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[glynor]

I got my hardware set up (physically) to use with MC finally. I had to re-route some IR blasters and wanted to re-wire my HD-PVRs a bit. That's all done. So, tonight I tried to get MC set up to work with my devices.

Just to review my hardware briefly, I have:

* 2 Hauppauge HD-PVR Tuners, connected by Component and SPDIF
* 2 identical Motorola DCH6200 Cable Boxes

I've had some trouble, unfortunately. On my first attempt, I got through the setup without too much trouble. I did hit some issues picking the right blaster port on my USB-UIRT, and it was a bit annoying that I had to go so far "in" to the setup before I could test this. I eventually got it straightened out, but I had to go back into the setup a few times.

Observation: It would be good if on the page where you pick the IR blaster, you could test it by just making it send some random IR command. It won't actually do anything (probably) until you've learned the appropriate commands, so it might not help much if your emitter(s) don't light up... But mine do, so this would have saved me some heartache. Can you have a "test" button that sends something down to the IR blaster?  It might be too confusing that it won't actually tune the device though...

Barring that, then it would be better to choose that right before you learn IR commands, so it should be moved closer to the end of the Wizard, if possible.

Anyway, I got through all of that and got to the scanning dialog where it tries to load your channel guide data. Here, loading mc2xml, is where I had lots of trouble.  First of all, let me provide some of my settings...

Setup Wizard Settings Used:

Country: US
Postal Code: <REDACTED> (PM me if you want to try with mine)
Recording Location: M:\Recordings\
Format: I tried with both JTV and Native (TS). I'd prefer TS because I want recordings archived to that format.
Type: Digital Cable
Tuner Type: Set top box
Devices: Both HDPVRs, one at a time
Input Devices: Only USB-UIRT selected
Analog Channel: YRYBY
Audio Input Line: SPDIF Digital In
IR Blaster Device: USB-UIRT
Channel: 1 (for top device), 2 (for bottom device)
Device requires cable: Unchecked
EPG Loading Method: mc2xml
* Note: it makes me select this each time, even though they're radio buttons. Why isn't this pre-selected?
XMLTV Options: Data Source: Standard
* When would I choose anything other than Standard (such as TitanTV) here? Some explanation, even a link to the Wiki would help greatly here.
* I didn't know whether to choose Standard or TitanTV.  I think TitanTV is better, right?  So I picked that.  That didn't work at all and I kept getting a HL -y error in the mc2xml dialog. It also kept popping up the mc2xml configuration dialog over and over and over and over on the scan for channels dialog.
* When I went back and chose Standard, I got it working, but not without trouble (see below).
Reset mc2xml unchecked. I later tried checked when I hit trouble, but it didn't seem to help
IR Learning went very well this time. Good job. I had very little trouble teaching my USB-UIRT the proper commands.
Testing worked, though audio seemed to be flaky. It only seems to work with one of my two HD-PVRs (the bottom one).

Results

As mentioned above, I had initially picked TitanTV as the Data Source for XMLTV, and I had all sorts of trouble.  So, I eventually went back and chose Standard.  Then, it failed a couple times. I kept hitting retry, and eventually it showed the mc2xml dialog again.  This time I chose Microsoft as the provider, and it seemed to work. It went through and downloaded data.

But, then the wizard wanted to do the scan again (for the second HD-PVR I assume) and it kept failing. It would try 4 times, get to the channel provider.  Eventually, after many retries, I got through. Then I went through the scan and finished.

Sweet.  Now I can run it.  I got it working.  It defaulted to non-timeshifting mode, oddly.  But, it seemed to work. I changed channels a bunch and everything was pretty good.  Except two issues:
1. The audio and video were badly out of sync.
2. I wasn't in timeshifting mode.

I was confused by this for quite some time.  I found I could right-click on the playing video and enable time shifting mode, but when I did, I immediately lost audio.  If I turned it back off, then I'd get it back.  I thought maybe because I was switching from regular into timeshifting mode?  I found the Always start timeshifting analog devices checkbox and enabled it.  But, once I got timeshifting, now I lost audio (still, even in this mode).

I played with it a bunch more, and it mostly worked (except the audio in timeshifting mode), but I did get a few failures of the HD-PVRs (where it would refuse to start playback and say the tuner was in use).

Then I though maybe it was because I picked Native instead of JTV.  So, I started the setup over again, telling it to clear existing settings.

But this time, I can't get it to load any channels at all.  I just get this over and over:


Each time showing that in the cmd window, and then saying (which happens so quick I can't get it in a screenshot capture):
Downloading: microsoft.com

Then it closes. It does this four times, and gives me this:


No matter how many times I retry, it always fails. If I click no, and then do it again for the other tuner, it also fails.  Then, when I click no again to cancel, and then Next, and it loads the Manage Channels dialog, now I finally get the mc2xml dialog:


This time it works, loads Time Warner Cable HD Bangor Digital, and then shows Source Rovi. Yay.  Except... Since the previous two scans failed, now I have no channels:


I can't get past this.  I've tried all sorts of stuff to get it back like it was before (when it worked, except the audio issue), but since that one time, I can't get it to load mc2xml correctly and actually download a channels list anymore.

[glynor]

I also got one crash when I got through my first run of trying all of the above:
http://glynor.com/files/jriver/JRiver%20Log%202015-09-07%2021-48-48.zip

No crash dump, unfortunately. But I got the log showing basically all of the above.

[glynor]

One last note... While I haven't managed to get it to download my channels listing again yet, I did some further playing with it just using the Component Input "channel".  I had to go in and manually tweak the Video Crossbar Audio Settings, but I got audio working on both HD-PVRs even in timeshifting mode.

