The Official R5000-HD Technical Status Discussion - Page 2

OK. Got my box wired in last night (DTC-100).

What program do people use to play files back? Can you play the .ts files directly?

I did use SageTV to play a couple of short recordings I made, but that really did not work (blocky video and no sound).

Thanks!

I personally use MyHD, however you can use Zoom Player or Windows Media Player with no problem. If you try to use Windows Media Player, it does not recognize the ts file extension, but if you change the drop down to "all files", it will play just fine.

Thanks Ron. I will give Media Player a try tonight.

Curious if anyone is using SageTV now to watch recordings made with the R5000.

Also curious if anyone is using TheaterTek 2.0 for this purpose. Discussion in that thread seems to indicate it is possible. But I guess there are some issues.

Does the Dish Network Dish 6000 modification work just as well as the DirecTV DTC100?

Ok. Tried Window Media Player 9 and no luck, it would not play the file. I checked for updates, but apparently have the latest version. Any suggestions?

You need a mpeg2 decoder. Search on something like stinky's mpeg2 or look at www.freecodecs.com

There are also a bunch of commercial options - TT2.0, Elecard, Zoomplayer.

I did notice that the elecard demo seems to install an mpeg2 decoder that WMP happily uses.

ralphjb,
For software playback of HD video see the DVHS tools thread
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...0&pagenumber=1
You need a fairly fast computer, ATI video cards with Sonic or Ravanescent codexs wil take some of the load off the CPU allowing smooth video. John

Small reception glitches and drop-outs are a fact of life with all DBS satellite HD, so, capture software has to be made smart enough to work anyway.

The Dish 921, the HD-Tivo and from what I have read, the latest 169Time
software all work around those limitations and problems.

I guess I should wait to see several reports that the R5000 software has been improved to consistently record without crashing.

Thank you for the suggestions.

I ended up upgrading to TT 2.0, something I intended on doing anyways, and it worked. Picture is BEAUTIFUL. Looking forward to recording some movies and football games.

Couple of other questions. I gather from the scanning of the TT 2.0 thread, some are using TT to "timeshift" view HD recordings. Wondering if anyone here is doing that (have not had a chance to try myself yet).

The other thing is that R5000 said he intended an enhancement to the software which would allow a program like SageTV to view the R5000 as another Tuner (I think a DirectShow thing). Wondering how that is coming?

When can we expect ver 1.4? I'd like to get this fix.

Mark

bump

I recieved mine last nite , a 6000 dish stb so far i have to say its great
having used the old dish 5000 w/ modulator for recording I have to say this is clearly superior ( I hope with the update *hint*)
It was a pretty easy install and ready to go within a few minutes, only problem i had was it crashed during a rain during one of my recordings
but i see from other posters that seems to be a problem with the 6000
thats allready addressed in the upcoming version .
Time to go schedule some more recordings

Just received a E8 (same as E86) based R5000-HD. Set it up and am dorking with it.

I noticed that HBOHD is reported to be broadcasting at 1280x1080i according to the MyHD when the ts is played back. Is that to be expected? I will test locals via the MyHD and via the R5000 and compare.

One other item - what's the expected percentage of <1ms packets? For about 30k packets, about 1k packets are at <1ms. ~93% are at >20ms. ~4% are at 10-20ms. Was running MyHD to playback the TS during this, so that may have an effect. What are other users seeing?

Looks like it was other apps causing the <1ms packets. Surprising as CPU load is pretty low.

Thanks,
Mark

This has really caught my attention! I have a BEV 6000 and am very interested in getting this mod. Have any Canadians had this done? Are there any border or customs issues? How best to ship? Any suggestions based on experience would be appreciated. Thanks!

Same question, is anyone in Canada able to offer the service,
as I understand Cnd Customs will not allow Sat Receivers in to out anymore.

The release notes suggest v1.4 is really a 6K only fix. Is there any other reason to upgrade?

The R5000-HD is really cool. Still messing with it and I'll post a review and my workflow methods when I get into it more.

Stupido question #1 : is the PVR application purely to manage the scheduling of programs?

Feature Request : It would be "nice" if the Rec and Stop button on the remote caused the R5000 DVR app to record and stop. So far, it appears that it only works if a recording is scheduled and the unit sends out the info. I imagine I can work around this with girder and that the feature might be unique to my situation, and thus, not overly useful to the rest of the world.

Is there a way to get zap2it to show PPV programming? I noticed both it and TitanTV were not listing most of the PPV schedules.

Thanks,
Mark

Thanks I will install and report if i have same problems again .

BBuk,

This has really caught my attention! I have a BEV 6000 and am very interested in getting this mod. Have any Canadians had this done? Are there any border or customs issues? How best to ship? Any suggestions based on experience would be appreciated. Thanks!


