DVB-T + BDA + VLC

[slick_nic]

Hi,

Ive been following this thread as streaming DVB-T from a Windows machine is somthing Ive been after doing for a while, however I have come across a problem when trying to stream BBC1 over my network in the UK. Video is transmitted correctly however in the UK BBC1 probides two audio streams, one "normal" audio stream and one with extra commentary on whats happening for the disabled. My problem is that when selecting this channel for streaming only the audio stream with the extra commentary is streamed, is there any way I can specify which of the two audio streams (which carry the same Program ID as far as i know) will be streamed?

Thanks again
P.S. VLC is awesome, one of the best open source projects out there, keep up the good work.

[KenS]

Ive been following this thread as streaming DVB-T from a Windows machine is somthing Ive been after doing for a while, however I have come across a problem when trying to stream BBC1 over my network in the UK. Video is transmitted correctly however in the UK BBC1 probides two audio streams, one "normal" audio stream and one with extra commentary on whats happening for the disabled. My problem is that when selecting this channel for streaming only the audio stream with the extra commentary is streamed, is there any way I can specify which of the two audio streams (which carry the same Program ID as far as i know) will be streamed?

I am in the process of moving house and my media PC is in pieces so I cannot replicate the problem but you should be able to select the audio stream from the Audio menu. Whilst the program id is the same each stream has its own id.

[slick_nic]

Ken,

Thanks for the reply, sorry I should have been more clear, when I start the application from the command line for streaming to another computer (using commands like those previously discussed in this thread), it selects the second audio stream rather than the first (when its avaliable).
When I set VLC going using the GUI it is possible to select the correct stream using the GUI and this works fine.
Also if you do try and replicate this problem at some stage you should be aware that the second stream is not avaliable all day, I only noticed it myself when watching Eastenders while doing some testing.

[KenS]

I found this in the wiki at http://www.videolan.org/doc/vlc-user-guide/en/ch04.html

--sout-all, --no-sout-all Enable streaming of all ES (default disabled). By defaut VLC will only stream one audio ES and one video ES (the first ones). If you enable sout-all, all ES (audio, video and SPU) will be streamed.

That might help.

[dionoea]

Note that sout-all is now default enabled in 0.9.0.

[terrypye]

Could any of the developers please cast any light on the progress of transcode within VLC 9 and the usage of dvbt etc. I am able to stream quite happily with http as per above using the default mpgv and mpga codecs from the dvbt stream, but any attempt to transcode results in a crash of VLC in module Libffmpeg_plugin,dll (ver 0.0.0.0) in VLC.exe ver 0.9.0.0 latest build 17/07/2007.

The following causes the crash

"C:/VLC-0.9.0/VLC.exe" dvbt:// :dvb-frequency=177500 :dvb-bandwidth=7 :access-filter=timeshift :sout=#transcode{vcodec=WMV2,vb=4096,scale=1,acodec=WMA,ab=96,channels=2}:duplicate{dst=std{access=mmsh,mux=asf,dst=:8080}}

Even if ts mux under http is used with different codecs to suit, result is the same. In order to stream using mms and hence use Tversity to stream to my DSM320, I need to use the access=http,mux=asfh option and stream http to another version of VLC (this time 8.6c) and transcode to mmsh that way. A bit of an overhead for 2 versions of VLC, but at least it works. Obviously the code is around (in VLC 8.6c) to transcode stream, but it looks like it has not yet been implemented in VLC 9.

Is there also any idea of likely release date of Vlc 9 for windows to update vlc 8.6c.

Regards

[kmf31]

@terrypye:

Is vlc and/or ffmpeg really able to create "wmv2" ? Did you try this with some regular mpeg file and not only with dvb ?

Maybe you should first try to record the dvb in a mpeg-file using some option like: "--sout file/ps:$1" where $1 represents the file name you chose. You may also replace "ps" by "ts" for TS- instead of PS-encapsulation.

Afterwards you can try to transcode the mpeg file to wmv2 and here you may also try to use vlc-0.8.6c since at this point you do not need any dvb-support. Of course provided that ffmpeg indeed contains wmv-encoding functionality (and not only decoding).


