Mailing List Archive

Silicon Dust HDHR5-4K
My HDHR5-4K ATSC 3.0 tuner arrived today. I have set it up, and it appears to be working with MythTV.

Unfortunately, there is currently no ATSC broadcasts happening for San Francisco, so I can only test it with ATSC 1.0 channels.

Is there any development version of MythTV that supports any of the new features of this tuner?

Is there a newer version of HDHomeRun Config GUI available?

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Re: Silicon Dust HDHR5-4K [ In reply to ]
On Sun, 11 Oct 2020 at 06:54, Douglas Peale <Douglas_Peale@comcast.net>
wrote:

> My HDHR5-4K ATSC 3.0 tuner arrived today. I have set it up, and it appears
> to be working with MythTV.
>
> Unfortunately, there is currently no ATSC broadcasts happening for San
> Francisco, so I can only test it with ATSC 1.0 channels.
>
> Is there any development version of MythTV that supports any of the new
> features of this tuner?
>

It could just be that the existing HDHomeRun support in v31 and in master
does do everything that is needed to make recordings.
That is my understanding from what I have read about this box. MythTV
should be able to receive UHD channels on any of the tuners, so there is,
again as I understand it, no change needed in MythTV. Of course, I could be
wrong.....
You might be the first one to use this box, so please report how it does
work. If something needs to be fixed then that needs to be done.


>
> Is there a newer version of HDHomeRun Config GUI available?
>
> You can have a look at the Silicon Dust website.

Kind regards,
Klaas.
Re: Silicon Dust HDHR5-4K [ In reply to ]
On Sun, Oct 11, 2020 at 4:54 AM Douglas Peale <Douglas_Peale@comcast.net> wrote:

> Unfortunately, there is currently no ATSC broadcasts happening for San Francisco, so I can only test it with ATSC 1.0 channels.

There was not expected to be any ATSC 3.0 broadcasts in
the SF Bay Area immediately as the priority was the repack
(and Sutro was explicitly called out as the poster child in
the FCC planning document as being one of the biggest
challenges, and its schedule was among the last to be
completed, and some work continued until just a month
or so ago) and last I heard no actual transmitter sharing
arrangements have been publicly announced which will be
required to move forward in anything more than a toy test
(a press release from the industry marketing group about
intent is not an actual deliverable).

As far as I recall, only one of the top 10 media markets
actually has an ATSC 3.0 transmitter active (although,
as with San Francisco, a few more have transmitters
announced by press release).

Not surprisingly, mid/small market locations where a
single company owns multiple transmitters (typically
on the same tower) have been the majority of earliest
deployments since someone like Sinclair could use one
of their transmitters for ATSC 3.0 and move the previous
station over to share with the other transmitter. That
single owner multiple transmitters scenario is rare(r)
in larger markets (at least partially due to various
historical FCC rules, and because in larger markets
it was very very lucrative to return one of the
transmitters for the repack ($200-$300 million in a few
markets)) now requiring (typically) very competitive
owners in those larger markets to agree to work
together to share moving forward. It will happen
in most markets, but it will require a lot of negotiation.

It is further complicated in larger markets which have
multiple transmitter sites and multiple fill-in translators
(such as the greater SF Bay Area) as existing
coverage of ATSC 1.0 transmissions must be (roughly)
maintained after any transmitter sharing shuffles and
repurposing for ATSC 3.0 for at least the next few
years per FCC requirements (in order not to
disenfranchise existing viewers who likely have only
an ATSC 1.0 capable TV set), and if you have looked
at the RF service contour maps for the SF Bay Area
the existing coverage is not consistent from all
transmitters even just from Sutro for coverage
purposes (and add in San Bruno Mountain, and
Mt. Allison and Monument Pk and things get even
more complicated for a proper sharing arrangement
for moving forward long term).

I remember seeing an engineering proposal for just
a single shared use case SFN and antenna design
in the greater SF Bay Area, and there were many
challenges discussed (and while new construction
could have made some things easier, no one in their
right mind thought construction of a new tower was
going to be a viable alternative in that location (or,
for that matter, many larger media markets)).

