[mythtv-users] trouble with built in player

[Stephen Shelton]

I've created a user job that will transcode files to xvid. It works really well, and the files play
perfectly in xine. They choke, however, when playing from mythfrontend. Most of the time, it messes
up while trying to skip forward and back, and just exits back to the previous menu. Often playback
can occur normally for most of a show, but it almost always will do *something* wrong before a show
can finish. It occurs at random places as well, never the same place in a file. Playback over
mythweb seems to work fine.

The frontend console generally says something along these lines:

	2009-04-30 14:36:24.028 mdb:16, lastbuf:0 skipping granule 0
	2009-04-30 14:36:24.108 Second A/V Sync reported error: Bad Value
	2009-04-30 14:36:24.614 [mpeg4 @ 0xb736a028]header damaged
	2009-04-30 14:36:24.614 AFD Error: Unknown decoding error
	2009-04-30 14:36:24.614 [mpeg4 @ 0xb736a028]header damaged
	2009-04-30 14:36:24.614 AFD Error: Unknown decoding error

Other times, though not as often, it does more bizarre things. Occasionally the video playback will
become garbled, freeze, and the audio starts jumping around and playing at fast speeds. That
continues for 5-15 seconds, then it exits to the previous menu. Usually the console has numerous
errors about audio buffers (don't have the output available, I'll try to copy it next time I see
it.)

The encoding is executed as such:

mencoder "$1" -ovc xvid -xvidencopts turbo:bitrate=687 $CROP,scale=640:480 -oac mp3lame -lameopts
vbr=3:br=128 -o "$dirname/$3".avi

Where 
	$1 is original filename, 
	$CROP is -crop=<foo>, 
	$dirname is target dir, 
	$3 is target filename.

This has been happening with at least several different versions on two different machines. The
current versions are:

MythTV Version   : 19046
MythTV Branch    : branches/release-0-21-fixes
Library API      : 0.21.20080304-1
Network Protocol : 40
Options compiled in:
 linux profile using_oss using_alsa using_backend using_dbox2 using_dvb using_frontend
 using_hdhomerun using_iptv using_ivtv using_joystick_menu using_lirc using_opengl_vsync using_v4l
 using_x11 using_xrandr using_xv using_xvmc using_xvmcw using_glx_proc_addr_arb using_bindings_perl
 using_bindings_python using_opengl using_ffmpeg_threads using_live

and

MythTV Version   : 19961
MythTV Branch    : branches/release-0-21-fixes
Library API      : 0.21.20080304-1
Network Protocol : 40
Options compiled in:
 linux profile using_oss using_alsa using_backend using_dbox2 using_dvb using_frontend
 using_hdhomerun using_iptv using_ivtv using_joystick_menu using_lirc using_opengl_vsync using_v4l
 using_x11 using_xrandr using_xv using_xvmc using_xvmcw using_glx_proc_addr_arb using_bindings_perl
 using_bindings_python using_opengl using_ffmpeg_threads using_live

I've never seen issues when playing back non-transcoded files.

Thanks to anyone who can provide a useful hint!

-- 
Stephen Shelton
stephen at stephenashelton.com