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AVCNoodle - STB Recording via Firewire

29K views 122 replies 27 participants last post by  TGspud 
#1 ·
 http://www.steventoth.net/AVCNoodle/Running.jpg
http://www.steventoth.net/AVCNoodle/...dle_v0.9.0.zip


... and an updated v1.0.0-b1 beta:
http://www.steventoth.net/AVCNoodle/..._v1.0.0-b1.zip


This is the first public preview at a new firewire capture application I'm planning to release, currently under the working title 'AVCNoodle'.


As we speak the preview is known to work with:


* Motorola DCH-3416 (no channel changing)

* Motorola DCT-3416

* Motorola DCT-6200

* Motorola DCT-6420

* Motorola QIP-6416 DVR (Verison FIOS)

* Pace Model DC551PF (no channel changing)

* Scientific Atlanta SA4250

* Sony DHG-M55CV (no channel changing or power on support)

* Sony Television (KDS-R60XBR1), no channel changing


The basic features include:


* TitanTV/iCal integration (channel name and tvpi scheduling support).

* Basic (very basic) Applescript support.

* Manual iCal support for non-Titan environments.

* Multiple STB / Multiple simultaneous recordings.

* VLC support for monitoring the recordings


The preview is not:


* Bug free, please report new bugs here

* Complete, most of the features are basically working but need minor enhancements or bug fixes.

* Polished, parts of the UI need to change and/or disappear. I'd welcome your input - regardless of how obvious something is. Am I lacking something obvious?

* Fully functional, all recordings are currently limited to 30 seconds. This is enough to evaluate the application and test your hardware. I'd love to hear about different STB's, which ones are working, which ones don't.


The preview should give you a flavor of the overall direction. I'd welcome your comments. Either respond here or PM me if you want to discuss issues privately.


Regards


Steve
 
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#52 ·
I am getting an error and have no idea what it is about:


"Unable to display schedule error. The variable eventchannel is not defined".


Everything seems to work but I get this message. TitanTv has added my channels; I am able to have the program change channels; scheduled recordings occur. Any ideas?
 
#53 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Trebly /forum/post/16346411


I am getting an error and have no idea what it is about:


"Unable to display schedule error. The variable eventchannel is not defined".


Everything seems to work but I get this message. TitanTv has added my channels; I am able to have the program change channels; scheduled recordings occur. Any ideas?

Odd. If you can, delete the AVCNoodle Recordings calendar and slowly add each schedule back until the problem shows itself. If you can identify the particular TVPI that causes the issues I'll be able to repro it here and bug fix.


- Steve
 
#54 ·
I went into iCal and deleted old scheduled recordings from when I was playing with the demo awhile back. That fixed it. Thanks.


Just to let you know, I purchased the license key yesterday. I am very happy with AVCNoodle. I am hoping to upgrade the mini to a new one soon. The 1.5 GHz PPC doesn't playback the HD recordings. Thanks again.
 
#55 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Trebly /forum/post/16353708


I went into iCal and deleted old scheduled recordings from when I was playing with the demo awhile back. That fixed it. Thanks.


Just to let you know, I purchased the license key yesterday. I am very happy with AVCNoodle. I am hoping to upgrade the mini to a new one soon. The 1.5 GHz PPC doesn't playback the HD recordings. Thanks again.

Great news, good to know, welcome aboard!



- Steve
 
#57 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by almanzarj /forum/post/16527393


hello has anyone confirmed to use this software with a motorola sa 8300hd STB? I downloaded the beta demo and got a protection one status on a specific channel. thanks

Not that I'm aware of. Generally when I see that a user is having success with a specific model, or they mention it here then I update the list of STB's on the first post in this thread.


Regards,


- Steve
 
#59 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Trebly /forum/post/16545538


I have set up AVCNoodle to make some recordings on a weekly schedule. The upcoming shows are present in iCal, but only the first one or two show up in the iCal Scheduled Recordings of AVCNoodle. Any ideas on what to check?

AVCNoodle looks at your iCal AVCNoodle Recordings calendar specifically, when it populates it's list. Assuming that the recordings were added to that calendar (and not any other) then they should all appear.


Double check to make sure they haven't been moved to a different calendar.


