Lost - weird recordings, or just a very weird TV show?

[Guy]

Hi all,

I'm really posting out of curiosity, and have been meaning to post this for ages......it's not a serious support issue, more of an interesting anecdote - but I am curious whether anyone's noticed the same thing.

Rather like the series itself, there are weird things happening to my recordings of "Lost".

I'm UK based and recorded all of series 2 (broadcast on Channel 4). In every single episode pretty much the same thing happened, but never seems to happen on any other recordings (I record quite a lot, probably about one TV programme a day).

In every episode of Lost, when playing the show back at exactly the point that it hits the commercial break (specifically, for those of you that watched Lost, when the screen goes black and the Lost logo starts swirling into view), the video stops, but the audio carries on going....very disconcerting! Skipping forward a couple of minutes brings back the video in sync with the audio & I can usually rewind to about a minute after the video stopped. It always seems to happen on the that same Lost logo screen....

Nothing shows up in the logs & this didn't happen in Series One....weird....

I am using the Cyberlink mux with a freeview tuner card (hauppauge nova T), although up until about the start of Lost, I was using the inbuilt DVR-MS mux. Am now using the cyberlink mux as we're watching live TV more and more on the MVPs (plus I just *love* the web streaming features of web admin), so I switched back to the cyberlink mux. I don't use comskip, or any other ad break skipping programmes.

Anyway...thought this might interest a few of you...its just so weird it happens only on Lost and always in the same place!

It doesn't bother us enourmously, so this isn't really a call for urgent support...but as I say, I'm very curious to know why its only happening on one particular sequence in one particular show.....

The "others" are obviously lurking somewhere in my box.....

g.

[neilraymond]

i've had a number of problems recording lost off channel4/e4 using a hauppauge nova-t. i posted about it a while back here:

http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?t=12684

it was quite weird, as the original post was related to the last 2 episodes of series one, but then the exact same thing happened at the end of series 2. and it wasn't just a one off - when both episodes failed to record at the first showing i then scheduled the repeats to be recorded and the same thing happened. it's almost like c4 do something to the signal to stop people recording it (insert conspiracy theory here )

i never got to the bottom of it, but like i say it's happened every time i tried to record the last 2 episodes of a series of lost. i don't think it happened on any other episode, but i can't be sure. it definitely didn't happen on most of them. very odd...

neil

[rowle1jt]

I record Lost every week here in the US and I don't have any issues. I was having issues with the comskip "putting" commercials in the wrong spot recently. But I figured out that was my pre/post padding set up on back to back shows with only a singe tuner card.

Good luck!

[sub]

In every episode of Lost, when playing the show back at exactly the point that it hits the commercial break (specifically, for those of you that watched Lost, when the screen goes black and the Lost logo starts swirling into view), the video stops, but the audio carries on going....

If one of your guys has access to a web server, can record a transport stream file covering the first couple of minutes of lost, then I'm happy to take a look and resolve the issue.

[neilraymond]

i don't think i'ts actually showing at the moment, unless they're showing reruns. i'll take a look tonight.

[Guy]

it's almost like c4 do something to the signal to stop people recording it (insert conspiracy theory here )

Lol - yup that was my theory!...not that I'm paranoid or anything...

If one of your guys has access to a web server, can record a transport stream file covering the first couple of minutes of lost, then I'm happy to take a look and resolve the issue.

Many thanks for the offer Sub. Unfortunately the show's over in the UK (tho will record a transport stream if there are any re-runs anytime soon) I also stupidly deleted all my own recordings after we'd watched them. Maybe it's a mystery better left unsolved, a bit like the show....

BTW Sub - can't say this enough....fantastic project & fantastic software. I've now been going strong for about 18 months with GBPVR and a couple of mvps - getting better with every release.

[Cyb]

Same card, same mux and I used to get exactly the same. :confused:

[neilraymond]

Guy/Cyb - do you know which transmitter you're pointing at? i'm using crystal palace. i don't know if it could make a difference, but it would be interesting to know. also, which version of the nova-t are you using? i'm using the 909 (the old one with the two aerial connectors on the back).

neil

[Cyb]

Yes I'm on Crystal Palace too, miles away though so my reception isn't perfect. My Nova-T is one of the later ones with one aerial socket.

I'd always assumed it was a symptom of my reception characteristics and E4 being one of the lower bitrate channels.

[neilraymond]

i wondered about the bit rate thing, but then i remembered that one of the times it occurred i was recording off e4+1 which is on multiplex C. C is 16 QAM, which means that you should get a more resiliant signal than you do on channel 4/e4/more4, which are all on multiplex 2 (64 QAM). then again i might be totally wrong

neil