DVD playback exception errors

[BigMoose]

After spending a good while on live TV and other audio/video type playback and everything works so well except two things I can only correct with a mouse which is annoying - the aspect it defaults to (fill not auto) for .mkv playback (possibly other formats too) and the audio channels it chooses for some DVB channels - both of these I can correct with a mouse but that's not at all wife friendly.

Anyway, I went on to try DVD playback and the results were not so good. If anything happens (sometimes nothing seems to) it takes ages compared to the same disk in gbpvr. The "menu" button (mapped to Home key I think) doesn't work like it does in GBPVR which annoyed the wife and also once I do get a menu to appear I cant play the disk as I get an exception error and the whole thing hangs until I kill it. I've tried a couple of disks that play perfectly on GBPVR and get the same result - an exception error that hangs until I kill the process. npvr logs attached but I don't think there's anything useful in there.

[BigMoose]

Instead of cluttering up the DX9 thread with my DVD rant, I thought I'd reply here... I've found the problems to my DVD playback problems - the fact that you can no longer select a separate DVD video decoder meant that I ran into problems when my chosen mpeg2 decoder wasn't capable of playing DVDs. I usually use the ATI mpeg decoder as I get best results on mpeg2 live TV however it's not capable of playing DVDs. So trying something that is gets them to play fine on NPVR.

I am now in codec hell though after all the messing around. I can prove that NPVR and GBPVR behave differently with the same files - my graphedit wont render HD recorded .ts files (recorded in GBPVR) yet GBPVR plays them fine, sound (spdif) and video (hdmi 1080p). NPVR gives a blank screen and does nothing (much like when trying to play/render in graphedit). So does NPVR leave the playback of these to windows?

In Graphedit, rendering these .ts files produces an audio out pin from the ts file but no video, which is just weird. How can I restore my codecs and graph building to something sensible? Is my only option a windows reinstall?? It's not just the audio/video filters that must be the problem since the very first filter used for reading the .ts file isn't producing a video pin. At one point GBPVR was building the most ludicrous graphs for HD .ts files with the sound going from AC3 filter into ffdshow into another mpeg audio decoder. I removed SAF and have stuck to AC3 Filter for AC3/DTS spdif out, ffdshow (separate stand alone install from the tryouts) for anything else weird sound wise (true DD etc) and mpeg1 audio. ATI mpeg2 decoder for live TV, ffdshow for DVDs (just using ffdshow in npvr) and the MS H264 decoder for H264 playback since PDVD decoders wont play nicely with BBC HD anymore since they went to VBR. At least I have GBPVR working so shouldn't get the phone call I had the other day complain that there was no sound when the kids were watching TV... but I assume the only way of getting npvr to play nicely is to fix my graphedit problems?

[sub]

To be honest, I'm not really following your logic. I wouldnt expect you to be able to render .ts files in GraphEdit and get the same results as NPVR/GBPVR. NPVR/GBPVR do not register their filters in a way that Windows will use them for playback in apps like GraphEdit etc, so you definitely wont be using the playback components that NPVR/GBPVR is using.

For the most part, TS playback in GBPVR and NPVR should give very similiar results. There was one notable difference in the way GBPVR and NPVR behave with the playback of TS files. GBPVR would suggest the decoders Windows should use, but Windows might ignore those suggestions and use some other random decoders it found on the machine. NPVR would instead try to explicitly build the graph with the decoders you selected, rather than leaving you at the mercy of Windows. If its not playing in NPVR, then its mostly like a case of the decoders you're selecting were not working. If you post the logs, I'll see if anything stands out. Alternatively (but unlikely), there could be something wrong with the .TS file - in this case if you supply a sample, I'm happy to take a look at it.

I can understand that you might want to use different decoders for DVD playback versus playback of TS files (or live tv), so I'll most likely add another screen to allow you to specify these decoders separately.

[BigMoose]

Ok, ignore my rant, it probably made no sense... I just assumed that as a file played back fine in GBPVR but not NPVR or graphedit, that perhaps there was a link to how NPVR handled .ts files. But if not, I'll ignore my graphedit problems for now. So here's a log where I played a .ts (from BBC HD) that I know plays fine on GBPVR but does not on NPVR, with the same (to my knowledge) decoders selected. After I stop the failed file playback I play live TV (again BBC HD) to show that it does in this case build a graph fine (using the same decoders).

Note for anyone who has recently scanned UK DVB-S, The Royale Family does have a real narrative track if your NPVR has selected the non AC3 audio - it's very annoying! Most progs I've tested dont have a real narrative track so you likely wouldn't notice.

[sub]

Ok, ignore my rant, it probably made no sense... I just assumed that as a file played back fine in GBPVR but not NPVR or graphedit, that perhaps there was a link to how NPVR handled .ts files. But if not, I'll ignore my graphedit problems for now. So here's a log where I played a .ts (from BBC HD) that I know plays fine on GBPVR but does not on NPVR, with the same (to my knowledge) decoders selected. After I stop the failed file playback I play live TV (again BBC HD) to show that it does in this case build a graph fine (using the same decoders).

If you can make available a small chunk of one of these files, I'll check it plays here. You can use the cutchunk utility to cut 20mb or so from the start of a recording.

Note for anyone who has recently scanned UK DVB-S, The Royale Family does have a real narrative track if your NPVR has selected the non AC3 audio - it's very annoying! Most progs I've tested dont have a real narrative track so you likely wouldn't notice.

Is this a channel or a recording? If its a recording, also take a small chunk of this file available and I'll check it here (and correct it).

[BigMoose]

Here's a 20Mb chunk of the same file that the logs came from attempting to playback earlier. It plays fine on GBPVR. Also this channel plays fine in live TV.

The narrative audio channel issue is with live tv, but that said, this chunk has a narrative audio channel too (that Media Player plays) but no idea which NPVR will pick as it doesn't play it at all. GBPVR plays the correct non narrative one.

[BigMoose]

Did you manage to play this chunk of ts file? I've upgraded to the new release but it's taken a step backwards for me. The HD ts files still dont play (no sound or video) and now live HD channels dont show video either. I'm trying to use the MS H264 decoder since it's the only one that will work well with BBC HD these days. It works fine in GBPVR and did in live TV for NPVR until the recent release. Looking at the graphs it's ignoring my settings and trying to load ffdshow for video (being the only other H264 decoder I have installed) but that doesn't produce anything. For the ts playback it just fails to load the graph as in the previous log posted.