Graph/ External Recorder - Ability to record to TS stream

[Dancasper]

My ISP provides an IPTV feed with h264 video and mpeg audio.

I have setup the external component of the Graph/ External recorder plugin to record this however the plugin appears to only want to write an mpg-ps stream.

In this case, I have to transcode the h264 to mpeg2 and write to mpeg2-ps file. Unfortunately I have a lower spec htpc (P4@2gHz + Radeon 9250 video) and it is struggling...I've had to resize the incoming stream to 272 x 288 and the whole transcode -> write file -> decode and display maxes out the cpu to 100% and provides a greatly reduced video quality.

I've looked at the settings for graphrecorder and did not come across any options that enters this.

If the incoming stream could be dumped to a ts file, this would greatly reduce cpu utilisation and the video quality is far better. Is it possible that the plugin could have an option or accomodate the possibility of the external/ graph component writing to a TS file?

I greatly appreciate the effort of carpeVideo, NormanR and Ubu in creating and developing the external/ software recorder plugins. Out of all Windows PVR software, this plugin gives GB-PVR the greatest flexibility to adapt to any source. As there are more h264 video feeds and as IPTV becomes more popular, the ability for this plugin to write to a ts file would greatly enhance GB-PVR.

[carpeVideo]

If your file writer file extension in the graph is ".ts" then that is what it will write (as long as your graph filters really produce a transport stream) Sometimes there are issues with malformed streams or true transport streams that have multiple programs so you may still need some intermediate filters (for example from my stb the raw stream doesn't work to well, but if I put it through nvidias ts parser it works.)

In your case perhaps the ISP is really write a program stream, since that is a component of a transport stream (warning I am not an expert on this) the raw program stream should still be playable by gbpvr and other programs.

CV

[Dancasper]

Thanks carpeVideo for your response.

I had no success after changing the extension to ts as my GBPVR-Recording Service log indicated it was still searching for a file with mpg extension and not ts. It may be because GB-PVR thinks the external recorder is an analog source?

Dont know how to program or GB-PVR operates but; Normans source of the external recorder gives a hint that the extension could be altered?
.........
public override string getFinalFileName()
{
// you can return a different name here - e.g. if you're recording to a .avi file instead of .mpg
return filename;
}
...........

My ts files that I have dumped from the stream play ok when I play them through the video library. I've also tried them in graphedit using the GB-PVR TS reader and MPEG2 Demultiplexer and they play fine so I'm pretty sure they would work.

Any chance you could have a look at this if you have any future revisions of the plugin? ..please.. :o

[carpeVideo]

Post your recording logs and I will take a look

[Dancasper]

I did a fresh install of 1.3.11 and Graphrecorder plugin from the website wiki.

Using mplayer with the default settings and -dumpstream option will write a ts stream that the GBPVR TS reader and MPEG2 Demultiplexer likes however mplayer does not appear to work with your plugin for me. It does take a while for it to start from the commandline (> 10 sec!), this may be why.

Using vlc works in the plugin but I cannot render the resulting ts stream in GBPVR for some reason. It possibly messes with the ES id's.. I will have to dig into the commandline options of both of these to get a solution. At the moment, I'm using VLC's own ts muxer (mux=ts)...I may try just seeing if it can dumping the raw stream to disk which I think mplayer does...

Attached are my logs, I appreciate you having a look for me. The GBPVR Recording service log indicates the temp file will be *.mpg however I have configured the plugin to write a *.ts file. ..and I think this is where it is going wrong.

Note, the plugin states on the help tab that {directory} is the variable for the directory the recorded file will write to however this does not work so I use {directoryname}. The variable does not include the drive letter so this precludes using seperate drives for the buffer and recording directories...which i can live with.

When running, PVRX2.exe freezes indefinitely...and requires to kill process in task manager.

If I set up vlc to transcode and write a mpeg2 ps stream it all works.

Thankyou muchly.

[carpeVideo]

Ah, I see the issue - I thought you were using the graph functionality, you are using the external recorder functionality via VLC so the plugin doesn't really know the type of file being written since the command could be anything. Let me think about how I would do a setting for that I should be able to come up with something.

CV

[carpeVideo]

Try this dll - change the extension on the first tab to .ts.

Also if mencoder takes > 10 seconds then it will likely never work - graphRecorder tests file sizes and if its not growing it returns an error. You can change some of the times it waits but GBPVR also expects a growing file in a certain time frame for it to work and 10 seconds is too much.

[Dancasper]

Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou Carpevideo.

Will test tonight and report back...

[mikeh49]

@Dancasper

Take a look at this thread from a few years ago.

http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?t=22563&page=6

It discusses using vlc in the external recorder to capture a TS stream. The discussion is about firewire capture from a STB in the US, but it includes info on the vlc commandline in external recorder. Carpe was a significant contributor to the thread.

I'm interested in the vlc command line for firewire, since the graph version is not working well for me: ATI mux is unreliable, and GBPVR can't read most of the TS streams from my box. So post back with any of your successes.

Mike

[Dancasper]

carpeVideo, its nay with the plugin but yay with VLC.

I'm using VLC 0.8.6h to dump the IPTV stream to disk...it writes a valid ts stream and PVRX2 opens it in video library ok

PVRX2 crashes though when trying to view "tv". In window mode I can see the file being dumped to the TV buffer directory so vlc is executing. As GBPVR crashes it does not delete this file, I can actually open it in video library when I restart PVRX2 so the dumped ts file appears ok.

The attached logs are similar to that previous as they look for the temp file with mpg extension (refer to GBPVRRecordingService.exe-1.log)...
-----------------------
2009-04-23 01:54:46.734 VERBOSE [7] Temporary live TV filename: D:\TV_Buffer\News_1_20090423_01000200.mpg
-----------------------

I would guess that GBPVR registers it as an analog capture source and assumes it will write mpg files...but that is a guess (from someone who has no idea about the inner works of GBPVR).

Mike --> for some reason, the recent vlc version would not let me dump the rtp: stream directly however I could save the stream with vlc's own ts mux. Using the ts mux, it appeared that it did not transfer the PIDs or PMT of the stream properly and I ended up with a stream that was not friendly with the MPEG2 Demultiplexer filter. Oh joy.

I'm sure the ability to fix this is within VLC somewhere but the documentation is minimal and forum support likewise. I'll have a look at it later on as I intend to checkout vlc's capture abilities...and stuff...it does alot. If I get it working, I will write a guide to this later on as my googling found little on IPTV pvr solutions.