[mythtv-users] Internal player crashes during HDTV playback on specific recordings

[Michael T. Dean]

On 03/02/2009 11:24 AM, Darren Hart wrote:
> Well, judging from how other players handle it (mplayer and xbmc both
> can play it without crashing, but there is some solid evidence of
> stream corruption even then) I doubt the stream is 100% valid.  Still,
> Myth should be able to cope and continue playing as the other players
> do.  I'll look into cropping the video and posting on my site (I have
> plenty of space).
>
> Thanks for the input.

(Haven't read the whole thread, but...) Yes, Myth /should/ handle it 
better, but note that the decoding/playback code in 0.21-fixes is old 
and what's in trunk has been updated significantly since then. 

Unfortunately, as people find new and interesting ways of breaking the 
specs (or as stream corruption causes new and interesting problems not 
seen before the version you're using), it takes time to get code updated 
/and/ pushed out to users.  And, since the changes introduce a /lot/ of 
instability, those "new features" (ability to handle new types of 
corruption) don't get pushed down to the stable -fixes branch.

Your MPlayer (and I'd assume xbmc) uses much newer libraries, so it has 
more fixes.

So, if you /must/ have a working setup now, either:
  a) use some external player (such as MPlayer) to play back the 
recording (most preferred solution),
  b) as Yeechang suggested, transcode the recording(s) to some other 
format, possibly with some external transcoder, making a recording that 
Myth can play (most CPU/power cost to you, as well as inducing a large 
delay between recording and watching shows), or
  c) subscribe to -dev and -commits list, read all the messages on those 
lists (as well as a /lot/ of the archived messages that have gone to 
those lists since 0.21 was released a year ago), then update your system 
to use trunk (noting that you can not go back to -fixes after trunk), 
configure trunk properly (making sure that you follow up any issues on 
the -users list), and test the recording with trunk /and/ keep 
following/reading the -dev and -commits lists (most work for you).

And, please do not submit a ticket until you have tested playback in 
MythTV trunk or /at least/ in the current SVN version of ffmpeg (the 
player, unrelated to Myth--if you have questions about how to do this, 
please follow up with questions here).  If it works in either of those, 
we don't want the ticket and playback will likely be fine in 0.22 (when 
ready).

Thanks,
Mike