Looking for ideas to investigate random, infrequent pixelation during recording

[pBS]

check recordings with glitches in another player, look for the glitch...if it doesn't show it is decoding issue..[with npvr unfortunately]
i still get short 'glitches' from my atsc tuners, but it's not a bad recording, it's playback..in other players it doesn't show up at all..
if you see glitch exactly as it was in npvr playback, then it's a signal issue..

on mine, they are almost always short and usually when graphics are overlayed on screen, or drastic scene changes..

[sub]

check recordings with glitches in another player, look for the glitch...if it doesn't show it is decoding issue..[with npvr unfortunately]
i still get short 'glitches' from my atsc tuners, but it's not a bad recording, it's playback..in other players it doesn't show up at all..
if you see glitch exactly as it was in npvr playback, then it's a signal issue..

on mine, they are almost always short and usually when graphics are overlayed on screen, or drastic scene changes..

I'm happy to look at any files that have playback issues in NextPVR that aren't present in other players.

You may find some players a little more visually pleasing in the way they deal with glitches. ie, depending on your decoder, you might end up with a flash of green garbage in response to a broken frame. Another player, with it's own decoders, might just not show a damaged frame.

[pBS]

it has improved, but still see glitches...
here's one from new npvr version..slight glitch around 50 secs in, after trump enters plane, when it comes back to Seth, glitch at bottom..
i know this isn't much of a glitch, but it's typical of what i see, tho usually a little bit worse..
also, notice lip sync is off a bit at beginning? don't notice that either in other players..
http://pbshouston.mooo.com/downloads/Lat...fus-cut.ts

cut using ffmpeg, copying streams as-is..

[sub]

it has improved, but still see glitches...
here's one from new npvr version..slight glitch around 50 secs in, after trump enters plane, when it comes back to Seth, glitch at bottom..
i know this isn't much of a glitch, but it's typical of what i see, tho usually a little bit worse..
also, notice lip sync is off a bit at beginning? don't notice that either in other players..
http://pbshouston.mooo.com/downloads/Lat...fus-cut.ts

cut using ffmpeg, copying streams as-is..

That is a problem in the stream at that time, like a reception issue, and I can see the problem in other players. In VLC is very hard to see, a skipped frame and a blip in the audio. In NextPVR with Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder, the bottom half of the screen went gray - making it very easy to see. In NextPVR with the LAV Video Decoder, it's similar to VLC, and very hard to see - just a skipped frame, and small blip in the audio. In WMP I see very similar results to using the Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder in NextPVR, with the bottom half of the screen going gray.

[pBS]

i'll try the lav decoders and see how it fares...but that was a small glitch, i'll try to find a bigger one..
i use cyberlink decoders, which usually don't lose their mind when encountering signal issues like MS or lav..
skipping with those decoders can leave me locked up sometimes where cyberlinks can usually recover and still play after a glitch which is why i stay with them..

[ukmark62]

check recordings with glitches in another player, look for the glitch...if it doesn't show it is decoding issue..[with npvr unfortunately]
i still get short 'glitches' from my atsc tuners, but it's not a bad recording, it's playback..in other players it doesn't show up at all..
if you see glitch exactly as it was in npvr playback, then it's a signal issue..

on mine, they are almost always short and usually when graphics are overlayed on screen, or drastic scene changes..

These are recording glitches - playback in NPVR or MPC-HC or WMP show same glitch. The glitches I get usually show the bottom half or third of the screen to be grey with some scrambled colours. I played back your sample with MPC-HC and the only glitch I noticed was the drop in audio for 1 second - visually all was fine.

[pBS]

turns out i was already using LAV for my decoder and i see glitch in npvr..using ver .70.2
if they are so unnoticeable in other players, why does npvr cough at them so much? seems like something in demuxer..
maybe other players are doing something else to avoid corrupt frames? is a much more pleasing experience when errors don't carry over into good frames.
i doubt many streams besides hdpvr type and analogs are completely error free..

btw, how do you know it's a skipped frame? i went thru frame steps and ddin't notice any drops in mpchc.

how about this one? http://pbshouston.mooo.com/downloads/decoderror.ts

oh and also, i tried MS,LAV and cyberlink decoders and have glitches almost exactly visually the same for all three in npvr.
and NONE of the decoders show any errors in mpchc with that last clip..

[Lao Pan]

turns out i was already using LAV for my decoder and i see glitch in npvr..using ver .70.2

LAV decoders are now up to version 0.73.1 - there have been some improvements, but don't know if they fix your problems.

[sub]

turns out i was already using LAV for my decoder and i see glitch in npvr..using ver .70.2

Might be worth trying a later one. I'm using 0.72.

if they are so unnoticeable in other players, why does npvr cough at them so much? seems like something in demuxer..
maybe other players are doing something else to avoid corrupt frames? is a much more pleasing experience when errors don't carry over into good frames.
i doubt many streams besides hdpvr type and analogs are completely error free..

Here with LAV, it is very hard to notice anything when that blip occurs. I couldn't really imagine getting it any better than that. I attempted to make a screen capture video to show you the difference I get between decoders. First decoder is Microsoft, where you see the big gray corruption at the bottom of the screen, then LAV. It's not a perfect capture - but it clearly shows the difference.

https://youtu.be/cjOApwXifSI

btw, how do you know it's a skipped frame? i went thru frame steps and ddin't notice any drops in mpchc.

I could see it in VLC, and heard a minor blip in the audio at the time.

how about this one? http://pbshouston.mooo.com/downloads/decoderror.ts

I'll take a look.

[sub]

how about this one? http://pbshouston.mooo.com/downloads/decoderror.ts

Are you sure that was the right bit of the file? I couldn't see any sign of problems playing in NextPVR or VLC, and no sign of missing/damaged packets in the file.