HD100 Playback issues

[JDK Ents]

Hi, I've searched the threads and haven't seen this problem listed. I've seen similar ones, but not this exactly. I apologize if this has been covered already - if so, perhaps someone could direct me to the threads?

Problem: Sometimes my HD100 fails to properly play back apparently properly recorded video files, and the problem seems to be getting worse. There are several symptoms: The show position indicator on the bottom doesn't have the correct program duration; the playback may freeze; fast forwarding or rewinding can cause the program to thereafter not play correctly; returning to the beginning will place me at random (but repeatable) locations in the file. If I try to play back the exact same file using WMP on any PC on my network, the file will play correctly. Some files are affected by the problem, while others are not. The problem is frequently repeatible - the playback will have the same issue at the same point multiple times, but always playback correctly using WMP on my PC. All are in SD (no HD at this time), but resolution of recording (ie, amount of compression used when the program was initially recorded) doesn't seem to matter. Long programs seem to have the problem more. The problem seems to have gotten worse with time, suggesting some kind of aging phenomenon. My HD100 did have the dead power supply which I recently fixed, this fix didn't impact the problem. "Raw" files are the only files exhibiting the issue - meaning that files I've recorded, then compressed using DiVX play properly no matter what. Perhaps there is some kind of corruption in the video file which WMP handles correctly for some odd reason?

My setup: HD100 running an old SD TV. Server is a WHS box which I built a couple of years ago, which has a Happauge TV tuner card. Several Linksys network switches are in the network path. AV software is running on the WHS box, and the processor is an old dual-core AMD IIRC (ie, it's not state of the art). My full network is behind a router running ddwrt, properly locked down, so my WHS isn't being bombarded by requests from the internet. It's very possible that the WHS box is overworked at times - and yet, recordings made on it play cleanly using WMP.

Any thoughts or suggestions (short of replacing the WHS box) are welcome!

[tmiranda]

The first thing you should do is make sure the HD100 is running the latest firmware. The easiest way to do that is to power cycle the HD100 and when it is booting select "OK", go to the "Settings" menu and check for firmware upgrade. If there is a new version available it will take the HD100 about 10 minutes to do the flash upgrade.

Tom

[JDK Ents]

Tom, thanks for your response. I am running the latest firmware on the HD100 - I just upgraded it last night. The problem is still there on video files which were problematic before.

I'm suspicious that the video files exhibiting the problem are somehow corrupted, preventing Sage from properly reading them. Is WMP somehow more tolerant than Sage in reading corrupted files?

I am in process of zipping one of the problematic files, which I will post online. Perhaps it would be obvious to someone who is a video compression guru if the main file has a problem or not. I'll post the URL when available - I have a very slow internet connection!

Thanks again for any and all feedback and ideas on this one!

[JDK Ents]

http://cid-eaf8d28c2eee7262.skydrive...f.aspx/.Public

I've posted a video file which exhibits the problem I'm having at the above URL. It will play properly using WMP but not with Sage. This has been a baffling problem for some time, and I would really appreciate any help any of you may be able to provide.

Due to the limitations of Skydrive, the video file has been broken into 44 files of 20MB size each. After they are downloaded, winzip or another zip utility (I use 7zip, which is free) will need to be used to regenerate the mpeg file.

Thanks again for any assistance you are able to provide. It sure would be nice to know what's happening - this is a very annoying problem!

[something fishy]

I have had something that sounds like the same problem periodically.

I attributed it (admittedly with very little evidence) to a corruption in the MPEG2 stream.

It has mostly been non-repeating but a recent rebuild with some new PVR-150s (new to me, I got a bunch on ebay cheap) caused it to happen on every recording. I changed the Hauppauge drivers and it went away so it might be worthwhile upgrading or downgrading your capture card's drivers.

At the same time I created a custom VBR recording quality so it might have been that that did the trick. That also would seem worthwhile to try.

I think that the extenders are less tolerant of slightly out of spec streams than are software decoders