Video freezes when switching between HD & SD signals

[vorius]

I use R5000 mod to view HD TV from my FIOS service through SageTV (I have yet to find a better alternative despite it's drawbacks) And it's been bearable for several years now.

I recently upgraded to the latest version of SageTV and since then I have had consistent problems where the video freezes when the recording switches from a HD signal to SD signal. This typically means I am watching a show recorded from a HD channel and then it runs into advertisements where some of the ads are standard definition. During the switch from one HD ad to a SD ad, or a SD ad back to my HD show is where the video goes black. Audio continues to play.

My only solution is to stop the playback, then play it again.

My only prevention is when ads start playing, pause the video and try to fast forward just beyond the last ad.

I would really like a fix though. Has anyone else experienced this?

This is with latest version of SageTV on Windows XP box.

[gambitpvr]

I've never seen the resolution switch back and forth like that myself. If the video source is actually switching, it could be messing with capture stream.

I'm not familiar with FIOS but, I'm assuming it has some kind of cable box-like device to record off of. Have you tried to lock it's video output to an HD resolution, such as 1080i ? That way, the resolution would stay consistent throughout the video stream.

[macsupergeek]

Originally Posted by vorius

I use R5000 mod to view HD TV from my FIOS service through SageTV (I have yet to find a better alternative despite it's drawbacks) And it's been bearable for several years now.

I recently upgraded to the latest version of SageTV and since then I have had consistent problems where the video freezes when the recording switches from a HD signal to SD signal. This typically means I am watching a show recorded from a HD channel and then it runs into advertisements where some of the ads are standard definition. During the switch from one HD ad to a SD ad, or a SD ad back to my HD show is where the video goes black. Audio continues to play.

My only solution is to stop the playback, then play it again.

My only prevention is when ads start playing, pause the video and try to fast forward just beyond the last ad.

I would really like a fix though. Has anyone else experienced this?

This is with latest version of SageTV on Windows XP box.

You need to lock the output to 1080. There is an option in the Verizon STBs to autoswitch depending on content, lock that to 1080 and the issue should go away, this is what I had to do with my HD-PVRs and I don't have any HD tvs - all standard def, but the autoswitching is an issue in the STBs.

[vorius]

Hi guys, thanks for the replies!

Unfortunately I dont think this will work for my case. With the R5000 mod they took my SD STB and modified it so that a USB cable sticks out which I plug into the HTPC and transmits the TV video, both HD and SD.

Therefore, I doubt the SD STB would have an option to lock it on 1080... right?

[wayner]

I agree that I doubt that the resolution is changing for ads. I have had some issues like this where the resolution changes but that is for recordings (from my HD-PVR) where the capture starts before the channel is changed to the new channel. For example, the STB would be on an SD channel. It starts changing the channel to an HD channel but the recording starts while you are still on the old channel on 480p. Then the channel changes and the signal is now 1080i. That has caused some problems for me, but I have never seen the resolution change with an ad and generally my TVs take a second or two to resync when you change resolutions so you would really notice this.

What happens on your TV when you are watching regular TV and you switch from an SD to an HD channel? Does it take a second or so to sync up? If so have you ever seen this happen when an ad comes on while watching live TV?

[vorius]

Originally Posted by wayner

What happens on your TV when you are watching regular TV and you switch from an SD to an HD channel? Does it take a second or so to sync up? If so have you ever seen this happen when an ad comes on while watching live TV?

Well, when I am watching a SD channel and then I flip to HD it has never frozen. I guess because it pulls down everything from watching the SD signal feed and then set everything anew when loading the HD signal.

I have never seen this happen watching a purely SD signal channel.

And yes it does happen on Live TV too. Its a real pain with Live TV because normally I Stop and Play again when it happens on a recorded video. But on live feed I lose some content because I wasn't recording.

Oh and if I watch any of these recorded streams using VLC Player it never had any problem continuously playing HD -> SD ads -> back to HD.

SageTV has about a 50% chance to fail on these switches. Which is compounded by the channels that have mixed ads, some HD some SD.

Also, again, only started seeing this behavior after upgrading to SageTV 7. Previously been using R5000 for a couple of years and never had this happen.

[panteragstk]

Could be a decoder issue. What type are all the files? Mpeg 2 or h.264?

[vorius]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

Could be a decoder issue. What type are all the files? Mpeg 2 or h.264?

GSpot reports:

File Type: MPEG-2 Transport Stream
Mime Type: video/mp2t

[Edit] Checked my SageTV Settings for Video, and I see MPEG-2 Decoder is set as 'Default'. If I click it the only thing on the list is SageTV Player

Video renderer is VMR9

Everything else is default too.