Stuttering on LiveTV (5 Viewers)

[psykoman]

Tried this experimental setting. But nothing changed. It was strange, it worked well for me a week after installing RC3. Suddenly the stuttering appeared (watching only SD channels). Using TV option since RC3, never tested with previous RC.

The tsreader change made no difference to my stuttering on some SD channels either. That makes sense to me since the modification only to allows corrupted data to be passed through to the video decoder. Since recording the channel or timeshifting the channel plays back perfectly for me, it is obvious there is no data corruption. So this is not likely to help you either.

No one seems to know what is causing this type of stuttering. This other new thread may provide a clue. The description of the problem on this thread sounds identical to my problem with some SD channels exhibiting stutter and some not, and no HD channels.

A solution was found by changing the audio decoder from MPA to MS MPEG-1/DD. I tried various audio decoders some time ago and it didn't help me, but my situation is different in that our digital TV in New Zealand uses the AAC+ codec for audio, and I've only got one to choose from which is the MonoGram AAC Decoder. But it sounds like it may be related to audio codecs.

Ross.

Ok. I've tried every other codec but MS MPEG-1/DD for audio. Big stutter is gone, now and there there is a _slight_ stutter. Nevertheless the problem should be found.

Maybe it was the same problem that has driven me crazy when I setup Vista and MP. TV didn't start or hang up during live view – until I found out it was the audio codec. AC3Filter, ffdshow, Cyberlink every time the same. Until I installed MPA (didn't install it with MP because I wanted to use AC3Filter) and used it until today –*with stutter!

Thx for the hint!

Ok I have to quote myself... the stuters are back?!?!?!?!? I have absolutely no idea whats going on. When I posted the last post, I watched for an hour and no stuttering occured. Today my girlfriend told me that TV is stuttering again –*indeed it does. (checking with every audio codec on my sys available: Cyberlink PDVD8, ffdshow, MPA, MS PEG-1/DD) Nevertheless stutter-behaviour is best with MS MPEG-1/DD.

Since I bought some RAM yesterday, I added a RAM disk for timeshift. No change.

Was watching and checking for two hours now, the stutter doesn't occur on every channel. On some it appears more often, on some one time in about 15 minutes.

Then I was thinking, hey the last days was nice weather here, but today it's cloudy and rainy. So I got my receiver from the bed room. Nevertheless signal quality is fine with my receiver, no stutter at all. At the moment I'm rescanning channels in MP TV Server, on some I get a "no signal" (is there a signal one every transponder on Astra 19.2° ? ) but most of them show a high level and signal quality.

I think I've followed every hint in this forum, but can't remove those stutters now.

 

[EViS]

Must say I've got this since updating to RC3 from RC1, the latter only had problems with one channel, RC3 has problems with most...

I've tried the TSReader with the 'RelaxTsReaderForBadReception.txt' command, no change...

Plenty of discontinuity errors in TSReader.log:

07-11-2008 22:30:12.921 [fc]aud:set discontinuity
07-11-2008 22:30:13.796 [4dc]Video Continuity error... 9 ( prev 7 )
07-11-2008 22:30:13.796 [4dc]Audio Continuity error... 2 ( prev 0 )
07-11-2008 22:30:13.843 [fc]aud:set discontinuity
07-11-2008 22:30:13.937 [4dc]vid:set discontinuity
07-11-2008 22:30:14.140 [fc]Audio Continuity error... 4 ( prev 2 )
07-11-2008 22:30:14.203 [fc]aud:set discontinuity
07-11-2008 22:30:14.453 [fc]Video Continuity error... 7 ( prev 5 )
07-11-2008 22:30:14.453 [fc]Video Continuity error... d ( prev 6 )
07-11-2008 22:30:14.562 [fc]Video Continuity error... a ( prev 5 )
07-11-2008 22:30:14.609 [fc]Video Continuity error... 0 ( prev c )
07-11-2008 22:30:14.656 [fc]Audio Continuity error... f ( prev c )
07-11-2008 22:30:14.656 [fc]aud:set discontinuity
07-11-2008 22:30:14.968 [4dc]vid:set discontinuity
07-11-2008 22:30:15.125 [fc]Video Continuity error... 7 ( prev 0 )
07-11-2008 22:30:15.546 [4dc]vid:set discontinuity
07-11-2008 22:30:15.562 [4dc]vid:set discontinuity
07-11-2008 22:30:15.562 [4dc]vid:set discontinuity
07-11-2008 22:30:15.625 [fc]Video Continuity error... c ( prev 9 )
07-11-2008 22:30:15.625 [fc]Audio Continuity error... 7 ( prev 5 )
07-11-2008 22:30:15.687 [fc]aud:set discontinuity
07-11-2008 22:30:16.296 [4dc]vid:set discontinuity
07-11-2008 22:30:16.656 [fc]Audio Continuity error... d ( prev b )
07-11-2008 22:30:16.703 [fc]aud:set discontinuity
07-11-2008 22:30:17.359 [fc]Video Continuity error... c ( prev 6 )
07-11-2008 22:30:17.359 [4dc]vid:set discontinuity

 

[psykoman]

Must say I've got this since updating to RC3 from RC1, the latter only had problems with one channel, RC3 has problems with most...

I've tried the TSReader with the 'RelaxTsReaderForBadReception.txt' command, no change...

In the German forum also exits a thread about stuttering, the thread was created in October and is titled with "Stutter since RC3". Posting and pages go on and on, based on different people and setups. So there must be a bug in RC3.

