Skip ahead causes hang during playback

[siliconaudio]

I get this problem occasionally, but I have always put it down to errors in the TS file due to disruptions in the broadcast stream.

[fiteclub]

I get this problem occasionally, but I have always put it down to errors in the TS file due to disruptions in the broadcast stream.

My gut feeling is that this is the issue as well, but it seems like the diagnostic logs could shed some light on whether that is the case or not. This is a cable QAM signal with 100% strength and quality on the HDHomerun diagnostic page. Maybe a problem at the headend. I don't know but it is very frustrating because I can never FF through any of the corrupt recordings. With the old gbpvr app. I would have situations during playback where the video would freeze and there would be large amounts of disk drive activity. If I then tried to FF or REW I would find the playback had jumped ahead a HUGE amount of time; sometimes like 10 to 20 min. I could then REW to where the disruption occurred and see that there was a small glitch in the stream. It was annoying, but I could use the REW and FF to catch most of the recording. I was hoping NPVR would improve on things but it seems to be worse. Now playback just fails to the EPG guide and FF and REW don't work in the affected recordings. I'm hoping it might be the audio filter that someone suggested earlier, but I don't know enough to know why that could be the issue.

[sub]

Thanks sub, I will try that. So when I see something similar to these lines in the log:

2011-03-01 23:49:50.826 [DEBUG][1] Using timing.info, jumping to time 1987.394043 (offset 3195363432)
2011-03-01 23:49:50.837 [DEBUG][1] After skipping position reports as: 1987.95202636719
<snip>

This is normal? because every time this happens, the requested "jump to" position does not agree with the reported position and I get the stopping graph messages.

Yes, that looks normal. Its not going to be able to get to the exact millisecond. Its asked to skip to 1987.3 seconds into the movie, and ended up at 1987.9 seconds, which is as close as you might hope for.

[fiteclub]

OK, I had another example of playback issues that I am having. I was watching a 1 hr recording of a TV show from a HD cable channel here in the US. At time point 6 min 59.29 sec the playback freezes and the hard drive becomes continuously active. After about 30 sec playback resumes but at about 1 hr into the program and plays the final 2 min or so just fine. When I loaded the program into Videoredo, I found a "jump" (for lack of a better term) from 6 min 59.29 to 7 min 0.05 sec. I ran the video through Videoredo's Quickstream Fix process and then replayed it in NPVR. This time the video played all the way through with no problem. I guess my question is: 1. Is this likely a corrupt stream from the cable company or something else? and 2) The Videoredo program was able to play back the original just fine even with the disruption at the 7 min mark. which makes me think that the problem may lie elsewhere. Any thoughts?

BTW, I removed the AC3filter and am now using Microsoft DTV-DVD Audio Decoder for AC3 audio.

[hoborg]

BTW, I removed the AC3filter and am now using Microsoft DTV-DVD Audio Decoder for AC3 audio.

Yre you sure ? If i am not wrong, MS block AC3 decoder outside thiep applications.

[fiteclub]

Well, the logs seem to say that it is being used. Why is it a choice in NPVR as a decoder if it can't be used? If it can't be used and you don't recommend AC3filter, then what do you recommend? A little explanation as to why it matters would be helpful.

[hoborg]

Well, the logs seem to say that it is being used. Why is it a choice in NPVR as a decoder if it can't be used? If it can't be used and you don't recommend AC3filter, then what do you recommend? A little explanation as to why it matters would be helpful.

You can use Graphstudio - connect to remote graph to see what is used durning playback in DirectShow.
And my recommendation? SAF5

[fiteclub]

Can you please explain to me why the audio decoder would cause the symptoms that I am seeing during video playback?

[sub]

Why is it a choice in NPVR as a decoder if it can't be used?

NPVR askes windows for the lists of each type of decoder. In this case it askes for the list of AC3 decoders, and 'Microsoft DTV-DVD Audio Decoder' is in the list of decoders returned by Window's, but unfortunately they've knobbled this decoder so that it doesnt do AC3 outside of Microsoft apps.

[wtg]

My gut feeling is that this is the issue as well, but it seems like the diagnostic logs could shed some light on whether that is the case or not. This is a cable QAM signal with 100% strength and quality on the HDHomerun diagnostic page. Maybe a problem at the headend. I don't know but it is very frustrating because I can never FF through any of the corrupt recordings.

Make sure you aren't having problems with network packet loss. This can cause the very issues you're experiencing. Most network activity can completely handle and correct small amounts of packet loss without the user ever being the wiser but real-time streaming video from the HDHR can't, so it's quite possible the only symptom you'd experience would be slightly corrupted video.

Detecting the problem and some ideas for correcting it are covered well in the Silicon Dust FAQ here. This was causing me a great deal of frustration for well over a year before I ran the tests mentioned in the FAQ. Since everything else was working fine I had no idea my network was experiencing a small % of packet loss. In the end my solution was simply to force my nic to operate at 100Mbit instead of gigabit speeds.

Good luck figuring out the source of your trouble.