HVR 1800 ATSC recordings - audio track?

[ccihon]

I have a setup with both an HDHomerun Dual tuner box and an HVR-1800 card. I have no audio issues with playback or recordings from the HdHomeRun, which currently tunes QAM HD broadcasts, AC3 audio. I also record HD via ATSC antenna, currently connected to the HVR card. Odd thing is that occasionally my audio receiver seems to select "PCM Stereo" and that sometimes results in odd audio behavior - background sound with no voiceover on sporting events, or no audio on some commercials. The HDHomerun playback seems to pass audio of various formats, and the receiver deals with it well.

I can generally fix the audio by left-clicking the screen and selecting audio track, the choosing the AC3 track 1 - but this doesn't seem to "stick" from recording to recording. Any setting I can make either within NPVR or elsewhere to solve? Thanks.

[sub]

When you record from a digital device like the HDHomeRun Dual, it'll record all the streams associated with that channel. This is usually a video stream, and one or more audio streams.

When you playback one of these recordings, it usually picks the first of the audio tracks. Sometimes it can pick other audio tracks based on the language settings. If NextPVR is consistently getting it wrong on some recordings, you might need to supply a short sample recording for me to look at.

Your could also try setting: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\NPVR\PreferAC3=1 (DWORD), which may help.

[ccihon]

I have that DWORD set on both client and server - they are 64 bit so the location is slightly different - seems of no help. As mentioned, the playback always selects the correct stream (usually DD 5.1) from AC3 track for recording on the HDHomeRun, but for those made with Hauppauge card, it almost always starts playback as stereo and I must manually select track one, then I get 5.1. A subsequent skip will often return stereo.

I can try to upload a small clip for analysis.

[sub]

It should be identical for digital recordings from the Hauppauge and HDHomeRun cards, given the same channel. They're both going to deliver the exact same bit stream.

If you provide a small recording, I'll take a look.

[ccihon]

I have attached 2 recordings, both of the same program, however the earlier (5/14) was sourced from the HDHomeRun Dual QAM and when played back, always properly plays back the DD 5.1 track always. The other (5/20) recording was sourced from the HVR-1800 ATSC, and always plays back in PCM stereo - it can be switched over by selecting AC3 Track 1, but will always revert to stereo when FF or skipped!

I have tried all sorts of decoder settings and have the PreferAC3 setting in place, as suggested. I can confirm that if the Dual is used for ATSC the recordings work as desired, so it does seem specific to the ts created from the HVR card. I would prefer, however, to not swap the inputs and rescan, as the video is perfect, and obviously the desired audio track is there.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1680...-chunk.zip

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1680...-chunk.zip

[Zeb]

Hi ccihon, I have played the 5/20 recording in NPVR. When I right-click and move mouse pointer to Audio Stream it shows 2 tracks, both [AC3, eng]. I gather that you are sending digital audio output to a sound system. I'm just using a pair of PC speakers myself, so I can't tell any difference. The video chunk appeared to be a commercial for a local establishment, so I would not be surprised if it was recorded with only 2 audio channels. Do you have the same audio problem with any other channels? I might suggest recording only the QAM version of your CBS station, except you say this:

I can confirm that if the Dual is used for ATSC the recordings work as desired, so it does seem specific to the ts created from the HVR card.

In that case, the logical question seems to be: What driver version are you using for the HVR-1800? Hauppauge Support indicates that the driver was revised just last month. Scroll to the bottom of this page: http://www.hauppage.com/site/support/sup...r1800.html

[ccihon]

indeed, these are 10 meg clips from the beginning of a show - main content is DD 5.1, although I realize the commercials may be otherwise. I can try to clip the main content for analysis on these. Thanks for the tip on the driver - will try. Reason I have resorted to ATSC for the CBS affiliate is that for some reason the QAM from local provider has been very weak and troubled lately.....other stations fine. Even when the picture is jumpy/poor from poor signal, the audio track stays selected properly, so I switched to antenna - a rock-solid signal, but plagued with these audio track selection issues.

Ok edited to attach these - both bigger clips from the "meat" of the program - first is from QAM a while back when signal was good too - but audio works perfectly, second one is from last night HVR ATSC - clean signal but playback always defaults to stereo as described. One thing I notice when playing these back via NPVR - there is a single "AC3 Track 1 (eng)" selectable on the "good" HDHR file, but two separate AC3 tracks, 1 (eng) and 2 (eng) to choose from on the HVR "problem" file?

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1680...-chunk.zip

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1680...-chunk.zip

[mulletback]

Your ATSC clip has two audio tracks, #1 is six-channel, #2 is stereo. Your QAM clip has only one track, it's six-channel. Do you have an ATSC clip from the dual? It shouldn't be any different than the HVR, since they just do stream capture.

[ccihon]

ATSC from Dual works perfectly, just like QAM, so I surmise there is only 1 6-channel track. So question is, how do I eliminate the second track from Hauppauge recordings, or at least never play it? I know I could tune ATSC on the Dual - I would rather not, and if I did, I would tune QAM on the HVR, and likely see this problem with those recordings. I did install the latest HVR-1800 drivers on server machine - will see if that helps.

[whurlston]

Play a recording from the HVR and zip and post your NPVR log.