Of course, that'd be good if I could get a channel guide, but right now it is unusable.

[Yaobing]

EPG Loading Method: mc2xml
* Note: it makes me select this each time, even though they're radio buttons. Why isn't this pre-selected?

I believe this is a latest oversight.  We used to pre-select "Automatic", a mode that we no longer offer.  I switched the top choice to mc2xml, but forgot to switch pre-select to it as well.

XMLTV Options: Data Source: Standard
* When would I choose anything other than Standard (such as TitanTV) here? Some explanation, even a link to the Wiki would help greatly here.
* I didn't know whether to choose Standard or TitanTV.  I think TitanTV is better, right?  So I picked that.  That didn't work at all and I kept getting a HL -y error in the mc2xml dialog. It also kept popping up the mc2xml configuration dialog over and over and over and over on the scan for channels dialog.

Good point.  We should add some explanation.  You choose TitanTV only if you have a TitanTV account.

As mentioned above, I had initially picked TitanTV as the Data Source for XMLTV, and I had all sorts of trouble.  So, I eventually went back and chose Standard.  Then, it failed a couple times. I kept hitting retry, and eventually it showed the mc2xml dialog again.  This time I chose Microsoft as the provider, and it seemed to work. It went through and downloaded data.

But, then the wizard wanted to do the scan again (for the second HD-PVR I assume) and it kept failing. It would try 4 times, get to the channel provider.  Eventually, after many retries, I got through. Then I went through the scan and finished.

mc2xml saves its settings in a .dat file.  If you make a mistake in the first try, the second time it will try loading the wrong settings again.  That is one reason why it would fail.  When it fails, we try running it again, but we first delete the .dat settings file.  That should give mc2xml a fresh start.  The second reason it fails is that it does not allow running it for the same data consecutively (to reduce load on the server).  This should also be cleared when we delete the .dat file.  This could be why you kept seeing it run repeatedly.

Sweet.  Now I can run it.  I got it working.  It defaulted to non-timeshifting mode, oddly.  But, it seemed to work. I changed channels a bunch and everything was pretty good.  Except two issues:
1. The audio and video were badly out of sync.
2. I wasn't in timeshifting mode.

For some reason, HDPVR is always out of sync in non-time-shifting mode.  DirectShow audio and video samples all carry time-stamps.  I just don't get it.

I don't know whether we should default analog devices to time-shifting mode.  Some devices do not run well in time-shifting mode because they do not have hardware compression, which result in huge time-shifting files that tax hard drives and CPU.

I was confused by this for quite some time.  I found I could right-click on the playing video and enable time shifting mode, but when I did, I immediately lost audio.  If I turned it back off, then I'd get it back.  I thought maybe because I was switching from regular into timeshifting mode?  I found the Always start timeshifting analog devices checkbox and enabled it.  But, once I got timeshifting, now I lost audio (still, even in this mode).

I played with it a bunch more, and it mostly worked (except the audio in timeshifting mode), but I did get a few failures of the HD-PVRs (where it would refuse to start playback and say the tuner was in use).

Is audio in AC3 or AAC?

Then I though maybe it was because I picked Native instead of JTV.  So, I started the setup over again, telling it to clear existing settings.

But this time, I can't get it to load any channels at all.  I just get this over and over:
http://glynor.com/img/screenshots/MC21/mc2xml-Progress_Fails.png

Each time showing that in the cmd window, and then saying (which happens so quick I can't get it in a screenshot capture):
Downloading: microsoft.com

Then it closes. It does this four times, and gives me this:
http://glynor.com/img/screenshots/MC21/TV_Setup_Issue-xmltv_is_not_valid.png

No matter how many times I retry, it always fails. If I click no, and then do it again for the other tuner, it also fails.  Then, when I click no again to cancel, and then Next, and it loads the Manage Channels dialog, now I finally get the mc2xml dialog:
http://glynor.com/img/screenshots/MC21/TV_Setup_Issue-mc2xml_loads_at_Manage_Channels.png

This time it works, loads Time Warner Cable HD Bangor Digital, and then shows Source Rovi. Yay.  Except... Since the previous two scans failed, now I have no channels:
http://glynor.com/img/screenshots/MC21/TV_Setup_Issue-No_Channels.png

I can't get past this.  I've tried all sorts of stuff to get it back like it was before (when it worked, except the audio issue), but since that one time, I can't get it to load mc2xml correctly and actually download a channels list anymore.

If mc2xml does not succeed, you will not have your STB channels, and EPG loading will fail as well.  Your screenshots show that it eventually succeeded (at the EPG stage), but at that time there were no channels for the programs to match.

When I wrote the setup wizard, I tried to use some of the old code.  That forced me to run mc2xml (or other EPG method) twice, once for the channels, once for the EPG.  It would be good to do it only once.  That will require some reshuffling of code, because some type of channels do not use EPG data for channels (such as ATSC, DVB-T/S/C).

[glynor]

I tried deleting the dat file with no luck.

Also ran it through the wizard (choosing to clear everything) 3-4x yesterday.  It is possible it is a time out issue, but then why does it work the second time through?

As of this moment, I still can't get it to load channels at all.

[Yaobing]

I am sure you did, but I am at a loss so I will ask.  Did you make sure zip code was entered correctly during setup?

[glynor]

Yep. Though entering the Zip into the mc2xml dialog box was super annoying.

I'll try again tonight. Maybe screen capture it while I go.

[Yaobing]

Yep. Though entering the Zip into the mc2xml dialog box was super annoying.

MC would have entered the zip code for you.

[glynor]

MC would have entered the zip code for you.

