Some problems with HD

[oncewaslost]

I have been trying to resolve this problem for some time now. The problem is with the abc HD feed. 70% of the time, I get a black screen and very choppy audio. 30% of the time it works fine. I have tuned several other HD feeds and have not had this problem with any other.

I have a skystar2 V2.6 and using dvbdream. When I have the problem, if I look at the "Analysis->pid statistics" all pid's have constantly increasing values under the "con. err" column, which I assume to be continuity errors. When it does work correctly, this column is all 0's.

Depending on the time of day, my signal quality ranges from 85-95% on this transponder. I have plenty of horsepower, very low cpu useage. If I go renderless, the "con. err." continue, which leads me to believe it is not codec related.

Has anyone experienced a similar problem?

 

[brentb636]

Which ABC feed is it ( what bird ? ) I'm practicing with my new Genpix box, and I'll check it out for you, see what it looks like for me.

 

[Mr Tony]

last I checked, ABC HD is on G16 C-band

 

[Anole]

What dish and how big?
What is your LNB?
What is the FEC for this feed and for others that always work okay?

Have you tried drifting the dish east or west a bit to see if you are getting interference from an adjacent bird??

 

[oncewaslost]

Which ABC feed is it ( what bird ? ) I'm practicing with my new Genpix box, and I'll check it out for you, see what it looks like for me.

last I checked, ABC HD is on G16 C-band

Correct. G16 C-band

What dish and how big?
What is your LNB?
What is the FEC for this feed and for others that always work okay?

Have you tried drifting the dish east or west a bit to see if you are getting interference from an adjacent bird??

7.5' Unimesh dish

New Glorystar dual c-band lnbf (just replaced old chaparral corotor. Had problem with it too)

Well, I have never really payed attention to the FEC. Didn't even know what it was until some recent posts. I will check. I have tuned many other HD channels. CBS, PBS, Outdoor Channel, Sports feeds etc.

I have worked the dish east & west and it didn't help. However, I don't know if I could tell if there was a strong adjacent channel while watching the feed. Maybe I should do this while viewing the analog. I didn't see anything listed on lyngsat that was obvious.

One other note, I have never watched this channel for more than thirty minutes, but if it comes in ok when I tune to it, it dosn't fade out. If It won't come in when I first tune to it, It won't ever come in.

 

[voomvoom]

A different lnb can cause the receiver to read different numbers. Even if it's off a few numbers, it could be enough to not work. Maybe you need to try a new blind scan? If you already have, maybe you should delete the old numbers (remember to write down the old ones you have though) and try again? If the Skystar2 doesn't do blind scan, try changing the numbers around and see if it will bring it in? These are ideas, maybe it will help? Good Luck!

Al

 

[oncewaslost]

It rained all last night. My signal quality dropped from the normal 85-95% to 75%.
Strange thing is, it worked every time I tried it last night. Maybe because a signal from adjacent sat was also lower?

I set to record Lost on the west coast broadcast but I didn't get a chance to see if I got a good recording before I had to leave for work this morning.

 

[iammike]

If this is the ABC feed I think it is, the bit rate is very high. Something along the lines of 35 or 40 Mbit. You probably can't receive it well if other things are running on your PC at the same time. I'd also look at disk fragmentation. If your disk is too fragmented it might not be able to keep up with the data rate.

 

[oncewaslost]

If this is the ABC feed I think it is, the bit rate is very high. Something along the lines of 35 or 40 Mbit. You probably can't receive it well if other things are running on your PC at the same time. I'd also look at disk fragmentation. If your disk is too fragmented it might not be able to keep up with the data rate.

Well, it may me related to the bit rate.

However, I am using an X2 4600. The cpu usage is very low even on this channel. Less than 10%. Fragmentation shouldn't be a problem. I have two hard drives. One dedicated to the OS/programs and the other dedicated to recordings. There are only three applications plus codecs installed. When the problem occures, I am only running DvbDream. The problem has occured even when they have the blue test screen up with the "left ,right, center" audio going on.