- Steve
 
#60 ·
So I unchecked the Home and Work calendars in iCal. The only calendar that is checked is the AVCNoodle iCal calendar. I created a new weekly recording that shows up in the AVCNoodle iCal calendar at the proper time every week from this point forward. But when I click the iCal Scheduled Recordings tab in AVCNoodle, only the first occurrence appears. I have missed some scheduled recordings because of this.


Does AVCNoodle only look so far ahead in iCal? Does it periodically refresh itself?
 
#61 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Trebly /forum/post/16551929


So I unchecked the Home and Work calendars in iCal. The only calendar that is checked is the AVCNoodle iCal calendar. I created a new weekly recording that shows up in the AVCNoodle iCal calendar at the proper time every week from this point forward. But when I click the iCal Scheduled Recordings tab in AVCNoodle, only the first occurrence appears. I have missed some scheduled recordings because of this.


Does AVCNoodle only look so far ahead in iCal? Does it periodically refresh itself?

No, it looks at the entire calendar and adds every entry it can find - it has no practical limit.


I'll check this and assuming I can repro the problem I'll prepare a fix.


Thanks for raising this.


- Steve
 
#64 ·
Trebly: I added a repeating recording to ical via TitanTV and you are correct, the iCal applescript API one shows the first entry in the AVCNoodle panel. I'm not sure how to work around this as this is a direct limitation of how we're able to interact with iCal (and maintain support for 10.4). None of this would effect recording, it a lack of visual information inside AVCNoodle.


That being said, I did see two new bugs - time related which could cause scheduling failures. These have been fixed and will be release in AVCNoodle 1.1.0 shortly.
 
#65 ·
A number of people have reported a lack of channel change support on certain STB's. I'm taking a deeper look into this.


If you have other Firewire apps that do change channels correctly for you, and have tried AVCNoodle and have no channel change support then now would be a great time to raise your hand.


With your help I'd like to try and improve this.


Other than the obvious request (removing DRM from copy never programs), if you have any other feature suggestions for the next release then I'd love to discuss them.


Regards,


- Steve
 
#66 ·
Thanks. I am glad that you were able to find something. Is this why repeating recordings that had already occurred continued to show up under the Scheduled Recordings tab? I assumed that this tab would only list recordings that hadn't happened yet, but I could see it staying as scheduled if AVCNoodle was treating it as a series of recordings instead of a one time occurrence. I look forward to the update. Thanks again.
 
#67 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Trebly /forum/post/16693960


Thanks. I am glad that you were able to find something. Is this why repeating recordings that had already occurred continued to show up under the Scheduled Recordings tab?

No, this sounds like something different, although perhaps only related to scheduled recordings. I'll look into this as a separate issue.

Quote:
I assumed that this tab would only list recordings that hadn't happened yet, but I could see it staying as scheduled if AVCNoodle was treating it as a series of recordings instead of a one time occurrence. I look forward to the update. Thanks again.

This may indeed be the case, I'll confirm one way or another once I begin testing the new build (and adjust/fix accordingly if I can).


- Steve
 
#68 ·
Hey-


From what I've read on this thread, I wasn't optimistic that I'd be able to use this software with my 8300HD. However, I plugged it in and gave it a try. Low and behold all of my digital cable channels would record! (I don't have any premium channels). However, each time I set a recording it would only record a few seconds and then quit.


I'm using the beta version (1.0?) of the software so I expected to be able to get up to 60 seconds. Is this a bug or a limitation of the beta version? Is there a full version available for purchase that may alleviate this issue for me? I'm quite excited to have a quick way to unload content from my HDDVR as it fills very quickly.


Thanks for any help!
 
#69 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by jeremyandnell /forum/post/16828382


Hey-


From what I've read on this thread, I wasn't optimistic that I'd be able to use this software with my 8300HD. However, I plugged it in and gave it a try. Low and behold all of my digital cable channels would record! (I don't have any premium channels). However, each time I set a recording it would only record a few seconds and then quit.

Welcome Jeremy.


Ooooo. That doesn't sound right, something is wrong.

Quote:
I'm using the beta version (1.0?) of the software so I expected to be able to get up to 60 seconds. Is this a bug or a limitation of the beta version? Is there a full version available for purchase that may alleviate this issue for me? I'm quite excited to have a quick way to unload content from my HDDVR as it fills very quickly.