It does, but then it doesn't let you say OK (it is grayed out, at least most of the time for me). The text entry validation is getting messed up. The only way to get the OK button to light up is either:

* To delete and re-enter the zip code, but this performed extremely badly on my system (perhaps because the USB bus was being used or something, we're talking seconds between pressing a key and having it respond on screen)
* I discovered later that you could use the country drop-down and re-select US to get OK to light up. This was much less annoying, but even less obvious.

Most mere mortals would have no idea to try either thing.

[glynor]

The second reason it fails is that it does not allow running it for the same data consecutively (to reduce load on the server).  This should also be cleared when we delete the .dat file.  This could be why you kept seeing it run repeatedly.

I haven't tried again yet (I won't until much later tonight), but thinking here...

I think this is why I saw the behavior I did the very first time through. It did the first channel scan and loaded it successfully (once I figured out the TitanTV thing).  Then, it wanted to load the guide for my second HD-PVR, but it couldn't because it was "too soon".

In fact, I noticed when I did have channels added that I only had one copy of each channel (I expected, from our previous discussions, to have two of each channel). In hindsight, this is probably because that first time through, the second channel scan failed, so HD-PVR #2 was useless (having no channels assigned).

I don't know if you can do it with mc2xml the way you're doing it, for multiple tuners, because the second channel scan is always going to fail due to the "too soon" timeout.

The later failures, though, didn't seem to have anything to do with a timeout failure, because it would fail during the channel scan portion, and then the immediate next step would be to download the EPG . These third-and-fourth mc2xml runs worked fine (and listed my 500-odd channels total in the cmd window).  It was only the "channel scan" ones that continue to fail.  To be clear, I tried this probably 3-4 times (including using the Wizard to wipe out previous info, and closing/re-opening MC, and even once rebooting) last night, separated by hours in one case.

I've done everything I can to completely wipe the TV configuration of MC out:

* Opened the Wizard and checked all three boxes to clear the saved data.  Then canceled the Wizard.
* Exited MC.
* Found and deleted the entire mc2xml folder in my AppData directory

I'll try to run through it again tonight and see if I can get through the wizard successfully tonight. If possible, I'll run a screencapture while I go.

[RoderickGI]

Some quick observations:

Even if someone's IR Blaster doesn't have a visible LED that lights up when a command is blasted, it would still be good to have a IR Blaster test button early in the setup process. The IR signal can be clearly seen using almost any mobile phone camera. Just point the camera in video or photo mode at the blaster and you will see the IR emitters light up. With a little instruction, anyone could do this.

I think a whole bunch of small popup help test boxes, like large tooltips, would make a big difference in the TV Setup wizard and dialogues, in addition to a link to a Wiki page for each dialogue, or the whole setup. It should be very obvious that a user should only choose TitanTV or Schedules Direct if they have an account with them. A user shouldn't have to try to run an EPG collection to find it doesn't work. This is the sort of stuff that WMC users are complaining about a lot, as they try to evaluate or move over to MC.

If possible, I'll run a screencapture while I go.

That is a very good idea. In fact as I read your first post I was thinking it would have been great if you had done that on the first run through, both for the video showing what happened, and to capture brief popups that were too quick to capture.

In fact, it would probably be very useful if JRiver had a recommended method of screen capturing installation and other issues, such as TV setup, so that the experience of users from all over the world could be seen, and therefore concerns addressed. My DigitalNow four tuner PCIe card DVB-T setup is so simple compared to your setup Glynor that I haven't had any major problems. But then I haven't had to re-setup my TV since MC19, and I have to use an external XMLTV EPG source.

What screen capture software do you use Glynor? I looked at a bunch of "free" and cheap ones a couple of years ago, and never found one that met all requirements. I used a trial version of Adobe Captivate last time I needed quality screen capture software for a project, but that is far too expensive for my infrequent use.

[Yaobing]

I fixed a few issues.  Please try again when a new build (21.0.6 or higher) is available.

Fixed: When loading STB or CableCARD channels, mc2xml could fail repeatedly.

Changed: Added instructions on television setup regarding mc2xml "data source" selection (Standard vs. TitanTV).

NEW: Multiple mc2xml EPG loading methods can be setup, one for each provider selected ("digital terrestrial lineup", "digital cable", etc.). 

[glynor]

I'll take a look again. It may not be tonight, as I'm quite tired this evening.  We'll see.

[Yaobing]

It may be good to wait for 21.0.6 before you try again so you will not waste your time.

[glynor]

It may be good to wait for 21.0.6 before you try again so you will not waste your time.

Hah. Just realized it wasn't out yet. I was about to start.

I'll wait. Thanks.

[glynor]

I went through the setup fully again from scratch using 21.0.6.  Much better results tonight, though still not quite right.

* The wizard seemed to complete correctly this time without errors.

* After completing, I enabled the Start analog devices in time-shifting mode option.  Is there a way to build a database of analog devices that behave well with and without this, and make the choice for users?  (If people need to override it, let them, and collect data or ask them to report it or something.)

My instinct with this would be that it should always timeshift all of the time unless the user specifically turns it off (at least, when it doesn't blow up or not work right when this is enabled). All other PVR type computer applications I've used work this way, as do Set-Top-Box style DVRs. I think that's the expected behavior. And, with my particular HD-PVRs, it is useless without it because the AV sync is way off.

Results:

* After this, my HD-PVR #1 works perfectly. I have channels and guide data.
* My HD-PVR #2 works correctly, but it has no guide data.  I get "Double-click here to set up a program guide" when I select those channels in the listing.


I have not been able to correct this, despite double-clicking there and running the Guide Reloading process.

Other notes:

* It was pretty annoying to have to go through the mc2xml dialog box process four times for the two tuners.

