6.4 & HD-PVR now sometimes save as .mpg files?

[davidjade]

I've been running the RC (182) of 6.4 with my only encoder, a HD-PVR (windows server 2003). It's been working fine and saving all recorded shows as files with a .ts extension. Today I upgraded to the 6.4 release and I have noticed that some new recordings save as .ts files and others save as .mpg files. Both seem to play fine. It seems strange to me that it would change and stranger yet that it should flip-flop from recording to recording. I don't know for sure that it is related to the 6.4 upgrade but it just started doing this. Anyone know why this is happening? Should I be concerned or is this a known quirk.

The only other change besides the 6.4 upgrade is that I have installed the new beta of ShowAnalyzer that support h.264 two days ago. So far I have been just processing shows manually with the dirmon stuff off during my testing.

thanks,
david

[Opus4]

Do you have any other customizations installed? Are you transcoding recordings? For any troubleshooting, always remove any customizations to see if the issue still happens.

Also, search sage.properties for all occurances of "encode_digital_tv_as_program_stream" & make sure they are still at the default 'true' value.

- Andy

[ghostlobster]

Originally Posted by davidjade

I've been running the RC (182) of 6.4 with my only encoder, a HD-PVR (windows server 2003). It's been working fine and saving all recorded shows as files with a .ts extension. Today I upgraded to the 6.4 release and I have noticed that some new recordings save as .ts files and others save as .mpg files. Both seem to play fine. It seems strange to me that it would change and stranger yet that it should flip-flop from recording to recording. I don't know for sure that it is related to the 6.4 upgrade but it just started doing this. Anyone know why this is happening? Should I be concerned or is this a known quirk.

The only other change besides the 6.4 upgrade is that I have installed the new beta of ShowAnalyzer that support h.264 two days ago. So far I have been just processing shows manually with the dirmon stuff off during my testing.

thanks,
david

For me, that would be a welcome quirk! I'd love to have everything stored as .mpg files instead of .ts!
Do you also have an HDHR on your box? If so, what are the chances that these were recorded on the HDHR or other QAM tuner? Those still record in .mpg.

[stuckless]

Funny... I just checked my recordings dir and sure enough I had 1 .mpg and 2 .ts files. Then I recalled that when I first hooked up the HDPVR, I didn't touch the "Recording Quality" in Sage. A few days later I changed the recording quality from "Great" to "Best H.264". The interesting thing is that "Great" didn't even show up as an option, "Great H.264" does, but not "Great" on it's own. My .mpg and 2 .ts files correspond roughly to when I changed the recording quality, so I wonder if Sage was transcoding when the quality was set to "Great".

[davidjade]

I have no other customizations currently installed and as far as I know I am not transcoding anything (I have auto compression off for each of my favorites and globally). HOWEVER, the .mpg files seem smaller to me than they should (or at least smaller than the .ts files for the same show length). I confess that I don't fully understand the transcoding/compression options in Sage/SageMC so I have them off everywhere I could find them (I just set this up less than 2 weeks ago).

re: encode_digital_tv_as_program_stream -- I don't have anything like this at all in my sage.properties file. From looking at my backups (I back up before each upgrade), I've never had this setting at all. Should I have it or does it default to 'true' when missing?

I have also diff'd all my .properties files between versions and nothing really changed between the update either.

I too have the encoding set to Great-H.264 but I haven't changed it post upgrade. It has been at this setting well before I started getting .mpg files showing up.

The HD-PVR is the only encoder I have. The HD-PVR is the only encoder in the box.

So if transcoding is happening, where should I look for settings that could cause this?

david

[GollyJer]

This is happening on my install as well.
I have two hd-pvr's both set to "Use Default" for recording quality with the default set to "Best-h.264". Prior to 6.4 all recordings were .ts files. Now I randomly get .mpg's as well (installed 6.4 beta on 8/17).

It seems random. I first thought it was an HD vs SD thing, but Monk and Psych are on the same channel immediately following one another and both HD. Psych recorded using the .mpg container and the Monk used .ts.



P.S. - I searched and found this thread. Maybe it should be moved to the general SageTV Software section of the forum?

[davidjade]

You know, that may be the one change I made around the time I first noticed this: At one point I had my HD-PVR set to Great h.264 as well as having the Default Quality set to the same. I then changed my HD-PVR to be "Default" and left the Default Quality at Great h.264. I might have done this right around the time I started noticing these .mpg files. I am going to set both back to 'Great' and see if that resolves this.

david

ps. whoops my bad; I meant to put this in the general SageTV software forum when I started it (I am using SageMC though...).