PS: Honnestly, I do not see any interest to transcode from a rather free format such as mpeg (apart from some patents which do not reduce its wide support in free software) to a quite closed format such as wmv whose primary aim at its time of developpement was quite explicitely to exclude free players such as vlc (and also free OS such as Linux) and for many years this was also the case and it is still the case for some variants (e.g. for the audio-variant used with HD-wmv).
If you want to economize place on the hard disk you can chose divx as transcoding result and if you want to keep best quality the best is to keep the original mpeg from dvb without transcoding and knowing the prices of modern USB-harddisks ...

PS2: I am not a vlc-developper.

[terrypye]

to KMF31

Yes VLC can transcode to WMV2 and WMA not a problem using VLC8.6 variants and it even takes the output of http streaming from dvbt VLC9 system and converts to windows media format.

If you read the posts, you would see that I (and others) need windows media format that Tversity can recognise for streaming to Upnp DSM320 home entertainment units, if Graphedit can not read and decode the stream (such as http with mpgv and mpga under ts) then it is of no use to Tversity. Windows media format presents no such problems with mmsh and asfh. Also if you read from the forums others certainly want to do the same thing. Whilst you see no point, others do for very good reasons. These forums (not just dvbt threads) are full of requests for upnp streaming involving the DSM320 and like devices from TV and capture cards and the windows media format route is a most effective way to go for which I have posted several topics that have been read by hundreds of users with many responding with thanks for the tips.

Transcoding is a critical part of VLC, it is where it's strength is and why it is so usefull, the fact remains that such a major feature of VLC is not yet implemented fully (if at all) in VLC9 and needs to be looked at. Whilst it is desirable to always use the most up to date formats, features and equipment sometimes we must remember that a lot of people in the real world have older equipment and do not have the resources to constantly upgrade, hence the beauty of VLC in being able to support them.

Sorry that's off my chest now, but still needs transcoding to work to windows media formats, it is a real world need.

[kmf31]

Okay and thanks for the informations. I personally never bothered to create wmv.

If direct transcoding (and streaming) to wmv does not (yet) work with dvb in vlc-0.9.0 you might still think of an indirect way as I suggested: either record as a mpeg2 file or even stream the mpeg2 file to the same PC and use another vlc instance (maybe even vlc-0.8.6c) to transcode and save (or further stream) it to wmv. I suppose this should be less critical. In particular the first vlc who takes the dvb input to save or stream it in mpeg2 does not need a lot of CPU. Actually if you have a double core CPU using two vlc instances might even be of advantage as far as the CPU charge is concerned.

Okay, in time vlc-0.9.0 will hopefully be more stable in all its functions. To my understanding there are still many "things" to do until a first official test-release (which is supposed to be much more stable than a nightly build).

[terrypye]

Already done with a second version of VLC8.6c as per my initial post of a week or 2 ago on dual core Pentium D950 (3.4ghz). Works well enough but just seems somewhat inefficient and does max out my system on decent transcode bit rates, have to scale it down a bit with scale=0.625 as well to ensure HD channels aspect ratios are retained on second VLC instance (8.6c). My main concern is for VLC9 to have transcode working in a similar manner to 8.6.

[grobinson]

... a second version of VLC8.6c as per my initial post of a week or 2 ago on dual core Pentium D950 (3.4ghz). Works well enough but just seems somewhat inefficient and does max out my system on decent transcode bit rates, have to scale it down a bit with scale=0.625 as well to ensure HD channels aspect ratios are retained on second VLC instance (8.6c).

Thought I'd try to be clever and avoid a second instance by using JTVLAN to stream instead. JTVLAN uses Webscheduler to access the DVB-T card and VLC to stream and provides a client to change channels. So, I thought, I'd stream to the DSM and use the client to change channels without interrupting the stream connection. Good theory - didn't work. JTVLAN streamed the http to VLC (8.6) happily enough (which TVersity wouldn't accept) but I haven't managed to get mmsh streaming going, even to VLC. It seemed lighter on the processor (P4 3.2GHz @ 30% to 40%). I wish I was better at this stuff!

I thought I'd suggest it as a another (maybe) cleverer solution, since we're both trying to achieve the same thing with the same devices and same software (TVersity). I'm sure even the missus could change channels by clicking on the JTVLAN client channel nuber an hitting "Play".

