[mythtv-users] Mythcommflag Crashes on Certain Recordings

[Chris Pinkham]

* On Wed Mar 08, 2006 at 10:27:46PM -0500, K Stanton wrote:
> Hopefully someone can find a clue here...  I've finally gotten mythtv to 
> be "family friendly" and we're really liking it!  However, some programs 
> from Comcast Digital are giving us problems.  It only happens on "cable" 
> channels (ie, Comedy Central, TBS, USA, DSC), not the local broadcast 
> channels nor HDTV.  Watching a recording, somewhere during a commercial 
> break mythfrontend will freeze and most-likely crash.  Separately, 
> mythtranscode will choke on the file.  mythcommflag will choke on the 
> file.  The best diagnosis I am able to come up with is from 
> mythcommflag.  Hopefully you can see the attached output or the link 
> below.  The best I can guess is that the resolution is changing from 
> 704x480 to 526x480 around the same time as the problem.  Trying to glean 
> as much information as possible from watching the recordings, the 
> problem seem to happen when Comcast switches to it's local commercials.

Your diagnosis sounds spot-on if your files are actually switching
resolution in the middle of the recording.  Neither the transcoder
or the commercial flagger handle this at all.

Can I get ahold of a copy of one of these recordings?  That will help
me be able to work on this issue.  I can't promise anything quick, but
I've wanted to get ahold of a file like this for a while because I've
known this is a problem in the flagger and transcoder.  I've got
sample files that switch aspect ratios, but nothing that switches
physical resolutions mid-stream.

Email me off-list if you have a way that I can get one of these files
from you.

--
Chris Pinkham (the guy who wrote the flagger and one of those who
maintains the MPEG-2 -> MPEG-4 transcoder that Geoffrey originally wrote)