Strange playback issue with just one HD-PVR recorded show

[davidjade]

I have a Sage 6.4 setup on my Windows 2003 P4 server with a dedicated video drive (with 64k clusters ) running under the latest Java. While I do run SageMC the issue here happens whether I am using SageMC or whether I am using the default UI. I do all of my viewing on a HD100 (my server is a little too underpowered for playback so I've never even tried). My recording device is the HD-PVR which I have hooked up to an old DirecTV box. I am doing SD recording only. For the most part this has been really stable and never gives me much trouble. My server has plenty of memory and does nothing but run Sage so the CPU usage is always at next to nothing.

My issue is that every now and then when I start a recorded TV show the playback is sort of strobed like it is skipping frames but in a very consistent manor. The video however is running at the correct overall speed and the audio is perfect. I've noticed it mostly when I just start the HD100 and then start the first video or immediately watch live TV. It will stay playing this way perpetually until I stop the video and either start it again or choose another video to start. Until now one start/stop cycle has always corrected things and all video will play just fine from then on.

Tonight however I have one recording that no matter what I do it always plays like it is dropping frames in a very consistent manor but still keeping the correct overall playback speed. Again the audio is perfect. I have restarted the HD100, SageTV, server, etc... to no avail. Up until this point I had always figured that it was a quirky playback issue but this made me suspect a recording issue.

So in order to determine if it was a recording issue I tried playing the .TS file for the show using VLC on another computer and the show plays fine so I am pretty confident that it is not in fact a recording issue.

Has anyone ever seen anthing like this with an HD100 and h264 playback? This is only SD content so I can't image that sage/hd100/network can't handle this. And even so, why just this one file? About the only thing unusual that I can think of was that this particular recording was part of a back-to-back recording schedule (the 2nd of two consecutive recordings).

david

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by davidjade

I have a Sage 6.4 setup on my Windows 2003 P4 server with a dedicated video drive (with 64k clusters ) running under the latest Java. While I do run SageMC the issue here happens whether I am using SageMC or whether I am using the default UI. I do all of my viewing on a HD100 (my server is a little too underpowered for playback so I've never even tried). My recording device is the HD-PVR which I have hooked up to an old DirecTV box. I am doing SD recording only. For the most part this has been really stable and never gives me much trouble. My server has plenty of memory and does nothing but run Sage so the CPU usage is always at next to nothing.

My issue is that every now and then when I start a recorded TV show the playback is sort of strobed like it is skipping frames but in a very consistent manor. The video however is running at the correct overall speed and the audio is perfect. I've noticed it mostly when I just start the HD100 and then start the first video or immediately watch live TV. It will stay playing this way perpetually until I stop the video and either start it again or choose another video to start. Until now one start/stop cycle has always corrected things and all video will play just fine from then on.

Tonight however I have one recording that no matter what I do it always plays like it is dropping frames in a very consistent manor but still keeping the correct overall playback speed. Again the audio is perfect. I have restarted the HD100, SageTV, server, etc... to no avail. Up until this point I had always figured that it was a quirky playback issue but this made me suspect a recording issue.

So in order to determine if it was a recording issue I tried playing the .TS file for the show using VLC on another computer and the show plays fine so I am pretty confident that it is not in fact a recording issue.

Has anyone ever seen anthing like this with an HD100 and h264 playback? This is only SD content so I can't image that sage/hd100/network can't handle this. And even so, why just this one file? About the only thing unusual that I can think of was that this particular recording was part of a back-to-back recording schedule (the 2nd of two consecutive recordings).

david

Known issue. Try the new beta drivers....see the sticky in the hardwre forum. It won't fix this recording but should stop it going forward.

[davidjade]

Is there anything I can do for this recording for viewing on my HD100 extender? I still find it odd that other players can play the video just fine and would like to find a "fix" for this one file, even if that means transcoding at this point.

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by davidjade

Is there anything I can do for this recording for viewing on my HD100 extender? I still find it odd that other players can play the video just fine and would like to find a "fix" for this one file, even if that means transcoding at this point.

You can transcode videos within Sage. See if Sage will allow you to change the format from h.264 to say Mpeg2 and see if that is playable. I haven't tried it, but it is worth a shot.