I'll keep trying and get back.

[idezmax]

ok. thanks.

-----------------------
http://www.idezmax.com/

[terrypye]

JTVLAN and Web Scheduler do indead work well enough to stream via VLC to Tversity and hence DSM320, in fact I had this one going some time before VLC9 and I believe VLC9 option is a bit cleaner and simpler.

The stream setup for JTVlan is as below

For JTVLAN Server
standard{access=http,mux=ts,url=:7777}

And JTVLAN Client
http://Terry:7777/

And playlist entry for vlc to accept JTVLAN stream and push out in mmsh for Tversity (watch ab=80, works for me, but you may need to play with to get sound for you)

#EXTM3U
#EXTVLCOPT:sout=#transcode{vcodec=WMV2,vb=3072,scale=0.625,acodec=wma,ab=80,channels=2}:duplicate{dst=std{access=mmsh,mux=asfh,dst=:1234}}
http://terry:7777

or "C:\Program Files\Videolan\Vlc\VLC.exe" [vlc options] http://terry:7777 sout=#transcode vcodec=WMV2,vb=3072,scale=0.625,acodec=wma,ab=80,channels=2}:duplicate{dst=std{access=mmsh,mux=asfh,dst=:1234}}

put whatever vlc options in you want or leave them out altogether

Only problem is you are in fact running 3 copies of VLC (one for server, one for client and one to stream the output to Tversity). Similar cpu issues to before so need a lot of grunt, yes you can change the channel if you have a big box by you when watching your plasma off the dsm320 or other, but final VLC drops out in the streaming changeover and needs to be continued (just tick the continue box). Not really an improvement on using VLC 9.0 options, but it does work.

[terrypye]

Another variation on a theme is to use Mediaportal and to stream using the manual control in the TV server, pick that up with VLC and stream to Tversity in mmsh that way. Since The TV Server streams in rtsp the following playlist entry works fine in VLC to pick it up and send onwards in mmsh. I find in this case vcode-DIV3 to be more stable than WMV2 as per previous posts. You need to understand Mediaportal a bit to do this, so there is a learning curve, but it is the least cpu intensive method of getting digital TV to a dsm320 or other via Tversity. You need to check the streaming logs to determine correct parameters for stream, but usually they are rtsp://your machine/stream1.0 where your machine can be name or ip address. It is a bit complex to get going initially if you do not understand Mediaportal, but if you are a techie there should be no problems.

Also rather than use the TV Server manual control if you start the server (either manually or automatically) you can use mediaportal itself to view any channel selected which also starts the stream.

Be carefull though SQL server is needed, however is free to download, so mediaportal install is not simple, with Tv Server, Application and application plug in for TV Server all to consider, but a lot of fun to try.

VLC playlist to onstream Mediaportal stream to Tversity in mmsh
#EXTM3U
#EXTVLCOPT:sout=#transcode{vcodec=DIV3,vb=2048,scale=1,acodec=wma,ab=80,channels=2}:duplicate{dst=std{access=mmsh,mux=asfh,dst=Terry:1234}}
rtsp://terry/stream1.0

or standard command line option

"C:\Program Files\Videolan\Vlc\vlc.exe" rtsp://terry/stream1.0

[grobinson]

My, you have been busy! Thanks for all the great info. One thing I don't understand is why transcode to WMV2 to feed TVersity which (I think) transcodes it back to mpeg to feed the DSM (which doesn't do WMV)? Or is that simply to work with the mmsh protocol?

[terrypye]

For Tversity to be able to stream anything onwards, it needs to readable (and decipherable) by graphedit. the only format I have been able to get going successfully is WMV1, WMV2 or DIV3 as the vcodec and wma (yes) as the acodec with very specific bit rates for the acodec. Wrap this up with asfh under mmsh and there you are, it works. You can force it to trancode at dsm320 end, but I believe it also accepts windows media formats.

