BM1000-HDMI (HDMI Encoder) Review

[rfutscher]

That did it. I can now use the 3000 in Sage. The setup hints are all over the place and I would not have been able to find that gem without your help. To be honest I had stopped looking because I read somewhere that OpenDCT doesn't work with any device that it doesn't discover.

Now a few more problems to solve:

The playback in VLC is good but in Sage it is slow, about half speed.

I have duplicate entries in the program guide. I wish that it was easier to edit the guide ID for each station. All the off air stations are from repeaters.

My Genie mini STP stops the network interface when powered off and I can't turn it back on remotely. Maybe I can find an irBlaster that is controlled over the network.

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

I don't see any evidence that you configured OpenDCT for these devices. It cannot automatically detect them since they don't provide any means to do so. I would have loved if they had that option.

Take a look at Tuning a Channel (OpenDCT IPTV HDMI Encoder) under the following link.
https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=63212

Steps 10 and 11 can be skipped if you're going to use SageTV to do tuning. Otherwise you'll need to provide a tuning solution.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by egeller

I just got the BM3000 this week and used it to replace my HDPVR. I read through this thread and quickly realized that the installation instructions were in another thread. Set up was fairly quick and easy.

Here are some random thoughts:
The BM3000 status web page documents the URL to the Transport Stream that must be put in the OpenDCT config file. The URL also works from VLC. Wow, Now I can use my Comcast box from any PC in my house, as long as SageTV is not using it.

Still no SageTV-Controlable Closed Captioning. Darn. It's either all-on or all-off and controlled at the cable box.

I had to get into the Cable Box's config menu to adjust the output to be 1080. Unfortunately, it's limited to 30 fps, so 60 fps is a no-go for me. 1080p@30fps (reported by Sage) seems OK, however. I also started seeing all 4:3 output as stretched, so I turned that off in the cable box.

The configuration for the ActiveAspectRatios plug-in needed to be adjusted for some (non-16:9) channels. Aspect ratio control between the Cable Box and the transport stream seems to work differently than with the HDPVR.

It's nice to see some tips for a more normal user than myself. I've been thinking about starting a thread on just how to get OpenDCT configured to use this since I've been seeing a little confusion over how to get working.

As far as I know, HDMI doesn't really have any provisioning for closed captioning, so it's up to the box to overlay it.

I'm using 1080p30 even though I'm capturing from a PC running WMC that's outputting 1080p60 namely because the HD200 can't handle 1080p60 which will soon be irrelevant for me. Even on 720p60 content, with the exception of fast tickers, I don't think I've noticed any bad side-effects.

My experience has been that you can be recording from the box at the same time you're viewing through VLC. I did not notice any issues with recordings as a result of "sharing" the stream. Of course you don't want to change the channel or you'll have problems.

Do you have the STB locked at 1080p30 or does it switch to a lower resolution when playing SD content? If you have it switching resolutions, you might want to try the option for Encoded size: "same as the input" or "auto". It's a little annoying that you have to reboot the device to see the effects of these changes, but it's worth playing around a little bit.

If you set the STB to native resolution, you can also try to get the best of both worlds. You can set up your main stream to be 1080p30 and a secondary stream to be 720p60. Then define the streaming_url2 property, to point to the secondary stream URL and add your 720p and SD channels to streaming_url2_channels as a comma separated list (e.g. sagetv.device.<unique_id>.streaming_url2_channels=1,2,3). If you do this, you'll need increase the delay_to_wait_after_tuning in Sage.properties because during the resolution change, SageTV might get a little upset.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by rfutscher

That did it. I can now use the 3000 in Sage. The setup hints are all over the place and I would not have been able to find that gem without your help. To be honest I had stopped looking because I read somewhere that OpenDCT doesn't work with any device that it doesn't discover.

Now a few more problems to solve:

The playback in VLC is good but in Sage it is slow, about half speed.

I have duplicate entries in the program guide. I wish that it was easier to edit the guide ID for each station. All the off air stations are from repeaters.

