Video Library Playback 350tv out

[onestar]

Another question ,

I put some mpgs into the video directory. When I go to play them the following is observed.

1. 1 mpg starts about 4 mins in. Will not start from the begining
2. 2nd mpg starts at a random deep location. Again will not start from the begining.
3. FF/REW put the system back to the menu
4. Resume throws the playback back to menu.

this is via the HW decoder 350 tvout

I thought perhaps I had messed up the mpgs, but they play fine in media player, and gbpvr software mpg decoder.
*edit* also play fine using the win2000 tool, eg starts from the begining

Any ideas please.
Thanks

[onestar]

Okay some more updates:

File sizes are
2,630,213,226
2,606,955,368
2,650,589,426
3,110,863,680
5,844,311,448

File 1: playback starts about 3 mins in. REW jumps to somewhere middle and starts rewinding!

File 2-4: playback fine

File 5: playback starts about 9mins in. REW jumps to somewhere past 1/2 way and starts rewinding from there

The same files work in GBPVR Software decoder, SageTV HW output, WINTV200 HW output, MediaPlayer (Software). Only failure is GBPVR HWOUT on PV350

[onestar]

In the hope someone can help, otherwise GBPVR will not a solution for me ,

on the files that don't playback correctly the greenbar shows 0 to 12secs as the length.
on the files that do playback correctly the greenbar shows 0 to 1hr(or correct time)

[stefan]

on the files that don't playback correctly the greenbar shows 0 to 12secs as the length.
3. FF/REW put the system back to the menu
4. Resume throws the playback back to menu.

Not that this is a solution to your problem, but this occurs to me too, whenever I have a corrupt (or at least that's what I have always thought) video file. Quite funny that the file is *always* reported to be 12 seconds whenever this happens. Usually this is the case when my computer has crashed (hanged)on me (only hard reset will help) while I'm recording something. Lately this has happened to me more and more. If I turn off hardware encoding and use software encoding the file is viewable, but is "difficult" to rewind and FF in. By difficult I mean that it takes a long time to skip to a point, and when it actually gets there, the sound and video are out of sync. Creates a quite funny effect when the video goes three times the speed until it catches up with the sound.

That said, this surely does not happen to me in every file. I'm quite sure it only happens when the computer has hung during the recording (which most of the time seems to happen just when the recording is about to end; almost all of the recording is in the file, but if I look in the log files, the StopRecording entry seems to be missing for that file. I'm not 100% sure of this, though, as I haven't had the time to look too much into this yet.)

The other issues you have, I'm not sure about. I have noticed sometimes that the file starts playing a bit into the show, but I always thought it was a timing issue with when the recording started. Of course this could actually be the same thing as your problem, come to think of it.

[onestar]

Just saw a thread about playback in MVPs sounds like both our issues.

In my case the 5 files have all been created via Pinnacle Studio (was using the deluxe capture as a PVR - great quality BTW)- same as the thread. And you notice this on crashes, where perhaps the appropriate details are not written to the end of the file?

On the starting from a random position, I thought I had edited the file wrong, but when I checked the output file in mediaplayer it was fine.

I hope there is a fix, it was a very unimpressive demo when I said look this is how we will record, play etc. Fell flat!

[stefan]

This is something I've been meaning to try, but haven't gotten around to it. At http://www.offeryn.de/dv.htm there is something called PVAstrumento, which someone (don't remember who) recommended for fixing broken files. Do you feel like trying it?

[onestar]

Ok did two things.

1. Tried the hauppauge mpeg mini editor.
2. Tried the tool recommended by yourself (Stefan)

1. I simply selected the entire file and generated new movie.
2. I said scan, and then I said make PS

Both new files played properly. Not sure which is easier to use, but hey they worked. Although 2, seemed to be re-synching the file....I hope not, but need to double check that. But it seems there is a solution, although a patching type to the problem, Thanks Stefan

[stefan]

Ok... so we can pretty much deduct that the problem is files that are somehow corrupt. The root cause of this we don't know anything of yet.

What do you mean by re-synching the file and how is this a problem?

[onestar]

corrupt

Yeah puzzling, specially since my files are from Studio 8 output. And since every other piece of software/hardware combo plays it ok. Wonder if it happened when copying over. Didn't keep the original (space reasons)

how is this a problem?

Not saying it is. Just wondering why it would need to, here is the report. Fixing startup, fixing synch, might not be anything, but wont know until watch the whole thing, I suppose. Hopefully not.

Options
.. fixing startup delay.
.. fixing stream synch.
.. keeping track of audio offset accumulation.
.. strict checking of audio framing.
.. dropping GOPs longer than 980 KB
.. creating new GOP timecodes.

Closing starting GOP.
Aiming for sync at 00:00:00.348
Cutting audio.
Audio stream 1 now starts at 00:00:00.356
Video stream 1 now starts at 00:00:00.348
New program stream : \charmed1b.mpg
ALERT> Temporal structure wrong in GOP at EOF. Dropping.
Last fileset:
2583018152 total bytes written
Video 1: 83023 frames, 00:55:20.920
Audio 1: 138371 frames, 00:55:20.904

Approx. sync at EOF:
MPEG Audio #1 : 15 ms before video

Video statistics
================
GOP length (min/avg/max):
13 / 14 / 15 [frames]
341356 / 449878 / 514816 [Bytes]
GOP bitrate (min/avg/max):
4551 / 5998 / 6864 [kbps]

[sub]

GB-PVR's support for PVR350 is very dependent on having MPEG video files with accurate timestamps. This is nearly always the case with files record on the PVR350, but some times files from other sources do have correct timestamps and it confuses GB-PVR playback.