DVBViewer Recorder : Installation and Configuration

For DVBViewer recorder to work correctly, you'll need:

• DVBViewer 3.9 or newer version. Make sure your hardware is working and that you have scanned all the channels you need. You can also make sure DVBViewer is set up for optimal performance when used as a network recorder.
• SageTV 6.3.6 or newer version. If you use an older version of SageTV you may not be able to view the videos recorded by DVBViewer (this is a MPEG demux problem).

Download DVBViewer Recorder and set it up by following the setup wizard. After setup shut down SageTV and DVBViewer and start the "DVBViewer Recorder Config" utility; you'll find it in your start menu "DVBViewer -> DVBViewer Recorder for SageTV -> Configuration"

With this utility you can create network recorders to be used by SageTV. A network recorder is just like a tuner card for SageTV, except that it can be located on another networked PC.

• To add a recorder, click on the "+" button.
• To edit an existing recorder, select it in the drop down list and click on the "Edit" button.
• To delete an existing recorder, select it in the drop down list and click on the "-" button.

If you want you can launch an executable to process the recordings made by DVBViewer Recorder (when the recording starts or stops):

• To add a post processor, click on the "+ Add" button next to the post processor list
• To remove a post processor, select it in the drop down list and click on the "- Remove" button
• To edit a post processor, select it in the lip and click on the "Edit" button.

You can also change the path to the DVBViewer executable if needed, and choose to run DVBViewer in debug mode (this may be useful to see if DVBViewer is actually doing the recording and behave as it should)

You can also choose to disable or not audio & video in DVBViewer. By default, audio and video should be disabled. However for some plugins you may need to enable audio and video in DVBViewer or use the DVBViewer Recording Service (especially when using Soft CAM). You can also enable audio / video for only one recorder (check the "Enable A/V" checkbox for the recorder)

You can also ask DVBViewer recorder to create an empty .edl file for H.264 recording (it will only works if you choose TS as recording format). Creating an empty edl file should prevent comskip / showanalyzer to run on H.264 recordings.

If your PC needs to go to standby DVBViewer will prevent it from doing so, that's why you have to choose a time out value (shorter than your PC standby timeout) for DVBViewer Recorder to properly shutdown DVBViewer when it's not needed, this will allow your PC to go into standby.

Click on the "Exit" button to close this utility. Click on the "Restart Recorders and Exit" to restart the recorder service so that it will load the modifications you made with this utility.

Monitoring DVBViewer Recorder

For debbuging purpose you can use DVBViewer Recorder Monitor to watch DVBViewer Recorder activity in real time. You'll find DVBViewer Recorder Monitor in your start menu "DVBViewer -> DVBViewer Recorder for SageTV -> Monitor".

When DVBViewer Recorder Monitor is running, you'll see this icon in your taskbar notification area:

• When the icon is grey : DVBViewer Recorder is not started
• When the icon is green : DVBViewer Recorder is started (either the Recorder Service or the Standalone Recorder)
• When the icon is red : DVBViewer Recorder is currently recording

If you double click on the taskbar notification icon, you'll open the monitor window:

Within the monitor you can :

• View the debug output of the recorder (right click on the list to clear it or save it to disk)
• Stop and Start the recorder
• Setup the recorder
• Choose if you want to run the Recorder Service or the Standalone Recorder
• Choose if you want to run the Standalone Recorder at startup (when a Windows session starts)
• Choose if you want to run DVBViewer Recorder Monitor at startup (when a Windows session starts)

Creating or editing a network recorder

A network recorder is like a tuner card for SageTV. As such creating a network recorder is a matter of listing all channels that can be recorded on the same DVBViewer tuner. If you have more than one tuner available in DVBViewer that can receive differents channels, review the "How to handle multiple tuners" article.

With the network recorder editor you can :

• Choose a recorder friendly name. You'll see this name when adding a video source in SageTV.
• Choose the IP address and port to be used by the recorder. Each recorder must have at least a different port (you can create more than one recorder).
• Choose the restarting delay (recordings will be restarted if they don't start, this can be useful with encrypted channels and difficults CAM). At the expiration of the delay, DVBViewer recorder will check the recording and also start extracting subtitles and create the edl file (if you choose so). 
• Check the "Enable A/V" if you need Audio & Video for that recorder (you can enable Audio / Video for all re recorders by unchecking "Disable Audio & Video" in the main DVBViewer Recorder Config screen)
• How you want your show to be recorded: Transport Streams (TS) or Program Streams (MPG). The Transport Stream format is required if you want to extract Teletext or DVB subtitles or create EDL files.
• Enable the "Fast Back to Back Recordings" option if your CAM is slow and you are missing several seconds of show content with back to back recordings. This option should be enabled only on one recorder as it force DVBViewer to create a playback graph for 5 seconds each time a recording ends (and it can only exits one playback graph at a time).
• You can also save the DVBViewer EPG to XMLTV on a regular basis. Simply select the appropriate schedule, eventually select a channel to tune to get the EPG from as well as the time needed for DVBViewer to collect EPG. Only the channels available on the current recorder will be saved in the XMLTV file.
• Choose the DVBViewer channels that will be available to this recorder

The channel list display all the channels that you have scanned within DVBViewer. So before creating a network recorder you should have a pretty clean list of channels in DVBViewer, this make this whole process of selecting channels a lot easier.