[Opus4]

It was moved to the SageMC forum due to use of that STV. Has this been reproduced on a fully default setup w/all customizations removed, like I said in my first reply, above? I see continued mention of using SageMC & so on.

It may still happen with a default setup for all I know & may have to do with recording SD resolution shows, but unless it happens w/o any customizations installed I'm not going to ask SageTV about it. All of my HD-PVR recordings are in .ts format, but then I've been recording only in 1080i lately.

- Andy

[GollyJer]

I'm using the default STV and, like you Andy, recording in 1080i.

You know, that may be the one change I made around the time I first noticed this: At one point I had my HD-PVR set to Great h.264 as well as having the Default Quality set to the same. I then changed my HD-PVR to be "Default" and left the Default Quality at Great h.264. I might have done this right around the time I started noticing these .mpg files. I am going to set both back to 'Great' and see if that resolves this.

You know, I think I did the exact same thing when i upgraded to 6.4. I'll switch back to specifying the recording quality on the individual tuners and see what happens.

[stuckless]

I use the default stv and I have no plugins installed. (believe it or not )

I thought i'd check to see what type of file mplayer thinks it is....

Playing ArtoftheHeist-TheMissingMonaLisa-1467968-0.mpg.
TS file format detected.
VIDEO H264(pid=4113) AUDIO AAC(pid=4352) NO SUBS (yet)!  PROGRAM N. 1
FPS seems to be: 59.940060
xscreensaver_disable: Could not find XScreenSaver window.
GNOME screensaver disabled
==========================================================================
Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
Selected video codec: [ffh264] vfm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg H.264)
==========================================================================
==========================================================================
Forced audio codec: mad
Opening audio decoder: [faad] AAC (MPEG2/4 Advanced Audio Coding)
FAAD: compressed input bitrate missing, assuming 128kbit/s!
AUDIO: 48000 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 128.0 kbit/8.33% (ratio: 16000->192000)
Selected audio codec: [faad] afm: faad (FAAD AAC (MPEG-2/MPEG-4 Audio) decoder)
==========================================================================
AO: [pulse] 48000Hz 2ch s16le (2 bytes per sample)
Starting playback...
VDec: vo config request - 1280 x 720 (preferred colorspace: Planar YV12)
VDec: using Planar YV12 as output csp (no 0)
Movie-Aspect is 1.78:1 - prescaling to correct movie aspect.

It thinks it's a .ts format at 1280x720, so maybe it's just the extension that gets messed up and not a transcode at all. That would make sense to me, since I can't immagine that my server has enough horsepower to transcode this file to something else.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by GollyJer

I'm using the default STV and, like you Andy, recording in 1080i.

Originally Posted by stuckless

I use the default stv and I have no plugins installed. (believe it or not )

Thanks... this is now in the hardware forum, since it has to do with the use of a tuner.

I thought i'd check to see what type of file mplayer thinks it is....

It thinks it's a .ts format at 1280x720, so maybe it's just the extension that gets messed up and not a transcode at all. That would make sense to me, since I can't immagine that my server has enough horsepower to transcode this file to something else.

Thanks again - I was wondering if it might have to do with just the extension.

I suggest getting a debug log that includes at least 1 HD-PVR recording with the .mpg extension.


What is the overall default recording quality & the default quality setting for the HD-PVR? (I realize this was mentioned above, but I want to double check the settings; I think I'll go along with the removal of the HD-PVR's default recording quality setting as a possible cause.)

For a Manual Recording or Favorite, was a recording quality specified?

Finally, what is the setting for Detailed Setup -> Customize -> Enforce recording quality in schedule?

- Andy

[davidjade]

For me, the overall default was set at "Great h.264" and my single HD-PVR was set to Not Set/Use Default (I have since changed it back to match the overall default to try and resolve this and so far no more .mpg files). None of my affected recordings had a recording quality specified. In Detailed Setup -> Customize -> Enforce I has it set to Yes.

My .mpg files also seem to be h.264 streams (when playing in WMP, etc...) but they seem to be at lower bitrates, if that can be said from looking at the resulting file sizes (i.e. they are half the size of my .ts files for the same length shows).

If I can get a reproducable case, I will gather a debug log.

david

[bcjenkins]

I had this happen as well. If you leave to default it records as mpg. Specify bitrate and it switches to TS. I had received the answer from SageTV when I had asked about it.

B