strange playback behavior

[gilded07]

I've been having intermittent issues with the red playback indicator on the time bar display. It doesn't happen with every episode or even with every series but always on playback of recorded favs.

Here are some examples:

• after a certain point in playback the indicator goes back to the beginning
• FFWDing move the indicator backwards
• red playback indicator goes all the way to the right as if the show is ended but the show is still playing - just no way to know where at you're at in the show
• trying to ffwd and went back to middle of comskip marked commerical
• could be an related problem but two different recorded shows that the time bar display says are 1 hour long end less than 30 mins in. Its very weird...almost like comskip skips too much. I'm watching what I believe is the beginning of a show and the play back comes back from a commercial and is ending.
• FFWing and gets to a point where it says <delete or don't delete> as if it thinks its at the end when I'm 7 or 8 mins into an hour long show.

Again, just really strange playback behavior on some recorded shows and then its not unusual for me to select the next episode in the series and get through it without issue. I don't believe the issue is network-related but I'm happy to share show names if it might help. All are 480i recorded with an SD analog tuner (hvr2250 or pvr500).

Also might be of importance:

• I'm using comskip detector UI from the plug in mgr (not sure comskip is the prob which is why I didn't put this thread in the comskip v7 thread)
• I'm having this trouble with an HD200 and related remote
• I occasionally use a client with MCE remote and Eventghost. I have yet to get EG to program the FFD and RWD buttons the way I want.
• On one occasion I deleted the comskip files and the show played back fine. While on another occasion, I deleted the comskip files and it didn't help as the playback still restarted at about 18-20 mins in.
• I've uninstalled comskip detector UI plug in and re-installed it but didn't help.
• I've saved most of the shows with these playback problems hoping that I can fix the issue and eventually watch them.

[gilded07]

It happened again last night.

1st show: An hour long special episode of American Restoration on History Channel recorded on 5/28/13 at 10p. Last night during playback, comskip appropriately skipped a commercial but immediately after the commercial and at the 30:00 mark, I suddenly got the "Would you like to delete <show name>" and "Delete" and "Do not Delete" box indicating that SageTV thought the show was over instead of half way done. I deleted the comskip files and watched again and the same thing happened...couldn't watch past the 30:00 mark. However, I was able to watch the last 30 minutes using placeshifter on a laptop. The weird thing with placeshifter playback though was that mins 31-60 showed up as the beginning of the timeline to the 30:00 mark. The final scene of the show was at the 30:00 mark on the timeline and the timeline showed that the 1st mins had already been watched and the the last 30 mins was still unwatched green!

After almost 6 years of rock solid performance, this is weird...I wouldn't have believed had I not seen it.

2nd show: A 30 min long episode of American Restoration recorded on 6/4 at 10p. However, on this one SageTV wouldn't play any of it - when pressing <play> I immediately got the "would you like to delete <show name> now" box. The time bar was green (unwatched) and the commercials looked accurately marked but SageTV apparently thinks the show is at the end when in fact, not a second of it has been watched.

3rd show: A 30 min long episode of American Restoration also recorded on 6/4 but at 10:30p that played back perfectly with no issues. And proceeded to watch 2 or 3 other recorded shows on other networks without issue.

[BobPhoenix]

If you own VideoRedo try running the video through QuickStreamFix. It is my guess that the time stamps in the recording are messed up after the 30 minute mark and that is why you are seeing the problem.

[gilded07]

time stamps being messed up makes sense but I don't own videoredo. I had a limited time trial version of it once but never bought it.

The 30:00 issue might be just coincidence too - I don't believe my other instances where this has happened involved the 30:00 mark. In the American Restoration episode mentioned above, that 30:00 mark happened immediately after the commercial ended.

If this is a time stamp problem, anyone know what might be causing it?

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by gilded07

time stamps being messed up makes sense but I don't own videoredo. I had a limited time trial version of it once but never bought it.

The 30:00 issue might be just coincidence too - I don't believe my other instances where this has happened involved the 30:00 mark. In the American Restoration episode mentioned above, that 30:00 mark happened immediately after the commercial ended.

If this is a time stamp problem, anyone know what might be causing it?

If it is a time stamp problem then you have a corrupt recording. You should try to confirm that with software like VideoReDo there are probably free alternative that could check it as well. Maybe someone else will have an idea on a free video checker for you.

If it actually is a corrupt recording it could have got that way in lots of ways. If you copied it from one computer to another it could have corrupted during the copy. It could be problems with the drive it's on. It could be problems with the tuner that recorded it. It could be problems with the signal when it was recorded.

I think you should confirm whether it is a bad recording first. Do any other apps report time line problems or is it just SageTV?