My Genie mini STP stops the network interface when powered off and I can't turn it back on remotely. Maybe I can find an irBlaster that is controlled over the network.

That used to be true and still is for detectable devices.

Are you playing back on an HD200 extender?

[rfutscher]

Good question

I am playing back on the Sage server PC with the half speed playback. I just checked my HD300 and the playback is good.

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

That used to be true and still is for detectable devices.

Are you playing back on an HD200 extender?

[egeller]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

My experience has been that you can be recording from the box at the same time you're viewing through VLC. I did not notice any issues with recordings as a result of "sharing" the stream. Of course you don't want to change the channel or you'll have problems.

I am not seeing any downside to stream sharing, but it's still early. My use case is a home office TV with an HD300, but no cable box.

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

Do you have the STB locked at 1080p30 or does it switch to a lower resolution when playing SD content? If you have it switching resolutions, you might want to try the option for Encoded size: "same as the input" or "auto". It's a little annoying that you have to reboot the device to see the effects of these changes, but it's worth playing around a little bit.

Right now it is locked. I think I need to test it out some more. Coincidentally, the "same as input" was the original setting. That's how I found out the cable box was not delivering 1080p, as I was seeing only 720p on everything.

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

If you set the STB to native resolution, you can also try to get the best of both worlds. You can set up your main stream to be 1080p30 and a secondary stream to be 720p60. Then define the streaming_url2 property, to point to the secondary stream URL and add your 720p and SD channels to streaming_url2_channels as a comma separated list (e.g. sagetv.device.<unique_id>.streaming_url2_channels=1,2,3). If you do this, you'll need increase the delay_to_wait_after_tuning in Sage.properties because during the resolution change, SageTV might get a little upset.

Good point.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by rfutscher

Good question

I am playing back on the Sage server PC with the half speed playback. I just checked my HD300 and the playback is good.

I know if it's capturing at 1080p60, playback on the HD200 is roughly half-speed.

I think I remember some other forum member describing something similar to what you're saying and I think it was a codec problem.

[wayner]

Is there any advantage in using these units over an HD-PVR? Certainly a disadvantage is the limitation of stereo audio.

(I have asked this before) - Is there a version of this device that can capture 4K video now that some cable/sat companies are deploying 4K STBs and 4K content? I know that people have commented that this would be very expensive, but I don't agree that this is the case. My understanding is that the HD-PVR uses the same chip as digital cameras use to encode the video. 4K is now becoming commonplace on retail cameras. I would argue that 4k on Dec 31, 2016 is more capturable than HD was in May of 2008 when the HD-PVR was introduced.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by wayner

Is there any advantage in using these units over an HD-PVR? Certainly a disadvantage is the limitation of stereo audio.

(I have asked this before) - Is there a version of this device that can capture 4K video now that some cable/sat companies are deploying 4K STBs and 4K content? I know that people have commented that this would be very expensive, but I don't agree that this is the case. My understanding is that the HD-PVR uses the same chip as digital cameras use to encode the video. 4K is now becoming commonplace on retail cameras. I would argue that 4k on Dec 31, 2016 is more capturable than HD was in May of 2008 when the HD-PVR was introduced.

I personally find it to be more stable (I don't need to power-cycle it weekly) and I like that it's a network device which generally removes all issues you can have with drivers (short of bad network drivers). As mentioned before, I also like that I can view the stream from the device directly while SageTV is using it. That can be particularly helpful when working out issues with channel changing. It allows you to scale the video if desired. As a plus or minus depending on how you feel about this, it deinterlaces the encoded video. It allows for higher bitrates than the HD-PVR. In my observations, it captures a much sharper picture than the HD-PVR.

4K capture is still very expensive. The cheapest internal card I could find was $700. I couldn't find anything network based that I would be willing to buy and all of them were even more expensive, so my answer is no. I'm sure this option will come down in price eventually. 4K sources doesn't excite me as much as it does most of my friends and I am very content with down-scaling to 1080p when required for 4K TV content until the prices get closer to $300 or less. For all other things I usually have direct access to the original source and all of this work around is unnecessary.

