Red Button Interactive (MHEG) browser for DVB-S cards...

[Nick -D-vB]

I have found a couple of bits of software that might let DVB-S card users take a peek at the FreeSat interactive MHEG services. All this stuff is in early beta stage so don’t get too exited, but its worth a shot.

First you need the excellent DC-DVB Source:

_http://www.dsp-worx.de/?n=11

DeCoder has stopped developing it now but the 0.17 beta he did for the 2006 HD trials is working fine with FreeSat, even with the H.222 tricks. It's not on the main site any more so I have uploaded a beta pack here:

_http://www.sendspace.com/file/5g1y8r

As well as playing the HD streams you can also have a look at the interactive service’s MHEG objects, but DC-DVB can only dump the files that make up the pages.

To try and view them you can use McGoober’s beta MHEG engine:

_http://code.google.com/p/mheg-dotnet/

_http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/plugins-47/uk-digital-interactive-red-button-mhegplugin-12856/

AFAIK this is the only working MHEG engine (for windows) in existence!?

Unless you count Nebula’s sadly defunct DigiTV software, but I don’t think they ever finished sat support? I tried to “force–feed” DigiTV v3.2 a transport stream through the network interface but couldn’t get it working.

_http://www.digitv-hd.com/


Anyway, McGoober’s engine is very good but it’s not 100% yet, any interaction with the video streams will cause a crash so it is only able to view certain pages at the moment. As I said it’s a very early beta but even so it works with most Freeview MHEG apps I have tried. I can’t get a dish rigged up myself so I have only tested FreeSat using small transport stream samples, but hopefully it should work out there in the wild to?


Basic DC-DVB setup:

DC-DVB acts as a back-end source supplying the stream from you sat card to almost any directshow media player (works with ZoomPlayer, Media Player Classic, Windows Media Player and others)

To set it up first register the filter with the register.bat file (ignore all the others) Then run the ChannelScan program, select your sat card and tune it in, you might need to edit the xml channel list first but you can also add single transponders through the menu system.

When you are all tuned in open the properties for ITV HD in the channel menu and force the video type to H.264, you might not need to do this with some codecs / players but it can’t hurt.

Now select the codecs you want to use to decode the audio and video, Cyberlink’s decoder had scaling issues in some players but they are fixable. CoreAVC work perfectly so grab the free trial if you have problems:

_http://www.coreavc.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=41&Itemid=59

Almost any combined AC3 / Mpeg audio filter will work, don’t set a post-proc filter for the moment.

When you have configured everything as you want it you must then save a .dvb config file. You then open this magic file with the mediaplayer of your choice and DC-DVB does its thing automatically. You will notice a small TV icon in the task bar which is your remote for changing channel etc. If you get an error when you open the file check your codec config as that is normally the culprit. You should get something like this:

View attachment 16075


You can also pull up a more detailed menu for DC-DVB by opening the source properties in your mediaplayer (sadly wmp11 does seem let you do this)

View attachment 16076


MHEG Engine:

Now, if there is an MHEG interactive service running on the channel you are tuned to DC-DVB should start to dump the objects that make up the pages into the MHP sub directory. It might take a few minutes (pausing the video seems to speed it up).

If you want to try and view the interactive pages open the MHEG engine and select the DCDVB/Filter/MHP/ChannelName folder using the “Root” button, then press the text button to load the pages, this is a test I did with the Freeview ITV page:

View attachment 16077

If all is well you should be able to navigate around as if you were using a normal STB.


I have been searching for a working MHEG viewer for years, now that both FreeView DVB-T and FreeSat are using MHEG there is more incentive to finally get it working properly.

Development seems to have stalled again but I’m going to try and contact the authors and see where they’re at. If they are unable to continue the project maybe others will be able to help out?

It might be worth porting it to the MultiDec API, it would save having to fix MediaPortals issues and would make it usable with a load of other apps as well. Just a thought? I’ll keep you posted.


So, what are you waiting for? Press your red button now!

View attachment 16074

...no, not that one, that’s the off button! ;)



Let me know how you get on,

Cheers,
Nick

 

[daw]

Every time i try to scan a channel dc-dvb crashes do you know wat i can do ?

 

[Nick -D-vB]

Try pressing the [...] button next to the device list and change the BDA Tuning request mode,

also try the [LNB] button and check the options in there?


Are you running Vista or MediaCenter Edition? Any other tv apps running in the background?

Try running the device reset and stop services batch files.


Check the channel list you are using is correct, try starting a blank one with just the transponder you want to tune.

But DC-DVB just doesn't seem to like some BDA drivers, what card have you got?


If all else fails set your card up in ProgDVB 4 and use that to send the transport stream to DC-DVB:

_http://dvbn.happysat.org/viewtopic.php?t=33047

It's a lot of hassle but it does work.



Let me know how you get on,

Cheers,
Nick

 

[roboraver]

Is there absolutly no other MHEG engine out there is existence ??

 

[Nick -D-vB]

Hi mate, long time no speak. I was sorry to see the Hauppauge forum has been butchered; it might have been an idea to dump all the old posts into an Archive room as there was some useful stuff in there. Is Chris Day still about btw?

Cabot Software made an engine for the old Hauppauge / Technotrend software but it hooked directly into their app and would need some serious reverse engineering to work with anything else, plus it is very out of date now, I don't think it supports the 1.05/1.06 MHEG profile.

_http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/downloads/mheg5.zip

There are a couple of semi-complete ports of various java / linux engines (RB-Browser and the MythTV extensions) but nothing I can find works as well as McGoober's test app.

Nebula DigiTV's engine is perfect and in a last ditch effort to save the business they did release a version of DigiTV with BDA driver support, you could try and buy a copy and see if it works with your DVB-S card.

The Network interface in version 3.5 is now protected somehow (my fault sorry!) but there may be a way to get v3.2 to accept a transport stream from another app if we can figure out the "hand-shake" routine.

_http://www.digitv-hd.com/

Did you manage to get McGoobers engine working? Please upload any working MHEG dumps you can find, I would like to know if it works with the FreeSat services.

Cheers,
Nick

 

[cardivarius]

DeCoder has stopped developing it now but the 0.17 beta he did for the 2006 HD trials is working fine with FreeSat, even with the H.222 tricks. It's not on the main site any more so I have uploaded a beta pack here:

_http://www.sendspace.com/file/5g1y8r

Sorry, Nick, I was late to download it and it is no more on sendspace, can you please re-upload it?

CV

 

[Nick -D-vB]

Here you go mate:

_http://www.megaupload.com/?d=S8LZC9P6


But it's not working with the BBC services for some reason?

I think they are using an extended DSMCC spec,

I will try and get the author of DVB Stream Explorer to have a look for us.


You probably know this already but the actual video streams should be on here:

11954 27500 H

12441 27500 V


Cheers,
Nick

 

[cardivarius]

Here you go mate:
_http://www.megaupload.com/?d=S8LZC9P6

Thanks, finally I have HDTV smooth in my computer.

But it's not working with the BBC services for some reason?
I think they are using an extended DSMCC spec,
I will try and get the author of DVB Stream Explorer to have a look for us.

My first goal was HDTV, and that is working now, MHEG-5 will follow...

You probably know this already but the actual video streams should be on here:
11954 27500 H
12441 27500 V

Yes, thanks.

Cheers,
CV