HD recordings listed as 480i

[Thomas Wischgol]

Hi,

This is not a big deal, but did anybody else notice that all HD recordings are listed as 480i in the detailed info screen? The recordings are definitely higher in resolution and the audio format is recognized as AC3. As a result, the thumbnails in the upper right corner are distorted because Sage does not realize that the images should actually be 16:9. As I said, no big deal, especially since the recordings play just fine. I did not find any mention of this issue in the forum yet, so I was wondering if someone else has the same problem or if it is related to my setup before I submit a bug report.

Thanks,
Thomas

[malore]

I noticed that once when I wondered why the aspect ration of the thumbnail for a HD show was wrong. However, the majority of my recordings seem to have the correct info in the file details.

[carlgar]

I think you are confusing HD with DTV (digital TV). All HD is broadcast in DTV but not all DTV is HD. DTV supports several different formats like 480i, 480, 720p, etc. Stations that do not end with an HD are probably broadcasting in 480i or 480p. Stations that end with HD are probably broadcasting in 720p or 1080p. Most of the major networks ABC, NBC, CBS, etc. havestations currently broadcasting in both forms, hence the different station IDs, such as WKRN and WKRNDT. When I had a SD program I preferred WKRN for programs except the HD, because the files were smaller. Now I have a HD TV and no longer record WKRN at all.

[Taddeusz]

I'm having the same exact problem. I just posted here:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27805

Basically the recorded 1080i and 720p recordings from my HDHR somtimes, more often than not now, get detected as 480i. This causes the thumbnails to be distorted and for some reason prevents the video from being transcoded to my MVP or Placeshifter. The video just comes up black with audio playing.

I'm probably going to submit a bug report on it later.

[GKusnick]

I'm seeing this too. My guess is that there's a 4:3 commercial near the beginning of the recording, and that's what the detection algorithm is seeing when it flags the file as 4:3 480i, even though the actual program content is HD.

[eMajor]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

I'm seeing this too. My guess is that there's a 4:3 commercial near the beginning of the recording, and that's what the detection algorithm is seeing when it flags the file as 4:3 480i, even though the actual program content is HD.

I would guess the same! And I've verified the video isn't being transcoded to the MVP (no SageTranscoder.exe running). Since it thinks its 480i content, its being sent straight to the MVP which can't handle the stream.

Also, I found live HD was being detected as 480i until I restarted the Sage service.

[Taddeusz]

I restarted my service last night while dealing with a different problem and my HD programs are still showing as 480i. They play properly on my client and server. Just not on my MVP and Placeshifter.

[MeInMaui]

I guess I'll chime in too.

I've been seeing the same behavior since I finally got my HDHR back up and running a week or so ago.

I have also noticed that Show Analyzer does not seem to be scanning these files for commercials. I haven't had time to follow up on this observation, but if true, it would suggest that this might be more related to the HDHR itself than SageTV. Is anyone seeing this on any other tuner besides an HDHR?

Aloha,
Mike

[Taddeusz]

My ShowAnalyzer is scanning those files just fine.

[Taddeusz]

And I take some of it back. Placeshifter plays the files fine but they display at the incorrect aspect ratio.

[Thomas Wischgol]

Originally Posted by MeInMaui

I guess I'll chime in too.

I've been seeing the same behavior since I finally got my HDHR back up and running a week or so ago.

I have also noticed that Show Analyzer does not seem to be scanning these files for commercials. I haven't had time to follow up on this observation, but if true, it would suggest that this might be more related to the HDHR itself than SageTV. Is anyone seeing this on any other tuner besides an HDHR?

I am using an AverMedia A180. So it does not seem to be related to the tuner itself. As pointed out in another posting, it may be due to a commercial in the beginning which confuses Sage. I will look into that. However, it was working in earlier versions of Sage where it usually detected the resolution of HD shows correctly.

Thomas

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by MeInMaui

Is anyone seeing this on any other tuner besides an HDHR?

I don't own an HDHR. My tuners are VBox OTA ATSC tuners.

[MeInMaui]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

I don't own an HDHR. My tuners are VBox OTA ATSC tuners.

Well, so much for that theory.

[Taddeusz]

I have submitted a bug report about the problem. I haven't heard back yet but hopefully they can figure out what's going on.

[Thomas Wischgol]

I checked the theory about commercials in the beginning causing this misinterpretation of the recording. I have several recordings from yesterday that start with the show immediately and that have a higher resolution than 480i. So there seems to be something wrong with the detection algorithm in general.

Thomas

[Taddeusz]

I've personally never seen a stream change resolution in the middle. At least on my local networks when there are SD ads they are always pillarboxed into HD video.

Conversely, I've also noticed that some of my actual SD recorded material from my HDHR (Cox carries the local networks in QAM SD channels) comes out being detected as 1080i and gets rung through the transcoder before being sent to my MVP. This causes all sorts of weirdness. Mostly audio sync problems.

[fist34]

Originally Posted by Thomas Wischgol

Hi,

This is not a big deal, but did anybody else notice that all HD recordings are listed as 480i in the detailed info screen?

It is a big deal for me -- I can't view these incorrectly tagged recordings on my MVP.

[Taddeusz]

I recieved an initial response from support. Their suggestion was to make sure the BDA driver was updated properly and to run the reinstallation of it.

I've done that and I'll report back if it changes anything. I suspect, though, that since there are people here who have cards other than the HDHR that are experiencing the same problem it must be part of SageTV itself that is causing the issue.

[Thomas Wischgol]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

I recieved an initial response from support. Their suggestion was to make sure the BDA driver was updated properly and to run the reinstallation of it.

I've done that and I'll report back if it changes anything. I suspect, though, that since there are people here who have cards other than the HDHR that are experiencing the same problem it must be part of SageTV itself that is causing the issue.

I agree with your conclusion. I did not change drivers for my A180 for a long time (since early Sage version 5). It used to work fine but with the newer versions of Sage (I guess 6.1 and 6.2) it stopped working. Hence I also suspect that there is something wrong with Sage that causes this problem.

[MeInMaui]

So I just noticed that all of my HD recordings since Thursday are now being tagged properly. This was confusing because I didn't change anything at all. Then I remembered that I have a weekly automatic reboot of the server scheduled every Thursday morening at 2am. So it looks like in my case all it needed was a reboot and everything seems ok now. I post again if the problems reappears.

Aloha,
Mike