Recordings timeline getting corrupted

[ayacht]

I submitted this to Tech Support. Does this sound familar to anyone here?


Time bar and playback of recordings has an issue. On some recordings for example last night the Sopranos when I go to sage recordings and try to play it back the following happens. I hit watch the first time and the video somes in the preview box pause. I hit it a second time and I get to the full screen paused. The time bar on the bottom goes from green to gray almost instantly and I cannot rewind or fast forward the show then. Also comskip doesn't work. Last night this happen to Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, Entourage (First Episode shown) and the Sopranos. It did not happen to the second showing of Entourage or to Big Love. Both of those shows seem fine. And it only seems to be recorded shows. I have two Hauppauge 350s could one of them be causing this? What could be the issue here. I see alot of folks posting similar issues and no resolution.

[aenigmainc]

I have 2 mce500s in my server. Its a dual processor, 2GB of RAM, and 2TB of raid5. There should be no part of this that is lagging. but I am getting several shows that do not play back well.

I have MPGs that skip all around. Several that if I try to fast forward it will reset to the beginning.

I can take these mpgs and copy them to my laptop, and they play back just fine. I have had one exception to this rule. I had one that just skipped all over the place during playback.

Don't get me wrong, most of recordings are just fine, its very intermittent but it is annoying.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

[dflachbart]

I have had similar problems with timelines screwed up in the past. After upgrading to 5.0 the issue seemed to be gone, but the problem suddenly reappeared in the last two weeks. It's either that

• the timeline moves twice (or sometimes even 4x) faster than normal, so that the show ends prematurely and I am not able to watch it to the end
• the playback simply stops at some point
• the show plays, but ff/rew or comskip will always just restart it from the beginning

This happened on about 5-10% of my shows lately, and in almost all cases the videos play fine in PowerDVD. Very annoying and not good for the WAF ...

The reason why I didnt report this to support yet is that I see the possibility that the live commercial detection of SA (wait for recording finished doesnt work currently in DirMon) could have something to do with it, so for now I disabled SA completely and see if the problem goes away...

Dirk

[GKusnick]

I've seen something like this two or three times in the year or so that I've been using Sage. Sage suddenly gets the idea that a two-hour movie is only a minute and 42 seconds long (or some other random number), and then can't seek beyond that point. Windows Media Player displays similar flaky seek behavior on files damaged in this way.

My guess, without delving into it very deeply, is that it may have something to do with files exceeding 4.2 GB in size, and is most likely an issue with the Hauppauge encoder drivers, since the flaw is in the file itself. In any case, a pass through VideoReDo seems to fix the file up so it then plays normally.

Since it happens very rarely (to me at least), and is fairly easily fixed when it does happen, I've never filed a bug report on it.

[jkoutrouba]

Originally Posted by flachbar

I have had similar problems with timelines screwed up in the past. After upgrading to 5.0 the issue seemed to be gone, but the problem suddenly reappeared in the last two weeks. It's either that

• the timeline moves twice (or sometimes even 4x) faster than normal, so that the show ends prematurely and I am not able to watch it to the end
• the playback simply stops at some point
• the show plays, but ff/rew or comskip will always just restart it from the beginning

This happened on about 5-10% of my shows lately, and in almost all cases the videos play fine in PowerDVD. Very annoying and not good for the WAF ...

The reason why I didnt report this to support yet is that I see the possibility that the live commercial detection of SA (wait for recording finished doesnt work currently in DirMon) could have something to do with it, so for now I disabled SA completely and see if the problem goes away...

Dirk

I haven't had this problem recently, but in the past it's been a problem for me. I am using only A180 HD cards, too.

[carlgar]

Originally Posted by ayacht

I submitted this to Tech Support. Does this sound familar to anyone here?


Time bar and playback of recordings has an issue. On some recordings for example last night the Sopranos when I go to sage recordings and try to play it back the following happens. I hit watch the first time and the video somes in the preview box pause. I hit it a second time and I get to the full screen paused. The time bar on the bottom goes from green to gray almost instantly and I cannot rewind or fast forward the show then. Also comskip doesn't work. Last night this happen to Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, Entourage (First Episode shown) and the Sopranos. It did not happen to the second showing of Entourage or to Big Love. Both of those shows seem fine. And it only seems to be recorded shows. I have two Hauppauge 350s could one of them be causing this? What could be the issue here. I see alot of folks posting similar issues and no resolution.

