Has anyone ever seen a multichannel-audio icon for TV? (2 Viewers)

[CyberSimian]

when I woke up this morning my HTPC was completely dead.

I have traced this problem to the power supply. The existing one still works partly. There is a yellow LED on the motherboard that illuminates, and I tried the trick of unplugging the 24-pin connector and connecting the pin with the green cable to a pin with a black cable, which simulates "power on". The fans immediately started at full speed, and blew dust everywhere. But I guess that one or more of the low-voltage lines no longer works.

I happened to have a new power supply that I was intending to use for another project, so I have connected it temporarily, and the HTPC powers-up without problem. Unfortunately, I had removed the hard disks to copy some of the files elsewhere, and my capture disk seems to have developed the "click of death".

I looked on Ebay for replacement power supplies for the Dell XPS 420. There were several available from Germany for a very reasonable £300 each , plus one available from France for a more reasonable £66. But these are pre-loved units, and the power supply is one component that I think has a limited lifetime, so I will probably buy a new unit. The Dell power supply is near-enough compatible with standard ATX units for a standard one to fit.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[Owlsroost]

Re. the channel counts on recorded TV - I think the MP1 player(s) run Mediainfo on the files (when you play them) to find out their characteristics. Since TV recordings normally have pre-padding, effectively that means you get the audio channel count for the padding part, not the main part of the programme. In my experience, the audio in the adverts and continuity sections between programmes is normally stereo, so that's what gets displayed in MP (and the audio info isn't updated 'live' as it plays).

If you're interested, the TsReader.log does log audio channel counts dynamically - just search it for 'channels =' text.

 

[CyberSimian]

Since TV recordings normally have pre-padding, effectively that means you get the audio channel count for the padding part, not the main part of the programme.

It just occurred to me that when the MP client or TV Server generates the thumbnail for a recording or a video, MP allows the user to specify the offset from the start of the programme where the thumbnail is taken. Since I use one minute of pre-padding, and TV programmes in the UK often start one to two minutes late, I have this offset set to "5 minutes" (in "MP Config" or "TV Server Config" -- I cannot remember which). That usually ensures that the thumbnail is taken from the programme recorded, and not from a preceding advertisement or trailer for a forthcoming programme.

Would it not make sense to take the AV properties of the file from the same offset? For audio, these properties might be the audio encoding and the number of audio channels. For video, these properties might be the aspect ratio and colour/monochrome. All of these properties could vary from one programme to the next on the same channel. Perhaps MediaInfo allows an offset to be specified when determining the file's properties?

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[CyberSimian]

when I woke up this morning my HTPC was completely dead.

I am pleased to report that my HTPC is now working again.

I decided to continue using the new power supply that I already had, even though it does not fit in the BTX-standard case. It is a completely fanless power supply, and requires cooling by convection, but the BTX case would obstruct the ventilation grill in the top of the power supply. So I have placed the power supply on top of the case (most of the cables are long enough to reach the connectors inside the case).

Another piece of good news is that my capture disk does not have the click of death. I had connected two of the HTPC disks to a SATA-to-USB adapter, in order to copy some files elsewhere. The 5400rpm Western Digital Green drive worked fine, but the Seagate 7200rpm disk gave the click of death. I now realise that this was because the SATA-to-USB adapter cannot provide enough power to operate the Seagate disk correctly. Placed back in the HTPC, the capture disk works fine -- no error from CHKDSK, and typical values are shown for the SMART info.

On the other hand, my CD/DVD drive seems to have acquired an intermittent error. Randomly on power up (either a reboot or a wake from hibernation), the CD/DVD drive fails to respond to a query from the BIOS, and so the BIOS pauses and asks the user to press a key. Not very useful if the system was waking to perform an unattended recording. So I have disabled the CD/DVD drive in the BIOS, and will need to get a replacement.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[catavolt]

Stay tuned for the next episode of "Nightmare at testers HTPC" starring CyberSimian in the UK
But seriously: Great you managed to re-animate your HTPC to a state where it´s working again

 

[CyberSimian]

Since TV recordings normally have pre-padding, effectively that means you get the audio channel count for the padding part, not the main part of the programme.

So did you check if audio is multichannel with mediainfo?

What is shown in the media portal log for this channel?

This afternoon on "BBC2 HD" there was a movie made in 2014 with several big-name stars, so I thought that there was a good chance that it would be broadcast with multichannel audio (where "multi" means "bigger than two"). I scheduled a manual recording for 30 minutes, starting well after the movie had already begun. Also, BBC2 does not broadcast advertisements, so I was sure to record part of the movie, and not the pre-padding, programme trailers, or advertisements.

I checked my Sony TV, and it displayed "HE-AAC 3/2.1" for this movie. This is what "MediaInfo" shows for the recording in the MP log:

MediaInfoWrapper: Opening file : E:\Older TV\Test Files\Into the Woods (BBC2 HD) 2019-01-04 15.20.00.ts
MediaInfoWrapper: DLL Version      : MediaInfoLib - v0.7.95
MediaInfoWrapper: Inspecting media : E:\Older TV\Test Files\Into the Woods (BBC2 HD) 2019-01-04 15.20.00.ts
MediaInfoWrapper: Parse speed      : 0.3
MediaInfoWrapper: FrameRate        : 25
MediaInfoWrapper: Width            : 1920
MediaInfoWrapper: Height           : 1080
MediaInfoWrapper: AspectRatio      : widescreen
MediaInfoWrapper: VideoCodec       : AVC [ "avc.png" ]
MediaInfoWrapper: Scan type        : progressive
MediaInfoWrapper: IsInterlaced     : False
MediaInfoWrapper: VideoResolution  : 1080P
MediaInfoWrapper: VideoDuration    : 2157720
MediaInfoWrapper: AudioRate        : 48000
MediaInfoWrapper: AudioChannels    : 6 [ "5.1.png" ]
MediaInfoWrapper: AudioCodec       : AAC LC [ "aac lc.png" ]
MediaInfoWrapper: HasAudio         : True
MediaInfoWrapper: HasVideo         : True
MediaInfoWrapper: HasSubtitles     : True
MediaInfoWrapper: NumSubtitles     : 1
MediaInfoWrapper: Closing file : E:\Older TV\Test Files\Into the Woods (BBC2 HD) 2019-01-04 15.20.00.ts

You can see from this that the number of audio channels was indeed greather than two. I moved the recording to my "Videos" folder, and displayed it using my "ClassicWide" skin; this is what appeared:



So MP will display the appropriate multichannel audio icon (at least, in "Videos") if the circumstances are favourable. I suspect that the reason the multichannel icon is not usually seen for recorded TV is the reason suggested by @Owlsroost . "MediaInfo" needs to be pursuaded to look at a non-zero offset from the start of a recording in order to determine the properties of the file.

The "Recorded TV" panel does not show the media icons, so I don't know whether the relevant skin variable is defined there (would need to check). And of course for live TV it would be really useful for the audio-channels property to be defined as a continuously-updated skin variable so that the appropriate icon could be displayed in the OSD.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK