Newbie desperate for assistance

[Jaggy]

If the problem is in the recording I don't see how a different mux is going to help much as .ts recordings just take the data that is being broadcast & dumps it onto your hard disk, you can't get any raw'er data than that. Getting the right combination of codecs for playback with your setup/hardware is the tricky part. Have you tried playing back one of your .ts recordings in something like mpc or vlc to see if it is the recording?

[RiverNoord]

I think you may have missed some of the earlier parts of the thread, Jaggy - here's the story. I'm getting only OTA ATSC channels, no cable. I've been getting basically perfect recording and playback using either the MS-DVR or Cyberlink Mpeg-2 muxes for all channels but one. One of the channels is tuned by Config as an H.264 video source. I can't view that channel in LiveTV - I only get audio - but I can record it. However, instead of my chosen mux, it defaults to the TS Mux and records as a .ts file - meaning, I assume, an H.264 file. The .ts recordings of this channel play back very well, as long as there isn't any movement going on in the program (my default playback program for .ts files is VLC, but I've tried others - not "mpc" though - what player is that? Anyway, playback of the .ts files has been poor - for example, I recorded the US channel NBC's season premiere of "Heroes" last Monday, and when I played it back it was very jittery during any substantial motion. Maybe it's the playback settings, but, like I said early in the thread, I don't know much about H.264 settings, and I was hoping to get the channel set up to record using my preferred mux, since the playback quality was great.

I've just reinstalled everything, except for the patch files Mvallevand suggested - sorry I mis-attributed that suggestion in an earlier post :-( - and the channel has now been scanned and mapped exactly as before, as an H.264 video source.

I'm now going to delete the cache file and channels, install each patch file, re-scan after one, then the other, and see what happens.

[mvallevand]

Jaggy is spot-on, the heart of the DVR-MS and Cyberlink captures are still the raw TS streams. You have a problem playing TS files as many other do too, but that has more to do with have your Windows configuration than GB-PVR.

The secondary problem of id'ing the h264 broadcast is going to be a GBPVR problem, sub will probably want to do a full ts capture for him when he has some time but it can be addressed if the patches haven't done it already. I know my scans show LATM audio on a few channels I don't get anyway, and I am pretty sure that is bogus.

Martin

[whurlston]

RiverNoord, there is something in the stream that is causing GB-PVR to detect it as H.264 but there are no OTA broadcasts in the US that are H.264. All US OTA broadcasts are MPEG2. This is how I know the tuning string was wrong. You do not need an H.264 decoder for US OTA.

You will probably need to capture a few minutes of "Full TS" for sub and upload it somewhere for him to take a look at the stream. That way, he can figure out why it's being detected as an H.264 video stream.

The reason I suggested the TS Mux was because I see the 5.5K recording problem mostly on DVR-MS recordings.

[RiverNoord]

Thanks all - whurlston, the 5.5K problem happened only after I modified the scan cache file as you suggested earlier. After I re-scanned, the 5.5K thing happened both with a DVR-MS recording on one of the channels that was working before the change, and with a .ts recording of the problem channel. I finally decided to chuck it all for the night and hit the sack.

Now that I've reinstalled everything and updated both the psi parser and the config program, the H.264 mapping problem is still there. I'm going to try do a manual re-edit of the cache file in the same manner as I did last night and see what happens, but I don't see any reason not to expect the same result.

Before I do that, though, I will record a few minutes of the problem channel in Full TS as suggested and have it ready.

BTW, I'd be happy to stick with the .ts recordings if I could get the playback quality up to par - any guides anyone would suggest for learning about settings, etc.?

Again, many thanks

Dan

[whurlston]

If the failed recording happens again. Zip and post the logs.

[johnsonx42]

edit: this post was written before seeing posts #25 & 26; it still mostly pertains, but some of it makes less sense in light of those two posts

RiverNoord,

You're starting to go off on a bit of a tangent now. First, as whurlston pointed out, there are no H.264 broadcasts in the US. You do not need an H.264 decoder, and don't need anything selected for that in the config app. All you need is a decent MPEG-2 decoder (by the way, which do you have?).

There is a bug in the GB-PVR 1.4.7 scanning code that causes it to pick the wrong stream ID sometimes; in your case it also puts in the wrong video stream type. This issue is simply fixed by manually correcting the tuning request as I and whurlston described back on the first page. You can either correct it in the SCAN.CACHE file(s) as you apparently did once already, or you can correct by hand in the capture source config screen (the screen which lists the mappings, that you see prior to the scanning/mapping screen); that is where I fixed mine.

