everything ready for when it arrives. Also, how hard with 4TR to setup? Did you use the SD plugin that they provide? I heard that it's not working that great with 1.0.2, but I haven't updated yet anyway. Just hoping for any insight you guys can give. Thanks again.

IRSS is all I use with the USB-UIRT, yes. You'll need to install the driver for it too, of course, but that's freely available off their website.

4TR is easy to set up and hard to master, is how I'd put it. It uses a completely separate database, yet talks to your HDPVR through TVServer, which means setting up channels the first time is a little bit of a PITA. You have to get all your channels (just channels, not EPG data) set up in TVE3 - I still use the TVE3 SD plugin for that - then map them to 4TR, which you do via IT'S TVE3 plugin. You can import,using the plugin, from one to the other but you may have to manually re-map some anyway.
It'll import TVE3 groups, too.

Once the 4TR plugin knows about all your channels you can then administer everything through the actual 4TR interface, either via it's application (preferred, it works across networks too) or it's web interface. BUT - this is the fun part - you have to use 4TR's ScheduledDirect importer, which is a separate tool. Where it gets fun is that tool imports channels and guide data right from SD, yet 4TR only knows about channels you've previously mapped and configured in TVE3. So you have to make sure both sets of data match up or you will wonder where some of your channels went.

It will take you a day or two to wrap your head around - it does for most of us - and then it'll suddenly make complete sense and you'll be fine. Once you have it configured it's very easy and far, far better than the default TVE3 client, which it replaces.

Also, it works fine for me with 1.02, but I am using the 1.4RC which currently is only available to donators on their site.

Now a question for YOU: So the PDVD8 codec works for h.264 in the TV client? I have 9 installed but it won't show up for me in the TV client config, only video/dvd. I take it I need to install both?

Also, set up like you have it, you don't have any audio/lip sync issues to deal with? How is your HDPVR set up (resolution, audio in, bitrate)? If I can get away from using the Arcsoft codec for video I'll be a happy man, PDVD8 is, as far as I've read, far superior.

 

[sjeffrey]

I had everything working with no sync issues before yesterday.
The unfortunate thing is for the longest time I wasn't using the HD-PVR because of different issues.
Stability, IR blasting, Remote, you name it.
Because of that I have no clue what the selected codecs were for TV in mediaportal, I only used the ones for Video which were pretty much what SAF (hoborg) recommends.

Also, if you are having issues with 4TR's SD plugin to match channels I can send you my sql script. It's actually in the 4TR forum but in the donators only forum...
And another thing, you have to add a scheduled task to run the SD importer. It's not a service and it's not callef by 4TR, so it's up to you to run it.

 

[chesh]

Well, when I ran into my last set of issues with codecs, I decided the hell with it and went for SAF. When installing SAF, it made me uninstall AC3 and PDVD8 in order to install. Once SAF was installed, I just went ahead and reinstalled PDVD8 so I could have it's codecs available again. As for the HD-PVR setup; I'm either at 1080i/p or 480i/p depending on if I've forced by cable box to go back to 1080i (when I turn off my surround sound system, the cable box automatically detects that my HDMI connection has been broken and switches the output resolution to 480i/p till I force a recognition of the HDMI port again by switching my surround sound to that input and back again). My audio in is coming over RCA's due to everytime I hooked up the optical, I was getting the stutter that you have to hit play/pause to get rid of. As for my bitrate, I'm running CBR with a 9mb min and a 13mb max (I believe that's the default). Let me know if ya want me to check anything else.

P.S. The reason I'm running Arcsoft Audio Decoder HD as my audio decoder is that with the standard Arcsoft Audio Decoder, I get a really quiet surround sound. Almost like it needs to normalize / boost the audio. Once I switched it to the HD decoder though, the sound was boosted much better, but now my surround sound system thinks it's a Logic 7 setup (which is an emulated 5.1 channel mode). Works for me, as the sound has finally (mostly) normalized on any channel I switch to, whether it be from the HVR-1600 or my HD-PVR.

New question for the USB-UIRT: What setup do you have to do (if any) in the Remotes section in MP Config? Can I just tell it I have a MCE Remote in there, or do I have to do something else? I know currently I have an iMon setup and I had to have iMon all setup to pass the commands along, but no config inside of MP. Maybe I'm over-thinking everything here and it'll be a lot easier when I go to set it up, but just making sure.

 

[ixian]

Hmm, you're the first one I've heard of that has 1080i working well. Myself and a few others have had to set our STP's to 720p otherwise we run in to weird stuttering issues (weird because it's not bandwidth or CPU limitations). I wonder if the Cyberlink codec has something to do with that.