That all said, there should be an initial (test) ATSC
3.0 deployment in that market at some point, so
you just need to be more patient.

> Is there any development version of MythTV that supports any of the new features of this tuner?

At the time of the announcement of availability a few
of the US based devs indicated that they *might* order
a unit to kick the tires (perhaps ordering the DEV unit
to be able to explore the raw stream?). I don't know
if they did, nor if they have received their unit, nor what
their time availability might be for playing around with
the unit (likely they either have lots of free time, or
negative free time). Hopefully one/more will chime in
if they have any of that elusive free time available.

A C-level staffer from SiliconDust has stated that
the HDHR remuxes the ATSC 3.0 video stream into
a MPEG-2 Transport Stream (that is just the container,
not the encoding of the content which is (typically)
HEVC; your local cable company will typically also
use an MPEG-2 Transport Stream for all their channels
which are typically either MPEG2 or AVC encoded)
so existing apps "should just work".

However, while the content is remuxed to a format
compatible for capture, as I recall only recent MythTV
master has been updated to properly support HEVC/H.265
recording from stations with full parsing and reporting.
So those wanting to record/play ATSC 3.0 HEVC with
MythTV likely need to be running the master branch
(and one may need a VPU with HEVC decode, especially
on lower powered systems, for playback).

Note that ATSC 3.0 can deliver more than just video and
audio (and can also optionally require selected content to
be protected), but the early broadcasters are mostly focusing
on the simpler ATSC 1.0 broadcast TV replacement market
and MythTV support is also focused there. There could
possibly be some future work in apps (such as MythTV)
to support some of the alternative capabilities, but they
will likely need to be written to target those capabilities
(similar to the MHEG support that MythTV has).

I can see some potential issues with selecting and
scheduling a device which has mixed capabilities
(for this initial HDHR ATSC 3.0 device there are four
tuners, but two are ATSC 1.0 only, and two are ATSC
1.0 and ATSC 3.0 capable) along with existing tuners
which may require careful capturecard/videosource
setup, but I believe the issues can be addressed by
intelligent setup choices in the existing system. That
is not to say some future improvements might not be
helpful.
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Re: Silicon Dust HDHR5-4K [ In reply to ]
On Sun, Oct 11, 2020 at 03:10:44PM +0000, Gary Buhrmaster wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 11, 2020 at 4:54 AM Douglas Peale <Douglas_Peale@comcast.net> wrote:
> > Is there any development version of MythTV that supports any of the new features of this tuner?
>
> At the time of the announcement of availability a few
> of the US based devs indicated that they *might* order
> a unit to kick the tires (perhaps ordering the DEV unit
> to be able to explore the raw stream?). I don't know
> if they did, nor if they have received their unit, nor what
> their time availability might be for playing around with
> the unit (likely they either have lots of free time, or
> negative free time). Hopefully one/more will chime in
> if they have any of that elusive free time available.

As far as I know, none of us have ordered one. I haven't ruled it out
but it likely won't be any time soon.

> However, while the content is remuxed to a format
> compatible for capture, as I recall only recent MythTV
> master has been updated to properly support HEVC/H.265
> recording from stations with full parsing and reporting.
> So those wanting to record/play ATSC 3.0 HEVC with
> MythTV likely need to be running the master branch
> (and one may need a VPU with HEVC decode, especially
> on lower powered systems, for playback).

Correct. Playback and recording of HEVC *should* work. There is a
known bug where the seek table of HEVC recordings can not be rebuilt.

> I can see some potential issues with selecting and
> scheduling a device which has mixed capabilities
> (for this initial HDHR ATSC 3.0 device there are four
> tuners, but two are ATSC 1.0 only, and two are ATSC
> 1.0 and ATSC 3.0 capable) along with existing tuners
> which may require careful capturecard/videosource
> setup, but I believe the issues can be addressed by
> intelligent setup choices in the existing system. That
> is not to say some future improvements might not be
> helpful.

Correct again. We don't know what impact the 2+2 tuner arrangement
will have on scheduling.