I did not mention it previously, since it is a VLC free option and hence not really part of this forum but to use another variation on a theme with the best cpu usage option yet is to use the SAAR Mytheatre program (cost $40US, but free version give up to 1hr usage each go). Use the streaming plug in (Live AV Broadcaster) and select http option. Pick this up in Tversity directly as http://terry:8000/dvbcore.mpg and no need for intermediate version of VLC, uses about 40-50% of my Pentium D950 3.4ghz. You can also use VLC to convert to windows media format as per previous posts and go that way, but it is extra overhead, below is VLC playlist commands.

VLC Mytheatre stream intercept (you do not need to go this way, just add url http://terry:8000/dvbcore.mpg to Tversity.
#EXTM3U
#EXTVLCOPT:sout=#transcode{vcodec=WMV2,vb=3072,scale=0.625,acodec=wma,ab=80,channels=2}:duplicate{dst=std{access=mmsh,mux=asfh,url=Terry:1234}}
http://terry:8000/dvbcore.mpg

or in command line

"C:\Program Files\Videplan\Vlc\vlc.exe" http://terry:8000/dvbcore.mpg
sout=#transcode{vcodec=WMV2,vb=3072,scale=0.625,acodec=wma,ab=80,channels=2}:duplicate{dst=std{access=mmsh,mux=asfh,url=Terry:1234}}

There are also zillions of approaches using the software that came with your DVB card to intercept either the timestreaming temp file or recording file with Tversity (or in some cases VLC as an intermediary). They do not always work but many do in addition to using standard VLC8.6 analog capture (svideo or composite) to capture output of SD/HD set top box and on stream that onwards. If you look for streaming live TV or look at my posts you will see the plethora of options, most of them using VLC (viva VLC)

[grobinson]

I must be holding my tongue the wrong way! I can't get graphedit to accept ANYTHING I send from VLC. I can render internet video in it, like http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/tv/mediawat ... 7_ep22.wmv perfectly. But download and try to stream the same thing from VLC and graphedit just won't look at it. Am I not using VLC correctly?

"C:\Program Files\Videolan\Vlc8-6c\VLC.exe" "D:\TV\Fusion\mediawatch_2007_ep22.wmv" sout=#transcode vcodec=WMV2,vb=3072,scale=0.625,acodec=wma,ab=80,channels=2}:duplicate{dst=std{access=mmsh,mux=asfh,dst=192.168.0.103:1234}}

I try to render mms://192.168.0.103:1234 but get nothing but a message that the remote system refused the network connection - Error 0x800704c9. Aargh!

[terrypye]

I must be holding my tongue the wrong way! I can't get graphedit to accept ANYTHING I send from VLC. I can render internet video in it, like http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/tv/mediawat ... 7_ep22.wmv perfectly. But download and try to stream the same thing from VLC and graphedit just won't look at it. Am I not using VLC correctly?

"C:\Program Files\Videolan\Vlc8-6c\VLC.exe" "D:\TV\Fusion\mediawatch_2007_ep22.wmv" sout=#transcode vcodec=WMV2,vb=3072,scale=0.625,acodec=wma,ab=80,channels=2}:duplicate{dst=std{access=mmsh,mux=asfh,dst=192.168.0.103:1234}}

I try to render mms://192.168.0.103:1234 but get nothing but a message that the remote system refused the network connection - Error 0x800704c9. Aargh!

Your are missing an opening quote { after transcode and a colon : before the sout.
You could also try the graphical interface to build up the command, just watch your acodec since wma is not there. You have to edit it in before exiting the graphical sout build screen (and also the ab=80)

The command should read

"D:\TV\Fusion\mediawatch_2007_ep22.wmv" :sout=#transcode{vcodec=WMV2,vb=3072,scale=0.625,acodec=wma,ab=80,channels=2}:duplicate{dst=std{access=mmsh,mux=asfh,dst=192.168.0.103:1234}}

If this does not work, how big is your .wmv file, if you can strip it down to 1-2 mb for test purposes, please email it to me and I will check it out. By the way it could be any file type, not just wmv.

[terrypye]

I must be holding my tongue the wrong way! I can't get graphedit to accept ANYTHING I send from VLC. I can render internet video in it, like http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/tv/mediawat ... 7_ep22.wmv perfectly. But download and try to stream the same thing from VLC and graphedit just won't look at it. Am I not using VLC correctly?