Correct, you should get 60 seconds then the recording will stop. The application will return to non-recording mode, you're free to click record again for another 60 seconds for demo purposes.


It sounds like you have some kind of bug. Are you recording to the internal drive of you mac, or to an external USB drive? (Try internal).


What exactly happens when it 'quits', 1) AVCNoodle crashes with an error, 2) Crashes without and error, 3) or does the application simply act like you selected 'Quit' from the menu?
 
#70 ·
Thanks for the quick reply!


I should clarify...the program doesn't quick recording it after 10 seconds. In fact, it seems to record it for the full time. But when I play it back (VLC or Plex) it will not play back more than the 10 seconds.


Maybe that clarification will help!


Also, I'm recording it to the internal drive of a Mac Mini (upgraded to a 7200rpm so it should be plenty fast enough).
 
#71 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by stoth /forum/post/16693471


A number of people have reported a lack of channel change support on certain STB's. I'm taking a deeper look into this.


If you have other Firewire apps that do change channels correctly for you, and have tried AVCNoodle and have no channel change support then now would be a great time to raise your hand.


With your help I'd like to try and improve this.


Other than the obvious request (removing DRM from copy never programs), if you have any other feature suggestions for the next release then I'd love to discuss them.


Regards,


- Steve

Reposting four your convenience:

Both AVCapture and FireRecord will properly change the channel on my Motorola DCH-3416 (Comcast), AVNoodle will not. It does record good mt2 files (viewable/streamable by VLC) on whatever channel it happens to be tuned to, though.


I'd love to have AVNoodle working on my setup - let me know if I can help test anything for you.

Freddy B.
 
#72 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Freddy B. /forum/post/16831422


Reposting four your convenience:

Both AVCapture and FireRecord will properly change the channel on my Motorola DCH-3416 (Comcast), AVNoodle will not. It does record good mt2 files (viewable/streamable by VLC) on whatever channel it happens to be tuned to, though.


I'd love to have AVNoodle working on my setup - let me know if I can help test anything for you.

Freddy B.

Freddy, good feedback and thanks for the reminder.
 
#73 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by jeremyandnell /forum/post/16829084


Thanks for the quick reply!


I should clarify...the program doesn't quick recording it after 10 seconds. In fact, it seems to record it for the full time. But when I play it back (VLC or Plex) it will not play back more than the 10 seconds.


Maybe that clarification will help!


Also, I'm recording it to the internal drive of a Mac Mini (upgraded to a 7200rpm so it should be plenty fast enough).

I've heard of issues like this a number of times and I think I've convinced myself that it's either a STB firmware issue (fairly unlikely) or it's an Apple Firewire software stack issue.


For comparison purposes, to see if the 10 second issue is persistent, have you tried AVCVideoCap or FireRecord?


If they record correctly for you then I'll certainly take a deeper look into Apple's AVCVideoServices stack and see what's going on.


- Steve
 
#74 ·
I tried the other programs, and while both appear to record (I have files with > 0 MB) I can't play them at all. However, I did another record with your software and it records and plays for 10 seconds - but only with Plex, not VLC or any other program.


The file each of the programs creates are about 90MB. I watched the status of the device in the AVC Noodle software and it shows 'DTCP Protection' is listed as Copy Freely or something to that effect. It does not report any errors. It also shows the # of Bytes/Packets getting larger for the entire recording period.


The software is also able to change the channels. So you think it could be a firmware issue with the STB?
 
#75 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by jeremyandnell /forum/post/16837923


I tried the other programs, and while both appear to record (I have files with > 0 MB) I can't play them at all. However, I did another record with your software and it records and plays for 10 seconds - but only with Plex, not VLC or any other program.


The file each of the programs creates are about 90MB. I watched the status of the device in the AVC Noodle software and it shows 'DTCP Protection' is listed as Copy Freely or something to that effect. It does not report any errors. It also shows the # of Bytes/Packets getting larger for the entire recording period.


The software is also able to change the channels. So you think it could be a firmware issue with the STB?

If you can send the file to my ftp server I'll take a look. Details in the following PM.
 
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