David
--
David Engel
david@istwok.net
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Re: Silicon Dust HDHR5-4K [ In reply to ]
On Sun, 2020-10-11 at 12:02 -0500, David Engel wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 11, 2020 at 03:10:44PM +0000, Gary Buhrmaster wrote:
> > On Sun, Oct 11, 2020 at 4:54 AM Douglas Peale <
> > Douglas_Peale@comcast.net> wrote:
> > > Is there any development version of MythTV that supports any of
> > > the new features of this tuner?
> >
> > At the time of the announcement of availability a few
> > of the US based devs indicated that they *might* order
> > a unit to kick the tires (perhaps ordering the DEV unit
> > to be able to explore the raw stream?).  I don't know
> > if they did, nor if they have received their unit, nor what
> > their time availability might be for playing around with
> > the unit (likely they either have lots of free time, or
> > negative free time).  Hopefully one/more will chime in
> > if they have any of that elusive free time available.
>
> As far as I know, none of us have ordered one.  I haven't ruled it
> out but it likely won't be any time soon.

I have a DEV model, but don't have any stations here in the
Washington/Baltimore area to test the ATSC 3.0 features.

David



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Re: Silicon Dust HDHR5-4K [ In reply to ]
On Sun, Oct 25, 2020 at 5:57 AM David Hampton <mythtv@love2code.net> wrote:
> >
> > As far as I know, none of us have ordered one. I haven't ruled it
> > out but it likely won't be any time soon.
>
> I have a DEV model, but don't have any stations here in the
> Washington/Baltimore area to test the ATSC 3.0 features.
>
> David

I've got the non-dev model and I'm in the PDX area with all the major
stations broadcasting both ATSC 1 and ATSC 3. If it would help anyone
I could capture some samples of ATSC3.0 broadcasts and supply them for
testing purposes. I've not been able to get MythTV to tune the ATSC3
signals but I can using VLC. The biggest issue is the lack of AC-4
audio decoding in FFMpeg. Video in VLC looks great but lack of audio
is the problem.
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Re: Silicon Dust HDHR5-4K [ In reply to ]
On Mon, Oct 26, 2020 at 11:44 AM Neil Salstrom <salstrom@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Oct 25, 2020 at 5:57 AM David Hampton <mythtv@love2code.net>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > As far as I know, none of us have ordered one. I haven't ruled it
> > > out but it likely won't be any time soon.
> >
> > I have a DEV model, but don't have any stations here in the
> > Washington/Baltimore area to test the ATSC 3.0 features.
> >
> > David
>
> I've got the non-dev model and I'm in the PDX area with all the major
> stations broadcasting both ATSC 1 and ATSC 3. If it would help anyone
> I could capture some samples of ATSC3.0 broadcasts and supply them for
> testing purposes. I've not been able to get MythTV to tune the ATSC3
> signals but I can using VLC. The biggest issue is the lack of AC-4
> audio decoding in FFMpeg. Video in VLC looks great but lack of audio
> is the problem.
>

Have you looked at Gary's ExternalRecorder for the HDHR?
https://github.com/garybuhrmaster/mythhdhrrecorder

That should allow the tuning to work. The audio is still going to be a
problem, though.

John
Re: Silicon Dust HDHR5-4K [ In reply to ]
On Mon, Oct 26, 2020 at 12:17 PM John P Poet <jppoet@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Oct 26, 2020 at 11:44 AM Neil Salstrom <salstrom@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Oct 25, 2020 at 5:57 AM David Hampton <mythtv@love2code.net>
>> wrote:
>> > >
>> > > As far as I know, none of us have ordered one. I haven't ruled it
>> > > out but it likely won't be any time soon.
>> >
>> > I have a DEV model, but don't have any stations here in the
>> > Washington/Baltimore area to test the ATSC 3.0 features.
>> >
>> > David
>>
>> I've got the non-dev model and I'm in the PDX area with all the major
>> stations broadcasting both ATSC 1 and ATSC 3. If it would help anyone
>> I could capture some samples of ATSC3.0 broadcasts and supply them for
>> testing purposes. I've not been able to get MythTV to tune the ATSC3
>> signals but I can using VLC. The biggest issue is the lack of AC-4
>> audio decoding in FFMpeg. Video in VLC looks great but lack of audio
>> is the problem.
>>
>
> Have you looked at Gary's ExternalRecorder for the HDHR?
> https://github.com/garybuhrmaster/mythhdhrrecorder
>
> That should allow the tuning to work. The audio is still going to be a
> problem, though.
>
> John
>