[rfutscher]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

I know if it's capturing at 1080p60, playback on the HD200 is roughly half-speed.

I think I remember some other forum member describing something similar to what you're saying and I think it was a codec problem.

I found the half speed problem. I had to change the SageTV detailed setting for audio rendering.

https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/sho...7&postcount=67

[swyman18]

I just received my BM3000 and was able to get OpenDCT installed and configured on my Win7 SageTV9 installation and everything seems to be working pretty well. Thank you for all the great tutorials and suggestions!

One issue I am having is that if I try to use my HD200, the video seems to skip frames about every second or two and the audio ends up out of sync. I don't see this issue if I use the client on my Win10 computer. Is anyone successfully using an HD200 with one these encoders?

The HD200 worked ok with the HD PVR 2 I was using previously, so just wondering if there are any configuration adjustments I can try to make the HD200 work well with the BM3000.

EDIT: I did see the comments about how the HD200 can't quite keep up with 1080p60 output, I have the BM3000 set to the default 1080p30 output. However, I changed the resolution of my source device to 720p60 and let the BM3000 default to 720p30. Playback is now fairly smooth on the HD200. So it's possible that the HD200 can't quite keep with 1080p30, or at least in my case anyway.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by swyman18

I just received my BM3000 and was able to get OpenDCT installed and configured on my Win7 SageTV9 installation and everything seems to be working pretty well. Thank you for all the great tutorials and suggestions!

One issue I am having is that if I try to use my HD200, the video seems to skip frames about every second or two and the audio ends up out of sync. I don't see this issue if I use the client on my Win10 computer. Is anyone successfully using an HD200 with one these encoders?

The HD200 worked ok with the HD PVR 2 I was using previously, so just wondering if there are any configuration adjustments I can try to make the HD200 work well with the BM3000.

EDIT: I did see the comments about how the HD200 can't quite keep up with 1080p60 output, I have the BM3000 set to the default 1080p30 output. However, I changed the resolution of my source device to 720p60 and let the BM3000 default to 720p30. Playback is now fairly smooth on the HD200. So it's possible that the HD200 can't quite keep with 1080p30, or at least in my case anyway.

If you are having problems with 1080p30 on the HD200, I would fiddle with the bitrate a little.

[sflamm]

My current setup:

1. PC with SageTV 7 running as a Network Encoder connected to HD-PVRs (attached to cable box) and using firewire channel tuning

The firewire channel tuning occurs via the local executable on this PC. (requires a 32-bit installation)

2) PC with SageTV 7 server connecting to #1 network encoder (this is the main server for all of my SageTV clients) (64-bit server)


Questions:

1. If I install OpenDCT on the SageTV server running as a Network Encoder can it invoke the firewire channel change command appropriately? (this was previously configured directly in SageTV as a channel tuning source).

AND if this is itself connected to a Network Encoder can it still serve as Network Encoder to another SageTV Server (today the HD-PVR w/ firewire tuning appears as a local video source and the whole Server is acting as a Network Encoder)

2. If I add the BMXXX tuner as a source to the main SageTV Server how can I remotely invoke the firewire channel change?

Thanks for the help in advance.

[wayner]

This is a periphery issue but you may want to think about moving away from FireWire as that isn't going to be sustainable in the long run, at least not on Windows, due to the lack of 64 bit drivers. Apparently this is not an issue on Linux - you can use FireWire on 64 bit versions of Linux and you can also use 64 bit JVM on V9 for Linux.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by sflamm

My current setup:

1. PC with SageTV 7 running as a Network Encoder connected to HD-PVRs (attached to cable box) and using firewire channel tuning

The firewire channel tuning occurs via the local executable on this PC. (requires a 32-bit installation)

2) PC with SageTV 7 server connecting to #1 network encoder (this is the main server for all of my SageTV clients) (64-bit server)


Questions:

1. If I install OpenDCT on the SageTV server running as a Network Encoder can it invoke the firewire channel change command appropriately? (this was previously configured directly in SageTV as a channel tuning source).