* The mc2xml dialog was less irritating to deal with, but still came up with OK grayed out each time. I had to click into the Zip code field and then it would usually light up after a second or so.

* I provided two separate tokens for the two separate tuners.  Should I? In my case, both tuners are connected to separate, but identical, digital cable boxes, which receive identical programming.  I choose all of the same stuff in mc2xml for both. Is this why I got no guide data for the second tuner?

* With a set top box type configuration, I don't now what I'm supposed to do at the Channel Matching dialog. I've just been clicking Next.

* When I go into Load Program Guide, the dialog shows three EPG Loading modes.  The two I made for HDPVR Top and HDPVR Bottom, and then a third one that has nothing listed:


After trying running through it once like it was set, I deleted the third, empty one, but it didn't help get the guide data for the second tuner.

* Running through this again did make me go through the mc2xml dialog box process three more times (including picking my provider and seeing the channel matching dialog), which I didn't really expect.  Is this how it is supposed to work?

* The wizard steals focus a number of times throughout the process. This caused me to accidentally advance through it more than once while trying to type in my browser on a separate monitor, which was annoying.  Luckily, in each occasion, the default choice was what I wanted anyway.

* The mc2xml radio button in the wizard (discussed above) is still not pre-selected.

[glynor]

I've scheduled a bunch of recordings for tonight and tomorrow on the tuner that works, and I'll let you know how that part goes tomorrow evening.

[RoderickGI]

* I provided two separate tokens for the two separate tuners.  Should I? In my case, both tuners are connected to separate, but identical, digital cable boxes, which receive identical programming.  I choose all of the same stuff in mc2xml for both. Is this why I got no guide data for the second tuner?

I would have thought that two separate but identical digital cable boxes which receive identical programming would require only one Tuner Profile, and hence one token. They should be treated like two identical PCIe tuners, or maybe even like a dual tuner card. Which is why I don't quite understand the "no guide data for the second tuner", because if the two boxes are the same, and receive the same channels, then you only need one EPG Guide, and MC should pick which Cable Box to use to tune in a channel to watch, or record, just as it does with my quad tuner card.

Unless you have to use one or two IR Blasters, and the IR Blasters can't control the two boxes separately. MC would have to have a way of telling "box one to tune this channel", "box two tune that channel". I don't use and can't test IR Blaster setups, so don't know how controlling two identical boxes would work.

Also, while you may need two Tuner Profiles for your two cable boxes, so that you can control them separately, you should definitely only have one Guide Mode covering both those Tuner Profiles. Is it possible to associate multiple Tuner Profiles to one Guide Mode? Then second column in the "Schedule guide reloading" dialogue does say "Tuner Profiles Using the Mode", which certainly implies multiple Tuner Profiles can be associated with each Guide Mode.


I am pretty sure Yaobing has said that there should be only one Guide Mode for ATSC, even when there are multiple ATSC tuners in the system. I think the same should apply to Cable Box tuners.

The above is all speculation though. Only the expert, Yaobing, will know how your configuration is supposed to work. Carry on. 

[glynor]

The setup wizard certainly didn't give me that option (to use only one "Guide Mode").  It had me set up two, and I don't know how to change them to both use the same guide data.

That is how it works in SageTV though. During Sage's setup, you don't choose to create a new channel lineup, or select an existing one.

Tuning does work separately.  I can blast to each one individually, and that does work properly.

[glynor]

I changed the title of my thread because we have like 800 threads all called TV Setup right now.

Okay, maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but... Still. 

[Yaobing]

* My HD-PVR #2 works correctly, but it has no guide data.  I get "Double-click here to set up a program guide" when I select those channels in the listing.


I have not been able to correct this, despite double-clicking there and running the Guide Reloading process.

Hmm... I thought this would work in Standard view.  Not sure why they are not showing.  They would not be showing in Theater view I know.  In practice, there should not need to be two sets of programs.  Each individual program is associated with one channel.  Thus it can not be associated with a second channel.

Sorry, there should be additional instruction in this case.  This is a perfect example where channel grouping will help.  You can click "Auto group" on the "Manage Channels" dialog window.  You will then only see on set of channels.  Oops, it does not seem to work.  Both set of your STB channels are of the same type.  Grouping only works for channels of different types.  I will correct this.  STB channels of different devices need to be treated as separate types and allowed to be grouped.

Other notes:

* It was pretty annoying to have to go through the mc2xml dialog box process four times for the two tuners.

My work on this was done late on Friday.  In next build you will only need to go through it once.

* The mc2xml dialog was less irritating to deal with, but still came up with OK grayed out each time. I had to click into the Zip code field and then it would usually light up after a second or so.

No you do not need to do that.  You just need to wait for a second or two.

* I provided two separate tokens for the two separate tuners.  Should I? In my case, both tuners are connected to separate, but identical, digital cable boxes, which receive identical programming.  I choose all of the same stuff in mc2xml for both. Is this why I got no guide data for the second tuner?

No.  You should only need one.  With the next build, and using only one token, you will only need to run mc2xml once.  If you provide two tokens, you will need to run it twice.

* With a set top box type configuration, I don't now what I'm supposed to do at the Channel Matching dialog. I've just been clicking Next.

The match should have been done automatically in this case.  You can just click Next.  However, if you ever suspect some matching is not done correctly, you can try manually making some changes.

* When I go into Load Program Guide, the dialog shows three EPG Loading modes.  The two I made for HDPVR Top and HDPVR Bottom, and then a third one that has nothing listed:

There is a bug that saves an empty one each time you run Setup.  I just have not had time to fix it yet.