Ick!!!! I was just reading the thread over on silicondust:
https://forum.silicondust.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=133&t=74323&start=30
I cannot believe that some stations are generating interlaced HEVC! I did
not add support for that when I added the HEVC decoding to MythTV. The HEVC
spec says that support for interlacing is an extension to the spec and most
people should not have to worry about it. Interlacing should be dead!

John
Re: Silicon Dust HDHR5-4K [ In reply to ]
On Mon, Oct 26, 2020 at 6:17 PM John P Poet <jppoet@gmail.com> wrote:

> The audio is still going to be a problem, though.

AC-4 is (sort of) like Atmos, so, in theory, it
will be possible to leverage and extend any
Atmos support, but as of now there is a dearth
of open source implementation(s). And while
commercial apps can license the technology
(and the SDK) from Dolby to process the
audio (and some have done so to get things
working) there are only a limited number of
commercial AVRs/TVs with AC-4 support
today, and none of the major OS vendors
have yet shipped native AC-4 processing
capabilities in their own media frameworks to
make processing AC-4 available to apps on
those platforms. And, as always, Dolby's
technologies are an IP minefield.
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Re: Silicon Dust HDHR5-4K [ In reply to ]
> Ick!!!!  I was just reading the thread over on silicondust:
> https://forum.silicondust.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=133&t=74323&start=30
> I cannot believe that some stations are generating interlaced HEVC! I
> did not add support for that when I added the HEVC decoding to MythTV.
> The HEVC spec says that support for interlacing is an extension to the
> spec and most people should not have to worry about it. Interlacing
> should be dead!
>
Yep, genuine 1950's interlacing technology :-)

The header has a flag to indicate interlaced. The resolution is reported
as 1920 x 540 with 1:1 pixel aspect ratio.

The header also has a flag to indicate progressive - not sure what you
are meant to do if both flags are set.

VLC gets it wrong (displays square pixel 1920x540). Microsoft gets it
wrong (displays square pixel 1920x540). LG TVs decode correctly.

Going to be a mess.

Nick - Silicondust

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Re: Silicon Dust HDHR5-4K [ In reply to ]
On Mon, Oct 26, 2020 at 1:02 PM Nick Kelsey <mythtv@silicondust.com> wrote:

>
> > Ick!!!! I was just reading the thread over on silicondust:
> > https://forum.silicondust.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=133&t=74323&start=30
> > I cannot believe that some stations are generating interlaced HEVC! I
> > did not add support for that when I added the HEVC decoding to MythTV.
> > The HEVC spec says that support for interlacing is an extension to the
> > spec and most people should not have to worry about it. Interlacing
> > should be dead!
> >
> Yep, genuine 1950's interlacing technology :-)
>
> The header has a flag to indicate interlaced. The resolution is reported
> as 1920 x 540 with 1:1 pixel aspect ratio.
>
> The header also has a flag to indicate progressive - not sure what you
> are meant to do if both flags are set.
>
> VLC gets it wrong (displays square pixel 1920x540). Microsoft gets it
> wrong (displays square pixel 1920x540). LG TVs decode correctly.
>
> Going to be a mess.
>
> Nick - Silicondust
>

Hi Nick,

I am glad you still pay attention to us MythTV folks ;-) Are you working
on a 4 ATSC 3.0 tuner version of the HDHR5-4K box? I already have plenty of
HDHR ATSC 1.0 boxes. I am even still using some HDHR V1 dual tuner boxes.
So, I don't really need an HDHR with more ATSC 1.0 tuners.

I am guessing it will be several more months before Albuquerque gets ATSC
3.0, but once it rolls out here I will be ordering a tuner from you, of
some sort.