"C:\Program Files\Videolan\Vlc8-6c\VLC.exe" "D:\TV\Fusion\mediawatch_2007_ep22.wmv" sout=#transcode vcodec=WMV2,vb=3072,scale=0.625,acodec=wma,ab=80,channels=2}:duplicate{dst=std{access=mmsh,mux=asfh,dst=192.168.0.103:1234}}

I try to render mms://192.168.0.103:1234 but get nothing but a message that the remote system refused the network connection - Error 0x800704c9. Aargh!

On further investigation, I have picked up the file you want via http and streamed it directly in mmsh using VLC, no need to send me a cut down version of it. here is the VLC playlist entry. Also done same with downloaded file and that works also.

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:827,Media Watch Ep22
#EXTVLCOPT:sout=#transcode{vcodec=DIV3,vb=3072,scale=1,acodec=wma,ab=96,channels=2}:duplicate{dst=std{access=mmsh,mux=asfh,dst=:1234}}
http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/tv/mediawat ... 7_ep22.wmv


or in simpler terms

"C:\Program Files\Videolan\VLC\vlc.exe" http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/tv/mediawat ... ,dst=:1234}}

Your command line syntax is incorrect, in this instance note ab=96, depending on source mode is sometimes 80 and even in 1 case I hit 64. I find it better to use DIV3 rather than WMV2 since it involves less transcoding in Tversity (yes you are correct WMV2 needs transcoding for DSM320, wma does not nor does DIV3, hence less cpu usage and a better quality picture I believe. Sometimes even if you think the syntax is ok VLC may not run, in those cases I just retype the command line in it's executable .bat file and try again, it may be unprintable characters have snuck in there, but in any case retype usually works.

Hope this helps

[terrypye]

Something went wrong with the command line syntax in the last post it should read


"C:\Program Files\Videolan\Vlv\Vlc.exe" http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/tv/mediawat ... 7_ep22.wmv
:sout=#transcode{vcodec=DIV3,vb=3072,scale=1,acodec=wma,ab=96,channels=2}:duplicate{dst=std{access=mmsh,mux=asfh,dst=:1234}}

Leave 1 space between .wmv and :sout

[grobinson]

D'oh! Dopey me! Can't even get the command line right.

Thanks to your help I finally have got VLC to stream something to the DSM. Interestingly I tried DIV3 as you suggested and, while I could get graphedit to render it and I could play it locally using TVersity on the PC, the DSM wouldn't play it. Didn't reject it, just that the "clock" just kept going round and round. Put vcodec to WMV2 just now and it works! Funny though that according to the DSM specs, it's supposed to do DivX and wma natively.

Now to try the DVB card. One thing I still don't quite understand is the audio setting ab = 96. (a) How did you figure it out? and (b) why 96 and not some other number? Thanks for getting me going boldly where I've never managed to go before.

Out of interest, a while back there was some discussion about Webscheduler streaming the recording it was making via http, since Webscheduler uses that style of interface already. It was a bit over my head but seemed to indicate something like if you put the recording into the http directory you could pick it using WS's http://localhost:8429 path. But then again I could be wrong.

As you pointed out a number of times, it would be much simpler if VLC 9 simply transcoded. Thanks again for your advice.

[Trollslayer]

OK it works

But it works badly for me, image is far from perfect:


And the sound is stuttering all the way

The command line I've used is:
dvb-t:// :dvb-frequency=642000 :dvb-bandwidth=8 :sout=#duplicate{dst=display} :sout-display-delay=512

The same channel is working fine with other DVB apps like ProgDVB.
Signal is about 70-75% and quality about 95%.

Any ideas about how to solve that ?

There is a known bug introduced by XP SP2 that causes MPEG2 transport streams (including those with MPEG-4 content) to stutter and the fix is KB896626, see http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... layLang=en.

[terrypye]

D'oh! Dopey me! Can't even get the command line right.

Thanks to your help I finally have got VLC to stream something to the DSM. Interestingly I tried DIV3 as you suggested and, while I could get graphedit to render it and I could play it locally using TVersity on the PC, the DSM wouldn't play it. Didn't reject it, just that the "clock" just kept going round and round. Put vcodec to WMV2 just now and it works! Funny though that according to the DSM specs, it's supposed to do DivX and wma natively.