There definitively is some random type of problem with the timeline. I have seen it in the past and and currently seeing it for the first time with release 5. I was watching a movie (on the MVP extender) that was 2 hours and 35 mins. in length. At about 1 hour and 40 mins into it, I stop the movie on the MVP to continue watching using the client software. When I got to the client I knew something was wrong because I have the extra features enabled that show how much has been watched it was was less than a half hour into the movie. I started watching anyway and tried to get the timeline pointer back to the correct position. This was not possible because when I got close to the position the timeline pointer would go back to the zero position and would not advance. I then tried the same using the server (extras features are not enabled) but saw the same thing. I then went back to the MVP Extender and saw the same thing. I then advanced to about 5 minutes before the proper position on the MVP and just let it play. It seems to be playing properly but I am afraid to try the skip features. The green and gray areas of the timeline appear to be correct but the pointer itself went back to zero. At that point I just gave up and am currently viewing the movie with my Editor software with no problems. In the past when I have encounted this problem it seems the problem is limited only to the one show. I just tried watching a different show using SageTV and it appears to be working properly. I marked the original problem show as watched but still cannot get SageTV to skip properly in it.

[mayamaniac]

I had this problem once a while before, but I noticed it happenning a lot more lately too. This must be some sort of bug introduced in the 5.x releases. There was a thread I posted a while back and did find a solution with the "QuickStream Fix" tool in VideoRedo. Its a $50 app, but has a fully working trial version. It worked and fixed the running time in the Mpeg2. So give it a shot to see if it works on your Mpegs.

But SageTV should fix this bug, whatever that is causing it.

[blade]

I had this happen to me for the first time the other day after upgrading to v5. I had also upgraded my capture card drivers and thought the driver was to blame. I rolled back to an older version, but I guess it's more likely a problem with Sage.

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

I had this problem once a while before, but I noticed it happenning a lot more lately too. This must be some sort of bug introduced in the 5.x releases. There was a thread I posted a while back and did find a solution with the "QuickStream Fix" tool in VideoRedo. Its a $50 app, but has a fully working trial version. It worked and fixed the running time in the Mpeg2. So give it a shot to see if it works on your Mpegs.

But SageTV should fix this bug, whatever that is causing it.

I just downloaded the trial version of VideoRedo, and it was able to fix all of the recordings that were screwed up. Now, is there any similar application out there which can do the same but is a little cheaper ? 50 bucks is almost as much as I paid for SageTV, and I wouldn't need any of the other functionality ...

As another question - do you think it could be related to the simultaneous access of SA/comskip and Sage to the recording files at all ?

Dirk

[Para]

Originally Posted by flachbar

I just downloaded the trial version of VideoRedo, and it was able to fix all of the recordings that were screwed up. Now, is there any similar application out there which can do the same but is a little cheaper ? 50 bucks is almost as much as I paid for SageTV, and I wouldn't need any of the other functionality ...

As another question - do you think it could be related to the simultaneous access of SA/comskip and Sage to the recording files at all ?

Dirk

I have encountered the problem and I don't use SA/comskip and I only use a PVR500 and 2 PVR150s. The problem first appeared back in 4.x but I thought it was some hardware issue (thus didn't report it). After seeing this thread, I think differently. I just recorded a 1 hr show last week that has the problem. A bug report is in the works

[gplasky]

I've seen the issue lately too. I was watching a CSI epsisode from a couple of weeks back. The timeline was moving like 4x faster. The one hour episode finished in about 10 minutes. Commercial skips looked all wrong. 30 second ff was like 3-4 minute jump. This is about 2nd time I've seen it with 5.x. We all probably need to fill out a bug report.

Gerry

[Conejo]

I've had about 2/3 of my recordings affected by the TIMELINE/TIMESTAMP bug where the playback timecode count skips numbers and using FF/RW is like playing virtual video playback hockey.