Thanks,

John
Re: Silicon Dust HDHR5-4K [ In reply to ]
On Mon, Oct 26, 2020 at 7:01 PM Nick Kelsey <mythtv@silicondust.com> wrote:
>
> LG TVs decode correctly.
>

That LG gets it right surprises few as not
only were they an active part of the various
standards committees, they had some of the
first (tuner) silicon. They have been all-in
on ATSC 3.0 since the beginning (and
showed off their tech as part of the 2018
winter Olympics in their native country).

Of course, given the large number of
options, and extensions, and enhancements,
across what seems like thousands of
documents (rather than count sheep, go
read the ATSC 3.0 specifications to fall
asleep to), I have no doubt there are still
sinkholes to fall into.
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Re: Silicon Dust HDHR5-4K [ In reply to ]
On Mon, Oct 26, 2020 at 11:18 AM John P Poet <jppoet@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Have you looked at Gary's ExternalRecorder for the HDHR?
> https://github.com/garybuhrmaster/mythhdhrrecorder
>
> That should allow the tuning to work. The audio is still going to be a problem, though.
>
> John

I will look into the ExternalRecorder but I'm not sure this will fix
one of the issues seen. In the PDX area (and others from what I
understand) both the ATSC 3.0 and ATSC 1.0 get mapped to the same
virtual number. For example, ATSC 1.0 RF 8 (subchannel 3) gets mapped
to virtual 8.1 KGW. At the same time, ATSC 3.0 RF 30 (subchannel 3)
gets mapped to virtual 8.1 KGW as well.

In MythTV we'll need to be able to tell it to use Tuner 0 or 1 (the
ATSC 3.0 tuners) to record a show on virtual 8.1 but use the RF 30 if
we want ATSC 3.0. There will be some challenges to figure out the
logic of tuner selection based on the mix of 1.0 and 3.0 tuners with
the same virtual channel numbers.

At this point, I think there is plenty of time to figure it out as the
recordings are useless without being able to decode the audio!
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Re: Silicon Dust HDHR5-4K [ In reply to ]
On Tue, Oct 27, 2020 at 8:45 AM Neil Salstrom <salstrom@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Oct 26, 2020 at 11:18 AM John P Poet <jppoet@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Have you looked at Gary's ExternalRecorder for the HDHR?
> > https://github.com/garybuhrmaster/mythhdhrrecorder
> >
> > That should allow the tuning to work. The audio is still going to be a
> problem, though.
> >
> > John
>
> I will look into the ExternalRecorder but I'm not sure this will fix
> one of the issues seen. In the PDX area (and others from what I
> understand) both the ATSC 3.0 and ATSC 1.0 get mapped to the same
> virtual number. For example, ATSC 1.0 RF 8 (subchannel 3) gets mapped
> to virtual 8.1 KGW. At the same time, ATSC 3.0 RF 30 (subchannel 3)
> gets mapped to virtual 8.1 KGW as well.
>
> In MythTV we'll need to be able to tell it to use Tuner 0 or 1 (the
> ATSC 3.0 tuners) to record a show on virtual 8.1 but use the RF 30 if
> we want ATSC 3.0. There will be some challenges to figure out the
> logic of tuner selection based on the mix of 1.0 and 3.0 tuners with
> the same virtual channel numbers.
>
> At this point, I think there is plenty of time to figure it out as the
> recordings are useless without being able to decode the audio!
>

Do you have a preamp or receiver capable of decoding Dolby Atmos? If so,
that should decode the AC-4 as well, from what I have read.

John
Re: Silicon Dust HDHR5-4K [ In reply to ]
On Tue, Oct 27, 2020 at 3:14 PM John P Poet <jppoet@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Do you have a preamp or receiver capable of decoding Dolby Atmos? If so, that should decode the AC-4 as well, from what I have read.
>

In my (limited) understanding of AC-4,
AC-4 is a brand that includes both the
codec, and the definition of the container
which may include both linear audio
and audio object capabilities/technologies
(in some not so equivalent ways, think
about the mpeg2 branding being used
both for the transport stream, and the
codec). While Atmos uses AC-4, AC-4 is
(for some values) extensible and subsetable,
such that there is no assurance that all
AVRs that supports Atmos will support
how AC-4 may be used in ATSC 3.0
(and I do not recall seeing any recent
AVR that called out ATSC 3.0 AC-4
support explicitly, but then again, not
being in the market, I have not really
paid much attention to the marketing
fluff around the newest AVRs).

