GEOSATpro HD DVR Recording Playback Problem

[WRBreland]

Did a two hour recording of a HD show (from PBS) via the microHD then played it back using the DVR function. At most every file change there was a aberration in the video (freeze frame, jump frame, etc.) and it would cause a momentary mute on the audio processor. Anyone else experience this?

Does anyone know if the file size of a recording can be changed? Could not find this addressed in the manual. The microHD records about 1GB per file, I would prefer at least 10GB per file.

 

[SatelliteAV]

What type of drive? Format type? USB powered or external power supply?

File size is set in the firmware and is not an user setting.

 

[primestar31]

Did a two hour recording of a HD show (from PBS) via the microHD then played it back using the DVR function. At most every file change there was a aberration in the video (freeze frame, jump frame, etc.) and it would cause a momentary mute on the audio processor. Anyone else experience this?

Does anyone know if the file size of a recording can be changed? Could not find this addressed in the manual. The microHD records about 1GB per file, I would prefer at least 10GB per file.

You need to format that drive as NTFS. Sounds like it's formatted FAT right now, and that has a maximum file size limitation, so will create many smaller files linked together... It also sounds like whatever drive you are using, is too slow, so you see the file hand-offs and they cause issues for you.

 

[Mr Tony]

yeah it sounds like its set to FAT32....I have a few programs on my drive that are almost 55GB (HD feed from a college football game) and if I plug the drive into the computer it shows a bunch of 4GB files when hooked to the Micro its one giant file that plays smoothly

 

[WRBreland]

Drive is 3-½" 160GB WD, NTFS formatted with 32 KB cluster size, fragmentation = 0%. In a Venus DS3 USB enclosure with external power supply.

Drive has been used many times with a MIT MDP-130 ATSC tuner card playing back HD captures from various OTA stations and it has never had problems playing sequential TS files. The 130 is MPEG-2 only therefore can not play the microHD MPEG-4 files.

Plan on procuring a Popcorn Hour A-400, don’t know if it will play sequential TS files or not. My Panasonic DMP-BDT220 Blu-ray player will play the MPEG-4 files but it will not play them in sequence. That is one of the reasons I would prefer much larger file sizes for the microHD.

 

[WRBreland]

My work place before I retired.

 

[AcWxRadar]

My work place before I retired.

Very nice WR! My nephew leases a retired MW repeater tower for his HAM radio club, similar to the one in your pix.
It is a lot of fun to "play" there, but I won't climb it! Too high for me!

RADAR

 

[Larry1]

My Panasonic DMP-BDT220 Blu-ray player will play the MPEG-4 files but it will not play them in sequence.

You can try to binary copy the files into one large file to see if your Panasonic Blu-ray will play it smoothly. Not sure if it will work with MPEG-4 files, but does work with MPEG-2 recordings that I have. The command is:
copy /b 000.ts+001.ts+002.ts+003.ts output.ts
This would tell if the problem is missing pieces when the recording splits the file, or problems in playback switching to the next chunk.

 

[Larry1]

I have tried this on my MPEG-2 recordings and have 4 corrupted video frames at the join point as well.

 

[WRBreland]

You can try to binary copy the files into one large file to see if your Panasonic Blu-ray will play it smoothly.

I have some recordings scheduled for tonight. Tomorrow I will use the copy cmd to create one file and see how that works out. Thanks for the copy function reminder.

I will build another HTPC soon and will install my TBS8922 card into that computer. If all goes well the TBS8922 + TSReader will be used for most all satellite recordings. I like using the HTPC for this because I can wake it up, schedule my recordings, transfer previous recordings to the NAS, put back in standby, etc. all from the office PC eliminating the need to go into the media room. And I don’t have to be concerned about the clock being correct.

 

[WRBreland]

You can try to binary copy the files into one large file to see if your Panasonic Blu-ray will play it smoothly.

Tried the Copy cmd with the /B switch and copied multiple files to a single file and tried to play it via the Panasonic Blu-ray player via my Synology NAS server. The file would not play. Did not try the Copy cmd without the /B because I downloaded a Freeware utility by IgorWare called File Joiner available here.

