[mythtv-users] commercial skipping recorded shows

[Craig Longman]

Bruce Markey wrote:

> Craig Longman wrote:
>
>> anyway, seems like this problem doesn't bother anyone else, but i 
>> wanted to point out where this all started.
>
> I don't think this is usual behavior that everyone is seeing
> which would explain why it doesn't seem to bother anyone else.
>
> Here are some possible explanations that come to mind from more likely 
> to less likely:
>
> -) When watching while recording, the CPU is pegged causing the
> file to have lots of missing frames and throwing off the timecodes
> and frame rate. If this is the case, you would see the video speeding 
> up and slowing down and possibly hear choppy audio. See:
> http://www.mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO-19.html#ss19.4 . Watch
> "top" to see if your CPU idle time is near zero during playback
> while recording. 

no, i see no skipping either in live mode nor in the actual recording. 
 the cpu usage is <25% (hardware mpeg).

> -) mythbackend crashes, dies or is killed before the recording
> ends. The seektable and blank frame info wouldn't be written and it 
> would behave worse than watching while recording. 

no, it manages to run fine.  infact, after recording shows i watched 
(when no seektable was written) the next day it recorded something i 
didn't watch and the seektable was right.

> -) Your database schema doesn't have the 'recordedmarkup' table.
> Unlikely. Commercial skips would suck for all pre-recorded. 

no, the tables there and has lotsa rows in it.  as i said though, i can 
reliable cause it to happen/not happen by watching/not watching the show 
while its recording.

> -) Manual recording. The few times I tried this it didn't seem
> to have the seek information after after it finished. I never
> looked to see why. 

nope, scheduled.

> The first seems most likely because if the CPU was busy but
> keeping up while recording only, watching at the same time might
> push it over the edge. Several people reported 'damaged' files
> around the time of the 0.8 release if the CPU was pegged and/or
> the MPEG4 quality setting where changed drastically. 

no, i've been keepign a closish eye on this as its only an ahtlon 1GHz ( 
i can't believe 1GHz machines are questionably good enough for something 
already! ;-)

anyway, i guess i'll keep looking into it.  it is so easy to reliably 
reproduce that i'm 110% confident its a bug, just not sure why only i 
see it.  thanks for the suggestions though!


    CraigL->Thx();