You have to select the channel you want to enable for this recorder:

• Type a SageTV channel number for those channels. Don't type any channel number for channels you don't want on this network recorder. The channel number is what SageTV will use to tune the channel and as such, this is the number you'll have to type in the SageTV interface to view this channel in LiveTV. This is also this channel number that you'll use with XMLTV plugins.
• Type a Teletext Subtitle Page number if you want this recorder to extract teletext subtitles in real time during recordings. If DVBViewer recorder can find subtitles it will dump them into a SMI file. This SMI file can be used by SageTV to display the subtitles in real time. The usual page number in France is 888 for subtitles for hearing impaired, or 889 for subtitles for foreign language programs. If you want to find out the page number, in SageTV watch a channel that carry TTX subtitles (the channel should preferentially have a subtitles stream active) for a few minutes. Then go check the DVBViewer Recorder logs, you should see something like this:
  
  

  20100118 17:47:38.086 - Info - TS PMT : C:\Users\StephaneM\Videos\SageTV\131_8_0118_1747-0.ts
                                 PCR PID : 160
                                 Stream #1(PID=160) : Video
                                 Stream #2(PID=80) : Audio, fra
                                 Stream #3(PID=32) : TTXSubtitles, Teletext Home|fra|1|0 Teletext Subtitles for hearing impaired|fra|8|88
  20100118 17:47:38.115 - Info - Found new PMT in stream at position n°61476 (bytes)
  20100118 17:47:38.176 - Found TTX subtitle page n°888, fra, Teletext Subtitles for hearing impaired in C:\Users\StephaneM\Videos\SageTV\131_8_0118_1747-0.ts

  
  The TTX subtitle page number here is 888.
  
   
• Type the PID of the DVB subtitles stream you want to extract (for playback in SageTV)
• Type the DVB subtitle page number you want to extract (both PID and Page number are required for DVBViewer Recorder to extract the DVB subtitles). If DVBViewer Recorder find the PID and DVB page number in the TS stream, it will create an ISUB file in real time. This ISUB file can be used by SageTV to display the subtitles in real time. If you want to find out the PID and page number, in SageTV watch a channel that carry subtitles for a few minutes. Then go check the DVBViewer Recorder logs, you should see something like this :
  
  

  20100120 17:40:15.867 - Info - TS PMT : C:\Documents and Settings\HTPCUser\My Documents\My TV\Undnerpresqueparfait-7090372-0.ts
                                 PCR PID : 320
                                 Stream #1(PID=320) : VideoMP4
                                 Stream #2(PID=330) : Other, fra
                                 Stream #3(PID=331) : Other, qaa
                                 Stream #4(PID=340) : DVBSubtitles, DVB Subtitles|fra|All purpose|1|1
                                 Stream #5(PID=341) : DVBSubtitles, DVB Subtitles|fra|All purpose|2|2

  
  
  The DVB Subtitles PIDs here are 340 and 341, the DVB Subtitles pages available in the streams are 1 for PID 340 and 2 for PID 341.
  
  
• Eventually check the "Create EDL" check box to allow DVBViewer Recorder to create an EDL skip commercials file. DVBViewer Recorder will create skip blocks (in real time) for parts of your recordings with no subtitles for more than one minute.

When you have finished to edit your recorder (specifying Name, IP Port, recording format and channel lineup), you can now add this recorder to SageTV. To do this click the "Add to SageTV" button. You only need to do this once, and SageTV need to be shut down (you'll also need to click this button if you change IP, Port or recording format).

When you click on the "Add to SageTV" button, the DVBViewer recorder config utiliy will add the encoder to the sage.properties file (it also make a backup for you to be able to revert the changes). Each time you click the "Add to SageTV" button, the encoder will be removed form the sage.properties (if it was added before) and be added again, so you'll have to setup this encoder in SageTV.

Using the Standalone Recorder

For debuggin purposes you can use the Standalone Recorder instead of the Recorder Service. With the Standalone Recorder you can interact with DVBViewer whereas when using the Recorder Service DVBViewer is hidden.

To use the Standalone Recorder, launch DVBViewer Recorder Monitor, click on the "Stop Recorders" button to stop the Recorder Service, and uncheck the "use recorder service" check box, then click on "Start Recorders", the Standalone Recorder should start.

Note: The Standalone Recorder will not start if the "use recorder service" is checked. In the same way the Recorder Service will not start if the "use recorder service" check box is not checked (this behavior is by design to prevent any mistakes).