Multiple Hauppauge Colossus cards -- pre- and post-recording behavior? (3 Viewers)

[Karyudo]

I appreciate your quick responses, and commiseration, as I try to work toward a solution for my not-very-common configuration of equipment, and very specific wants. Thanks for not getting defensive about things, because what I hope is clear under my confusion and (mild) frustration is that I'm amazed and grateful that a very robust project like MediaPortal is available free of charge, and that there are people like yourself who continue to respond to "customer" feedback to make it even better!

It doesn't look like SageChanger.exe is open source. It doesn't call channel.exe; it's a complete replacement. It does require that some drivers (32-bit Windows only) are installed in order to enable communication with the STB over FireWire. But other than that, there can't be much to it, because it's only 15k!

Just about everything I know about SageChanger comes from this thread: http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=51608. I haven't tried to contact the author and see if the source can be obtained, but maybe I will...

 

[Karyudo]

Posted in the SageTV forum, but no answer (yet?) from mikep, the author of SageChanger.

In the meantime, I'm fiddling with a third-party MS-compatible IR transceiver and one IR blaster, and getting pretty good -- but not perfect -- results:

• Two back-to-back shows with pre- and post-padding, on different channels, were correctly padded and spread across the two Colossuses.
• Two back-to-back shows with pre- and post-padding, on the same channel, were correctly padded from one Colossus. HOWEVER, when the second show started, the IR blaster unnecessarily blasted the STB with the same channel number, which shows up on the OSD. And because the Colossus is recording from the analog output, the OSD turns up in the "this is part of the show" portion of the first show's recording. Not ideal.

I figure the behaviour flowchart for when there are two recordings set should be something like:

Are the two shows back-to-back?
If no, then <existing MP behaviour>
If yes, then...

...Is there pre- and/or post-recording padding?
If no, then <existing MP behaviour>
If yes, then...

...Are the back-to-back shows on the same channel?
If no, then <existing MP behaviour, which I already know is to find another tuner/source>
If yes, then IR blast channel number at start of first show; record first show; DO NOT blast channel number; record second show. (This would work with one or more tuners/sources.)

I don't know where this behaviour is coded, and I don't know how to code it. But if MP were modified to handle this sub-sub-sub-case elegantly, I sure would appreciate it!

 

[mm1352000]

Hello again Karyudo

Thanks for the info about SageChanger.exe.

I take it there is no way to disable the OSD in the STB menu/settings?

I don't know where this behaviour is coded, and I don't know how to code it. But if MP were modified to handle this sub-sub-sub-case elegantly, I sure would appreciate it!

The answer would be in the blaster plugin.

Are you still using IRSS to manage the blaster?
If so, I think the code could be tweaked somewhere here:
https://github.com/MediaPortal/IR-S...s/TV3 Blaster Plugin/TV3BlasterPlugin.cs#L355

The plugin would need to remember the last-tuned channel number for each tuner and ignore the event if the channel number is the same as previous.

The modification would not be difficult for a competent coder - I would guess an hour at most assuming the code could be compiled...

mm

 

[Karyudo]

I take it there is no way to disable the OSD in the STB menu/settings?

Now there's a piece of lateral thinking that I had not done! I'll have to give that a shot...

Yeah, still using IRSS. Is there something better? Like, did it get renamed and improved like For The Record?

An hour for a competent coder, eh? How long do you think it would be for an incompetent non-programmer, then? (I'm sure there's an ASCII code for infinity here someplace....)

But seriously, I hope it's something I can figure out -- if my STB can't be set to disable the OSD when changing channels.[DOUBLEPOST=1383543979][/DOUBLEPOST]Rats. Did some brief poking around, and I can't find anything in the STB menu that promises to disable the OSD when changing channels.

 

[Karyudo]

Hey mm1352000,

Re-reading between the lines, and poking around in MediaPortal Configuration, are you implying that if I ditched IRSS and just used the Remote section of the configuration, that I would be able to get the recording perfection I'm after, without some competent re-coding of IRSS?

I got myself an Iguanaworks IR transceiver, which is supported under WinLIRC, which in turn is supported by MediaPortal. So... am I on the right track? I'm looking, but I don't see how MP controls WinLIRC to blast channels...

(Of course, it doesn't work out of the box. But I should have expected that, when two out of the three steps come from the Linux world, where absolutely nothing is user-friendly.)

 

[mm1352000]

Re-reading between the lines, and poking around in MediaPortal Configuration, are you implying that if I ditched IRSS and just used the Remote section of the configuration, that I would be able to get the recording perfection I'm after, without some competent re-coding of IRSS?

No I'm not implying that at all, sorry.

