Transmitter Software Capabilities and Issues (Jessie)

Discussion about this major DATV Project. See https://wiki.batc.org.uk/The_Portsdown_Transmitter
G8GKQ
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Re: Transmitter Software Capabilities and Issues

Post by G8GKQ » Wed Aug 02, 2017 8:26 am

That's great Mike.

If you want to suggest changes that are ready for release, please submit a pull request to the Portsdown development GitHub site athttps://github.com/davecrump/rpidatv. Otherwise, you could just e-mail me chunks of code.

There is some push button functionality already, although I have not tested it with recent releases. Take a look here: https://github.com/davecrump/rpidatv/bl ... ibutton.sh

Were you thinking of push button and screen, rather than push button and LED?

Dave

g0mjw
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Re: Transmitter Software Capabilities and Issues

Post by g0mjw » Wed Aug 02, 2017 9:58 am

Hi Dave,

Thanks - I was looking at a button and screen simply to augment touch when not available or not convenient. It could also be a rotary encoder.

Incidentally, from your list many of the signal generator/spectrum analysis type apps are in my view better suited to being independent units based on the same modules. There is good Arduino signal generator project already and for the well heeled RF Explorer or Ebay items 152542459447 or 252945323210

What is missing and would be nice is some sort of built in power control. I have seen several cheap Ebay items based on the PE4302 ,PE4312 programmable attenuator chips (there are others) which could do this.

Mike

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Re: Transmitter Software Capabilities and Issues

Post by g0mjw » Fri Aug 04, 2017 11:40 am

Hi Dave,

I have been testing up here in Bolton and have noticed neither audio nor caption are appearing in H264 mode. They do appear in MPEG2. Is this fundamental or an oversight? H264 is essential for 2m 333ks and although no audio is needed a caption is desirable.

Mike

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Re: Transmitter Software Capabilities and Issues

Post by G8GKQ » Fri Aug 04, 2017 2:43 pm

Hi Mike

The H264 encoding uses Evariste's avc2ts code which is very efficient (using the RPi's hardware encoder), but does not have audio (in this version) and has no caption facility. A later version has audio, but Is not yet ready for release.

MPEG-2 encoding (in software) uses ffmpeg which has provision for audio, captions and video 'filters' where required if the CPU is fast enough. On the RPi 3 I have had to compromise and not use the de-interlacing video filter as the CPU was not fast enough.

Dave

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Re: Transmitter Software Capabilities and Issues

Post by G8GKQ » Fri Aug 18, 2017 8:07 pm

New Software Release

I've just issued a new release 201708150. It introduces 2 dedicated modes for repeater streaming, one continuous, and one hardware switched. These modes stop and start the stream every 12 hours to clear any built-up delay. Full documentation at the foot of this page: https://wiki.batc.tv/Streaming_to_batc. ... spberry_Pi.

There are also 3 new buttons on Menu 3. This experimental capability enables the Portsdown to capture stills from the analog video stream captured by the EasyCap. The "Snap" button takes the still, the "Check" button enables you to view the last 5 stills, and the View button displays the incoming video as snapshots at just over 1 frame per second. Full documentation here: https://wiki.batc.tv/Still_Capture_from ... ideo_Input.

Other minor changes include the addition of Webcams to the sound switching logic, relocation of the callsign caption (only visible in MPEG-2 modes) to the top left of the image and minor corrections to the streaming bitrates.

There is no urgent need to upgrade to this version unless you want to take advantage of the new features above.

Dave

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Re: Transmitter Software Capabilities and Issues

Post by ON1AVO » Sat Aug 19, 2017 9:47 am

Hi Dave,
I performed an upgrade to the lastest version and encountered this problem:
The RPI was streaming to my personal stream, connect with Putty and execute /home/pi/rpidatv/scripts/menu.sh menu and select Upgrade after rebooting got this result.
RPI streaming.jpg
RPI streaming.jpg (110.71 KiB) Viewed 4665 times
This error is also shown using /home/pi/rpidatv/scripts/menu.sh menu
RPI streaming_1.jpg
RPI streaming_1.jpg (93.92 KiB) Viewed 4665 times
Freddy

Update:
An upgrade of the previous FW version with default PSW worked OK
Last edited by ON1AVO on Sat Aug 19, 2017 1:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

g0mjw
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Re: Transmitter Software Capabilities and Issues

Post by g0mjw » Sat Aug 19, 2017 10:19 am

Hi Dave,

Quick test here and streaming is good - however, I see from the Wiki its quite fast, is there any way to reduce the bandwidth? I ask because when I am up at the Winter Hill QTH near Bolton our ADSL maxes out at 300kb/s. Anyone on a restricted data plan may find the rate of 5GB per day soon eats up their allocation. It would be good to have a data cap if that's possible.

Mike

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Re: Transmitter Software Capabilities and Issues

Post by M0SKM » Sat Aug 19, 2017 3:31 pm

Maybe a choice between what we have now and a slower option; streaming works great for me at the current speed.

Nice work Dave; lots of buttons to push. :)

Steve
Find me on D Star through GB7BP

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Re: Transmitter Software Capabilities and Issues

Post by G8GKQ » Sun Aug 20, 2017 8:34 pm

For Freddy ON1AVO:

Sorry for the delay, I've been trying to understand the errors that you have. They just do not make sense. I think that your SD Card might have been corrupted.

Please try another update. If that produces more errors, I suggest that you rebuild the card with the latest version.

Dave, G8GKQ

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Re: Transmitter Software Capabilities and Issues

Post by G8GKQ » Sun Aug 20, 2017 8:40 pm

Mike

To reduce the streaming rate, you can edit scripts/a.sh. Line 854 for the video rate, and the next line for the audio. As with streaming video quality and de-noising, this is an individual "tweak" so I do not propose to add it to the Console Menu or GUI. https://wiki.batc.tv/Repeater_Streaming

Dave

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