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Hauppauge WinTV HD PVR (H.264) screenshot

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#1 ·
Yes it has been delayed to May -June

 
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#1,381 ·
After much experimentation I was able to get a Blu Ray burned to a regular DVD.


Unfortunately, despite the fact that the video streams smooth on my PC...on the PS3...I get a really weird effect...the video stutters forward as if in FF...the audio is in sync with the FF video! But it is unwatchable.


When I watch the exact same clip on my old PC it plays smooth.


I tried different encoding rates...all stutter on the PS3.


So there is nothing wrong with the HDPVR created stream. It is the process of making a disk and playing back on the ps3 that is the problem.


If I could get the raw stream to play on the Ps3...this would be great. It just will not work!


I'll give it one more night of futzing with this...if I can't get video to play smooth on my Ps3...it is a no go.
 
#1,383 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by the_tom /forum/post/14160492


The cable operator supplies the top level of sw in the box - with a different cable co it might work.

Maybe, but I believe that's more of a firmware issue, and from what I know it comes from Motorola, so the core decoding may all be the same...possibly.


As I said though, it doesn't really effect me as I have all HD TiVos w/ Cable Cards. I was saying "sucks for him" more than anything. Sorry for the confusion. I hope others have better luck with their Moto HD STBs.


Another thing to try if indeed that is the case with them outputting DD 2.0 instead of LPCM. You could also try inputting the DD 2.0 optical signal into your HT receiver, then use the "optical out" connector (if it has one, typically for recording onto the old MiniDiscs or a COTS CD/DVD recorder) into the HD PVR. The receiver almost always converts the optical out connector's signal to 2CH LPCM for recording on those devices. I know many of the one's I had thru here do that.


Just a thought. It may delay the sound a tad though. Won't know til you try.
 
#1,384 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Star56 /forum/post/14160696


After much experimentation I was able to get a Blu Ray burned to a regular DVD.


Unfortunately, despite the fact that the video streams smooth on my PC...on the PS3...I get a really weird effect...the video stutters forward as if in FF...the audio is in sync with the FF video! But it is unwatchable.


When I watch the exact same clip on my old PC it plays smooth.


I tried different encoding rates...all stutter on the PS3.


So there is nothing wrong with the HDPVR created stream. It is the process of making a disk and playing back on the ps3 that is the problem.


If I could get the raw stream to play on the Ps3...this would be great. It just will not work!


I'll give it one more night of futzing with this...if I can't get video to play smooth on my Ps3...it is a no go.


The PS3 had a similar problem with 1080i mpeg2 earlier this year, but fixed it in a firmware update 2 or 3 months ago. Vid was a stuttering disaster - a test clip with a sweep hand actually showed on frame-by-frame playback that it would jump backwards every few frames, then leap ahead.


If you haven't updated your PS3 lately, I suggest try that before giving up.


BTW, the raw files will play video OK on PS3 if you change the extension to .m2t and burn on UDF 2.01. But there is no audio. Unrecognized PID I think.
 
#1,385 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Harper /forum/post/14160879


Maybe, but I believe that's more of a firmware issue, and from what I know it comes from Motorola, so the core decoding may all be the same...possibly. ...Another thing to try...

Motorola's manual for the DCT6200 says that it can output 2 channel PCM over spdif. The low-level menu - the one that is part of the box firmware - that I can access on the box only has video options enabled, not audio. The cable co top-level sw is the only thing that I can access to set audio output options. No matter what the underlying fw or hw can do, I can only set it to whatever Time Warner coded. Some other cable co might have coded differently. Clear enough?


As for playing loop-the-loop: not for me, I've got too much cabling going on anyway; and Haup have committed to 5.1 over the optical "in the next driver release".
 
#1,386 ·
I just got an interesting comment left on my blog post .


I've been messing with coreavc recently (which I liked enough to buy the pro version), and noticed I had some issues with seeking when capturing using rctvcap. Well as it turns out it was a GOP setting on the encoder filter. It seems by default "simple no IDR" is selected which caused seek problems for me. By switching it to "simple GOP" or "advanced GOP" (I'm using simple GOP right now since I don't know the difference) it fixed my coreavc problems and according to the comment also helped with editing.