[gilded07]

Happened again...twice with two different evening cable news shows. I was able to delete the comskip files on one and watch it all. The other would stop midway through playback and never get any further even w/out comskip files.

I used VLC to watch it over my LAN from the tv server and the VLC said it was only 37 mins long. I saw what I think was the messed up part at about the 22 min mark but VLC kept playing and ended at 37 mins instead of 60.

Does this mean the file is corrupted? Seems like it to me.

A couple of other variables in play:

1. Neither of the FF and Skip FW buttons on the hd200 remote do the 10 sec skip any more. FF forwards the picture and you can see the picture moving in sped up motion. Skip FW moves the red time bar forwward while the picture freezes on the screen.
2. Pressing REW or Skip BK don't move back 10 secs either. In fact, I'm more like to go back 10 mins or even to the beginning of the show. Again, strange behavior.
3. Playback seems fine until I start ffwding thru commercials. I use comskip but its rarely on target with commercial start/stop. I have no proof that the playback problem is related to comskip but on several of the problem shows, deleting the comskip files allowed me to watch the show entirely.

[gilded07]

I should note that I noticed that my Multispeed Skip plug in was still enabled from when I had the SageTV Client hooked up. I just disabled it and will see if that helps with FW/REW and playback.

[BobPhoenix]

Originally Posted by gilded07

Does this mean the file is corrupted? Seems like it to me.

I think you are correct there seems to be a problem with your recordings based on your description. Once that is fixed you might find everything is back to normal. I would make sure your cables to your PVRs are still good and still connected and not loose. The tuner could also be bad but I would try everything else connection wise first as that is where I usually have problems. In particular I have cables that become loose because of vibration and me changing other things and causing them to loosen.

[71_Cuda]

gilded07,

I'm having problems that are similar to yours in some ways. Can you tell me,
1) does the time on the progress bar increment normally (1 second at a time)?
2) What kind of tuner (or tuners) are being used for the recordings that have problems?

On my HDPVR2 recordings, some will skip 2 or 3 seconds on the time bar at a time while the it appears to be playing normal. Then when it gets to comskip sections, it jumps all over the recording.

[gilded07]

I'm not in front of SageTV right now but I believe, yes, the red bar moved a second at a time. Its just that somewhere during the show, a chunk - or chunks of time - were omitted from the recording file. All of the recordings I've had problems with were on SD recordings but to be honest I never checked which SD tuner they shows recorded with.

I even had one show - an American Pickers episode from HC - that is always an hour long and SageTV marked it as a 30 min show with commercials and everything. This particular issue only happened once though. Bizarre. One would think that if the signal was bad for 30 mins of a 60 min show, SageTV would still record the 60 min show but just show snow or fuzzy screen during the part of the show where there was no signal.

In taking BobPhoenix's advice, I checked cables and did find a loose one connected to my HVR2250. I tightened it on the 17th of this month. I haven't seen any problems since then but if I do encounter more playback issues, it'll be important for me to note whether the recording happened before or after 7/17.

[gilded07]

happened again.

11:58 into a 60 min show, SageTV stopped the video and prompted me if I wanted to delete or not.

I deleted the comskip files and played it again and the same thing happened.

The mpg file size was ~2.74GB which is normal for this 1 hr show. It was recorded with an HVR-2250 purchased new on amazon.com in January of this year.

I watched it using VLC and was able to watch the entire 60 min show even though VLC also thought it was a 11:58 video. The entire time, VLC indicated at the far right of the timeline that the video was only 11:58. At 47:55 the show kept playing but the timer froze. When I moved the play indicator ahead to skip a commercial the time indicator calibrated to the 11:58 show length...in other words, instead of being 48 mins into the show, it showed I was 7 or 8 mins into the show...as if the length of the show were only 11:58.

See attached screen shots.

• attachment 1 shows that 35 mins into the video, VLC still thought it was only an 11:58 min show.
• attachment 2 shows where it froze at 47:55 (note the vid was still playing)
• attachments 3 and 4 show where the timeline 'reset' to align with an 11:58 min show.

I saw an Opus4 post (also attached) a registry edit for timeline problems but the symptom he describes is different than mine - or at least, appears to be.

Any more ideas?

[gilded07]

happened again last night. Different 60 min show but same problem. SageTV stopped playing at 12:57 but I was able to watch the entire 60 min show using VLC.

the attached screen shows VLC at the end of the 60 min episode and you can see the VLC thinks it was 12:57. The time indicator screwed up several times during the playback and started over.

I think I'll remove the PVR500 and re-install the HVR2250 drivers.

[gilded07]

no playback probs last night.

I removed the PVR500 and cleaned out the Hauppauge HVR 2250 driver (29297) and installed a newer version of the driver (30192). Will report back.