Lip Sync Issues

[wayner]

Not sure about that, but since it is an analog signal that the HD-PVR is cancelling I think you should. That being said, the HD-PVR seems to look on the input format.

But I could swear I remember being able to adjust the capture quality, at least in terms of bitrate if not resolution.

But when I just went into Source Setup I don't see a way to set it.

When you go into a favourite setup there is a quality setting, but I am guessing that is more for the old NTSC that pre-date HD as "Great" is DVD quality.

[Striker:WG]

you can set the quality in the Multimedia Detailed Setup settings under Recording Quality.

I have my HD-PVR's set to "Best-H.264" which is 5.9GB/hr.

I seem to remember there being a way to customize these and even create your own recording quality settings, but I don't see that option anymore. I think there was options to customize the bit rate, but I don't remember there being anything for resolution.

[sdsean]

Mine's set to the "Great" setting aka DVD quality aka 3.8BG /hr. I can try turning it higher I suppose but i don't understand how changing bitrate would effect audio sync unless it was happening all the time/consistent.

It seems to be inconsistent for me, sometimes rebooting STB helps, sometimes I go many recordings without it happening, but it doesn't seem to be specific STB / HD-PVR combo.

[Striker:WG]

have you tried going with the analog L/R audio connections instead of the 5.1 optical connection?

I've often thought about downgrading to just stereo to see if it would fix things, but I've never actually tried for any significant amount of time.

[sdsean]

Yeah I thought of that too but I'm using RCA on all of the HDPVRs as I'd given up trying to get the digital to work consistently so I got that as well.

[Striker:WG]

Well it just happened to me again today.

Was watching live TV on an HD200. Stream was being captured by an HD PVR using an STB locked at 720p using component and optical connections.

Lips were out of sync by several seconds. If I rewind and rewatch, it's still out of sync. If I stop and start again, the new content is in sync but the already cached content remains out of sync.

So the issue is not with the stream to the HD200, it is something with the capture.

My Sage docker instance was last restarted a couple of days ago. Wondering if I need to do a daily restart?

[sdsean]

All of my HD-PVRs are doing it, not just one of them. A daily restart might be needed as well but given the flaky power supplies (which I have also replaced), I'm going to try wiring it directly to my PC and adjusting the placement / cables when I can find the time.

For me right now it's almost 100% consistent that any one of them goes out of sync within the first few minutes which seems to point to FPS. . .

I swear there was a way to toggle some sort of FPS setting in the reg for the HDPVR but I can't seem to find anything

[Striker:WG]

I can tell you it likely isn't going to be solved by being hard wired into your PC power supply.

3 of my 4 HD PVR's are currently hardwired to my PC power supply and the issue I described a few posts ago occurred on one of the hard wired units.

[sdsean]

Yeah I'm not betting on that either. . however it will give me a chance to try to re-connect and re-wire things in case that is also a contributing factor. I may also try to switch the output to 1080i.

[sdsean]

While I'm doing all this re-wiring and what not. . . does any one here have a "clean" setup with 3 or more HD-PVRs and the accompanying stbs and what not? I feel like I just have a complete cable mess every time i've done it and can never come up with a clever way to stack / organize things where it doesn't look completely crazy. A picture would be great.

[Striker:WG]

4x HD PVR
4x Motorolla STB
1x Unraid server (sitting on ground to the right)
1x pfSense router (pc in top left)
1x monitor
1x cable modem
1x 24 HP gigabit switch

https://photos.app.goo.gl/6k5X14Bs7VegVaxK7


All piled into an Omar rack from Ikea. Looks pretty clean from the front. Bit of a mess in the back.

[sdsean]

Nice, yeah mainly i wanted to see how you did the hd-pvrs to stbs, and now that I see what you did that gives me some ideas. thank you.

[Striker:WG]

No problem. I tried to give them some separation so the cables don't get quite as snarled up and to help keep the HDPVR units cooler by distancing them from the heat that the STB's give off.

I think that it turned out OK.