After trying running through it once like it was set, I deleted the third, empty one, but it didn't help get the guide data for the second tuner.

* Running through this again did make me go through the mc2xml dialog box process three more times (including picking my provider and seeing the channel matching dialog), which I didn't really expect.  Is this how it is supposed to work?

When running it in GUI mode (i.e. during Setup process) you will always make those picks.  When MC runs it automatically in the background, it will just pick up the info from its own settings file.

* The wizard steals focus a number of times throughout the process. This caused me to accidentally advance through it more than once while trying to type in my browser on a separate monitor, which was annoying.  Luckily, in each occasion, the default choice was what I wanted anyway.

Not sure what's causing it.

* The mc2xml radio button in the wizard (discussed above) is still not pre-selected.

I will take another look at this.

[glynor]

Great.  Thanks. I'll wait for the next build and give it another shot.  I want to try it out using TitanTV as well and see how that compares to the standard setup, so I'll try to run through twice (though that might wait a week so I can get a feel for how Standard works first).

This morning when I got up, my HD-PVR was lit up blue (recording something).  So that's a good sign!

No.  You should only need one.  With the next build, and using only one token, you will only need to run mc2xml once.  If you provide two tokens, you will need to run it twice.

It would be nice if the setup wizard could "figure this out" for you instead of making the user enter tokens manually.

I think, actually, SageTV uses the same kind of setup under the covers.  When you go through the setup, it "names" your EPG Data with a no-spaces string that looks very much like a token.  You can alter it, but it gives you a "suggested name", which is based on the provider's name and "type". So, in my case it would come up like: TimeWarnerDigital-Bangor (or something like that). Then, when you do the setup of the second tuner, it asks if you want to re-use the last one or make a new one (with "re-use" as the default choice, since that's what most people will do). If you choose to make a new one, it appends a number or something to the "suggested name" (I've only played with this once since I do re-use them, and it was years ago, so I don't remember for sure, but I know you NEVER have to manually type anything in.)

So, I'm thinking you could do one of these two things instead:

1. Run mc2xml first and just save it to a "temp" name until the user has selected their provider and all of that. Then, if you can see the provider info, use that text to make your own Profile Name. Either just use it, or ask the user to confirm it (letting them alter it if desired). Then, re-save it (transparently) to the profile name you now created.  That would match SageTV's method, and I think is way less confusing.

2. If that doesn't work (because you can't see the provider info string, or because it is too much of a pain), then simpler would be to just pre-fill the Profile Name box with something.  You could just use the Tuner Profile name, if you want.

In either case, if the user is going through the setup and one or more EPG setups already exists, you should just ask if the user wants to re-use the EPG Guide setup (show that profile name and let them pick from a drop-down if there are more than one).  That way you don't have to jump through all of those hoops to set up a second (or third or fourth) tuner.  You can basically just stop the wizard there and the user is done.

[glynor]

Sigh. All of the recordings it made from my tests?  They each recorded, and looked beautiful. They had no sound at all.

Also, when I got to the PC this evening, MC itself would not play sound from any video file at all until I closed it completely and restarted it.  Audio files in my music collection played fine, but video files I had previously (including an episode I watched last night, and have had for years, so I knew it was good) all played silent until I quit out of MC entirely and restarted it.

The three test recordings I had MC do though, still have no sound, even when played in VLC and MPC-HC.  After restarting MC I tested the HD-PVR used to make the recordings (in timeshifting mode from within MC) and it has sound now.

[glynor]

I think the Previous Log in this should include the recordings, in case it helps:
http://glynor.com/files/jriver/JRiver%20Log%202015-09-14%2018-31-27.zip

[Yaobing]

The device is using AC3 audio.  Do you have bitstreaming turned on?  Did you say you also did not get sound when playing a channel live in time-shifting mode?

[glynor]

Correct.  It is an AC3 device.

Bitstreaming is off on all of my systems.

The first time I set it up (my original post in this thread) I got no sound when timeshifting was ENABLED.  Out of sync audio with it disabled.

This time, including when the recordings were made, I get good audio with timeshifting ENABLED.  I have not tried this time with it disabled.

[glynor]

I did try playing TV last night on my client copy of MC (on my HTPC) and I got no sound.  I immediately walked back downstairs and tested with the server and I got sound there.

[imeric]

@glynor this is very impressive work thank you!  Since I have "kind of" a similar setup and I'm also a SageTV user I can definitely relate .

@yaobing I tried 21.0.6 and saw improvements but still getting issues in TV guide loading setup.  If I start a setup from scratch in TV options -> Setup.  I still get issues with the postal code needing a space.  However mc2xml doesn't.  You may have fixed this only if we manually add profiles?  

@yaobing I am not going to rehash what everybody else posted and will rather wait and test the upcoming version more extensively and report back.  mc2xml definitely still needs some work.  BUT I do appreciate the effort that was put in and being able to select different mc2xml profiles is an absolute must for me thank you for this.

@glynor for your sound issue my Colossus is working well in time-shifting mode using AC3 bitstreaming. (Therefore not using the JRiver engine)  Since this is the non transcoded native sound of the STB Source I really want this rather than using the JRiver engine for sound out of my Colossus (When TIme shifting mode is unchecked)  Maybe that could be an option for you?

@yaobing we had that discussion before not sure which one is best for sound but in my case it works fine when time shifting mode is selected and using AC3 bitstreaming...

@yaobing if you want me to run some "canadian specific" tests with EPG let me know and I'll gladly help..

[Yaobing]

@yaobbing I tried 21.0.6 and saw improvements but still getting issues in TV guide loading setup.  If I start a setup from scratch in TV options -> Setup.  I still get issues with the postal code needing a space.  However mc2xml doesn't.  You may have fixed this only if we manually add profiles?  