 

[Karyudo]

Okaaay...

Since the wiki's pretty much crap on the subject, do you know anyone who can explain what the Remote section does? And, once WinLIRC is chosen, how to set it up? This is getting seriously annoying: nobody seems to know who coded this thing, or how to set it up.

And does seriously NOBODY have two Colossuses and want to make proper recordings?!?

I'm not a gamer, but I'm getting pretty close to a ragequit.

 

[Karyudo]

Calming down a little...

Time for bed. I've got some ideas to look at tomorrow. Feels like this is all RIGHT THERE, just out of reach, which is why it's so frustrating that the usual "trick" of researching like crazy isn't turning up the nuggets of others' completed work that usually guides my incompetent ass to at least moderate success...

 

[mm1352000]

I wouldn't say you're incompetent at all - on the contrary, you've been very persistent despite frustrating challenges.
The remote section is for receiving input from remote controls. MediaPortal is designed to be used with a remote (like a TV or STB) - hence the configuration. The way I read the section on WinLIRC:
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_...MediaPortal_Configuration/8_Remote/24_WINLIRC

...it sounds like the first step is to get the remote working in WinLIRC... but then, I'm not sure that you actually have a remote that you're trying to get working. If this is really a continuation of the discussion about blasting then I don't think the Remotes section is going to help. Blasters have to be configured with TV Server... unless you were thinking that WinLIRC would somehow pick up signals from a remote control and forward them to the blaster as well as MP... in which case I have no idea how that would work.

I must say I'm very close to saying that I'll attempt to tweak the IRSS TVE 3 plugin for you. Unfortunately work is quite stressful at present and I'm away from home on business. My hands are tied for the moment...

[edit: I also note that I've taken your feedback about N-PVR on board. For the next generation version of TV Server, we'll attempt to support executing an exe or bat file on channel change. Hopefully that would make things easier for people such as yourself. I'm only sorry I can't give that functionality to you right now. That version of TV Server is probably at least three months away.]

 

[Karyudo]

Sigh. Another couple of hours spent getting nowhere. This probably belongs in some other part of the forum, but because I just don't understand how MP is supposed to work with remotes, I guess I'll put it here for now.

Well, I guess I shouldn't say "nowhere." I did get WinLIRC running properly. First I ran the (command line!) app for capturing remote keypresses and (after two failed attempts) got a configuration file set up. Then I ran the WinLIRC background app, and successfully tested it with my config file. A little clunky, and not particularly well-documented (see previous comments about Linux and its universally-terrible user-friendliness), but I got it working right. I can see the potential, because I was able to capture just about every button on my Shaw (Canadian cable provider) remote, and it would be pretty cool to be able to use some of those buttons in MP, NPVR, or XBMC.

With that success, I then moved on to MP configuration, where I picked WinLIRC from the Remote menu, set the location of the winlirc.exe program, and... promptly got stuck. I have no clue what to do next. The little bit of text on the tab says:

::Winlirc::

> Winlirc must be installed on your PC
> You should set-up Winlirc with the remote(s) you require.
> To have Winlirc start when MP does, set the Path to WinLIRC.
> You should use short names for remotes (like CABLE or AMP).
> All remotes should be in 1 config file.

::MediaPortal::
Set-up your external channels in this format...
  Remote1:Repeat:Code1[,Code2[,Code...]]|Remote2:Repeat:Code1[,Code2[,Code...]]
Examples...
  PACE4000:0:1,0,2,OK
  PACE4000:0:1,0,2,OK|AMP:2:PowerOn
  X10:8:dim_lounge|AMP:2:PowerOn|HIFI:0:mode_radio,3

::ADDITIONAL::
> Check out the remote configs @ http://lirc.sourceforge.net/remotes/

...which I don't understand at all, after the first three lines (i.e. the part where I got WinLIRC working independently). I have no idea where I "should use short names for remotes," I have no idea what config file should contain "all remotes," I haven't the foggiest idea what "external channels" are, nor where to set them up.

I took a look at the IRSS configuration (outside of MP), and that let me choose WinLIRC. Okaaay... But then within the TV3 plugin for TV Server, I have no idea what's going on. I can't get anything to work. There are options and blank screens and "IR learning" pages galore, but no examples or anything resembling what I think I need.

All I want to tell MP is, "I've got two external STBs. So use WinLIRC to blast STB 1 with the IR codes contained in the shaw_box.cfg configuration file, using the IR emitter on the IguanaWorks IR transceiver channel 1/2, and blast STB 2 with the same codes, using transceiver channel 3/4."

Something here is overly complicated and underly explained. And it's driving me batsh!t insane.