But it is certainly worth a try.

And if your high end AVR with Atmos
does not support ATSC 3.0 AC-4, it may
be time to contact the manufacturer to
ask about future firmware updates.
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Re: Silicon Dust HDHR5-4K [ In reply to ]
On 10/27/20 5:11 PM, Gary Buhrmaster wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 27, 2020 at 3:14 PM John P Poet <jppoet@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> Do you have a preamp or receiver capable of decoding Dolby Atmos? If so, that should decode the AC-4 as well, from what I have read.
>>
>
>
> And if your high end AVR with Atmos
> does not support ATSC 3.0 AC-4, it may
> be time to contact the manufacturer to
> ask about future firmware updates.


I have been looking for a new receiver, but the specifications usually
only mention "Atmos". If you read here:

https://developerkb.dolby.com/support/solutions/articles/16000067755-is-dolby-ac-4-the-same-as-dolby-atmos-

This seems to agree with Gary's thoughts that "Atmos" is not necessarily
AC-4 and could be Dolby Digital Plus.

This makes finding a new receiver difficult.

Bob
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Re: Silicon Dust HDHR5-4K [ In reply to ]
On Wed, Oct 28, 2020 at 10:33 PM Bob <mythtv@cox.net> wrote:

>
> This makes finding a new receiver difficult.
>

Many of the larger manufacturers have a
"pre sales" contact method, so you can always
call/email them to see what they have to say
if they have not documented the answer in
the specs or some FAQ. I have a hard time
believing that the question has not been asked
previously, and they should have an answer.
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Re: Silicon Dust HDHR5-4K [ In reply to ]
On Mon, Oct 26, 2020 at 6:17 PM John P Poet <jppoet@gmail.com> wrote:

> Have you looked at Gary's ExternalRecorder for the HDHR?
> https://github.com/garybuhrmaster/mythhdhrrecorder

FD: I do not have, nor do I have any current
plans to purchase, one of the new HDHR5-4K
tuners for testing (and for that matter, my
market does not currently have a transmitter
(except by press release)) so any improvements
will be based on guesses as to how to make
things work better.

While I believe that that recorder should be
able to perform recording (although playback
is still an issue), one will likely need to carefully
configure the recorders and/or videosources
and/or tuner priorities to achieve results you
will find acceptable during testing.

Some complexities (based on my current
understanding, and not personal experience

- the HDHR5-4K has two ATSC 3.0/1.0
tuners, and two ATSC 1.0 (only) tuners

- In many markets the same (virtual)
channel is used for both 3.0 and 1.0
broadcasts from the same station.

- In most markets, not all channels are
both ATSC 3.0 *and* ATSC 1.0 that a
particular combo tuner may have
access to (some stations will be ATSC
1.0 only on the combo tuner).

- If a request for the new HTTP streaming
request is made to the tuner, and if the
(virtual) channel is available both 3.0
and 1.0, a 3.0 tuner will be chosen if
one is available (otherwise it will fall
back to a 1.0 tuner if a 1.0 tuner can
tune that (virtual) channel, but if the
virtual channel is 1.0 only, and no 1.0
tuners are free the device will use a
a ATSC 3.0/1.0 tuner).

