Networking two FoxSat HDR

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Foxsat-HDR

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Has anyone successfully connected two FoxSat HDR on the same network, installed the custom firmware, enabled un-encrypted HD recordings, installed Twonkey or Mediatomb on both and been able to play a recording made and stored on one HDR on the other without any Audio Description issues? I have a FoxSat HDR and a HDR 1000s but when I try and play a file that is on the FoxSat on the HDR 1000s I get the audio description track.
 
You can connect two Foxsat HDR's on the same network using custom firmware plus the NASMount package. Each HDR sees the other as an attached USB drive and plays the recordings natively, so there are no problems with selection of correct audio stream. Only downside is that when crossmounted like this the HMT sidecar files can end up with the wrong filepath for their associated TS file, and this then needs to be corrected with the fixfilepaths utility before it will playback correctly on the box it was recorded on.

Using twonkymedia on the Foxsat HDR, I can stream recordings from there to my HDR Fox T2 but, as you are already aware, for HD recordings the audio description track will be chosen as the default and cannot be changed.

This is not a fault on Humax's part. I've determined that the order of the audio streams listed in the program map table (PMT) , is the deciding factor when playing back recordings on third party players. They just use the first audio stream in the list as default. These PMT packets are part of the broadcast stream which, apart from encryption, are just saved '"as-is" when received from the mux.

With HD recordings on the Foxsat, the AC3 track is listed after the audio description track in the PMT table. You can observe this on the HDR itself if you press the audio button. With SD transmissions, the audio description track is listed below the main track, but with HD it's listed above it. The HDR itself is able to select the correct one as the main track, but 3rd party players are not so smart, hence the problem.

I currently have a utility in alpha which can re-order the PMT stream list of HD recordings so that the AC3 stream precedes the audio description stream. This does not require a remux and new nts files do not need to be recreated. The main problem is that the Foxsat does not have the horsepower to do this task quickly. This utility also includes code produced earlier by adrianf36 which corrects the program association table (PAT) packets to contain only one program (works for HD and SD). This makes the TS file format nearer to standard, and as such more compatible with other devices such as DLNA enabled TV's. Resulting file still plays natively on the Foxsat, but now I can stream it to the T2 with correct AC3 audio and also successfully stream it to my Samsung smart TV.
 
Thanks for the link Graham, it was interesting reading about Adrian's efforts. Unfortunately Raydon, I don't have any programming experience but interested in trying to find a solution to correct the metadata about the .ts so that the correct audio is played back. Can the code that Adrian produced be applied of a FoxSat HDR or does it need to be contained in a utility? As I said before I have little knowledge of programming.
 
Programming experience ?? Sorry, I thought I had made myself clear. The utility I am currently working on is for the Foxsat HDR and does exactly what you require. The (unreleased) utility that Adrian produced fixed the PAT table only, with output going to a fi-fo buffer for use with mediatomb. I have incorporated his code into a new utility that patches both the PAT and PMT tables with output going to new TS file, or it can modify the original TS file in-situ.
This TS file can still be played natively on the Foxsat without any need to remux, or to to create a new NTS file. In addition the TS will stream to an HDR 1000s or HDR Fox T2 with the correct AC3 audio selected (if HD) and also be better compatible for playback on other DLNA/UPnP client devices like smart TV's.
 
Apologies, what I meant by programming was that I have very little understanding of the actual process of modifying the software/firmware/creating utilities for any electrical device, your explanation was very clear and helpful.

If you need another test subject I would be happy to try your utility and give you any feedback I can.

Thanks again for your help.
 
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