[mythtv-users] Seek Table Hell

[Stephen Worthington]

On Sat, 7 Nov 2015 16:23:45 +0800, you wrote:

>Hi
>
>Recordings that I make *can* be seeked on my Samsung TV
>
>transcoded videos 
>eg mythtranscode -i /store/1010_20151017130400.mpg -o Movies/SomethingAboutMary.mpg --honorcutlist --showprogress -m 
>with or without -b cannot be seeked including 
>mythcommflag --video /store/Movies/SomethingAboutMary.mpg —rebuild
>
>BUT using IOS 8player those same videos CAN be seeked (and I’ve not fiddled with the android uPnP including mythtv which transcodes again)
>
>I’m using using 0.27-4 fixes.
>In the past I’ve rebuilt with AVI demux and been able to seek. Either I got the recipe wrong or that nolonger works.
>
>OK anyone I beg, I want to create a seekable video. How? Please!
>
>James

The seek table created by mythcommflag is stored in the MythTV
database, so is only usable by a frontend such as mythfrontend that
accesses that seek table.  If you are not using such a frontend
program, then you need to create a video file in a format that you can
seek in without the use of the MythTV database, just using the
contents of that video file.  Some video file formats work better than
others, but what works depends on the software used to play the file,
in this case, whatever software is built into your TV.  So you need to
find out what format(s) the TV can handle and create something in that
format.  See if your TV's documentation will tell you what is
supported, or if Googling can tell you.

If the TV has recent software, I would suggest an H.264/AAC format in
an MP4 container, as that format fairly universally supported now. You
would still need to know what H.264 "profiles" are supported by your
TV, but if you encode using a "Main at L3.0" or below profile, it is
likely to work.  Once you have it working, you can try higher profiles
(like "Main at L3.1", or the  "High at L4.x" ones used for HD 1080p video)
and see what works.  If you have a collection of various video files,
try seeing what they are encoded as using the mediainfo program and
then see which ones the TV will play properly.  Then you can encode to
the same specifications as the ones that work.