The postal code issue for UK, Ireland, etc. where postal codes have a space should be fixed, regardless whether you start from scratch or you add a profile.  When you start from scratch for example, you end up in a stage where we run mc2xml.  It pops up a window asking you to enter your country and postal code.  Do you see the correct postal code already entered for you?

[Yaobing]

I did try playing TV last night on my client copy of MC (on my HTPC) and I got no sound.  I immediately walked back downstairs and tested with the server and I got sound there.

Can you share a short recording?  From the log I see that the ts file was correctly loaded by LAV Splitter and LAV decoders inserted into the graph.  The graph dump showed that correct media types were detected (H264 for video, AC3 for audio).  So it should have worked...

[glynor]

Can you share a short recording?  From the log I see that the ts file was correctly loaded by LAV Splitter and LAV decoders inserted into the graph.  The graph dump showed that correct media types were detected (H264 for video, AC3 for audio).  So it should have worked...

I think I deleted them, but let me see if they're still in my recycle bin.

EDIT: Yep, I have them.  Let me trim one and I'll upload it somewhere.

[glynor]

Here's an trim of one of my test files:
http://glynor.com/files/jriver/The%20Truman%20Show%202015-09-14-trimmed.ts

There's an AC3 track there, but it seems to be blank.  MediaInfo dump:

Code: [Select]

General
ID : 1 (0x1)
Complete name : /Users/emr/Desktop/The Truman Show 2015-09-14-trimmed.ts
Format : MPEG-TS
File size : 49.3 MiB
Duration : 1mn 12s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 5 693 Kbps

Video
ID : 4113 (0x1011)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Main@L4
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 4 frames
Format settings, GOP : M=4, N=32
Codec ID : 27
Duration : 1mn 12s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 5 024 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 20.0 Mbps
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 59.940 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.091
Stream size : 43.5 MiB (88%)
Color range : Limited
Color primaries : BT.709
Transfer characteristics : BT.709
Matrix coefficients : BT.709

Audio
ID : 4352 (0x1100)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Codec ID : 129
Duration : 1mn 12s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 384 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 3.32 MiB (7%)
Language : English
To review the things that happened to create these recordings:

* When I set this all up, I did a bunch of tests, and audio was working correctly on the HD-PVR in Timeshifting mode.
* I set it to record three different shows (two movies and one "show"), and went to bed and then work the next morning.

* When I got home from work and to the computer, MC was still running fine and nothing appeared to be wrong.
* When I tried to play the videos, they had no sound. But then, I tried to play other known-good videos, and they had no sound either. MC wouldn't play sound in videos at all.  Audio Type files were working correctly.
* None of the above (losing sound in videos in MC like that) had ever happened before I did the TV Setup. The server system is using onboard RealTek audio outs (analog). Set up pretty standard.

* I closed out of MC entirely and re-launched. Then, all of my "real" videos had sound again, but the three test recordings I made were still silent.
* I checked them in VLC Player and MPC-HC (and just checked again now on my Mac laptop) and they really have no sound.
* After restarting MC (but not the whole PC) I checked and the HD-PVR which was used to make these recordings DOES work with sound in Timeshifting mode.
* And then a bit later last night, I tried to play "live" TV on the HTPC (which is a client copy of MC) and it worked, but was also silent (as was described above).
* I double-checked the server once again immediately afterwards, and the same HD-PVR still had sound when used from the server for "live" TV (in Timeshifting mode).

I think the HD-PVRs are using the current drivers, but whatever ones they have (which should be in the System Info in the log package linked above anyway if you need to know) they've been pretty reasonably solid when used through SageTV.

I have occasionally in the past (but not in the past 2-3 months or so) gotten similarly "blank audio" files from SageTV recordings, but I think that could have been due to a loose SPDIF Optical cable.  Last time it happened, I unplugged/replugged all of my audio cables and it went away.  I suppose, however, it could be some driver crazy on the HD-PVR, but if so, Sage seems to work around it the vast majority of the time. Also, since I made those test recordings, I started SageTV back up (without rebooting or anything) and the HD-PVRs are producing recordings with sound via Sage.  So, the HD-PVRs are working with SageTV.

I have not done additional test recordings, but I can schedule one if you tell me to.

[RoderickGI]

There's an AC3 track there, but it seems to be blank.

Yep. Just some noise at -70 to -80dB. Basically 3.32 MiB of silence.

[Yaobing]

The silent recording on STB channels is now fixed.  

While we wait for the next build to come out, you can try manually fixing the problem.  You should have sound during non-recording playback of live channel.  While a channel is playing, right click and choose DirectShow Filters > XXXX Crossbar (where XXXX is the name of your capture device) - for example "Hauppauge HD PVR Crossbar".  On the crossbar property page that pops up, choose "Audio Decoder out" on the right-hand side drop-down box (Output), then check the left drop-down box (Input).  It should have the correct audio line selected (for example "Audio SPDIF Digital In").  If it is not correct, (you would not hear sound), you can change it.  Then just click OK button.  This will save the setting in MC's registry location and the next time you try recording it will be used.  This procedure is not needed when the next build (21.0.9) comes out.

  

[glynor]

I just ran through the Setup again with the latest beta version (21.0.9).  Everything went very smoothly this time.  When setting up the EPG, I typed in "Time Warner Digital" as the profile name for the first tuner, and then the second time around selected it from the drop-down.

Unfortunately, the same thing resulted as before.  The channels in my guide are all listed twice. For the first set (corresponding to the tuner profile I set up first) they have guide data.  For the second set, I have:



I just nuked everything including the contents of the mc2xml settings folder in AppData and I'm trying again.