But I know you are right about the high bit rate. I remember checking it with TSreader light once before.

 

[oncewaslost]

Wow,

That one hour recording of Lost is 17GB!
It looks good but no better than any other HD program I have watched. I wonder why the bit rate is so high?

 

[Anole]

What are you viewing it on?
Computer screen? What size?
Hi Def TV? What is the actual screen resolution?


I have a Syntax 42" LCD, with a native panel resolution of 1366x768 (I think)
On local OTA broadcasts, I don't usually see much difference between 720p and 1080i

Sometimes it's the source material.
Have even seen some good 480 digital shows, aired live from a local studio, that'd blow you away!

 

[RVD420]

SD video with a high bitrate looks pretty damn good.

I have seen some FTA that blows away anything you get on a pizza pan dish.

 

[oncewaslost]

What are you viewing it on?
Computer screen? What size?
Hi Def TV? What is the actual screen resolution?


I have a Syntax 42" LCD, with a native panel resolution of 1366x768 (I think)
On local OTA broadcasts, I don't usually see much difference between 720p and 1080i

Sometimes it's the source material.
Have even seen some good 480 digital shows, aired live from a local studio, that'd blow you away!

I use a 52" wide screen Hitachi. I can't remember what the native resolution is. It does good at both 720p and 1080i. It dosn't have any of the overscan problems. The abc HD feed is 720p. I have the computer set up to send it to the TV @ 1080i. Most of the stuff that I record is in 1080i. My video card has the Nvidia 7900GS chipset. I also use a MYHD MDP-130. I actually like displaying from it better, but I can't record and watch from it at the same time.

 

[scottc98]

I also use a MYHD MDP-130. I actually like displaying from it better, but I can't record and watch from it at the same time.

I have a MDP-100 that I love to use for watching but can't do for live TV. If only there was a way to create a filter to use the MDP-100 (or 120/130) as the end device. Basically, use the MYHD card as a stream player like you would do with VLC. I always use DVBdream and i tried turning on the timeshift function and opening the ts file with the MYHD card, but it failes. I wonder if the prog can change the way the timeshift files are written (i.e multiple files) then you should be able to play the file in MYHD (with a slight live delay)

EX: DVBdream writes one file (timeshift.ts) with a max buffer (say 1000Mb for example purpose only) and it continues to write over its self in a loop. Hence backing up a certain timefirame (like a normal Tivo). If DVBdream (or any other DVB prog for that matter) can write multiple files (i.e. timeshift.ts, timeshift001.ts, timeshift002.ts, etc) and then you can start watching via MYHD once timeshift.ts is done. So, if the prog writes a new ts file every 100mb, then it should hit timeshift010.ts before going back to timeshift.ts to start over. If the MYHD card always stayed ahead, then it theoretically should be able to be played continually.

Other way would be if there is a way to create a directshow filter using MDP-100 as the output or if there is someway for the card to play a network stream.

With MYHD being the only (or few) hardware decoded HD cards, its just perfect for a low end pc.

On another subject, I am suprised that there has been no research on using the old Dish 5000 modulator as a output source the same way that the 8psk modulator is used as a input source. It wouldn't (or shouldn't) require a high end pc since the modulator would be doing all the work. In addition, you could combine it with your OTA and split it off to any HDTV you have with a ATSC tuner. How cool would that be....dedicate a low end pc and add a HD sports feed or a permenant HD DVB channel and watch it on any HDTV in the house.