Anyways, I've updated my blog post with a screenshot of the GOP settings tab and some more samples from food, espn, and discovery hd theater .


I've hooked my hd pvr into my custom pvr software so hopefully it all goes well. It's scheduled to record some food network stuff starting tomorrow. I hope this thing is reliable in a 24/7 environment.
 
#1,387 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by the_tom /forum/post/14160885


The PS3 had a similar problem with 1080i mpeg2 earlier this year, but fixed it in a firmware update 2 or 3 months ago. Vid was a stuttering disaster - a test clip with a sweep hand actually showed on frame-by-frame playback that it would jump backwards every few frames, then leap ahead.


If you haven't updated your PS3 lately, I suggest try that before giving up.


BTW, the raw files will play video OK on PS3 if you change the extension to .m2t and burn on UDF 2.01. But there is no audio. Unrecognized PID I think.

My PS3 is updated to the latest firmware. Like I said, the clip is fine played back on my old computer.


It sounds like anyone trying to play these clips on a PS3 are out of luck. Anyone here have any success?



EDIT: I can confirm the issue is the PS3. I burned a clip to BD folders on my hard drive. The BD folders playback flawlessly on my puter. SO the PS3 is not compatible with these files.
 
#1,388 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Star56 /forum/post/14161619


...

It sounds like anyone trying to play these clips on a PS3 are out of luck. Anyone here have any success? ...

That is just not correct. It is tricky but it is possible. I am paused right now at minute 80 of an 87 minute movie that I am playing back on my PS3. It has played flawlessly and looks better than the original on my cable. I have watched multiple movies this way. Processed as I described above. You are just wrong to say "anybody is out of luck". Although it seems clear you can say "I can't get it to work".


Are you using the "cutting room" on arcsoft? That causes re-encode, and the bit rates are deranged - way beyond red-laser rates on a BD player.
 
#1,389 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Star56 /forum/post/14161619


My PS3 is updated to the latest firmware. Like I said, the clip is fine played back on my old computer.


It sounds like anyone trying to play these clips on a PS3 are out of luck. Anyone here have any success?



EDIT: I can confirm the issue is the PS3. I burned a clip to BD folders on my hard drive. The BD folders playback flawlessly on my puter. SO the PS3 is not compatible with these files.

i've been following this post for weeks now and you are the first that i remember having a problem playing the files on their PS3. try making them in regular dvd format and see it u get the same result, if so then mabye it's during the burn process.
 
#1,390 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by ARogan /forum/post/14161353


I just got an interesting comment left on my blog post .


I've been messing with coreavc recently (which I liked enough to buy the pro version), and noticed I had some issues with seeking when capturing using rctvcap. Well as it turns out it was a GOP setting on the encoder filter. It seems by default "simple no IDR" is selected which caused seek problems for me. By switching it to "simple GOP" or "advanced GOP" (I'm using simple GOP right now since I don't know the difference) it fixed my coreavc problems and according to the comment also helped with editing.


Anyways, I've updated my blog post with a screenshot of the GOP settings tab and some more samples from food, espn, and discovery hd theater .


I've hooked my hd pvr into my custom pvr software so hopefully it all goes well. It's scheduled to record some food network stuff starting tomorrow. I hope this thing is reliable in a 24/7 environment.


Those settings are on a property page labeled "development test" or some such. That page is not displayed by the arcsoft capture app. We see it as an artifact of using a function that displays all property pages indiscriminately.


Early in my testing I fed an HDPVR TS to a program that said it preferred a file with IDR. I tried a capture with one of those test settings "with IDR" and the sw still said "no IDR in this file". I concluded from that that these supposed-to-be-hidden props were actually not "connected" in the shipping version of the driver.


Well, maybe some are connected after all (although the different results might be due to other factors instead). But it seems quite clear that they are not "released" or "supported" options.
 
