Thought I was going nuts... video skips randomly around at certain points.

[UncleJohnsBand]

I recorded several shows tonight, and at certain spots if I go to them or just watch from the beginning to them, it ALWAYS skips backward or forward a random amount, then starts doing it at other random spots. I tried all kinds of different codecs, but none alleviated the issue. The best combination (with some of them, the image would block up before it jumped randomly) seems to be the Dscaler MPEG2 Decoder with Intervideo's Audio decoder. This skipping seems really random, it just goes to random spots in the video minutes or seconds around it, sometimes even to the end or beginning. I am on a WinTV PVR-USB2... my system is:

Athlon 64 X2 3800+
eVGA 7800GT videocard
2GB dual-channel RAM
300gb Maxtor MaxLine III SATA-native NCQ 7L300S0-model HDD


Also, sometimes when I use the skip-forward/skip-backward buttons, the video begins to stutter (it never stutters unless I do this, up until it skips). The audio stays perfectly smooth throughout the glitches with the stuttering and jumping, except during the block-up of the screen with certain codec combinations.

I googled as much as I could and fiddled a lot, but nothing seems to be solving this for me... I know it must be something with a setting in my system somewhere, since no one else seems to have had this issue that I can find... hoping it's something quick and easy !


EDIT: It does it in Windows Media Player too... so it's gotta be some sort of codec issue.

What card(s) are you using....I just interoduced a PVR-500 into my system and I am seeing bad timelines periodically. If I look at the length of the recoding via the ISD sometimes it says 5 minutes....but the video plays the full length....and if I hit skip forward it skips backwards.....really....really weird......I am thinking it must be something with the 500 since I never saw this behavior before.

Here is output from PVAStrumento on one of my videos:

***
*** PVAStrumento 2.1.0.15
*** running at 01-18-2006 21:50
***
Pre-Scanning input. Takes some time.
Stream info for
E:\TV\Greys Anatomy\Greys Anatomy_20060115_22012300.mpg

Found 1 video stream.
Found 1 MPEG audio stream.

VIDEO #1
Resolution 720 x 480
Aspect ratio is 4:3
Frame rate 29.97 fps
Nominal bitrate 8250000 bps
First PTS: 00:00:00.333

MPEG AUDIO #1
MPEG1, Layer 2
stereo, sampled at 48.0 kHz.
Bitrate 224 kbps
Each frame contains 24.0 ms audio (672 bytes)
First PTS: 00:00:00.333


==SCANNING==
Input: E:\TV\Greys Anatomy\Greys Anatomy_20060115_22012300.mpg
Closing starting GOP.
Aiming for sync at 00:00:00.333
Streamstart seems to be in (reasonable) sync:
Video 1 starts at 00:00:00.333
Audio 1 starts at 00:00:00.333

Number of audio tracks has changed. Splitting.
Last fileset:
2240017036 total bytes written
Video 1: 93795 frames, 00:52:09.626
Audio 1: 131313 frames, 00:52:31.512


Video statistics
================
GOP length (min/avg/max):
15 / 15 / 15 [frames]
113738 / 344032 / 604310 [Bytes]
GOP bitrate (min/avg/max):
1817 / 5499 / 9659 [kbps]

Closing starting GOP.
Aiming for sync at 00:52:10.026
Streamstart seems to be in (reasonable) sync:
Video 1 starts at 00:52:10.026

ALERT> PTS reset in video. Have to re-sync.
Re-syncing.
Closing starting GOP.
Aiming for sync at 00:00:00.900
Streamstart seems to be in (reasonable) sync:
Video 1 starts at 00:00:00.900

Number of audio tracks has changed. Splitting.
Last fileset:
19572048 total bytes written
Video 1: 851 frames, 00:00:28.395

Sync estimate at EOF:
MPEG Audio #1 : sync

Video statistics
================
GOP length (min/avg/max):
13 / 14 / 15 [frames]
207726 / 343283 / 474778 [Bytes]
GOP bitrate (min/avg/max):
3320 / 5512 / 7588 [kbps]

