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Beta Update later this day!


Guest hackbart

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Guest hackbart

Hi,

 

as you know we are working on a lot of new features. Almost everything has been completed so far (except the HTPC OSD which is still under development).

The hardware architecture has been improoved. In theory its not that big problem to add new cards, right now i just added three different pseudo devices. The first one uses a TS-Transponder/Channel Dump to emulate a card, the other two are network multicast resp. unicast clients which have the same behaviour like ordinard dvb cards and allow the broadcasting of requested data through the LAN. Therefore i made some standalone server which acts as DVB Source. The first client which connects to the server is allowed to tune a transponder/channel and all other clients are able either to watch the current stream or to request other Pids. So one client might simply record and watch Pro7, while the others are displaying Sat1, Kabel1 or N24 on Astra.

 

Another new feature is the DVB Subtitle Rendering which allows to display and record DVB Subtitles specified by ETSI EN 300 743. Right now you can only record the active subtitle, but in the public you should be able to record all available at the same time.

 

Also new is the Options Dialog Engine. It is a dynamic System which even allows plugins to add their own Settings into the Options Window. Since the new display offers more space i was able to resort and replace a lot of functions in order to make it more useful for new users without reading the manual. You might also find there functions to specify the recording filenames as well as routines to change the subtitle output.

 

New is also the ability to update the channels without scanning. This means while you watch a channel the DVBViewer is parsing the Program Allocation Table in order to receive changed informations (like Audio or VideoPids).

 

I don't expect any problems, but since we did not finished all things on our ToDo List it is still a beta.

 

Since we restructured the Options and added some new functions the Language Files are all quite imcomplete. Right now only the German and English Language File is complete - this is why i strongly recommend either to update the files, resp. to switch to English or German in order to avoid confuseness B)

 

Since a few of the users have had problems in the past with the dynamic registration of the Directshow Filters on the Startup of the DVBViewer we decided to do the registering and deregistering only once while the installation resp. deinstallation of the DVBViewer. In order to avoid problems you should start the regfilter.exe each time you played with an older (non beta) version of the program.

Further on i recommend to install the beta into a seperate path - since i was forced to restructure the setup.ini. The 2.3 final will have an importer for this.

 

Christian

PS: I will upload the beta probably at 16.00 GMT+1.

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New is also the ability to update the channels without scanning. This means while you watch a channel the DVBViewer is parsing the Program Allocation Table in order to receive changed informations (like Audio or VideoPids).

 

I've run into some weird behaviour in this regard - when repeatedly switching between "ARD" and "ZDF", DVBViewer replaces frequency, channel name and SID of one channel with the corresponding values of the other one, resulting in a 'broken' channel (no audio, video freezes after a few seconds, no audio on other channels until I rebuild the graph). Another switch to the modified channel, DVBViewer corrects the PIDs and I have two working (but identical) channels. This seems to be reproducible, but the number of channel switches required varies somewhat... DVBViewer 2.3beta, driver version 4.2.8, Windows XP SP2

 

Oh, and it still doesn't remember column widths in the Recorder and EPG windows :D

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Ehm, i had the same problem.

Suddenly i had 2 channels of RTL2 and ProSieben was away. I corrected that, no problems later....

 

The "Dedynamic DS Filter"(right?) now works fine. :D

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Guest hackbart

Hmm, this is weird. Take a look into the Options. There you find an entry named: "Automatic Channel Data &Update". This one does the trick and enables channel update. Further on i made some slightly modifications inside the plugin architecture. I'm not sure if there are some third party plugins which are trying to change the channel settings - at least the regional channel update plugin (i forgot the name) is now obsolete.

 

Christian

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i 've had the same problem...identical channels :D

 

and when switching on the "channel autmatic update"-thing...i.e. TV6 disappears at the TV-Stations and after searching it I discovered it at the radio stations...

 

Then there is the EPG-OSD which should only show the EPG when switching to a channel...but unfortunately after some zapping, this EPG doesn't go away after the time i have set (10secs), i have to press ^ to make it go away

 

But the new optionsdialog is much more easier to understand ;) thx

Here is one question: which channels broadcast dvb-subtitles ?

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at least the regional channel update plugin (i forgot the name) is now obsolete.