[glynor]

Same results.  Is there something else I need to do to match the channels somehow?

I clicked Next through the Auto-Matching page, but there didn't appear to be anything to do there.  I've scheduled a few recordings for this afternoon to see what happens.

[glynor]

Also, the tuners still time-shift silently to client copies of MC (my HTPC upstairs).  I'm running the latest beta on both.  Here's the graph info while playing a channel up there:

Code: [Select]

Filter Graph Info:

    Filter 'JRiver Audio Renderer'
        CLSID: {A4002F8E-510F-442C-8AD3-F9C7B23FB394}
        Host:
        Input Pin 'In'
            Connected to pin 'Output' of filter 'LAV Audio Decoder (auto-configured)'
            Major type MEDIATYPE_Audio  Sub type MEDIASUBTYPE_IEEE_FLOAT, Format type FORMAT_WaveFormatEx

    Filter 'madVR'
        CLSID: {E1A8B82A-32CE-4B0D-BE0D-AA68C772E423}
        Host: C:\Users\glynor\AppData\Roaming\J River\Media Center 21\Plugins\madvr\madvr.ax
        Input Pin 'Input'
            Connected to pin 'Output' of filter 'LAV Video Decoder (auto-configured)'
            Major type MEDIATYPE_Video  Sub type MEDIASUBTYPE_NV12, Format type FORMAT_VideoInfo2

    Filter 'LAV Video Decoder (auto-configured)'
        CLSID: {EE30215D-164F-4A92-A4EB-9D4C13390F9F}
        Host: C:\Users\glynor\AppData\Roaming\J River\Media Center 21\Plugins\lav\LAVVideo.ax
        Input Pin 'Input'
            Connected to pin 'Output' of filter 'JRiver Video Monitor'
            Major type MEDIATYPE_Video  Sub type MEDIASUBTYPE_H264, Format type FORMAT_VideoInfo2
        Output Pin 'Output'
            Connected to pin 'Input' of filter 'madVR'
            Major type MEDIATYPE_Video  Sub type MEDIASUBTYPE_NV12, Format type FORMAT_VideoInfo2

    Filter 'LAV Audio Decoder (auto-configured)'
        CLSID: {E8E73B6B-4CB3-44A4-BE99-4F7BCB96E491}
        Host: C:\Users\glynor\AppData\Roaming\J River\Media Center 21\Plugins\lav\LAVAudio.ax
        Input Pin 'Input'
            Connected to pin 'Output' of filter 'JRiver Audio Monitor'
            Major type MEDIATYPE_Audio  Sub type MEDIASUBTYPE_DOLBY_AC3, Format type FORMAT_WaveFormatEx
        Output Pin 'Output'
            Connected to pin 'In' of filter 'JRiver Audio Renderer'
            Major type MEDIATYPE_Audio  Sub type MEDIASUBTYPE_IEEE_FLOAT, Format type FORMAT_WaveFormatEx

    Filter 'JRiver Video Monitor'
        CLSID: {A4207487-E7D8-406B-9882-B66370DE2492}
        Host:
        Input Pin 'Input'
            Connected to pin 'Video Output' of filter 'JRiver TS Reader Filter'
            Major type MEDIATYPE_Video  Sub type MEDIASUBTYPE_H264, Format type FORMAT_VideoInfo2
        Output Pin 'Output'
            Connected to pin 'Input' of filter 'LAV Video Decoder (auto-configured)'
            Major type MEDIATYPE_Video  Sub type MEDIASUBTYPE_H264, Format type FORMAT_VideoInfo2

    Filter 'JRiver Audio Monitor'
        CLSID: {A4207487-E7D8-406B-9882-B66370DE2492}
        Host:
        Input Pin 'Input'
            Connected to pin 'Audio Output' of filter 'JRiver TS Reader Filter'
            Major type MEDIATYPE_Audio  Sub type MEDIASUBTYPE_DOLBY_AC3, Format type FORMAT_WaveFormatEx
        Output Pin 'Output'
            Connected to pin 'Input' of filter 'LAV Audio Decoder (auto-configured)'
            Major type MEDIATYPE_Audio  Sub type MEDIASUBTYPE_DOLBY_AC3, Format type FORMAT_WaveFormatEx

    Filter 'JRiver TS Reader Filter'
        CLSID: {8303B00A-D9E3-4BD7-A79A-AD7077F54123}
        Host: c:\program files (x86)\j river\media center 21\tv\mjtsfilereader.ax
        Output Pin 'Audio Output'
            Connected to pin 'Input' of filter 'JRiver Audio Monitor'
            Major type MEDIATYPE_Audio  Sub type MEDIASUBTYPE_DOLBY_AC3, Format type FORMAT_WaveFormatEx
        Output Pin 'Video Output'
            Connected to pin 'Input' of filter 'JRiver Video Monitor'
            Major type MEDIATYPE_Video  Sub type MEDIASUBTYPE_H264, Format type FORMAT_VideoInfo2

[Yaobing]

I just ran through the Setup again with the latest beta version (21.0.9).  Everything went very smoothly this time.  When setting up the EPG, I typed in "Time Warner Digital" as the profile name for the first tuner, and then the second time around selected it from the drop-down.

Unfortunately, the same thing resulted as before.  The channels in my guide are all listed twice. For the first set (corresponding to the tuner profile I set up first) they have guide data.  For the second set, I have:

Sorry, I forgot to explain.  The current code flow dictates that only one set of channels gets the EPG data when multiple sets of channels are setup in one run.  What we really need is an automatic way of detecting that multiple sets of channels are using the same programming lineup, and offer group the multiple sets of channels into one set (or just do it automatically).  For now, you will have to manually click "Auto group" button to group them.  After that only one set of your STB channels will be listed.