Closing starting GOP.
Aiming for sync at 00:00:08.397
Cutting video.
Closing starting GOP.
Aiming for sync at 00:00:08.908
Cutting audio.
Audio stream 1 now starts at 00:00:08.901
Video stream 1 now starts at 00:00:08.908
ALERT> PTS jump in video
Closing starting GOP.
Aiming for sync at 00:00:08.908
Streamstart seems to be in (reasonable) sync:
Video 1 starts at 00:00:08.908
Audio 1 starts at 00:00:08.901

****FileSpan for PES packet
Last fileset:
266959804 total bytes written
Video 1: 11188 frames, 00:06:13.306
Audio 1: 15663 frames, 00:06:15.912

Sync estimate at EOF:
MPEG Audio #1 : sync

Video statistics
================
GOP length (min/avg/max):
13 / 14 / 15 [frames]
150074 / 343659 / 552726 [Bytes]
GOP bitrate (min/avg/max):
2398 / 5494 / 8834 [kbps]

[goldentiger]

I was using a Hauppauge WinTV PVR-USB2, RMA'd it and a new one is coming in tomorrow or Friday .

[goldentiger]

UPDATE! My new WinTV PVR-USB2 literally just came in, I have recorded five minutes of a show so far and playing it back, with no skipping. I think my problem indeed was a defective unit . EDIT: Now that I have ended the recording and begun playing it back, I am having the same issue again! Any ideas?? The first unit came in with its vertical stand broken, and seemed defective, but I now think that it wasn't the unit being defective causing my issues. What can this be?

[sub]

I'd personally be trying different version of the WinTV PVR-USB2 drivers. Have a look at http://www.shspvr.com/smf for the latest.

I'd also be checking if their were newer USB2 drivers for my motherboard chipset.

Also make sure you're not pluged into a USB hub or another in between device.

[goldentiger]

I'd personally be trying different version of the WinTV PVR-USB2 drivers. Have a look at http://www.shspvr.com/smf for the latest.

I'd also be checking if their were newer USB2 drivers for my motherboard chipset.

Also make sure you're not pluged into a USB hub or another in between device.

Tried the full install off of Hauppauge's site, instead of the absolute latest updated one, and it didn't help. There are no newer USB2 drivers for my chipset. The PVR-USB2 is plugged right into one of the computer's rear USB2 port.

Something I noticed now... if I play a recording back while it is still recording, it works perfectly as far as not skipping, etc. If I play it back after it finishes, I get this skipping issue...

[sub]

Something I noticed now... if I play a recording back while it is still recording, it works perfectly as far as not skipping, etc. If I play it back after it finishes, I get this skipping issue...

Can you reproduce the problem, then zip and attach your gbpvr.exe-native.log, and I'll take a look exactly what components are used on your machine when you playback an already-completed recording.

[goldentiger]

Will do, thank you.

[goldentiger]

OK, I played back a file until it skipped, let it do it twice then closed recording and exited GBPVR. This should be the right log, its Date Modified was right when I exited. Looking at the log, right away I notice a few instances of "Restoring audio" and references to FFDshow which I had uninstalled and unregistered the DLL's of from Windows... weird!

[sub]

Hmm... nothing too strange in those logs.

Just ignore the comments about ffdshow. They're just indicating that <UseFFDSHOW> was set to "true" in your config.xml, but ffdshow wasnt actually found on your machine.

Something I noticed now... if I play a recording back while it is still recording, it works perfectly as far as not skipping, etc. If I play it back after it finishes, I get this skipping issue...

This earlier comment of yours had made me expect to see a non-standard demultiplexer in use on you setup (like the Elecard one), but no, it seems to be using the Microsoft demultiplexer the same as everyone else. When you play a recording while it is still recording, then it uses the GB-PVR demultiplexer. After the recording is complete, it uses the system default one (Microsoft MPEG-2 Demultiplexer).

Sorry I dont know.

[stefan]

Since the software more or less becomes useless for you, I'd seriously consider a clean install of windows, pvr-usb2 drivers and gbpvr, and see if that helps.