[mythtv-users] Transcoded recordings playback fails: audio failure, video stutters (was Last MythTV Gentoo ebuild... buffer issues)

[jk90090]

I fired up my backend mythfrontend, it's a slower Radeon card instead of 
an Nvidia, and playback works there, albiet with some minor stuttering 
which for the moment I'll just chalk up to the RAID check I have running 
at the moment.  The investigation continues...  confusingly...

-J

> > Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2011 19:47:55 -0800
> > From: jk90090 at gmail.com
> > To: mythtv-users at mythtv.org
> > Subject: [mythtv-users] Transcoded recordings playback fails: audio 
> failure, video stutters (was Last MythTV Gentoo ebuild... buffer issues)
> >
> > On 12/9/11 12:41 PM, jk90090 wrote:
> > > On 12/8/11 9:57 PM, Raymond Wagner wrote:
> > >> On 12/8/2011 23:11, jk90090 wrote:
> > >>> I've narrowed down my playback issues now to Transcoded recordings.
> > >>> Any
> > >>> recording that isn't transcoded is playing back perfectly (720p, 
> 1080i
> > >>> both smooth as silk), and it's pretty much for all transcoded 
> content,
> > >>> so simply newly transcoded recordings. Anyone have any ideas?
> > >> How are you transcoding these?
> > >> ________________________________
> > > Ticking the 'transcode' option for the recording schedule, either 
> with
> > > Medium Quality or Low Quality
> > >
> > > The settings I use are: (Advanced -> TV Settings -> Recording
> > > Profiles -> Transcoders -> ..)
> > > Media Quality - Resize video while transcoding, 1280x720, MPEG4,
> > > 2200 Bitrate, Max Qual 2, Min Qual 15, Max qual diff between 
> frames 3,
> > > Scale bitrate for frame size, Enable High-quality encoding, Enable 
> 4MV
> > > encoding; MP3 audio, 32000 sampling rate, qual 7, volume 90%
> > > Low Quality - Resize video while transcoding, 960x540, MPEG4, 2200
> > > Bitrate, Max Qual 2, Min Qual 15, Max qual diff between frames 3,
> > > Scale bitrate for frame size, Enable High-quality encoding, Enable 
> 4MV
> > > encoding; MP3 audio, 32000 sampling rate, qual 5, volume 90%
> > >
> > > As a side likely unrelated note, in the past I usually used High
> > > Quality (RTjpeg, qual 170; MP3 audio, qual 7), and it worked for 
> years
> > > until an update in the past 6 months completely broke it, and
> > > required, oddly, for me to go back into the settings and just hit 
> next
> > > and finish (effectively re-saving the setting for HQ). It still never
> > > worked like it had in the past however, and I had started using 
> Medium
> > > and Low Qual Transcode more often anyways so I didn't look into it
> > > further.
> > >
> > > No difference in playback between the Medium and Low Qual transcoded
> > > recordings, still stuttering video with audio cutout generally, 720p
> > > or 1080i. Eventually (seconds) the playback gives up and exits. It
> > > looks like I had one recent recording that was transcoded with High
> > > Quality, and it is playing back fine.
> > >
> > > I am using a Frontend with VPDAU high quality playback (and I have
> > > tried without using VPDAU with no different results), and CPU usage
> > > for the system is single digits generally when doing playback. Dual
> > > Core i5 I think, 6 GB memory.
> > >
> > >
> > So I never could figure out how to rollback to the earlier build, and
> > frankly it would probably be more of a pain than to just have someone
> > figure out what is now broken in Myth. I went ahead and built the
> > latest ebuild from github ( using scripts/mythtv-buildebuild.py ):
> >
> > [ebuild R ~] media-tv/mythtv-0.25_pre20111217 USE="alsa autostart
> > dvb dvd ieee1394 lame lcd lirc vdpau x264 xvid (-altivec) -bluray
> > -crystalhd -debug -jack -perl -pulseaudio -python -vaapi"
> > INPUT_DEVICES="-joystick" VIDEO_CARDS="nvidia" 0 kB [1]
> >
> > No change to my woes. Next I tried using mythcommflag to rebuild the
> > seek tables, just to rule it out. No change.
> > I have yet to find a single transcoded recording that plays back 
> anymore.
> >
> > I switched audio to NULL and no change, so I can't quite see it as a AV
> > sync issue. Ideas anyone? This is driving me crazy.
> >
> > -J
> > ________