I believe this is a device driver issue. Other PVR forums have complained about similar issues while using Hauppauge hardware forums.gbpvr.com/showthread.php?t=14006 and have suggested PVR-150 or PVR-500 users update their drivers to ver2.0.43.24108 and add the following REGISTRY ENTRIES

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\hcwPP2\DriverData
"HcwTimeStampIssue1"=dword:00000001
"HcwTimeStampIssue2"=dword:00000000

I've done this and noticed a large improvement. The drivers still are not perfect as I sometimes get 0:00 timecode lengths that prevent any FF/RW action while viewing.

Does anyone know what these Registry Entries control on the Hauppauge?


EDIT: GBPVR Forum user 'DDRAWLEY' posted a helpful option for people who update or HCLEAR their systems and forget to re-add the reg entries.
YOU NEED TO REBOOT AFTER ADDING THESE REGISTRY SETTINGS

For those less technical you can copy the text below into a notepad file. Name the file something like timeline.reg and execute it.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\hcwPP2\DriverData]
"HcwTimeStampIssue1"=dword:00000001
"HcwTimeStampIssue2"=dword:00000000

-Rich

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by flachbar

I just downloaded the trial version of VideoRedo, and it was able to fix all of the recordings that were screwed up.

Correction, I just noticed that VideoRedo was unable to fix one the recordings, it still does not play at all in SageTV, but runs fine in PowerDVD. Guess I wont shell out the money after all ...

Dirk

[abel]

Originally Posted by cornejo

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\hcwPP2\DriverData
"HcwTimeStampIssue1"=dword:00000001
"HcwTimeStampIssue2"=dword:00000000

I put those in about a month ago and haven't seen the issue since. I did notice that upgrading to new Hauppauge drivers seems to remove those settings, so I had to put them back in after a driver update.

I think the current (Beta?) drivers have some code that works around a chipset issue and that code is enabled by the above settings. Not sure if it is the final solution since I still see an occasional video artifact (skip) but I haven't had time to investigate this yet.

Oh, and before putting that fix in about 2/3 of my recordings were messed up.

Abel

[Deadbolt]

Originally Posted by abel

I put those in about a month ago and haven't seen the issue since. I did notice that upgrading to new Hauppauge drivers seems to remove those settings, so I had to put them back in after a driver update.

I think the current (Beta?) drivers have some code that works around a chipset issue and that code is enabled by the above settings. Not sure if it is the final solution since I still see an occasional video artifact (skip) but I haven't had time to investigate this yet.

Oh, and before putting that fix in about 2/3 of my recordings were messed up.

Abel

I have a PVR-250, pvr-350 (encoder only), and pvr-usb2....does anyone know if this fix applies for these cards also? I don't have the same reg fields...but under Globescape their is a driver settings area that has PCMtimestamp as one dword.

[ayacht]

They told me to put in the following key. I have done it, but suspect a reboot will be necessary to make it active.



The problem is caused by PTS (picture time stamp).
I added fixing code for irregular PTS in some DTV broadcasting, it's not
don't yet, but I think portion of this code is leaked into 5.0.0, 5.0.2. You
could add " RebuildPTS=0" into registry "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Frey
Technologies\Common\DSFilters\TSSplitter" to turn it off.

Sorry for this!

If happened again, report back please.

PS: you could also set RebuildPTS=3 to turn PTSchange log to confirm this
problem.

Qian


FWIW:
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Frey Technologies\Common\DSFilters\TSSplitter"
RebuildPTS=0 disable rebuild PTS,
RebuildPTS=1 enabble rebuild PTS, but not log.
RebuildPTS=3 enabble rebuild PTS, enable log "PTSchange.log".

[Deadbolt]

Originally Posted by ayacht

They told me to put in the following key. I have done it, but suspect a reboot will be necessary to make it active.



The problem is caused by PTS (picture time stamp).
I added fixing code for irregular PTS in some DTV broadcasting, it's not
don't yet, but I think portion of this code is leaked into 5.0.0, 5.0.2. You
could add " RebuildPTS=0" into registry "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Frey
Technologies\Common\DSFilters\TSSplitter" to turn it off.

