HEVC TV Channels and Transcoding

[The Solutor]

In my country we are at the dawn of great changes in communications...

In autumn 2021 all SD channels will be moved from Mpeg2 to Mpeg4/h264.
Then, in 2022, all channels SD/HD (ad higher res) will be aired only using the HEVC/H265 codec and the 800 MHz band will change its usage from TV to 5G telephony.

I think also in the US the ATSC channels will follow a similar path.

We have already a couple of test channels, just a static frame to test the device readiness to the new standard.

Out of curiosity i tested various SW including NPVR4/5.

They seem both working in general, and Kodi, MPC-HC, VLC are working as well. Windows Media Center instead does not undesrtand the HEVC TV, even if it has no problems with HEVC local files.

Also NPVR seem unable to transcode the signal.

Hence I have two questions:

#1 Is NPVR supposed to transcode such channels? I'm facing a bug or a missing/not yet implemented feature?

#2 Is possible (or will be possible) to set NPVR to transcode not just to browsers but also to selected IPTV clients like WMC and any other clients that lacks the native HEVC capability?

There is no urgency, at lest here there is a whole year before the final migration but I think is better to stay ready both uses as coders.

[mvallevand]

NextPVR web can transcode hevc but direct play is of course preferred.  Logs would help us see the issue.

Martin

[sub]

Lots of parts of the world already use H264, including here in New Zealand, so you shouldn't have any problem with these.

In theory NextPVR should also work fine with HEVC channels, but if it's not, let use know in what scenario, and post the logs and we'll take a look why.

As Martin pointed out, you're best to use a client that doesn't require transcoding. It's only really the web app that needs content transcoded, since browsers can typically only play H264 content in HLS/DASH format. If you're using NextPVR.exe or Kodi or other clients that can directplay the streams, then you shouldn't require transcoding.

[The Solutor]

Lots of parts of the world already use H264, including here in New Zealand, so you shouldn't have any problem with these.

Indeed H264 is used for HD channels since forever but that wasn't my question

In theory NextPVR should also work fine with HEVC channels, but if it's not, let use know in what scenario, and post the logs and we'll take a look why.

Indeed it seem not working via WEB UI (I believe ffmpeg crash) but I'll post the logs as soon as possible

As Martin pointed out, you're best to use a client that doesn't require transcoding. 

NPVR is your son, but WMC is my nephew, I'm one of the 3/4 people who ported it to Windows 10 (and windows server), so I'm not going to abandone it and I'll keep it alive as longer as I can.

I'm using  tvcard since the days of 486s and I'm well aware of what transcoding implies, no need to treat me as a child.

Practically NPVR has already everything is needed for my purpose. It just lacks a "knob" to fullify my exigence. So I was asking if that was possible to do that, via special url, a config editing or whatever.

Thanks in advance.

[sub]

In theory NextPVR should also work fine with HEVC channels, but if it's not, let use know in what scenario, and post the logs and we'll take a look why.

Indeed it seem not working via WEB UI (I believe ffmpeg crash) but I'll post the logs as soon as possible

From your description, it sounds like you don't actually HEVC channels yet? How were you reproducing the issue? Post the logs and I'll take a look what was happening.

[sub]

NPVR is your son, but WMC is my nephew, I'm one of the 3/4 people who ported it to Windows 10 (and windows server), so I'm not going to abandone it and I'll keep it alive as longer as I can.

I'm using  tvcard since the days of 486s and I'm well aware of what transcoding implies, no need to treat me as a child.

Practically NPVR has already everything is needed for my purpose. It just lacks a "knob" to fullify my exigence. So I was asking if that was possible to do that, via special url, a config editing or whatever.

Some of your posts come across as quite rude, which may be a language thing. I'd tone it down a bit, otherwise you may find people are less willing to help. I wasn't treating you as a child.

I have no idea how you're getting your streams into WMC. I'm guessing as an IPTV stream or something. v4 had a pretty simple http://ip:port/transcode?channel=12 style url that may have been the sort of thing you were looking for. It's unlikely this will make a return in NextPVR v5.

[The Solutor]

Some of your posts come across as quite rude, which may be a language thing. I'd tone it down a bit, otherwise you may find people are less willing to help. I wasn't treating you as a child.

Possibly a language thing, my English is pretty poor, sorry, but also arguing and replying with another question is not the best way for a serene discussion.

I have no idea how you're getting your streams into WMC.

I use the IPTV plugin for DVBLink.

Now, you may ask "why not using DVBlink directly?" because after years of usage of practically any solution NPVR5 proved to be a way better solution than DBlink own tuner module.

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[url=http://ip/]http://ip:port/transcode?channel=12 style url that may have been the sort of thing you were looking for. It's unlikely this will make a return in NextPVR v5.

That was exactly what I was looking for. But I assume that transcoding the HEVC signal using npvr4 is out of question.

[sub]

I don't know - the old v4 transcoding logic may have worked with HEVC. It was pretty unreliable though, and wasn't used by any of the NextPVR clients though, so the functionality wasn't recreated for v5 (which was largely a new application).

[The Solutor]

I don't know - the old v4 transcoding logic may have worked with HEVC. It was pretty unreliable though, and wasn't used by any of the NextPVR clients though, so the functionality wasn't recreated for v5 (which was largely a new application).

OK thanks anyway, I'm going to collect logs for the HEVC thing

[The Solutor]

OK

Logs are here

http://put.nu/files/8PWxyTb.7z (archive's password = NPVR5)

They include a brief (successful) tanscoding from Mpeg2 and an unsuccessful one from HEVC