Any way you get the correct tuning requests into the database is fine, you don't have to get the root scanning issue fixed (indeed you probably can't - sub will have to fix it as soon as someone gets him enough info to diagnose the problem). Either way, fixing that isn't important, it has no effect on the rest of GB-PVR (although if you were to install the scanning patch previously referenced, I imagine sub would be interested in knowing if it fixes your problem).

Now, I know you said after manually fixing the tuning request you had a recording problem. Let's move on to that one; if you can view the channel in LiveTV, then the tuning request is now fine. Attempt a recording, if it fails then post logs.

As for playback issues, that's going to be decoders. The visual problems you are describing are most likely de-interlacing issues. What MPEG-2 decoders do you have installed? What is selected in GB-PVR Config on the Playback Tab? What video card and drivers do you have installed?

[RiverNoord]

Sorry to seem like I'm going off on a tangent johnsonx42 - I didn't understand that .ts files are actually MPEG-2 files. I guess the whole business with the channel mapping got me mixed up about that.

I've just managed to break GB-PVR again, at least with respect to any MUX except the TS Mux.

I checked the stream details from the problem channel using TSReader Lite, and it conformed exactly to the edit of the cache file that you suggested whurlston, so I went ahead and edited it, then rescanned the channels.

Next, I started PVRX2 and started LiveTV - the problem channel now displayed, instead of only running audio before the edit. I also successfully recorded the channel and another using the TS Mux.

After that, I closed PVRX2, ran config, and changed the mux to MS-DVR. Bingo, the recordings were multiple 5.5 k ones.

I then made a major mistake and forgot to try switching back to the TS Mux. What I did instead was delete the channels and the cache file and rescan. Then it got weird - although the problem channel is definitely broadcasting, config didn't tune it. It found the other channels that were still broadcasting...

After that, I returned to PVRX2 and tried to record using MS-DVR - still broke. I then switched back to TS Mux, and it recorded.

I've got 13 folders of logs - numbered in sequence and given meaningful names after the number - beginning immediately after my re-install this evening of everything to the final step I described above. I don't know how the log file cleanup works, so I just copied all the logs at each step. Unfortunately, the zip file containing everything is just about a meg in size and I don't know what file size limits are in place in the forum. The zip file I've attached contains 3 log sets from 3 scattered stages in the whole process.


I'm going to have to hit the sack and take up the remainder tomorrow. Johnsonx42 - my basic system specs are in my first post, but I see I should put them in a signature to follow every post. I will answer your questions when I can tomorrow.

Thanks all very, very much for sticking with me

[whurlston]

So it works if you edit that channel and use the TS Mux for recording? Is there any particular reason that you want to use the DVR-MS mux?

[RiverNoord]

I'm sorry that I have been late in reporting success or failure, but I've been really busy and I'm hoping that there are still a couple of people who may extend a bit of help to me.

In response to your question, whurlston, the reason why I wanted to use the MS-DVR mux is that it appeared to me that the overall quality of recording playback was much, much better than with the TS mux.

As it happens, I was mainly judging this based on playback of .ts recordings of the local OTA NBC channel. After further examination, it's because evident to me that .ts recordings of all other OTA channels play back very well. However, the NBC .ts recordings are choppy and feature a lot of stuttering, especially during rapid motion. I've tried many mpeg-2 decoders, which has given me some insight into improving my playback generally, but none have done anything to affect the quality of the NBC .ts file playback. Also, my system is only marginally taxed during playback using VLC, with a little bit of variation depending on the decoder selected but never showing much memory use or CPU resources.

Here's the thing - the local NBC OTA station broadcasts in 1080i. All of the other local channels broadcast their HD content in 720p. The 720p channels recorded originally using my selected mux, specifically MS-DVR, but the NBC one forced a default to the TS Mux. Now that I've done some recording of the content on the other channels, it's evident to me that the problem must involve a problem that GB-PVR is having with this station. TSReaderLite reports nothing unusual about the channel, except that its signal is 1080i, compared to 720p on the others. Also, using the HDHomeRun QuickTV app, I get excellent live playback on the channel, so I am hesitant to suspect that the problem is the tuner.

Anyone know what might be causing this problem, now that I have isolated the problem channel as the only 1080i channel I've got?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.