So, for the HDHR5-4K with mixed capabilities,
and for applications such as MythTV, this
can result in some artifacts that reportedly
even SD is trying to think through (should
there be a way to disable ATSC 3.0 selection
so that the ATSC 1.0 versions show through
(perhaps to allow apps that don't support
AC-4 today to still operate?), should there
be a way to make sure that the ATSC 3.0
capable tuners are *only* used for ATSC 3.0
channels if any exist in the market (so that
they don't get used for an ATSC 1.0 channel
that could be found on another tuner?),
should ATSC 1.0 stations on a mixed
capability tuner (that has any ATSC 3.0
stations broadcasting?) have a priority
lower than "normal" so that that tuner is
selected only as a last resort for legacy
stations, and lots of other possibilities).
Right now there would appear to be no
consensus as to what will work well for
everyone (and having hundreds of knobs
to adjust behavior is likely to just cause
confusion and lots of holes in feet, and is
in opposition to the "KISS" principle that
most apps are targeting).

With the latest external recorder version
(and when I say latest, I mean as of today),
the code has been modified such that
combination tuners that have active ATSC
3.0 reception will be prioritized to be used
first only for ATSC 3.0 channels, and the
remaining ATSC 1.0 channels will be
deprioritized such that the combo units
will mostly be reserved for use by ATSC
3.0 channel requests, but can still
fallback if there are not other tuners
available for ATSC 1.0 channels. This
will not result in optimal results if one
has multiple mixed-mode tuners (we
need more control there), but it is
probably good enough for initial testing.

So, in some ideal world, converting all
your OTA HDHR tuners to use the
external recorder might mostly *just work*,
but the reality is that we currently can't
playback recordings with AC-4.

So, ignoring that right now you can't
play back any recording, what I would
recommend for record only testing
is to create two external recorders
explicitly defining the combo tuner
(and do not define the combo tuner
to MythTV), and create them with
a higher priority than your existing
tuners, and create them with a videosource
that only has the ATSC 3.0 channels
that exist in your market defined.
That will, essentially, "reserve" the
tuner(s) for an ATSC 3.0 broadcast.

Good luck.
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Re: Silicon Dust HDHR5-4K [ In reply to ]
On Tue, Oct 27, 2020 at 2:44 PM Neil Salstrom <salstrom@gmail.com> wrote:

> In the PDX area (and others from what I
> understand) both the ATSC 3.0 and ATSC 1.0 get mapped to the same
> virtual number. For example, ATSC 1.0 RF 8 (subchannel 3) gets mapped
> to virtual 8.1 KGW. At the same time, ATSC 3.0 RF 30 (subchannel 3)
> gets mapped to virtual 8.1 KGW as well.

While everything is still in the state of learning,
it has been somewhat expected that OTA
stations will continue to use the same virtual
number for ATSC 3.0 and ATSC 1.0 as many
stations have spent decades "branding" the
number ("Tune to 2.1 for XXX News at 11pm")
which they are not going to want to change.
For OTA TV's with ATSC 3.0 tuners it would
be expected that the TV choses the best
version possible, which is what most users
would expect to happen.

FWIW, the external recorder does not
care about the RF/program values, it uses
the modern HDHR tuning methods, so if
it tuned 8.1 on an ATSC 3.0 tuner it
would get the ATSC 3.0 channel (and if
it tuned 8.1 on a ATSC 1.0 tuner it would
get the ATSC 1.0 tuner). Only the legacy
protocols require you to tune by RF
frequencies and program numbers.

