Continuing Handbrake recode saga

[xjim1]

On my old system, I would experience several issues with Handbrake recodes. I concluded that an old cpu, lack of memory, and and obsolete OS were not doing me any favors, so I quit using HB.

So now that I have new hardware and software, I figured I'd have better luck, but no such luck.
My first one, while it will play, has no playback control and 00:00 showing on the playback bar. Jumping forward ends video.

It looks like there may be others here who use HB, so I'd like to find out if anyone has playback or other issues after importing them into Sage. Heck, I'd like to know if anyone is successfully using it. Maybe changing tuning parameters might help.
Thanks.

[CptKirk]

When you say recode do you mean take a show SageTV recorded and then re-encode into a different format?

If so, to what format?

Handbrake has so many settings. You should take a capture of each Handbrake tab so we know what you are doing.

I'm using the latest 1.3.3 Handbrake and I use it all the time to re-encode my ripped DVDs into MP4 files. I've never had a problems playing the MP4s in SageTV. If you want to see what my Handbrake settings are I can post them.

[xjim1]

I mainly recode dvd's, but yesterday I tried a Sage recording and got the symptom I mentioned. They're all into mp4. If you wouldn't mind posting the parameters you'd use, maybe snapshots of the Summary and Video tabs, for an HD recording, I'd be appreciative.

Here's a snap from my Summary tab.

[xjim1]

I did some more digging and see the original recording has two files, a really short one (version 0) and the larger one which is the file I used in HB. So maybe that file had some corruption or something in it at the beginning. I did a test recode from 5-10m into the file and that plays ok. Then I did a second test from the beginning to +10 min and THAT plays ok. Just to ensure my sanity I tried replaying the original 'bad' recode and that's still broken.

I'm going to fire off another full recode after I go to bed and start over. But I'll still take the offer of taking a peek at your params if you're offering.

[NetworkGuy]

I used to use Handbrake all the time. I found a better and faster program I like better. VideoProc.

[KryptoNyte]

Originally Posted by xjim1

I did some more digging and see the original recording has two files, a really short one (version 0) and the larger one which is the file I used in HB. So maybe that file had some corruption or something in it at the beginning. I did a test recode from 5-10m into the file and that plays ok. Then I did a second test from the beginning to +10 min and THAT plays ok. Just to ensure my sanity I tried replaying the original 'bad' recode and that's still broken.

I'm going to fire off another full recode after I go to bed and start over. But I'll still take the offer of taking a peek at your params if you're offering.

With handbrake, testing is usually best done using the "Preview" where you can pick a point somewhere in the video, and have it just work on a couple minutes of the file. That Preview file is then typically saved in the same target directory as you had selected for the full encoded video. You can then use those small snippets Preview files to test with.

[wayner]

This might sound crazy but see if you can change the file date properties of the encoded file to be the same as the original recording file. When the file created time is different that screws stuff up. I will see if I can find posts on this. I use a utility to change the file created time back to when the recording was initially started.

[wayner]

Here are some things to check out: https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/sho...ile%2Acreation
https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/sho...ile%2Acreation

And here is a way to change timestamps:
https://www.ghacks.net/2017/10/09/ho...ws-powershell/

I think I used a touch command for Windows that I found somewhere.

[KryptoNyte]

Attached are some [manual] settings from a while ago. There are probably better settings to use with the latest versions of Handbrake that are faster and produce better results, but this could be a good base point to get started and see if it works on your system. If the source video is 1080i, then you'll want to deinterlace or decomb it.

[wayner]

Here is the touch exe file that I used. I had to convert it to zip to upload to the forum.

If you run touch --help it will show you how to use it.

Here is the way that I use it: (the -r command has it use a reference file for the timestamps)

c:\temp\touch.exe Newfile.mp4 -r Oldfile.mpg

[CptKirk]

Here's what I'm using for my DVDs. Also exported the preset that I am using with the latest Handbrake v1.3.3. You can import on your side if you want to give it a try.

I have a huge library of my ripped DVDs and queue up 5 or so to convert overnight whenever I remember to do it.

[xjim1]

I did another full recode on the recording, and still no playback control. So, small recodes can playback as expected, but recoding the full recording breaks.
I compared recode logs between the sample and full video, and apart from some ac3 audio errors at the beginning, everything is identical.
Maybe Sage player can't handle long videos (3+hrs)?

I probably should mention that the recoded videos are imported into sage as Videos, and play as expected in vlc.

Network Guy: Thanx for the alternative to HB. Right now I'm saving my change for a video file analysis app, which would come in handy about now.

wayner: Thanx for the links and the app! I'll give this a try.

Kryptonyte: I wasn't that familiar w/Preview. That'll save me some time in the future. All previews played as expected in this particular recording. And thanks for the HB params!

And thanx Kirk for the params too! I'll try some variations to see if any make a difference. That'll probably take awhile as recode time's about 5 hrs.