I just received my modded BEV 6000 back yesterday. There were no border or customs issues whatsoever. Nextcom recommended I indicate "For Repair/Modification" Will be returned to me. Not selling, not a gift. I indicated satellite STB under list of contents. I double-boxed and sent down via UPS(all, of course, after formally ordering mod online.) Nextcom sent modded STB via Fedex and indicated "Computer/USB peripheral modification" as description of goods and a commodity value was given for custom tax purposes. GST & PST was applied to this commodity value as expected, and that's it. I'm not sure I'm allowed to indicate what this commodity value is, but I believe any labour value to cost of getting mod isn't included. I don't know how this works, but makes sense to me that only value of material should be taxed by customs and not labour cost to do mod.

BBuk, if you wish to know, pm me, I'll provide the commodity value I talked about above.

I have posted this questions a couple of times, but have not seen a response. Any answer?
Thanks.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by R5000-HD
There was a bug creeping in with the 6K users causing occasional crashes. That has now been fixed and will be rolled into the ver. 1.4 release. Tests have shown that these were always associated with reception glitches and drop-outs. The remuxer in ver 1.4 has greatly improved error resiliance and a high threshold for re-starting. Hope this helps.

-R
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Has the release of ver 1.4 stopped all the Dish 6000 crashes and re-starting with the R5000-HD?

So, is it to be expected that HD coming out of the R5000-HD from DirecTV is at 1280x1088i?

I always assumed D* used 1920x1080i.

Is it specific to D* or to certain STBs?

Is D* broadcasting at 1280x1088i or is the box doing some sort of conversion?

Thanks,
Mark

I have a modified Dish 6000. I noticed questions about the lack of feedback on this unit on the Forum. My main reason for not posting more is that this device simply works. I've had a few questions, which have been responded to VERY quickly, resolving the problems. I've been busy recording and burning DVD's of lots of Discovery Channel material - Great Canadian Rivers, Insectia, Smart Travels. Have transferred episodes of Smallville to D-VHS. Recorded "My Fair Lady." This is the most promising unit for recording HD ever, and I can live with the minor problems, especially kniowing they are being addressed so quickly. The R5000 support staff has been excellent.

What bothers me about the unit? Not much. The interface is bland and unintuitive, but it's almost refreshing in its simplicity. Getting REC and STOP codes to capture was strangely difficult, but I've yet to use that function for anything important, since Zap2It works so well. (Follow the instructions explicitly, if you are having trouble.)

One question: why do some of my favorite programs have a band of light grey pixels at the bottom of the screen in the recordings? They seem not to be there in the broadcast. If they are inserted for some technical reason, can they be be made black? I have to adjust my projector when I view these shows to move them out of the visible area of the frame. If they were black, I wouldn't have to bother. I'm sure on most TV's the overscan makes these pixels invisible, but it is a pain.

I almost bought a Dish 921 PVR when it was first released. Because of the R5000, I've very glad I didn't.

This device works. It's terrific. I have a second Dish 6000 and I'm thinking of having it modified, too.

Joe Clark

Are you using a software decoder? MyHD plays back without the line. All my software decoders have a line except VLC.

Mark

I havent had a crash since the new version and only one restart in over a dozen recordings since then.
Error log attributes it to the remuxer so i imagine it still needs some more
tweaking but it has been improved greatly .

MarkV: D* re-encodes some of the 1080i chans down to 1280x1080i. This is their version of the datastream for those chans - it doesn't matter what decoder you are using. E* doesn't change the resolution when they re-encode.

Joseph Clark: the gray line at the bottom is a problem for some chans when using some decoders on displays with no overscan.

The basic issue is that 1080 is not an even multiple of 16. Many decoders work in 16x16 blocks, so their buffer is 1920x1088. If the source is 1920x1080 then the decoder has to stuff some dummy data in the last 8 lines. Some of them put gray blocks... Some repeat line 1080 8 times. If you use a hardware decoder to a real HDTV then those "slop lines" at the bottom are usually not visible - they are part of the "overscan" off the bottom of the screen. PC software decoders usually show the whole image with no overscan so you get to see the "dirty laundry". A few HDTV chans actually broadcast in 1920x1088 rather than 1920x1080 so (in that case) you get whatever bottom 8 lines that the broadcaster decided to send you.

IMHO, a good decoder should crop the output to 1920x1080 and never show the bottom 8 lines even if the source is tagged as 1920x1088.

Will this mod work with MythTV?

It appears that it's just shipping the transport stream to the PC, so this should be directly usable by Myth, at least for a Dish ts. Or is there other jiggering that must be done?

What would need to be added to Myth?