Sorry for this!

If happened again, report back please.

PS: you could also set RebuildPTS=3 to turn PTSchange log to confirm this
problem.

Qian


FWIW:
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Frey Technologies\Common\DSFilters\TSSplitter"
RebuildPTS=0 disable rebuild PTS,
RebuildPTS=1 enabble rebuild PTS, but not log.
RebuildPTS=3 enabble rebuild PTS, enable log "PTSchange.log".

So...if we are getting the time code problem...and it is fixed by running the QuickStream fix in VideoRedo....do we want the RebuildPTS=1 or =0? I mean...does RebuildPTS=1 fix the timestamp bug or introduce it? Also...is the registry entry a DWORD? One more thing...i don't even have a TSSplitter key at that location of my registry....do I just add the key and the entry?

[abel]

Originally Posted by Deadbolt

I have a PVR-250, pvr-350 (encoder only), and pvr-usb2....does anyone know if this fix applies for these cards also? I don't have the same reg fields...but under Globescape their is a driver settings area that has PCMtimestamp as one dword.

I don't know if it's in those drivers too. (you may be able to find that here: http://www.shspvr.com/smf/).

Those settings are not normally in the registry, you have to add them in the correct place. And a reboot is needed after that to activate them.

Abel

[ayacht]

Originally Posted by Deadbolt

So...if we are getting the time code problem...and it is fixed by running the QuickStream fix in VideoRedo....do we want the RebuildPTS=1 or =0? I mean...does RebuildPTS=1 fix the timestamp bug or introduce it? Also...is the registry entry a DWORD? One more thing...i don't even have a TSSplitter key at that location of my registry....do I just add the key and the entry?

This fixed the problem that I had. I used the 0 (zero) value. Recordings are working OK. Anything recorded with the problem will keep it. You have to test with new recordings. I have not turn show analyzer and com skip back on yet that is next.

[perfessor101]

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...049#post161049

I was getting almost or all recordings affected and SageTV would scan them then find them 'invalid' then delete them.
I have been getting random deletions over the last year ... major and minor numbers of recordings, but nothing I could confirm the source. Going through the SageTV_*,txt files I found logs of sagetv doing the mass and sometimes smaller numbers of deletions.

It wasn't until this last week that I thought of checking the sagetv_*.txt files for the word delete.

Sun 6/4 0:50:17.205 Deleted media segment file \\thorpe\sagetv\HeGotGame-8623816-0.mpg dtime=61 len=11
Sun 6/4 0:50:17.246 Found the pin2
Sun 6/4 0:50:17.276 Removing MediaFile because it failed verification:MediaFile[id=8724156 A[8588566,7643759,"Drawn Together",17648@0603.21:30,30] host=an72 encodedBy=Hauppauge WinTV PVR PCI II Capture DVD Long Play \\thorpe\sagetv\DrawnTogether-8588566-0.mpg, Seg0[Sat 6/3 21:30:00.058-Sat 6/3 22:00:00.002]]
Sun 6/4 0:50:17.291 SageTVServer was instantiated.
Sun 6/4 0:50:17.294 Deleted media segment file \\thorpe\sagetv\DrawnTogether-8588566-0.mpg dtime=18 len=11
Sun 6/4 0:50:17.305 Removing MediaFile because it failed verification:MediaFile[id=8724157 A[8590317,4877348,"Charlie Jade",27190@0603.22:00,60] host=an72 encodedBy=Hauppauge WinTV PVR PCI II Capture #4 DVD Standard Play \\thorpe\sagetv\CharlieJade-TheEnemyofMyEnemy-8590317-0.mpg, Seg0[Sat 6/3 21:59:00.038-Sat 6/3 23:01:00.001]]
Sun 6/4 0:50:17.309 Deleted media segment file \\thorpe\sagetv\CharlieJade-TheEnemyofMyEnemy-8590317-0.mpg dtime=4 len=11

I just changed my 500MCE (MCE) drivers over to the (non MCE) pvr_150 drivers and I'm hoping along with some of the registry entries here I may actually get some recordings that stay around long enough to watch ...


Thanks for your time,
Bobby