Now to try the DVB card. One thing I still don't quite understand is the audio setting ab = 96. (a) How did you figure it out? and (b) why 96 and not some other number? Thanks for getting me going boldly where I've never managed to go before.

Out of interest, a while back there was some discussion about Webscheduler streaming the recording it was making via http, since Webscheduler uses that style of interface already. It was a bit over my head but seemed to indicate something like if you put the recording into the http directory you could pick it using WS's http://localhost:8429 path. But then again I could be wrong.

As you pointed out a number of times, it would be much simpler if VLC 9 simply transcoded. Thanks again for your advice.

The ab=96 or ab=80 was by trial and error. ab=196 (vlc default just would not work, even though graphedit picked it up, it would not play the audio so I just played around a bit since I knew it was there from Graphedit. I am not a sound specialist, but I suspect is is a combination of matching bit rates between encoding and transcoding (how's that for a cop out).

As for the DIV3 codec, have you got ffdshow installed, it also helps to have AC3 filter as well for HD sound.

On re-reading your last post it seems that graphedit does pick it up and you can play it locally but is this also via graphedit, if not you have a codec issue with ffdshow, best pick up the latest, I currently run 29 May 2007 version with Tversity 0.9.10.7 and DSM320 microcode 1.07ww (latest you can get in OZ). If graphedit will not play stream or any part of it, it is likely that DSM320 will do the same.

Does grahedit show you anything with DIV3, mine shows mms://terry:1234 as source input going via the following streams.

Video stream 2
ASF ICM Handler ---- ffdshow Video Decoder --- Video Renderer (ffdshow properties show DIVX 3 decoder is libavcodec)

Audio stream 1
ASF ACM Handler --- WMAudio Decoder DMO --- AC3Filter --- Default Direct sound device

It could be you do not have ffdshow set up properly for DIVX

As for web scheduler, you are quite correct, you just pick up the stream from the server as you suggested, you will be running 3 copies of VLC (one for server-invisible other than in task manager, one for client and one for onstream to Tversity. Unless of course you are using multiple desktops/laptops, when you still have 3 VLC's, but not all on same machine.

Hope this helps

[terrypye]

D'oh! Dopey me! Can't even get the command line right.

Thanks to your help I finally have got VLC to stream something to the DSM. Interestingly I tried DIV3 as you suggested and, while I could get graphedit to render it and I could play it locally using TVersity on the PC, the DSM wouldn't play it. Didn't reject it, just that the "clock" just kept going round and round. Put vcodec to WMV2 just now and it works! Funny though that according to the DSM specs, it's supposed to do DivX and wma natively.

Now to try the DVB card. One thing I still don't quite understand is the audio setting ab = 96. (a) How did you figure it out? and (b) why 96 and not some other number? Thanks for getting me going boldly where I've never managed to go before.

Out of interest, a while back there was some discussion about Webscheduler streaming the recording it was making via http, since Webscheduler uses that style of interface already. It was a bit over my head but seemed to indicate something like if you put the recording into the http directory you could pick it using WS's http://localhost:8429 path. But then again I could be wrong.

As you pointed out a number of times, it would be much simpler if VLC 9 simply transcoded. Thanks again for your advice.

Forgot to add, how is Tversity set to transcode, I have transcode as necessary, not always. Could be an issue, I also use screen size of 640 x 480, but I do not think that is an issue.

[grobinson]

I have transcode as necessary, not always. Could be an issue, I also use screen size of 640 x 480, but I do not think that is an issue.

Yeah, I transcode when needed too. I have an iPod and use aac encoding that TVersity transcodes when I play my music library at home. I agree that the screen size shouldn't be of concern though I have mine set at 720 x 576 (though I cn't remember why!) Just waiting to get my go at the TV to try again. Still wonering about how you figured out that audio setting ...

EDIT: Success streaming the DVB-T card! And it's only taken me 2½ years! Used the JTVLAN method and maxed out my 3.2GHz P4 with hyper-threading - 98% to 100% in both. I'll see if the dual VLC method is much easier on the processor as you say.