Real easy to use, I just selected the multiple .TS files in Windows Explorer and dragged them to File Joiner, selected a Destination and clicked Join. These files did play via the method above. Only viewed a few minutes so I have not confirmed if there is or is not a problem at the join point.

 

[WRBreland]

Have watched 2 hours worth of content recorded via AMC-21, TP24. The playback was from a Panasonic Blu-ray player from files stored on a Synology DS212j NAS. The signal level & quality were ? 90%. The 1 hour show files were joined using File Joiner. There were some video aberrations, I know a couple were not at the file join points. There were no audio aberrations. So it appears the microHD media player has problems playing back its own recording as noted earlier.

Below is the results from a TSReader analysis of the 1 hour show. There were 19 continuity errors, the next 1 hour show was the same except it had 17 continuity errors.

Event Information Table
MPEG-2 Statistics

Table	Sections Processed	CRC Errors
PAT	35.5k	0
CAT	0	0
PMT	35.4k	0
NIT	532	0
SDT	5.6k	0
EIT	0	0

Continuity errors: 19
TEI errors: 0
Calculated multiplex rate: 13388012 bps

A TSReader analysis of the 1 hour show 6 individual files showed NO errors. So there is a problem in joining the files together.

 

[Larry1]

And just to make it clear, this aberration does happen when the original recorded programs (with no modifications) are played back on the microHD. It is happening at the point where the recordings are split into separate files.
With my recordings, I am using a USB flash memory stick. (tried multiple sticks) Timeshift is set to OFF, PS Record is set to OFF and the USB stick is NTFS formated. (formatted on the microHD)
Brian, have you tried any recordings to see if you can reproduce this?

 

[SatelliteAV]

Brian, have you tried any recordings to see if you can reproduce this?

We usually follow up on problem reports reported and confirmed by multiple users. As no one else has confirmed or mentioned similar issues in this or other threads, we haven't placed a high priority on testing this report.

I use the microHD DVR recording playback for two 3 hour network blocks on a daily basis and have watched many hours of microHD DVR recordings over the past year. I have not noted any abnormal playback issues, but my viewing is not critical analysis. This does not mean that file recording or joining errors do not exist, but nothing stands out as an issue with the DVR joining of the multiple file playout.

Any other user reports?

In post #14 report, how many files made up the 1 hour recording?

 

[Larry1]

Now that I have gone through some more files I have found that the abberation did happen on the first two programs I recordered when played back on the microHD. (but have since deleted the source files as this appeared as it would be a common issue with all recordings) The microHD has played back the next batch of files I have recorded with no noticable issues. These files however, if transfered to a PC do show a frame or two corrupted when joined together and played on the PC. I speculate then that I may not be joining the files together properly for the format they are recorded in, or the microHD codec handles any abberations in the stream much better. Could it just of been some poor luck in the join point aligning with a glitch in the satellite signal? Just maybe as there has been some weather around that time.

 

[kukubird]

I wrote about this in September in a DVR-External-Viewing thread, post #2962771.

I suspect it is an end of file/next file codec or file structure issue.

 

[WRBreland]

In post #14 report, how many files made up the 1 hour recording?

#14 is your post!!

If intended for me: 6 files.

 

[SatelliteAV]

I wrote about this in September in a DVR-External-Viewing thread, post #2962771.

I suspect it is an end of file/next file codec or file structure issue.

Sorry, missed a post three months ago... LOL!

 

[SatelliteAV]

#14 is your post!!

If intended for me: 6 files.

Sorry, post #12. Thanks!

 

[Larry1]

The video corruption from one sample, was caused by an overlap of packets from the first file in the second file. Dan from VideoReDo looked at a sample I uploaded there and he found:
"I see the problem. There is an overlap between the two files. There are 256 packets, or 48128 bytes, that are at both the end of the first file and the beginning of the second file. This is what's causing the glitch. If I manually remove those bytes in my hex editor and then combine the files the transition is perfect. Not sure how to deal with that."
This is from one sample only, so the number of repeated packets might not always be 256 or 48128 bytes.