Refer to the previous post about some
heuristics that are in the latest version
of the external record that attempts to
sort of try to address some of the issues
with common virtual channels, but be
aware that it is still a work in progress,
and that you still can't playback recordings
with MythTV that are using AC-4 (unless
your AVR supports it).
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Re: Silicon Dust HDHR5-4K [ In reply to ]
On Tue, Nov 3, 2020 at 6:59 PM Gary Buhrmaster <gary.buhrmaster@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Mon, Oct 26, 2020 at 6:17 PM John P Poet <jppoet@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Have you looked at Gary's ExternalRecorder for the HDHR?
> > https://github.com/garybuhrmaster/mythhdhrrecorder
>
> FD: I do not have, nor do I have any current
> plans to purchase, one of the new HDHR5-4K
> tuners for testing (and for that matter, my
> market does not currently have a transmitter
> (except by press release)) so any improvements
> will be based on guesses as to how to make
> things work better.
>
> While I believe that that recorder should be
> able to perform recording (although playback
> is still an issue), one will likely need to carefully
> configure the recorders and/or videosources
> and/or tuner priorities to achieve results you
> will find acceptable during testing.
>
> Some complexities (based on my current
> understanding, and not personal experience
>
> - the HDHR5-4K has two ATSC 3.0/1.0
> tuners, and two ATSC 1.0 (only) tuners
>
> - In many markets the same (virtual)
> channel is used for both 3.0 and 1.0
> broadcasts from the same station.
>
> - In most markets, not all channels are
> both ATSC 3.0 *and* ATSC 1.0 that a
> particular combo tuner may have
> access to (some stations will be ATSC
> 1.0 only on the combo tuner).
>
> - If a request for the new HTTP streaming
> request is made to the tuner, and if the
> (virtual) channel is available both 3.0
> and 1.0, a 3.0 tuner will be chosen if
> one is available (otherwise it will fall
> back to a 1.0 tuner if a 1.0 tuner can
> tune that (virtual) channel, but if the
> virtual channel is 1.0 only, and no 1.0
> tuners are free the device will use a
> a ATSC 3.0/1.0 tuner).
>
> So, for the HDHR5-4K with mixed capabilities,
> and for applications such as MythTV, this
> can result in some artifacts that reportedly
> even SD is trying to think through (should
> there be a way to disable ATSC 3.0 selection
> so that the ATSC 1.0 versions show through
> (perhaps to allow apps that don't support
> AC-4 today to still operate?), should there
> be a way to make sure that the ATSC 3.0
> capable tuners are *only* used for ATSC 3.0
> channels if any exist in the market (so that
> they don't get used for an ATSC 1.0 channel
> that could be found on another tuner?),
> should ATSC 1.0 stations on a mixed
> capability tuner (that has any ATSC 3.0
> stations broadcasting?) have a priority
> lower than "normal" so that that tuner is
> selected only as a last resort for legacy
> stations, and lots of other possibilities).
> Right now there would appear to be no
> consensus as to what will work well for
> everyone (and having hundreds of knobs
> to adjust behavior is likely to just cause
> confusion and lots of holes in feet, and is
> in opposition to the "KISS" principle that
> most apps are targeting).
>
> With the latest external recorder version
> (and when I say latest, I mean as of today),
> the code has been modified such that
> combination tuners that have active ATSC
> 3.0 reception will be prioritized to be used
> first only for ATSC 3.0 channels, and the
> remaining ATSC 1.0 channels will be
> deprioritized such that the combo units
> will mostly be reserved for use by ATSC
> 3.0 channel requests, but can still
> fallback if there are not other tuners
> available for ATSC 1.0 channels. This
> will not result in optimal results if one
> has multiple mixed-mode tuners (we
> need more control there), but it is
> probably good enough for initial testing.
>
> So, in some ideal world, converting all
> your OTA HDHR tuners to use the
> external recorder might mostly *just work*,
> but the reality is that we currently can't
> playback recordings with AC-4.
>
> So, ignoring that right now you can't
> play back any recording, what I would
> recommend for record only testing
> is to create two external recorders
> explicitly defining the combo tuner
> (and do not define the combo tuner
> to MythTV), and create them with
> a higher priority than your existing
> tuners, and create them with a videosource
> that only has the ATSC 3.0 channels
> that exist in your market defined.
> That will, essentially, "reserve" the
> tuner(s) for an ATSC 3.0 broadcast.
>
> Good luck.
>

For reference:
https://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?request=atsc3

John
Re: Silicon Dust HDHR5-4K [ In reply to ]
On Sun, Nov 8, 2020 at 10:31 AM John P Poet <jppoet@gmail.com> wrote:
> For reference:
> https://www.rabbitears.info/market.php?request=atsc3
>
> John
> _______________________________________________

If anyone is feeling experimental, there is a branch of ffmpeg that
includes ac-4:

https://github.com/richardpl/FFmpeg/tree/ac4

I've compiled it and was able to play a ATSC3.0 capture using ffplay
and it included audio! No idea what it would take to build mythtv
against this branch but it's at least a start!
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