INTERACT FORUM

Windows => Television => Topic started by: tzr916 on January 31, 2021, 11:50:39 am

Title: Questions about using DMS channels
Post by: tzr916 on January 31, 2021, 11:50:39 am
The "TV Tuners" wiki article (https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/TV_Tuners) has been updated again to include brief discussions on "Sat>IP" devices and "DMS" devices.
Just playing around with this on a client before diving in fully on my server... I have two SD cable card tuner boxes. After setting them both up seperately, it's showing duplicate channels in the guide. How do I set it up to use both tuners for watching/recording and not have duplicates in the guide?
Title: Re: Grouping DMS channels of different devices
Post by: Yaobing on January 31, 2021, 04:32:00 pm
DMS channels have to be tied to devices.  So if you have two cable card tuners, you will get two sets of channels.  The way to deal with this is to group them.
Title: Re: Grouping DMS channels of different devices
Post by: tzr916 on January 31, 2021, 04:46:46 pm
DMS channels have to be tied to devices.  So if you have two cable card tuners, you will get two sets of channels.  The way to deal with this is to group them.
Group the tuners? or group the channels? Please describe how to "group them"?
Title: Re: Grouping DMS channels of different devices
Post by: Yaobing on January 31, 2021, 09:55:33 pm
Group the channels.

Were both sets of DMS channels automatically created (without user inputs)?  If the second set was manually set up, you would have been asked whether you wanted to group.  If you did not choose to group when asked, or you were not asked, then you will have to try one of the following methods:

1.  Select the two channels that you want grouped (for example, channel 5.1 on device 1, and channel 5.1 on device 2), and right-click > Group Channels.  This is very tedious as you have to do it channel-by-channel.

2. Click "Auto Group" button.  This will go through all your channels and try to group channels that look similar.  The result is not always accurate.  It will group your Cable CARD channels with other types of channels, not just DMS channels.

I don't have two identical devices, so it is not possible for me to verify the result.  I just tried clicking "Auto Group", it did group some of my channels but did not group my DMS channels.  I guess I need to look into that part of my code and make sure it works for DMS channels.

Also I think the following functionality is missing:  "Auto group selected channels" - i.e. apply "auto group" logic to selected channels only, not to all channels.
Title: Re: Grouping DMS channels of different devices
Post by: Yaobing on February 12, 2021, 09:57:44 am
Group the tuners? or group the channels? Please describe how to "group them"?

With the latest build, you can properly group DMS channels of different devices.

Go to "Manage Channels...", and click "Auto Group" button.  You can just accept the default and click OK on the first dialog window that pops up.  On the second dialog window, uncheck all tuner types except DMS ones.  You should see at least two DMS types, each is associated with a particular DMS tuner (SD PRIME).  Click OK.  All your duplicate DMS channels will be grouped into one set.

Note that auto grouping is based on channel name matches.  So if you changed channel name of one channel, associated with one device, you should changed the name of the same channel associated with the other device accordingly (using the exactly the same name),  otherwise auto grouping will not work on those channels (but you can always manually select those two channels and make a manual grouping, which will work regardless of the names).

For more information about TV channel grouping, read this wiki article on Manage TV Channels. (https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Manage_TV_Channels#.22Group.22)
Title: Re: Grouping DMS channels of different devices
Post by: tzr916 on November 26, 2021, 03:45:04 pm
I have still not made the switch to DMS... Since it would be a huge change for my system, I really want to know:
-what are the benefits to DMS (besides reducing network usage for ATSC tuner device)?
-is DMS considered stable yet (seeing a lot of DMS "fixes" in the changelogs)?
-does ROHQ work on DMS?
-are channel changes faster or slower with DMS?
-can I use TS file format with DMS?
-does comskip work the same with DMS?


Thank you
Title: Re: Questions about using DMS channels
Post by: Yaobing on November 27, 2021, 01:20:21 pm
- Not sure if there are other benefits.
- Yes it is considered stable.
- No, ROHQ does not work with DMS.  We implemented it in a way that is the same across different platforms.  That means we do not use DirectShow, which is what madVR is designed for. 

We do use our own video renderer, i.e. JRVR.

- Channel change probably is not faster because a lot of buffering is involved.
- Recording of DMS channels is TS only since JTV is for DirectShow.
- Comskip should work since the recording format is TS.