Same discontinuity errors here…

 

[tourettes]

Must say I've got this since updating to RC3 from RC1, the latter only had problems with one channel, RC3 has problems with most...

I've tried the TSReader with the 'RelaxTsReaderForBadReception.txt' command, no change...

Try different MPEG2 codec as at least Nvidia MPEG2 codec is dropping always the bad frames.

Plenty of discontinuity errors in TSReader.log:

As usualy either HW or signal issue.

 

[EViS]

Must say I've got this since updating to RC3 from RC1, the latter only had problems with one channel, RC3 has problems with most...

I've tried the TSReader with the 'RelaxTsReaderForBadReception.txt' command, no change...

Try different MPEG2 codec as at least Nvidia MPEG2 codec is dropping always the bad frames.

Sorry it did drop the frames with the PDVD8 codec.

Plenty of discontinuity errors in TSReader.log:

As usualy either HW or signal issue.

Well this is quite untrue. As turning the TV ON/OFF a couple of times (sometimes once is enough) on the same channel within MediaPortal tends to fix the stutter. RC1 never had this problem other than on only 1 FTA channel...

 

[jonesdb]

Plenty of discontinuity errors in TSReader.log:

As usualy either HW or signal issue.

Well this is quite untrue. As turning the TV ON/OFF a couple of times (sometimes once is enough) on the same channel within MediaPortal tends to fix the stutter. RC1 never had this problem other than on only 1 FTA channel...[/QUOTE]

I'm inclined to agree that it is not necessarily hardware/signal though I can't prove it at this point. Hardware or signal would of course be the first place to look for continuity errors, but not necessarily stutter. I have a Sony DVR that doesn't show the same issues as MP when recording the same channel as MP, but of course it is different hardware even if it is the same signal (QAM cable). The Sony box may also do some masking of image problems. I don't know as I can only know the presented result. It would be nice to look at the constellation of the cable signal so as to eliminate signal issues, but sadly I don't have access to that test equipment. Watching closely for motion artifacts (speed up and slow down of motion frame to frame) I see more problems when the C:\RelaxTsReaderForBadReception.txt file is present than when it is not (pixilation aside). Logically, this would indicate that the presence of the file is unmasking some of the issues that are other wise being covered up. The frame rendering speed up and slow down I see (about a 1 second cycle rate) is slight (but annoying once you've noticed it) and doesn't always result in stuttering, just distortion of linear movement. I can't be sure whether it is related to discontinuity errors or not, but I am looking for a way to isolate that. I doubt that discontinuity errors would result in stuttering unless they were massive an in large groups. Not the sort of thing I'm seeing or logging.
To help isolate the issue, I'm looking for a way to log the actual frame rendering time vs. the PTS or PCR since I suspect that the motion distortion I see (a hunting for proper timing) will likely result in dropped or repeated frames if it gets too far out of sync. Thus, an apparent stutter would result.
Does anyone know of a software tool to do this type of logging?

 

[psykoman]

Must say I've got this since updating to RC3 from RC1, the latter only had problems with one channel, RC3 has problems with most...

I've tried the TSReader with the 'RelaxTsReaderForBadReception.txt' command, no change...

Try different MPEG2 codec as at least Nvidia MPEG2 codec is dropping always the bad frames.

Sorry it did drop the frames with the PDVD8 codec.

Plenty of discontinuity errors in TSReader.log:

As usualy either HW or signal issue.

Well this is quite untrue. As turning the TV ON/OFF a couple of times (sometimes once is enough) on the same channel within MediaPortal tends to fix the stutter. RC1 never had this problem other than on only 1 FTA channel...

Well my setup works without any problems with DVBViewer (means hardware is ok) as well as with a satelite receiver (which shows signal quality over 90%, means signal is ok).
So I have to agree EViS.

 

[jof]

I'm also having this problem since I updated to RC3. It doesn't happen very often, but it happens sometimes that some frames are dropped.
When I'm watching with DVBViewer I don't see this. In DVBViewer you can have a look at the receive details and there the discontinuity counter is always at 0!

So I measured the Sat Signal with a professional Sat Meter (Kathrein MSK).
I receive the Astra 19,2° E and I have following specs on TP 117:

Signal Level: 65dBµV
BER: 1xe-7
MER: 13 dB


For me the specs are nearly perfect (for 80cm dish) and I can't get it better.

 

[tourettes]

Plenty of discontinuity errors in TSReader.log:

As usualy either HW or signal issue.

Well this is quite untrue. As turning the TV ON/OFF a couple of times (sometimes once is enough) on the same channel within MediaPortal tends to fix the stutter. RC1 never had this problem other than on only 1 FTA channel...

Its completely true, bad HW and low signal quality is most likely cause for iscontinuity errors (most likely 99% of that error is caused by those two factors). Discontinuity errors are caused by dropped packets. Period.

If start/stop cycle cures the stuttering then its probably bit the discontinuity errors that are causing the stuttering. Please analyze when those discontinuity errors are logged and if the live tv stutters outside those.

It could be that TS buffer end is reached sometimes and causing then stutterinf as o new data is available, this could probably happen on low bandwidth channels if TsReader is having some bug.

If signal is good then its something between the DVB card and TsWriter is dropping data. TsWriter is the first TVE3 component that receives the data stream and if there is missing packets then the source of issue if highly likely outside TVE3 / TsWriter.

 

[EViS]

So how do you explain that RC1 was fine and DVBViewer (which I've also tested) works fine too?