[wayner]

I only have two HD-PVRs and I have a server rack that is quite deep so I can put stuff back to back. But the wiring is a mess. Eventually I will get a proper rackmount PC case for my unRAID/SageTV server but that will probably have to wait until I decide to upgrade my server.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/YDpdKS3yzDNNUH8q6
https://photos.app.goo.gl/tXSgcWmukt2pSi158

p.s. Does anyone know any easy wasy to do proper photo linking from Google photos so that you can have the images show directly in the fourm?

[Striker:WG]

Originally Posted by wayner

I only have two HD-PVRs and I have a server rack that is quite deep so I can put stuff back to back. But the wiring is a mess. Eventually I will get a proper rackmount PC case for my unRAID/SageTV server but that will probably have to wait until I decide to upgrade my server.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/YDpdKS3yzDNNUH8q6
https://photos.app.goo.gl/tXSgcWmukt2pSi158

p.s. Does anyone know any easy wasy to do proper photo linking from Google photos so that you can have the images show directly in the fourm?

pretty sure that Google doesn't support doing direct linking to embed images.

I think there are some intermediary sites that help facilitate setting up a link like that though.

[Striker:WG]

So circling back to the original intention of this thread, I was watching an old rerun of House. Since I was on the old CRT (yes, I've still got one!) laziness kicked in and I didn't bother finding the HD version of the broadcast and just started watching the SD broadcast.

Within minutes of starting watching, the audio was out of sync with the video. I could stop and start and the audio would sync up for a short period of time, but then it would get out of sync again.

Both my wife and I got annoyed so I switched to the HD broadcast and no more audio sync issue.

One of the other broadcasts where I've typically noticed the sync issue is on HLN where we only receive an SD signal (forget Shaw having Fiber networks, can't they please just get 100% HD content? It's 2021 people!).

So I'm wondering if anyone else has noticed the same pattern. Wondering if it has anything to do with locking the STB at 720 and maybe that's actually throwing something off?

[sdsean]

I mean I've had mine locked at 720p for years and never really had this issue come up so consistently until the last year-ish and I've been going back and forth trying to find a pattern. It was happening before I upgraded to the 64 bit version and before I moved to Windows 10.

Incidentally I did try wiring the power directly to my PC . . . i ended up burning up an HD-PVR somehow. So there's that.

I've started rewiring everything and I'm going to add one back at a time and see how it goes.

I might simply just try ordering a couple colossus cards at this point.

[sdsean]

Well I rewired the video / audio hook ups and rearranged the cabling and still one of them went out of sync pretty quickly. The other one seems OK but that one is the one that almost never has the issue so I'm pretty convinced it's just the device going bad somehow. I also know for sure it's not the power supply as I had an extra one of those. I even plugged them into outlets that are on different circuits.

I'll keep testing, going to try to re-wire up digital again and see how that does.

[sdsean]

OK first I tried to use digital output. That was a no go. Selecting Component+SPIDF just simply does not work (HD-PVR won't light up, nothing gets pulled in via preview). Admittedly though there is a nuance there b/c I have to use a coax -> optical converter between the STB and the HD-PVR since the STB digital audio out is only coax (unless I do HDMI). . .so I suppose that also could be the culprit.

I have one spare HD-PVR laying around that had a bad power supply previously. It's a slightly different rev. Trying that one now via stereo audio to see if i get a problem.

After that if it keeps happening I might be stuck. . . only thing I can think of next to do would be to try to buy a Colosuss or I could just try another uray device and do HDMI.

If anyone else has thoughts of things to try in the mean time let me know. . . also does anyone have any HDMI splitters that they suggest to help me get around HDCP with a Colususs?

[sdsean]

Maybe I fixed it ?! It's now been 4 days and I have yet to see the issue. As noted I switched one HD-PVR that I had with a spare that's a slightly older rev, but re-used the same power supply and voila so far no issues. . . (crosses fingers).

It does make some sense since I have had a few HD-PVRs from various sources over the years and all of them are likely 10+ years old so given their issues with tricky power supply / voltage combo's . . .