AND if this is itself connected to a Network Encoder can it still serve as Network Encoder to another SageTV Server (today the HD-PVR w/ firewire tuning appears as a local video source and the whole Server is acting as a Network Encoder)

2. If I add the BMXXX tuner as a source to the main SageTV Server how can I remotely invoke the firewire channel change?

Thanks for the help in advance.

I don't see any reason why OpenDCT wouldn't be able to execute the firewire tuning command (I believe it's just an executable) directly. If you're referring to some other plugin, then no, OpenDCT can't do it directly. In v9, even if it was a plugin, it would be able to use it with OpenDCT.

If you're using a tuning executable, then you don't really need to worry about routing this through the network encoder SageTV service first (I'm also reasonably sure you shouldn't do this even if you get it to work). You can connect to it directly through the main server. You will want to enable the media server (upload ID) to do this since the recording paths will likely be different between servers.

[sflamm]

Thanks for the quickly response.

The real issue is the FireWire tuner is 32-bit only (well known). And there has never been an update created.

Thus it is necessary to run it elsewhere than the main server which is running on a 64-bit Windows machine.

The possibilities seem to be:

1. Have OpenDCT invoke a command - which is really a remote windows command to the other machine to call the FireWire tuner command (exe).

2. Setup the remote server to use OpenDCT locally and issue a local command to the FireWire tuner. Then since that server is configured as a Network Tuner it should appear as a video source to the main SageTV server.

which is the best...

Basically #2 is what is done today but using the HDPVR instead of OpenDCT ...

For clarity - OpenDCT would be talking to a BM3000 connected to the cable box instead of the HDPVR.

Thoughts?

[wayner]

Isn't there a third possibility - switch SageTV server OS from Windows to Linux? I have been resisting this for a long time as well but I have realized that my resistance is futile.

[sflamm]

Current:

Server 1 [Main SageTV 7]
64-bit
OpenDCT (connected to HDHomeRuns)
configured video sources: a) HDHomeRuns b) remote HDPVR


Server 2 [SageTV 7 network encoder - configured in SageTV.properties]
32-bit
With 32-bit FireWire channel change exe (only 32-bit available)
HDPVRs (connected to Cable box)
configured video sources: HDPVRs - local

Can I just substitute OpenDCT with a BM3000 (and invoke by command FireWire channel changing) to take the place of the local HDPVR?

[sflamm]

Switching to Linux is not an option for me...

And moreover it wouldn't change the issue with the FireWire changing which is a 32-bit Windows exe.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by sflamm

Thanks for the quickly response.

The real issue is the FireWire tuner is 32-bit only (well known). And there has never been an update created.

Thus it is necessary to run it elsewhere than the main server which is running on a 64-bit Windows machine.

The possibilities seem to be:

1. Have OpenDCT invoke a command - which is really a remote windows command to the other machine to call the FireWire tuner command (exe).

2. Setup the remote server to use OpenDCT locally and issue a local command to the FireWire tuner. Then since that server is configured as a Network Tuner it should appear as a video source to the main SageTV server.

which is the best...

Basically #2 is what is done today but using the HDPVR instead of OpenDCT ...

For clarity - OpenDCT would be talking to a BM3000 connected to the cable box instead of the HDPVR.

Thoughts?

If both of those servers are Windows, then yes, #2 is probably the best solution. If you're running v9 on Linux then you could use a firewire plugin to do the tuning external to OpenDCT and use OpenDCT to actually stream from the BM3000 device into SageTV.

[sflamm]

In scenario #2 - is there:

1. Anything special that needs to be done other than configure OpenDCT to run the tuner executable?
2. Is there any advantage to updating to SageTV9 on this server?