Getting Pluto extra to work

[Prsa01]

@Prsa01. So, what I'm seeing with recordings are that issues are specific to the channel. I suspect Pluto just collects rag-tag set of streams from all over the place and re-streams them on their platform, and throws in a few channels of their own, so everyone has a different take on what the stream looks like. Some channels are completely flawless, they stream perfectly and are searchable, while others are really messed up, and there doesn't appear to be any sane timecode in them.

I'm recording a bunch of stuff from a number of the live news channels such as "CBS News", "ABC New Live", and "NBC News NOW", and they all work perfectly. Since these channels are available on several platforms, I assume they are just a re-stream of a professionally generated live stream with correct indexing and searching.

PBR Ride Pass, on the other hand, is something exclusive to Pluto, and it is totally messed up. Even watching it from the start without jumping doesn't always work properly; occasionally, the video freezes, but the audio keeps on going. I'm experimenting with some ffmpeg remuxing in PostProcessing.sh to see if it helps. This is my first attempt:

Code:

ffmpeg -fflags +genpts -i "$1" -vcodec copy -acodec copy -c:s copy  -movflags faststart "${1%.*}.mp4"

But I have a feeling I'll have to end up doing a full recode.

If anyone has any suggestions for ffmpeg syntax that might produce a good result, please post.

Martin, Sub,

Is there any way of having PostProcessing do something based on the channel? I would want to leave some channels alone, while others may need a complete recode. Currently, I'm just running ffmpeg on every channel, while it's just copying it's not a big deal, but if it has to do a full recode, I want to limit the scope if I can.

I've tried quite a few different recoding scenarios but, also freely admit, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm using mcebuddy so don't necessarily see tbe parms being passed to ffmpeg. 

Mostly recording cooking shows for my wife and from ~ 4 channels have tried combos of each of the following - 
    Just remux
    re-encode staying with mp4 but dropping quality slightly 
    re-encode to mp2
    mkv
    wtv
    leave as ts but tweak 

with each of those I try viewing with mpv, vlc, wmc... 

As you mentioned, even within a channel I'll see something that works (fairly) consistently on one show/viewer combo and not at all on another show. Had hopes that fully converting to mkv or mp2 might consistently work but it was just as hit/miss as anything else I tried.

[ballfam]

OK, thanks. I also don't understand all the millions of combinations for ffmpeg recoding, I tend to stick to a few combinations of parameters that seem to work.

I don't have time right now, but when I get a spare moment to play, I'm going to try to a few different things with ffmpeg. I think dividing the audio and video and then having ffmpeg regenerate the timecode from the frames while splicing them back together into something like an mp4 or mkv container might do the trick. I want to avoid a complete recode if I can, because I don't really have the CPU to burn, and also it will decrease the quality. I'm calling ffmpeg directly in PostProcessing.sh, so I have the freedom to try almost anything (and also the ability to really mess it up).

If I find anything that works consistently, I'll post, although, since Pluto is all over the place, just because it works for one channel or show, doesn't mean it will work for another.

[mvallevand]

I have noted that for me removing the PMT stream and adding the a/v streams and rebuilding a file in any container gave the best results. I didn't need to transcode

Martin

[ballfam]

Thanks Martin. I don't suppose you have the ffmpeg parameters that do the trick to hand, do you?

When I get some time, I was planning to trawl through the extensive ffmpeg doc and try to work out the best parameters to use, but I always find it is trial and error with ffmpeg, and it takes a few tries to get it right; if you already have something that worked for you, it would be much appreciated.

[mvallevand]

You can't do it with ffmpeg

[Prsa01]

I have noted that for me removing the PMT stream and adding the a/v streams and rebuilding a file in any container gave the best results. I didn't need to transcode

Martin

Do you know if there a freely available tool/utility that does allow this?

[mvallevand]

I don't know any. Save some bad recordings and when I am able to look at them next week send me a external links and I will see if this fix works on those channels too.

[ballfam]

Thanks Martin,

I picked something short and recorded from a channel I know is bad. The .ts file below is the result.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KlphABI...drive_link

This is typical of what happens. The entire recording seems to be there (it's around 700 Meg for 40 mins), but Plex only sees a 15 second video. If I run it through ffmpeg with a simple copy to build an mp4 file, I get something that Plex recognizes as the full 40 min video. When I start playback, it seems to run OK for around a minute, then one of 2 things usually happen; either the video freezes on the last good frame, but the audio continues to work, or any kind of skipping will cause it to just hang.

I have plenty of drive space, so I'll just leave it hanging out there until you can get a chance to take a look.

[mvallevand]

Ballfam if you are still running the old version v3 you would need to upgrade streamlink manually to make a valid test.  Check the changlog for specific changes to Pluto.py

[ballfam]

OK, trying another version. I already tried 6.6.2 but it has issues with Pluto and it keeps giving "No valid stream" on several channels, so I went back to the distro release (3.1.1). I'll try some higher version which is not 6.6.2