[mythtv-users] BBC HD recorded show length wrong in mythfrontend

[David Knight]

On Sat, September 12, 2009 10:14 am, Robert wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> It seems that my BBC HD recordings are reporting incorrect lengths again
> in mythtv.  (straight record and then playback in mythfrontend).
>
> I recorded a 30 min show last night and when I went to play it, it said
> it was an hour.  As it played, time passed as normal - i.e. after 30
> mins actual time, 30 mins had passed on the progress bar and the
> programme was over.  But when I went to seek in the recording I had to
> seek to (eg) 40mins on the progress bar to get 20 mins into the show.
>
> I've had this before (ages ago) and I think there was a patch to fix it
> and it's been fine for a long time now.
>
> Is anyone seeing this?  or is it just me?
>
> I noticed in another sillyname's thread about transcoding that they've
> recently changed something in the format and was wondering if this might
> be the cause.
>
> Other than that I recently recompiled my whole system (gentoo) and I'm
> wondering if that has broken something.
>
> Any ideas where to start looking?
>
> Thanks,
> Robert.
>
>

Hi Robert/BBC HD Viewers,

    Not sure if I replied before but I'm fed up of recordings finishing
early. I've also noticed quite a bit of image artifacts watching BBC
HD lately and general compression nasties. So I did a bit of googling
and managed to trawl up quite a number of blog/forum threads relating
to poor image quality lately on BBC HD.

Here is some information on what is going on directly from the head of BBC
HD -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2009/09/picture_quality_on_hd_a_respon.html

It appears that the BBC are now using new encoders (apologies I haven't
read the post about encoding or don't recall it). They may also have
dropped the bitrate from 16Mpbs to 9Mbps!!! almost halving it.

I also used to be able to watch the recordings on my Windows PC through
Mythweb asx stream but that doesn't work anymore (guessing this is the
encoder change) Windows Media Player reports that the codec is unknown.

I'm pretty angry about this, the BBC are backing up what they have done by
saying that they need to reduce the amount of bandwidth they are utilising
and also maintain compatibility with set top boxes.

I originally started watching BBC HD in September last year and understand
it was originally being broadcast then at 20Mbps, which dropped to 16Mbps
earlier this year.

I have made my complaint and asked if the BBC has any plans to rename the
channel to BBC SD ! :)

Regards

Dave K.