How does NPVR determine recording length during playback?

[BrettB]

For the last week or so, I've noticed that several of my recordings are showing incorrect lengths (on the timeline OSD) when playing back. This situation affects the comskipping as well, because NPVR doesn't seem to skip commercials outside of it's "expected" timeline.

The incorrect lengths vary both short and long. For instance, one show (NCIS: Los Angeles) that is 1 hour displays as being 45 minutes on the OSD. (The recording itself seems to be OK, because it plays back just fine, execept that commercial skipping stops after 45 minutes.) In another instance, the show (Mike & Molly) displays as being 37 minutes on the OSD, but the recording is really only 30 minutes (plus padding), as expected.

Comskip seems to be detecting commercials and getting the skip points correct. And NPVR seems to be using them to get good skipping--as long as it is within NPVR's "expected" timeline. So the actual recording .ts files seem to be OK.

I'm attaching the comskip .edl & .log files and the NPVR timing.info files for these 2 examples in case they help any.

[sub]

I havnt looked inside your comskip files at all, but I did look at the two timing.info files, which are used for reporting the duration on .ts files (if the NTFS timing.info ADS exists), and it shows NCIS as being 62 minutes long, and Mike And Molly as 32 minutes long.

Have you transcoded you file, or moved them or anything?

[BrettB]

Have you transcoded you file, or moved them or anything?

No. Just recorded with NPVR and then played back with NPVR. I do playback on a PCH almost exclusively, if that makes any difference.

[sub]

Try playing the file, then post the npvr.log and let me know what duration it indicated.

[sub]

I do playback on a PCH almost exclusively, if that makes any difference.

Ah, sorry - missed this on previous post. Does it show the correct duration when you try on the PC?

[BrettB]

Ah, sorry - missed this on previous post. Does it show the correct duration when you try on the PC?

I can't test that until I get home tonight. But here are all of my log files. In the mvp.log.1 file, you can see where I played NCIS Los Angeles at 9:33 and Mike & Molly at 9:35 this morning when I was verifying as I was posting.

[mvallevand]

Brett are you still having problems with NRecord swapping channels on the hour in your recordings? I'd be interested in seeing the last 100MB of the NCIS file to see why mvpmx2 had problems when post padding started.

Martin

[BrettB]

Brett are you still having problems with NRecord swapping channels on the hour in your recordings? I'd be interested in seeing the last 100MB of the NCIS file to see why mvpmx2 had problems when post padding started.

Martin

Martin,

Yes, I'm still seeing that "issue" on both my HDHR and AverMeida Duet tuners. With 4 available tuners, NPVR should be able to honor both pre- and post-padding requests for all of my recordings. In fact, with only 2 physical channels almost always, it should be able to do with only 2 tuners...if it would just not swap tuners for the same channel each hour. I'm hoping that the next release will have improved tuner scheduling/utilization!

I'll get you a 100MB cut from the NCIS file in a little bit.

- Brett

[BrettB]

Ah, sorry - missed this on previous post. Does it show the correct duration when you try on the PC?

Sub,

Yes, when I play those 2 files on the PC, the OSD timeline shows the correct length. It appears to just be getting it wrong when played on the PCH.

[mvallevand]

I'll get you a 100MB cut from the NCIS file in a little bit.

Thanks Brett unfortunately I think I need closer to 200MB or the first 100MB of a 200MB chunk.

Martin