What is your experience with UK Freeview HD? (1 Viewer)

[jsc2013]

I am just generally asking for peoples experience in setting up MP to work with UK Freeview HD.

The reminder of my system is working great (to my complete satisfaction i'd now say) but HD is driving me mad!

I seem to get –

• Video-audio lip synch drift on certain broadcasts, notably those that are studio broadcasts. Top-Gear (studio not ‘on-the road’ filming) did it and the 10-oclock news did it last night too (again, only from studio broadcasts). C4’s Shooting Stars would do it throughout (again, all studio)
• Also, the odd (every 30mins) HD video freeze, but the audio continues. Fixed by rewinding. Frustrating. Does not happen on recorded HD, only live

None of the above occur on SD, only HD.

I am using v 1.3.0, with the Divx codec for audio, with MPAR enabled. LAV handles the video. (Can LAV actually deal with UK HD audio – I have read much conflicting info?). All sent to my TV via HDMI. Everything in CCC is turned off.

What are people using, and how would you rate MP for handling HD? Don't forget to briefly post your HD settings!

 

[Owlsroost]

I use LAV audio + LAV video (DXVA2 mode, with 'aggressive deinterlacing' enabled), running on an nVidia GT430.

Re the video freezing - post your logs. Also try (if you have enough CPU power) software-only decoding in LAV - you should still get hardware deinterlacing because I think LAV Video prefers NV12 output format, which you need for HW deinterlacing with AMD (otherwise force it by unticking the other output options in LAV video settings).

 

[jsc2013]

@Owlsroost - Many thanks - partial success!!

I have figured out how to get LAV working with HD audio (for the record place tick in the boxes under the Bitstreaming (SPDIF/HDMI) section - these boxes are not ticked by default). This, at a quick glace, seems to have addressed the audio-synch issues on 'studio' broadcasts. Divxx is now gone!

The stuttering on HD remains however. I attach two log files and a screen-grab of my LAV settings - I'm pretty sure LAV is set-up as per some of your (highly informative) postings elsewhere.

The log ending 19_38 shows where a live HD broadast had frozen. MP was still responsive, it is just that live TV had frozen

The log ending 20_47 shows a regular (say every 15 secs) stutter. The odd thing is that the stutter only occurs after around 20mins of live TV being played. If I stop the tv and restart, the live broadcast will play fine for 20mins, and then start stuttering again...

All recorded HD TV plays fine. The above are with LAV audio.

Your thoughts and input appreciated as always.

 

[Owlsroost]

(for the record place tick in the boxes under the Bitstreaming (SPDIF/HDMI) section - these boxes are not ticked by default)

I don't understand this - Freeview HD audio is HE-AAC which normally can't be bitstreamed because AV amps can't decode it....

As for the video, turn off software deinterlacing in LAV Video - you don't need it and it might be causing the performance issues you are having. Also until you have the stutters sorted out use the default audio renderer (not MP Audio Renderer), just to keep things simple for now.

 

[jameson_uk]

Can't see your system specs on phone so what is your cpu/gpu? I am assuming this is a single machine not streaming across a network?

As owlsroost said bitstreaming should make no difference to the output. Are you connected up to a multichannel amp or a stereo TV?

What hard drive are you using for timeshifting files? It is possible that some of the slow green drives can't write and read the stream fast enough.

 

[DragonQ]

No problems at all. LAV Video and LAV Audio handle it perfectly.

 

[jsc2013]

Thanks all - sorry for being so quiet - I have been doing some testing and think I have it sussed.

I don't a) watch much live TV and b) don't have much spare time [kids!] so testing can take a while. I will update when I know more.

Yes I do have a green drive, but have tried time shifting to a 32GB SSD also. TBH, I don't think it was the drive at fault; at the moment I think the stuttering beyond 20mins on HD was caused by LAV video settings...

 

[jsc2013]

A quick update, Fixed!

The culprit of the seemingly random stuttering after 15-30mins or so on certain channels was timeshifting to a USB drive.

I had a feeling all along it was hardware related, as doing something after a specified time is not the sort of problem that software exhibits. I am now timeshifting to a green HDD with no problems.

I still have no idea why only a limited number of channels (generally HD) would trigger this. I could quite happily watch hours of HD, then suddenly, 15-30mins into a ‘new’ programme, the stuttering would start and chaos would reign.

My LAV settings for both audio and video are pretty much as they come out-of-the box (albeit for setting to DXVA2). This is on an AMD A6 5400 processor on an Asrock A75 FM2 motherboard, with no separate graphics card and a TBS twin tuner card.

I can also confirm that LAV audio is working on UK HD freeview. I swear It did not work in 1.2.3, but in 1.3.0 all is hunky-dory. Also, as pointed out by Owlsroost in post#4, you do not need ticks in the bitstreaming section (am just using HDMI to my TV)

Thanks to everyone.