[glynor]

I wondered. I clicked on that and it asked a question and I hit cancel. I'll try that out tonight.

Any idea on the client side silence?  That isn't the end of the world, but it'd be nice. And the video quality is perfect.

[Yaobing]

Any idea on the client side silence?  That isn't the end of the world, but it'd be nice. And the video quality is perfect.

 

It apparently suffers the same problem as recording did.  Now I hate myself.  I was so sure client playback was not a problem that I did not check to make sure.

The temporary manual fix is the same as what I described above for recording (do it on the server).

[glynor]

For now, you will have to manually click "Auto group" button to group them.  After that only one set of your STB channels will be listed.

Ha!  Well, it worked.  I now have only one copy of each channel, except... now I have no program guide for anything.  

I'm re-running the load program guide.

[glynor]

Ok. Re-running Load Program Guide sorted it out. Huzzah! I now have channels and both of my HDPVRs set up.

Hmmm... Have to think for a bit on how to make that more smooth. In any case, you should probably have it trigger an automatic EPG reload when the user does Auto-Grouping.

[glynor]

It apparently suffers the same problem as recording did.  Now I hate myself.  I was so sure client playback was not a problem that I did not check to make sure.

Happens to the best of us!

I'm going to hold off on the temporary patch because (a) I don't really need to watch live TV upstairs and (b) that way I can test the new build, since I assume making it set the registry setting will persist even with the next build.

Both of my test recordings have sound, though!  So the local part of your fix worked!

[glynor]

So now, assuming the client-side sound playback issue is fixed (I have faith)...

<drumroll>

MC is doing everything I need to completely replace SageTV except... Giving me [Season] and [Episode] tags for my recordings automatically.

</drumroll>

Don't know if that last bit is going to be easy. Looks like from the epic EPG threads it isn't so simple. However, MC is so slick with SageTV right now in that all of my recordings come in perfectly auto-tagged from TVDB and TMDB lookups. I almost never have to manually fix anything, and if so, a simple and one-time Tag On Import rule makes short work of it.  Carnac and Auto-Metadata lookup are so brilliant. You have to find a way to make this work with TV Recordings.

Sage did somehow, and it doesn't look like they're getting the info directly from Zap2It based on the investigations in the other threads. I suspect they have a way to "enhance" the XML guide data and look up those dd_progid things somehow.  I'll discuss with others in the other threads, and see what we can cobble together. If it is cobble-able, how much do you think can be built in (like mc2xml is now built in)?

That brings up another point... In the current TV implementation, you can set Tag on Import rules for each recording, but I don't see an easy place to create a global set of rules all in one spot (like you can for folders in Auto-Import).  It would be nice if either:

* If the Recording Directory is watched by Auto-Import, those rules were applied too.
* There was a single spot in TV Options somewhere to define them.

For little individual recordings, having the individual tag just this one this way setting is nice. But if you are trying to go in and manage them for scheduled recurring recordings, it is going to be clumsy to dig through and find them.  It is possible this exists and I just haven't found it yet.

There are, of course, other things that I'll miss like some of the complex recording rules (mentioned by others out there), but I think with this setup I can switch over to using MC full time (and then continue to poke and prod you on other stuff).

[RoderickGI]

In any case, you should probably have it trigger an automatic EPG reload when the user does Auto-Grouping.

Or perhaps just pop up a message telling the user that the Guide Load process now needs to be run again, and offering a button to do it.

Lots of people have complained about stuff just running again and again, and not just mc2xml. I think telling them what needs to be done and offering to do it now would placate those concerns. Also, they may have deleted the XML file, or the process may have (can the mc2xml load be done without downloading the data again?), and a rerun of the EPG download may take a long time, so it may not make sense to force a Guide Load straight away.

[RoderickGI]

Sage did somehow, and it doesn't look like they're getting the info directly from Zap2It based on the investigations in the other threads.

Remember, zap2it does supply Season and Episode numbers in the correct xmltv_ns format. See http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=100144.msg694527#msg694527

However, Rovi does not, so mc2xml, integrated or not, does not provide Season and Episode numbers. Rovi provides ms_progid identifiers, which are as much a mystery as the similar but different dd_progid number provided by zap2it.

I can't remember now if Schedules Direct provide Season and Episode numbers. CountryBumkin has tested and documented it somewhere. . .
Here http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=100144.msg693871#msg693871
Here http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=99519.msg691557#msg691557
So Schedules Direct doesn't provide Season and Episode numbers either.

Time to warm up Wireshark and see what Sage is doing to get Season and Episode numbers.

[RoderickGI]

Remember, zap2it does supply Season and Episode numbers in the correct xmltv_ns format.

Okay, I'm going to qualify that. It appears that zap2it has some Season and Episode numbers, but mostly uses its dd_progid data.

Take a look at the 2010 season of The Simpsons as an example.
http://tvlistings.zap2it.com/tvlistings/ZCProgram.do?sId=EP00018693&t=The+Simpsons&method=getEpisodesForShow&epYear=2010

Only three of twenty three episodes from that year have Season and Episode numbers associated with then. Note also that in the 2010 year, both Season 21 and Season 22 are listed. So the year and season do not align.

Other series have all the Season and Episode numbers. For example Friends and Family Guy.
http://tvlistings.zap2it.com/tv/family-guy/episode-guide/EP00296001/5?aid=zap2it


I guess that means zap2it isn't a reliable source of Season and Episode numbers, and that only TheTVDB is. Which means everyone will need post processing to get Season and Episode numbers.