New Plugin: DboxRecorder Plugin

[atomicjam]

Hi Atomicjam,
Are you pulling in full EPG I still need to get mine completely boxed off currently I am only running with a testbed of 30 channels or so on each box, did do some stuff on XMLTV but wasnt entirely happy with the results, let me know how you are pulling your epg, if you have it working in entirety and what method you are using to pull it



Orinoco

I'm haved about 40 channels setup at the moment and I haven't had any problems with getting any of the channels. I didi have trouble with the dbox web interface on Channel 4, I didn't get any sound, I don't have this problem with GBPVR.

For the TV guide I am using XMLTV GUI to grab the guide from radio times and then point to the file this creates with GBPVR. What sort of problems are you having?

Atomicjam

[alibert]

Update:

http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?t=13708

-alibert

[mattblack711]

Hi all

I am having the exact same issues as nollafb with the same hardware/software configuration.

I have followed the guides to the letter and I still can't get a picture or recording to work. I have tried other dbox images and the same thing still happens. I am able to communicate with the dbox from the pc and the channel changes immediately.

What I don't understand is how the dbox knows to stream to the PC. Surely there must be something that has to be configured on the dbox?

I work in IT so am I very comfortable with networking and PCs. I have also built MCE PCs which work great but this seems a superior way to talk to a digital box if I could just get it to work.

Matt

PS the logs say that the channel failed to change which is not correct. The channel changed immediately. I think the plug-in fails if it thinks the channel change hasn't worked.

I am happy to test.

[alibert]

Hi Matt,

What I don't understand is how the dbox knows to stream to the PC. Surely there must be something that has to be configured on the dbox?

In the neutrino recording menu of the dbox, no special configurations are needed - leaving the 'recording device' (don't know how "Aufnahme Gerät" is translated in neutrino) to 'off' or 'none' should be okay.

PS the logs say that the channel failed to change which is not correct. The channel changed immediately. I think the plug-in fails if it thinks the channel change hasn't worked.

I can't remember exactly, but I think that the log will also say that channel change failed if there are no PIDs on that channel - I will have a look in the evening.

I am happy to test.

Is ggrab.exe (solely from the command line) basically working with your setup?

-alibert

[mattblack711]

Alibert

Firstly thanks for the work in this. It is much appreciated!

Now to embarrass myself but how do I identify the PID? Nothing shows in the logs.

A point to note for everyone is that the dbox2 only has a 10MB port which will probably never run at full rate so I suspect that some issues may present around this for multiple streaming etc.

Matt

[alibert]

Hi,

the plugin should be able to receive the audio and video pids from the dbox, then the plugin starts ggrab with these parameters.

Please do the following:

• open a web browser, and type the following address: http://<ip_of_dbox>/control/zapto?getpids
  
• you should see two numbers - these numbers are the audio and video pid of the current programme
  
• take a calculator and convert those numbers to hex values
  
• open a command prompt and navigate to the directory of ggrab.exe
  
• type in the following command: ggrab.exe -host <ip_of_dbox> -o "c:\test.mpeg" -m 2 -p <first_pid_as_hex> <second_pid_as_hex>
  

This will record 2 minutes from the current channel to c:\test.mpeg.

Please let me know if this works with your setup.

-alibert

[mattblack711]

Alibert

I changed to UK:Sportster_Pro_1.02 and I can now get a video/audio output both in live TV and for recording.

It is very choppy however which only settles down when I stop live TV or recording.

Is this a limitation perhaps of the 10MB NIC or even the limited memory on the dbox? I wonder how anyone with the dreambox is doing with more memory and a 100MB NIC.

Any suggestions?

Matt

[mattblack711]

Alibert

Sorry for the two postings.

Interestingly when I run ggrab from the command line it is perfect. The output is excellent and the dbox is not choppy in any way.

I think the issue for me is that I am trying to record and watch from the laptop (test machine) at the same time. When I do a scheduled record it isn't too bad.

I will try a higher spec PC later in the week.

Matt

[alibert]

Matt,

you could also try to check if the laptop is the bottleneck by starting ggrab manually, and then launch gbpvr and play the file via the video library.

-alibert

[pt-1]

Hi,

the plugin should be able to receive the audio and video pids from the dbox, then the plugin starts ggrab with these parameters.

Please do the following:

• open a web browser, and type the following address: http://<ip_of_dbox>/control/zapto?getpids
  
• you should see two numbers - these numbers are the audio and video pid of the current programme
  
• take a calculator and convert those numbers to hex values
  
• open a command prompt and navigate to the directory of ggrab.exe
  
• type in the following command: ggrab.exe -host <ip_of_dbox> -o "c:\test.mpeg" -m 2 -p <first_pid_as_hex> <second_pid_as_hex>
  

This will record 2 minutes from the current channel to c:\test.mpeg.

Please let me know if this works with your setup.

-alibert

You can also telnet to the Box and enter: pzapit --getpids

you will get somethings like this:
video: 0x65
teletext: 0x68
pcr: 0x65
pmt: 0x64
*audio 1: 0x66 (deu)
audio 2: 0x6a (deu, ac3)