[mythtv-users] analog recordings won't play with some devices (long and confusing)

Wed Jun 2 07:02:42 UTC 2010

| From: belcampo <belcampo at zonnet.nl>
| Date: Tue, 11 May 2010 22:03:11 +0200

| D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
| > I have two MythTV backends that record analog signals using Hauppauge
| > tuners and am having trouble playing the recordings with various
| > non-Myth devices.

| > - mediainfo, applied to a recording from (1) and from (2b), shows no
| >   differences that look material.

| If that's true then only the container can be the source of the problems.
| ffmpeg and applications relying on it's libraries, most includinf mythtv do,
| has/had 'poblems' in writing compliant containers.
| As a test you could remux your source with tsMuxeR/tsMuxerGUI to a compliant
| MPEG-TS container, with MP4Box to a compliant mp4 container and with mkvtools
| to a copmpliant matroska container. Then at least all mplayer and XBMC and
| probably WD-TV Live problems should be solved.
| I do have a PopCornHour which is more or less identical to the WD-TV Live and
| is also critical about compliant container formats.

| > Is there a tool to check standards conformance of a video recording?

I'm running Mythbuntu 10.04 now, with MythTV .23.  Same problem.

I've noticed that when I apply ffmpeg -i to the recording from the the
analog section an Hauppauge HVR 1600, I get the following message:

  Seems stream 0 codec frame rate differs from container frame rate: 59.94 (60000/1001) -> 29.97 (30000/1001)

That does seem to confirm belcampo's suggestion that the container
might be the source of the problem.

I've googled for this message and found lots of hits but none seem to
explain how this might have happened or how to prevent it.

The closest was this:
<http://www.mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-users/2008-August/232304.html>
He fixed hist problem by resaving the transcoder settings:

    I went into Utilities / Setup -> Setup -> TV Settings -> Recording
    profiles -> Transcoders -> Autodetect from MPEG2

    opened the settings and saved them, and now it works.  Looks like a bug in
    myth that you have to open and save a profile before it can be used ( maybe
    something to do with upgrading from older releases compared to a clean
    install )

I tried resaving each of the transcoder settings as Daniel Carter had
done, but the problem remained.

==> Why does the recording have this error?

I recorded a short bit before resaving the transcoder settings.  I
then applied mythranscode to it.  Mythtranscode was not happy:

	$ mythtranscode --infile /mythspace/recordings/1040_20100531095900.mpg
	2010-05-31 10:13:57.406 Using runtime prefix = /usr
	2010-05-31 10:13:57.406 Using configuration directory = /home/hugh/.mythtv
	2010-05-31 10:13:57.406 Empty LocalHostName.
	2010-05-31 10:13:57.410 New DB connection, total: 1
	2010-05-31 10:13:57.412 Closing DB connection named 'DBManager0'
	2010-05-31 10:13:57.412 Enabled verbose msgs: important
	2010-05-31 10:13:57.413 New DB connection, total: 2
	2010-05-31 10:13:57.414 ProgramInfo(): Updated pathname '':'' -> '1040_20100531095900.mpg'
	2010-05-31 10:13:57.505 Using protocol version 56
	2010-05-31 10:13:59.866 Transcode: Looking for autodetect profile: Autodetect from 480i
	2010-05-31 10:13:59.867 New DB connection, total: 3
	2010-05-31 10:13:59.878 Transcode: Using autodetect profile: MPEG2
	2010-05-31 10:13:59.878 No video information found!
	2010-05-31 10:13:59.878 Please ensure that recording profiles for the transcoder are set

After resaving the trancoder settings, I recorded another short bit
and applied mythtranscode again.  It was differently unhappy.  It took
longer too.

	hugh at redblack:/mythspace/recordings$ mythtranscode --infile 1007_20100602022800.mpg
	2010-06-02 02:49:54.532 Using runtime prefix = /usr
	2010-06-02 02:49:54.532 Using configuration directory = /home/hugh/.mythtv
	2010-06-02 02:49:54.532 Empty LocalHostName.
	2010-06-02 02:49:54.539 New DB connection, total: 1
	2010-06-02 02:49:54.546 Closing DB connection named 'DBManager0'
	2010-06-02 02:49:54.546 Enabled verbose msgs: important
	2010-06-02 02:49:54.550 New DB connection, total: 2
	2010-06-02 02:49:54.554 ProgramInfo(): Updated pathname '':'' -> '1007_20100602022800.mpg'
	2010-06-02 02:49:54.658 Using protocol version 56
	2010-06-02 02:49:57.046 Transcode: Looking for autodetect profile: Autodetect from 480i
	2010-06-02 02:49:57.050 New DB connection, total: 3
	2010-06-02 02:49:57.105 Transcode: Using autodetect profile: MPEG2
	2010-06-02 02:49:57.136 Forcing Recorder option 'videocodec' to ''
	2010-06-02 02:49:57.136 RecBase(NULL:/dev/video) Error: SetOption(): Unknown int option: videocodec: 0
	strange error flushing buffer ... 
	2010-06-02 02:49:57.217 mythtranscode: 0% Completed @ 0 fps.
	2010-06-02 02:50:14.639 AFD Error: Unknown audio decoding error

Why is mythtranscode unhappy about each of these recordings?