Missing time in recordings

[4110]

Occasionally I have a recording that has lost some time. For example, I record a one hour show and when I start it, the progress bar at the bottom of the screen will indicate something less than an hour; perhaps 44 minutes. It is an intermittent problem and some shows are OK. Interestingly even though the progress bar reports less than an hour, a full hour does seem to have been recorded. The size of the file is the same as a one hour show. Also, I have found that when I come to a commercial if I hit the back arrow rather than forward arrow or skip button I will go back several minutes on the progress bar (rather than seven seconds) and that the program continues properly at that point. It is as if the full hour has been folded into the 45 minute progress bar with some areas of overlap on the progress bar. I have also noticed that that the light blue portions of the progress bar associated with commercials may be offset from the commercials or missing altogether for some commercials. I suspect the problem may be associated with Smartskip but would welcome any definitive ideas or solutions.

Thank you. David

[Fonceur]

I am assuming this is on some OTA HD channels... I remember reading that this was due to the equivalent of the variable bit rate options on the video quality, played back on something that expect full bit rate (all the time). Basically BTV assumes the full OTA stream is one channel, but if there are sub-channels, missing control bits and such it looses synch...

[4110]

Thanks for the reply Fonceur,

But no, this is on regular TV coming in on cable. I have tried generating Smart Skips immediately and later with the same result. I will forgo Smartskip for a time and see what that does.

Is there any chance it could be related to Video Qualities? In Setup there is a Video Quality page that lists a variety of choices in three categories: MPEG, Windows Media and DivX. However, when I go go to Recording Preferences only MPEG is available and only with four variants. How do I try some of the other options on the Video Quality page? Is there a chance they would help this problem?

Thanks again,

David

[4110]

I disabled Smartskip and still had the problem. I recoreded a one hour show and the time line reported 23 minutes. However the full hour was there. Left on its own it would have run 23 minutes and stopped. I I hit backspace from time to time I could go back on the timeline and pick up more of the show.
Any ideas what is causing this and how to previent it?

Thanks,

David

[4110]

This is David with more info.

I still get some shows that record and play back perfectly and Smart skip finds all the ads correctly.

On the other hand I still have some shows that have the shortened time line. In an extreme case I had a one hour show that displayed 59 seconds on the time line and that is all the time it lasted when I played it with Beyond TV. I opened it with Windows Media Player and it also indicated 59 seconds. However, when I played it with Media Player it played for about 10 minutes. The size of the file is consistent with a one-hour show and I suspect it is all there. Since both players report the same 59 second size and since even 10 minutes in Media Player demonstrates that the reported size is incorrect I believe the time information is somehow embedded in the file. Is there a way to edit it? What is causing BTV to make this occasional error and how can I prevent it?

Thanks,

David

[cpmiv]

The file could be corrupt. Thus the incorrect (or sometimes correct for the amount of usable video in the file) time info. If its random on your system there isn't much that can be done without looking through your system logs and trying to match them up with the "bad" recordings.

[Fonceur]

You would need to find a programme to fix your corrupted video files, maybe a Video editor like VideoReDo and such or some utilities made specifically for that. Of course if you can find out while you are getting corrupted files in the first place that would be even better...

[Ryland]

What are you using for a PVR? I had a similar problem with my Hauppauge PVR150 a few months ago but went to an older set of drivers and the problem went away.

[chill1999]

I had this problem too but it has always been associated with compressing to DIVX (see other threads regarding this in this forum).

[4110]

Thanks all.

Ryland, I use PVR 150 with driver version 2.0.28.23053. Is there another version that would work better?

Chill1999, when I upgraded to v4 I switched to DIVX because I thought it was new and therefore better. I will switch back and see if that solves the problem.

Thanks again,

David