[wayner]

I have had very long videos in excess of 8 hours for Ryder Cup golf. Some of these were OTA and were about 80GB. So length of recordings should not be an issue.

I am pretty sure that your timeline issues for transcoded SageTV recordings is the issue that I highlighted.

[xjim1]

Thanks but that didn't work. I started with putting the -r argument on the wrong file. A devil of a time putting it back. Seems 21:30 translates into 10:30 in the Touch command.

I'm trying other HB parameters, but I'm starting to turn cynical on Sage. I even (gasp!) started looking at Kodi and Plex for a library server.

[MattHelm]

I don't use HB on many shows, but a few years ago, I recorded every STtNG off of BBCA, and then re-encoded them with HB.

Like wayner I changed all the date stamps to match, except I did them by hand. Argh!

All these played back just fine. I have had 1 or 2 movies, that for some reason never worked on my HD200, but at least one of those worked fine on the NVIDIA shield using the SageTV client. (same file that would not play on the HD200)

[KryptoNyte]

I haven't had many video files of *any* kind that didn't play on the HD300, except for h.265 and more current. If it's a problem with playback on the computer, then that's likely a different issue.

[xjim1]

Well, it only took one beer tonite to realize I have two Sage boxes and to include my old one in my test.

Just to summarize:
Two Sage servers- 9.1 and 9.2
On 9.2:
Recorded NFLgame1. Then converted using Sage's transcoder to turn into a 1080 avi. I have two recordings; nflgame1.mpg and nflgame1.avi. Avi file plays fine as a recording.
Used Handbrake to recode nflgame1.mpg into nflgame1.mp4.
Imported .mp4 as a video into Sage and when played, it would play, but no playback control. 00:00 in playback bar and skipping forward ended video.
Changed timestamp of mp4 file to match mpg file. No change.
Recoded 2nd nfl game(nflgame2) from its original mpg using HB into an mp4 with same results. Also, correctly this time used Touch.exe to correct file timestamps.

On 9.1:
Imported files into Sage. Both mp4 games play as expected, with full playback control and accurate recording time.

I don't know what's going on, but it seems to exonerate HB from the root of the problem. I've reviewed setup options w/in Sage, but, other than the player(both set as sagetvplayer), can't imagine anything affecting playback this way. Contrary thoughts on this welcomed.

I'm trying one last recode on a previous HB version, but for videos, Sage is unfortunately becoming more trouble than it's worth.

EDIT: It took one more beer(ok maybe 2) to try HB on the converted avi file and see what happens.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by xjim1

Well, it only took one beer tonite to realize I have two Sage boxes and to include my old one in my test.

Just to summarize:
Two Sage servers- 9.1 and 9.2
On 9.2:
Recorded NFLgame1. Then converted using Sage's transcoder to turn into a 1080 avi. I have two recordings; nflgame1.mpg and nflgame1.avi. Avi file plays fine as a recording.
Used Handbrake to recode nflgame1.mpg into nflgame1.mp4.
Imported .mp4 as a video into Sage and when played, it would play, but no playback control. 00:00 in playback bar and skipping forward ended video.
Changed timestamp of mp4 file to match mpg file. No change.
Recoded 2nd nfl game(nflgame2) from its original mpg using HB into an mp4 with same results. Also, correctly this time used Touch.exe to correct file timestamps.

On 9.1:
Imported files into Sage. Both mp4 games play as expected, with full playback control and accurate recording time.

I don't know what's going on, but it seems to exonerate HB from the root of the problem. I've reviewed setup options w/in Sage, but, other than the player(both set as sagetvplayer), can't imagine anything affecting playback this way. Contrary thoughts on this welcomed.

I'm trying one last recode on a previous HB version, but for videos, Sage is unfortunately becoming more trouble than it's worth.

EDIT: It took one more beer(ok maybe 2) to try HB on the converted avi file and see what happens.

Hi, so one year later - what’s going on? Did you find a solution? It seems to be a completely random problem, but one that consistently continues with recoded shows. I’ve tried recoding in HB with three different presets. Preview files play fine, long form film shows 00:00 timeline.
It’s got me beat…

[xjim1]

I seemed to mainly see this when recoding HD Sage recordings(my only source of HD video). I don't record much on Sage any more, so haven't seen it since last year, save for once (You probably already saw this thread, but I'll cross-post it for anyone else interested.
https://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66769).

Never found a solution, and I think this has nothing to do with presets. I'm regularly recoding DVD's w/HB, and, while I run into the usual quirky behavior on imported videos in Sage, never had that specific problem with them.

Since I'm not the only one seeing this now, and with the start of NFL season, I'll try to recode a few recorded games, just to see if I can reproduce it. I guess my workaround is to use VLC, which is a poor substitute.

[trk2]

This type of behavior can occur if Sage doesn't correctly detect the format of the imported video. Using the format detector plugin and then re-detecting the formats (force_full_content_reindex=true in Sage.properties) would probably fix this if it is the cause.