#1,391 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by the_tom /forum/post/14161824


That is just not correct. It is tricky but it is possible. I am paused right now at minute 80 of an 87 minute movie that I am playing back on my PS3. It has played flawlessly and looks better than the original on my cable. I have watched multiple movies this way. Processed as I described above. You are just wrong to say "anybody is out of luck". Although it seems clear you can say "I can't get it to work".


Are you using the "cutting room" on arcsoft? That causes re-encode, and the bit rates are deranged - way beyond red-laser rates on a BD player.

If I understand correctly, your burning them to DVDs for playback. I still haven't had any luck with using the MP4 converter on long files (e.g 2 hours) and getting playback with a wired ethernet connection. The PS3 will play short 4-5 minute converted MP4 files with audio but says long files have corrupted data. The software updates posted today on the Hauppauge site appear to have a few updated files in them. I made a 1.5 hour and 1 hour capture from Discovery HD Theater tonight and will see what the PS3 does with them tomarrow.
 
#1,392 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by dsinger /forum/post/14161936


If I understand correctly, your burning them to DVDs for playback. I still haven't had any luck with using the MP4 converter on long files (e.g 2 hours) and getting playback with a wired ethernet connection. The PS3 will play short 4-5 minute converted MP4 files with audio but says long files have corrupted data. The software updates posted today on the Hauppauge site appear to have a few updated files in them. I made a 1.5 hour and 1 hour capture from Discovery HD Theater tonight and will see what the PS3 does with them tomarrow.

Mostly no, although I may burn the original TS in chunks on DVD5 for longer-term timeshifting. I find that at present the most convenient playback for longer content on PS3 is to use arcsoft "burn" to hard disk, rename the file with the actual content, and stream that from a media server. (The most convenient playback of all, of course, is the arcsoft player on the PC. Which works OK. And I use that pretty often. But playback on PS3 looks much better.)


I have done one full-length movie to DVD9 for PS3 playback, and several movies in chunks to DVD5, all in BD format created using arcsoft. But DVD9 are still too much more expensive than DVD5, and way too much worse in burn quality and reliability, to use for bulk/longer term storage, and making all those extra DVD5s is a PITA.


So far I have seen the MP4 Creator as a total writeoff. Good for 2 to 3 minute clips. Which is probably what they have been testing it on. So they think it works. When in fact it really doesn't, at all, at least on 1080i material. And I don't see a new version of it, just a driver that says it is the same version as it said yesterday, but with the date changed.
 
#1,393 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by the_tom /forum/post/14162083


Mostly no, although I do burn the original TS in chunks on DVD5 for archiving. I find that at present the most convenient playback for longer content on PS3 is to use arcsoft "burn" to hard disk, rename the file with the actual content, and stream that from a media server. (The most convenient playback of all, of course, is the arcsoft player on the PC. Which works OK. And I use that pretty often. But playback on PS3 looks much better.)


I have done one full-length movie to DVD9 for PS3 playback, and several movies in chunks to DVD5, all in BD format created using arcsoft. But DVD9 are still too much more expensive than DVD5, and way too much worse in burn quality and reliability, to use for bulk/longer term storage, and making all those extra DVD5s is a PITA.


So far I have seen the MP4 Creator as a total writeoff. Good for 2 to 3 minute clips. Which is probably what they have been testing it on. So they think it works. When in fact it really doesn't, at all, at least on 1080i material. And I don't see a new version of it, just a driver that says it is the same version as it said yesterday, but with the date changed.

SO...you use the Arcsoft software to make a regular DVDR+ or DVD+R DL with BD content. You pop it in the PS3...and it plays fine.


I am using the same work flow...no go. I've now tried three different burners. Like I said, the original clip is fine.


Will try again
 
#1,394 ·
I used the Arcsoft program to burn BD folder to HD. I then used Nero Burning Rom (2.50 UDF, Physical Partition) to burn to a DVD.


Still stutters away.
 
#1,395 ·
I converted the clip to Mp4 and the PS3 sees it and plays it back fine. The quality is just not adequate.