 

The Dynamic Tuner Plugin. Obviously it's not obsolete. :D

 

@Christian: I'd recommend to have a closer look at the plugin code. It contains some practical experience... there are some pitfalls especially concerning the update of channels with different audio streams.

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No evil third party plugins here, just Preview, Video Recorder/TSPlayer and Transedit. I turned off the automatic update thingy shortly after posting and it has been working fine so far.

 

A question regarding the program priority: The options dialog only shows three of five priority levels found in the language files, and they seem to differ from the 'normal' Windows priority levels... Lowest = Lowest, Below normal = Normal, Normal = High? One time after switching languages it did show different levels (something like Lowest, Normal, High), but I haven't been able to reproduce that.

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This data update function is the inplementation of the dynamic tuner plugin. Usually it's not necessary to activate the option. It's needed for example for regional broadcasts, for example WDR Lokalzeit.

 

Bye, Oliver

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The options dialog only shows three of five priority levels found in the language files

 

That's a mistake in the language file. After some special tests I've recommended to use only three levels, cause the others are meaningless for apps with multiple threads (have a look at the task manager - there are lots of them running in the DVBViewer).

 

Especially the high priority handling has been very questionable up to now, since it ignored the multi-threading - any lengthy action in the DVBViewer UI (like importing a channellist or saving the EPG as HTML) could kill an ongoing recording. Should be much better now...

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I decided to give multicast streaming a go.

 

Well, it works, but ... it apparently soaks CPU cycles like nothing in the client:

 

Run DVBServer.exe and configure it to multicast on one (of my four) network interfaces.[*] This interface is, effectively, <localhost>.

 

Start DVBViewer, reconfigure to use multicast receiver instead of Flexcop driver. Restart DVBViewer.

 

Well, and here we go with a nice image being displayed. DVBServer.exe consumes about 2-3% of my CPU time, but DVBViewer.exe typically consumes 47% (!). And that happens on a station (ARD) where in a "straight-from Flexcop" scenario DVBViewer.exe consumes a mere 4-5% of this system's CPU time.

 

Letting the program run long enough, it becomes evident that this actually causes problems: The less CPU resources are available (they are soaked up by DVBViewer.exe), the less I can do in the background without causing the TV picture to, say, stutter.

 

Getting CPU consumption for a DVBViewer multicast client would be awfully nice, it seems. :-)

 

I have not tried the unicast client - and neither have I tried the dynamic channel update functionality.

 

Looks good so far!

 

[*] It would be nice to resolve the IP addresses back to the configured interface names (e.g. Physical LAN, WLAN, VMware blah...)

Edited by daffy
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I also gave multicast streaming a go - but ran into a problem: no picture+spund on the client.

 

DVBserver.exe reports the connected client and broadcasts packets and I can select channels on the client (which are reported in the debug tab on the server) - so the server and connection seem to be fine :wacko:

 

But I no picture and audio on the client :bye:

 

When starting a session or changing the configuration in "Options Preferences DirectX", a black square about the size of the DVBViewer windows but in a slightly different position appeared for 0.2 seconds or so together with some sort of "warning beep". That's all. To me this looks like the video/audio codec are trying to start and display something but this fails straight away -_-

 

When I connect the AirStar USB device directly to the client machine and change the device to "Flexcorp based cards", the client plays audio+video perfectly.

 

I am confused :D Is this a problem on the server or on the client?

 

Any ideas?

 

Stefan

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  • 2 weeks later...
some channels disappear form the channellist.....

some are duplicated...

 

Switch off the Automatic-Channel-Update-or-how-it's-called in the options. Seems to be a bit buggy.

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Guest hackbart

a bit is good. Yesterday i stumbled over two hotbird channels which messed up theirselve. I added a couple of workarounds in order to avoid this effect, but till the officiall 2.3 release i will have to find the reason :unsure:

 

Christian

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Yeah, veeeery nice work so far! I found a lot of functions I always wanted to have in the viewer.

 

 

But <OT>

a bit is good.

This sounds like german hehe. Or do you mean "Bitte ein Bit!"? :unsure: </OT>

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I like the new options interface.

 

I tried this last night, and again just now. All seems to work nicely, then suddenly the sound goes off. I can't quite work out whats wrong, but reverting back to the previous version seems to get the sound back.

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  • 3 weeks later...