 

[oncewaslost]

I have a MDP-100 that I love to use for watching but can't do for live TV. If only there was a way to create a filter to use the MDP-100 (or 120/130) as the end device. Basically, use the MYHD card as a stream player like you would do with VLC. I always use DVBdream and i tried turning on the timeshift function and opening the ts file with the MYHD card, but it failes. I wonder if the prog can change the way the timeshift files are written (i.e multiple files) then you should be able to play the file in MYHD (with a slight live delay)

EX: DVBdream writes one file (timeshift.ts) with a max buffer (say 1000Mb for example purpose only) and it continues to write over its self in a loop. Hence backing up a certain timefirame (like a normal Tivo). If DVBdream (or any other DVB prog for that matter) can write multiple files (i.e. timeshift.ts, timeshift001.ts, timeshift002.ts, etc) and then you can start watching via MYHD once timeshift.ts is done. So, if the prog writes a new ts file every 100mb, then it should hit timeshift010.ts before going back to timeshift.ts to start over. If the MYHD card always stayed ahead, then it theoretically should be able to be played continually.

Other way would be if there is a way to create a directshow filter using MDP-100 as the output or if there is someway for the card to play a network stream.

With MYHD being the only (or few) hardware decoded HD cards, its just perfect for a low end pc.

I was using the MDP-130 to play everything back, including local ATSC HD and dvb recorded SD & HD. It was ALWAYS recording when I wanted to watch something. So I purchased a higher end video card (Nvidia 9800GS) and started using Media Player Classic to play back files. After a month of this, I think I will now purchase an inexpensive ATSC tuner card to record locals and go back to viewing everything on the MDP-130.

I never tried using the MYHD to view time shifted video from dvbdream. I did however start a recording with dvbdream and then open and watch it with the MYHD while it was still recording on the dvb.

 

[scottc98]

I never tried using the MYHD to view time shifted video from dvbdream. I did however start a recording with dvbdream and then open and watch it with the MYHD while it was still recording on the dvb.

That works???? I never tried that. I always thought that the recording had to done before you could watch via MYHD.
If it does, then you could set the dvb prog to renderless mode, start recording, and watch on MYHD. All on a low end PC too I think that the biggest issue would be to remember to turn off the recording and ensuring that you had plenty of hard drive space in case you are watching for hours. If the avg HD hour is 8gigs, then a nice 160+ gig drive dedicated to this would be plenty for a days viewing. Maybe a time recording for the DVB prog to turn on and off at the right time and writing a batch file to delete the files on the Hard drive at a specific time during the night.

How did the setup work when you changed channels? Does it stop recording? Or did it freeze MYHD?

 

[oncewaslost]

That works???? I never tried that. I always thought that the recording had to done before you could watch via MYHD.
If it does, then you could set the dvb prog to renderless mode, start recording, and watch on MYHD. All on a low end PC too I think that the biggest issue would be to remember to turn off the recording and ensuring that you had plenty of hard drive space in case you are watching for hours. If the avg HD hour is 8gigs, then a nice 160+ gig drive dedicated to this would be plenty for a days viewing. Maybe a time recording for the DVB prog to turn on and off at the right time and writing a batch file to delete the files on the Hard drive at a specific time during the night.

How did the setup work when you changed channels? Does it stop recording? Or did it freeze MYHD?

I only tried it to see if I could do it. If i remember correctly, it would work as long as you were recording as tp and not mpg. I never tried changing channels, but I did hit the skip forward button until I caught up with the recording. All it did was pause long enough for the recording to get ahead a few seconds and then kept going.

This is what I would expect to happen if you changed channels. Dvbdream would immediately tell you that it is going to stop recording if you continue to change channels. And the MyHD would do whatever you have it set up to do when it got to the end of the recording.

 

[oncewaslost]

By the way, you mentioned exactly what I was doing on a PIII 866Mhz w/512MB. I was recording renderless while I was watching with the MYHD. If I hadn't decided I needed to record multiple pid's at the same time, I would probably still be using that PIII 866Mhz.

 

[oncewaslost]

OK Scott,

I went back through my notes to confirm that I was able to chase play a recording from dvbdream with HYHD. It dosn't work on the rig I am running now. On this reg, MYHD will open the file and appear to be playing it , but has a black screen and no audio.

If you want some specifics on the rig it did work, on let me know.