Has anyone been able to get a raw .ts file from the HDPVR to play on a PS3? If so...could you post your work flow/programs used to achieve this.


Thanks!
 
#1,396 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by KavMan /forum/post/14158273


My SA8300HD only has these 2 settings. Yes, try Other...

You were right. "Other" brought up 2 channel PCM audio over SPDIF. Thanks!


I'm finding that recording a 480p F1 race broadcast looks quite bad until I bump the encoding rate to 3.0Mb. Lots of noise until that point, but I'm now left with 5 minute records that are 150Mb in size.


Would recording an interlaced stream result in a smaller file size than a progressive one? Jeez, I hope that I can shrink this size so that I can fit it on a DVD.


Thanks for the help.
 
#1,397 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by the_tom /forum/post/14160906


........Clear enough?

Always is and always was dude. I was mostly trying to help others that may need/want a possible solution for now. I didn't disagree with you, hence the words "maybe", "possibly" and "may".


Sorry to piss in your Wheaties man, geez
 
#1,398 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Star56 /forum/post/14162308


I used the Arcsoft program to burn BD folder to HD. I then used Nero Burning Rom (2.50 UDF, Physical Partition) to burn to a DVD.


Still stutters away.

What video card are you using? I have an ATI 3850 on my HTPC and ts files stutter like crazy (using PDVD7 and TMT), but on my office PC with nVidia 8800GTX the playback is perfect. However, once I use the Arcsoft app to create BD folders of the video, create iso and try playback, both the HTPC and office PC play the video perfectly.
 
#1,399 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by the_tom /forum/post/14162083


Mostly no, although I do burn the original TS in chunks on DVD5 for archiving. I find that at present the most convenient playback for longer content on PS3 is to use arcsoft "burn" to hard disk, rename the file with the actual content, and stream that from a media server. (The most convenient playback of all, of course, is the arcsoft player on the PC. Which works OK. And I use that pretty often. But playback on PS3 looks much better.)


I have done one full-length movie to DVD9 for PS3 playback, and several movies in chunks to DVD5, all in BD format created using arcsoft. But DVD9 are still too much more expensive than DVD5, and way too much worse in burn quality and reliability, to use for bulk/longer term storage, and making all those extra DVD5s is a PITA.


So far I have seen the MP4 Creator as a total writeoff. Good for 2 to 3 minute clips. Which is probably what they have been testing it on. So they think it works. When in fact it really doesn't, at all, at least on 1080i material. And I don't see a new version of it, just a driver that says it is the same version as it said yesterday, but with the date changed.

I hope you are wrong about the driver being the same with a different date. Haven't tried last nights captures yet. With regard to using Arcsoft to burn to HD, how long is that taking? I tried it with a 2.5 hour movie (14 GB/1080i), that as I remember, I had converted to MP4 to obtain audio. 5 hours and 13 minutes later Arcsoft said it was 42% done!!!! I canceled at that point. That would be an acceptable solution if it were relatively fast but ~12 hours per movie is BS.


Regarding the MP4 short captures working and long not, I sent a Hauppauge Tech Support person (Jerry Fox) I had delt with an email Sunday night describing the problem and suggesting they monitor this thread. No response as expected. If others did the same perhaps we would get a fix faster.
 
#1,400 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Star56 /forum/post/14162852


I converted the clip to Mp4 and the PS3 sees it and plays it back fine. The quality is just not adequate.


Has anyone been able to get a raw .ts file from the HDPVR to play on a PS3? If so...could you post your work flow/programs used to achieve this.


Thanks!

As mentioned above, I can also get short MP4 clips to work on the PS3. In my case the quality was excellant. I captured the HDNet resolution test patterns (~ 4minutes) on DVR. The ts capture to MP4 at 13.5 mbps played back by wired ethernet using TVersity was essentially identical to the DVR capture doing an A vs. B comparison. With regard to the ts files, they all play back with no problems using the same setup including the 2.5 hour-14Gb movie. No audio however but this was expected.
 
#1,401 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by dsinger /forum/post/14163374


I hope you are wrong about the driver being the same with a different date.