2.3 Beta feedback.

 

I started to notice that 1 of my channels would not load up, so I stopped using that channel :wacko:

 

I then found that scheduled recordings don't shut down DBViewer properly when the recording was complete, this meant that if you then opened DBViewer it would immediately close down again with memory violation errors. Using task manager to kill the running DBVIewer task allows DBViewer to then open.

 

If server4PC is not running then DVBViewer opens, playe the sound for about a second then sort of hangs hogging 99% of the processor. This is a bit of a problem if the PC has been rebooted and scheduler starts a DVB recording before server4pc has been started.

 

It would be useful if DVBViewer checked to see if server4pc was running, and maybe start it before trying to work.

 

Other useful items would be:

when forcing a PC shut down after a recording it would be nice to flash up a count down for 20 seconds or so first, to give a user the chance to cancel the shut down. It is very irritating when you're working and a background recording shuts the PC down infront of you.

 

If the recorder is recording something and you try to open DBViewer it tends to hang (as explained earlier) it would be nice if this was more graceful, IE a message box saying "I'm recording go away" or an attempt to try and open DBViewer and show the recorded stream would be nice.

Edited by stevejwatts
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Thanks for your reply. Funny you should say that. my real problems are that DBViewer was gobbling up processor 95-98% and I noticed server4pc wasn't switched on. when I turned it on dbviewer was happier (for a while) although now I'm back to a non-functioning DBViewer, so I'll remove server4PC.

 

For the nest release of dbviewer it would be nice to have a simpler install process, as the full version still says it has dependancies on the free version, but not totally clear what it needs. would be nice to just be able to start the install on a clean PC and not worry about whats missing. It would also cut the nerd-factor too.

 

So.... my 98% processor is logging this stuff in the DVBViewer log:

06/01/2005 18:56:06 EOSError raised by instance tmrDesktop of class TTimer at 0040F35A:Systemfehler. Code: 5.

Access is denied

06/01/2005 19:41:33 EAccessViolation raised by instance tmrStatus of class TTimer at 32815FFD:Zugriffsverletzung bei Adresse 32815FFD in Modul 'B2C2.DLL'. Lesen von Adresse 0000007C

07/01/2005 07:42:56 EOSError raised by instance tmrDesktop of class TTimer at 0040F35A:Systemfehler. Code: 5.

Access is denied

07/01/2005 13:12:05 EOSError raised by instance tmrDesktop of class TTimer at 0040F35A:Systemfehler. Code: 5.

Access is denied

 

any ideas?

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Guest hackbart

you are using the SkyAVC? If yes try to switch to another filter. By the way i'm quite sure that the strange errors you have are probably caused by a codec.

 

Whic driver version are you using? With olders i can remember a few mysterious problems if the server4pc was not active (initialization of the card was not working fine)

 

Christian

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maybe for the developers these questions are nerving, but i think everyone (who can't look behind the scenery) would be very happy about every peace of information concerning the new version like:

 

-beta or final?

-more pictures :rolleyes:

-updating "work in progress..."-thread

-time to release: hours, days, weeks?

 

(w00t)

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Guest hackbart

you are funny, but its correct i personally also don't like phrases like it's done when it's done (w00t)

Well at the moment everything seems to run fine. I guess Lars and I have to do some fine tuning which means in the first line "an own osd skin" - since the one for testing is a mixture between a couple of xbox media skins. The second thing is to update the language files and some placeholder captions in the options.

 

I don't expect bigger problems with the release so i let the beta testers to decide if it should be an official 2.5. Anyhow the old 2.2 will stay in the members section.

 

Okay you want more images:

 

The first one offers you the information about signal quality, error rates and open pids:

 

sysinfo.jpg

 

The next one is one of those embedded osd games. The older users might remember the game principle :rolleyes:

 

pacman.jpg

 

Christian

 

And last but not least the news feed presenting the dilbert cartoon of the day.

 

cotd.jpg

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Guest Lars_MQ

Well to be precisely, the newsfeed is not only for dilbert cartoons (w00t) It understands rss and rdf feeds and can show pictures if they are embedded as a link in the description-tag of a rss/rdf-item.

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Hi,

 

I started to use the beta because of the Scandinavian or real DVB subtitles.

I noticed the following problems:

 

Some channels disappear some are duplicated on the chanel list.

 

When subtitle (Scandinavian or real DVB) is on the OSD disappears.

