NMT crashing on seek

[drbenjamin]

Hey guys

had trouble with a show tonight, an episode of Stargate Universe (Stargate Universe_20100611_18001900.ts). Recorded on an HD-PVR, ran comskip, and tried to playback on my eGreat m34A. About 2/3 through the show the audio started to break up and the player quit back to the GB-PVR screen. I dropped my MVP servers to 1 (for logs) and then tried to manually skip forward to the end of the show. The attached logs show about 6 attempts; every time I tried to skip it would advance the audio but leave a static image for video, then crash to the GB-PVR UI. ANy help appreciated, I can also telnet to the m34a if that would help.

[sub]

I've got to do some day job stuff for the rest of today, but if you bump the thread tomorrow, then I'll take a look.

I'm aware of some skipping issues with the PCH. It shouldnt take long to get them resolved though.

When you press the blue key to bring up the OSD, do you see approximately the correct duration and position reported? (I'm guessing 'no')

[mvallevand]

Sub, this is still 1.4.7. In any case drbenjamin, I don't know what you are looking for me to do, I don't even see a crash, but I do see video stopping. I'd guess the file is corrupt in some way.

Martin

[sub]

Ah - true. My tired eyes read the title as 'NPVR crashing on seek' instead of 'NMT crashing on seek'.

[drbenjamin]

Thanks sub, sorry for the confusion. Martin, was just hoping you'd see something in the logs that might explain the problems I've had. Most of my HD recordings have skipping problems, and comskip is something I really rely on. The NMT seems to do fine with SD recordings, but HD ones fail frequently. Maybe I'm using the wrong command to skip? I've got lircd running, am using an MCE remote, and I press 40 and then the small arrow button to skip to the 40 minute mark?
I will try playing the .ts file throught the NMT UI tomorrow, but I opened it up on my PC and could move around freely with no trouble. When you say you see video stopping, is that in response to a command from the NMT?

Thanks,

[mvallevand]

Can you rename the comskip file and navigate around and tell me how that goesl?

Martin

[drbenjamin]

Hi Martin

I tried a couple of things tonight:
1) Using the NMT UI, I navigated to the file, played it, and used the "time seek" button on the NMT remote to move around. No problems, I tested 40 min in particular because that seemed to fail under GB-PVR earlier, no problems using the NMT
2) Removed the comskip files, fired up GBPVR, played the file. Used the MCE remote, blue button showed a timeline with no commercial breaks. Pressed 40 and the small arrow key, and GB-PVR exited to the menu. This was at 22:36. Opened the file again, tried another seek, another exit to menu
3) I opened up a different recording (diff show and channel, also HD-PVR). Pressed 40 and small arrow, and succesfully moved to 40 minutes. Tried another seek, and was exited back to menu. This was at 22:39.

Reading the forum I see that with N-PVR there won't be any more fixes to GB-PVR, so I understand if there's nothing you can do. It's a bummer for me because I have 2 MVP units on SD sets that are still rock-solid reliable, so I am a bit conflicted. THanks again for any help, and all your work w/ mvpmc.

[mvallevand]

There's clearly something about this specific file that mvpmcx2 doesn't like, or bad data coming from GBPVR. If you can make the entire file available for download I'll get it, otherwise PM me and I will give you a mailing address and you can burn it to DVD and I will analyze it.

Why the conflict? It's simple, if you are truly happy with SD quality, sell the HDPVR and do analog captures and keep GB-PVR, otherwise move on.

Martin

[drbenjamin]

Martin

I'll do that, but the truth is that I have had instability with skipping with all my HD files. Comskip skipping works more often than not, but it also is prone to fail. I'm wondering if there is something systematic in the way I record files? I'm using the GraphRecorder plugin for my HD-PVR. Could it be the bitrate I set in AnalogD.ini? I boosted it to the following:

[SETUP-Main]
;AudioInput=auto
;AudioInput=Audio Line In
AudioInput=Audio SPDIFDigital In
;AudioInput=Audio AUX In

Bitrate1080i=10000000
BitratePeak1080i=15500000
BitrateMode1080i=VBR

Bitrate720p=9000000
BitratePeak720p=15500000
BitrateMode720p=VBR

Bitrate480i=10000000
BitratePeak480i=15500000
BitrateMode480i=VB


Edit:

I've been reading a bunch of posts on the forum, martin, and came across the one where you recommend 720p output from the STB. I am using 1080i, so I will switch the STB to 720P and switch to a 12MBit CBR AnalogHD.ini, then try a few new recordings and post back.

[mvallevand]

Those changes will help, CBR is key to more accurate seeking because GBPVR does not implement mpeg indexing.

The forced 720p suggestion is really what I consider the best tradeoff for the variety of formats you probably get. NPVR could eliminate this if it tuned the HDPVR twice to get around a problem with the HDPVR drivers, but sub hasn't even commented on this.

I look forward to seeing the file though. It should seek "somewhere" without exiting back to the GBPVR menu.

Martin