A couple of days ago the support page tab for driver said it was rev 1.0B and said its date was May 24. As of yesterday the only change on the page was the date. I happened to have a browser tab with the old version of the page open - see screen snaps. I didn't d/l the "early" 1.0B as I read people were having problems, so I can't compare the contents. But my bet is they just noticed the text on the page was wrong

Quote:
With regard to using Arcsoft to burn to HD, how long is that taking? I tried it with a 2.5 hour movie (14 GB/1080i), that as I remember, I had converted to MP4 to obtain audio. 5 hours and 13 minutes later Arcsoft said it was 42% done!!!! I canceled at that point.

When it's working right it runs at a significant fraction of disk speed - it "burns" to HD at around 1GB per minute on my system. So no need to wait 5 hours. If you don't see it ticking right along, it's re-encoding. When it re-encodes, IME, it always makes garbage. For one thing, its vid bit rate is unconstrained and swings wildly from a few hundred K to more than 35Mbps. You have no hope of playing that in a BR player from a red laser disc - they don't spin the disc fast enough. [Edit: it might stream OK, but I have no interest in waiting it out either.]


With one possible exception that I couldn't pin down, I found Arcsoft {EDIT: meaning TotalMediaStudio} to re-encode if and only if I used the "cutting room". If you use the cutting room, you might as well be checking an option box labeled "turn my vid into crap".


 
#1,402 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by Star56 /forum/post/14162308


I used the Arcsoft program to burn BD folder to HD. I then used Nero Burning Rom (2.50 UDF, Physical Partition) to burn to a DVD.


Still stutters away.

Bummer.


Have you hit the Display button on your PS3 remote and watched the bit rate on some of your problem vids for a while? The worst stuttering programs I saw when I was trying HDPVR output on DVD5 on PS3 were ones that were re-encoded by arcsoft and had data rate spikes of over 35Mbps. Surely a red laser won't spin that fast in a PS3.


[Or maybe (pure speculation here!) Nero is producing a bad physical layout that is making the PS3 seek around too much? I've been using ImgBurn...]
 
#1,403 ·

Quote:
Originally Posted by the_tom /forum/post/14163986


A couple of days ago the support page tab for driver said it was rev 1.0B and said its date was May 24. As of yesterday the only change on the page was the date. I happened to have a browser tab with the old version of the page open - see screen snaps. I didn't d/l the "early" 1.0B as I read people were having problems, so I can't compare the contents. But my bet is they just noticed the text on the page was wrong




When it's working right it runs at a significant fraction of disk speed - it "burns" to HD at around 1GB per minute on my system. So no need to wait 5 hours. If you don't see it ticking right along, it's re-encoding. When it re-encodes, IME, it always makes garbage. For one thing, its vid bit rate is unconstrained and swings wildly from a few hundred K to more than 35Mbps. You have no hope of playing that in a BR player from a red laser disc - they don't spin the disc fast enough. [Edit: it might stream OK, but I have no interest in waiting it out either.]


With one possible exception that I couldn't pin down, I found Arcsoft to re-encode if and only if I used the "cutting room". If you use the cutting room, you might as well be checking an option box labeled "turn my vid into crap".

I also have the original software. Comparing both 1.0B and the MP4 1.1 I found 1 or 2 files that had creation dates on 6/13. I installed both which may have been a mistake given that I currently have a screen freeze on a 2 hour moivie I am trying to capture. Funny thing is the audio is playing with no problem and is insync with what is on my TV if I actually watch the movie there. Have to see what the ts capture looks like. Before upgrading my video card, the old one would only produce a frozen mess on the PC screen for 1080i but the capture was good.


When Arcsoft was taking forever, I didn't alter the input in any way other than the MP4 conversion. I do remember going into the settings and finding that 10 mbps was the maximum bitrate it would support which I found disappointing. What settings do you use to get 1 GB per minute transfer to a hard drive?? I would be very happy with that. Do you start with ts or do the MP4 conversion first etc. Thanks for your comments.
 
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