 

Channel scan assigns different channels to a channel with multiple audio. Actually would be nice to select subtitle and audio through the OSD.

 

EPG stays on have to peress OSD Exit.

 

I have Technisat DVB-T. I uninstalled the other DVBViewer after installing and trying out of the beta.

 

I find the playlist very clumsy. Would be nice to have possibility to play from folders or windows media database.

 

Playing a DVD is also quite clumsy. Would like to access audio and subtitle on OSD or somehow use the remote in the DVD menu.

 

Reg,

Jozsef

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Some channels disappear some are duplicated on the chanel list.

There is an option for automatic channeldata update. You should disable it (there is a little bug).

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Guest Lars_MQ
Some channels disappear some are duplicated on the chanel list.

That's because of the auto channel update, it doesn't work completly correct (it's a beta ;) ) just disable it in the options (TV+Radio).

When subtitle (Scandinavian or real DVB) is on the OSD disappears

Yes the next version will handle it better.

Channel scan assigns different channels to a channel with multiple audio. Actually would be nice to select subtitle and audio through the OSD.

That's a tough one, we'll have to look into it :wacko:

EPG stays on have to peress OSD Exit.

The next version has a completely different OSD handling, this behavior won't happen there.

I find the playlist very clumsy. Would be nice to have possibility to play from folders or windows media database.

I agree ;)

With the new OSD comes a completly reworked (OSD-based) Playlist system. You can add files or folder (recursivly), open m3u, pls or b4s playlist and save them also. the windows media database, I have to look how to integrate. And yes, also freedb lookup for audio CDs is possible ;)

Playing a DVD is also quite clumsy. Would like to access audio and subtitle on OSD or somehow use the remote in the DVD menu.

The DVD handling is also completely reworked, you can play a dvd via OSD by opening the DVD drive icon, or a dvd image file (needs daemontools) or a folder containing a dvd-dir structure or inserting a dvd into the drive (the DVBViewer supports autoplay). it will automagically be startet. Every normal action for a dvdplayer (Menu audio select etc) should be acessible.

 

grettings

lars

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Sounds like great new features.

 

I hope a skip function will be added so it will be possible to skip playback 30 sec or 60 seconds or perhaps optional value with a button/remote. ZoomPlayer can do this...

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Guest Lars_MQ
I hope a skip function will be added so it will be possible to skip playback 30 sec or 60 seconds or perhaps optional value with a button/remote. ZoomPlayer can do this...

Well we're not zoomplayer ;)

We do dynamic skipping, you can skip foward and backward by pressing the skipforward/skipbackward button serveral times.

You can skip 10, 30 , 60, 120, 300, 600, 900, 1800 seconds (that's up to half an hour of skipping ;) )

I think that should be enough even for boring lovescenes or comercial breaks :wacko:

 

lars

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Will scheduled recordings cause DBViewer to close down properly in the new version? I'm finding that scheduled recordings started by scheduler cause DBViewer to linger on the task pad, so when opening it up afterwards it crashes, or if a subsequent recording is due to be made later on it bombs out after completing just 1kb of the recording. I think this is related to DBViewer not closing down fully.

 

I can't wait to use the new version, the test version looked great.

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hi there, i'm really looking foward to see this new version like everyone else :)

i don't want a release date ;), but may anyone tell me the time i don't have to watch the forum for in order not to miss the new stuff? i.e. days, weeks? :huh:

 

:(

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Look only under Help --> Info --> there you can find a field which tells you if new stuff is available.

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:huh: "wann wird mein auto fertig sein?"

;) "na, halt wenn es fertig ist....!"

:) "ok, dann komm ich die nächsten wochen alle zwei tage vorbei und check mal die lage" B)

 

:(

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Guest Lars_MQ

Well OK, let me put it that way :huh:

 

We're doing ATM an internal test, which revealed some problems, which have to be fixed first, after that we do some more testing, and maybe end of the month we can start the public beta, but that's up to christian and of course the amount of problems we find :(

 

To speak in your terms:

"das auto ist fertig, nachdem wir das fahrgestell tiefergelegt, die komplette karosserie ersetzt, den motor richtig getunt und eine ausgiebige probefahrt gemacht haben und der TÜV sein ok gegeben hat" ;)

 

You can come back from time to time to have a look at the ongoing development and progress, or you come in maybe 6 weeks to see the results... :)

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