Odd Recording and Conversion Problem - Request help

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Here is the scenario: I'm using SageTV 6.3 and recording an OTA HD broadcast on PBS (Nova) using a Hauppauge card. The broadcast program begins with a non-HD leader of the PBS "Create" logo (which is 4:3), then switches to the HD presentation of Nova in 16:9. Therefore the recorded file starts out non-HD and then becomes HD.

Problem Symptoms: The recorded SageTV file will play fine in SageTV, but I can't play the file in any other media player, or convert it to a standard DVD format apparently (and this is just a guess) because of that non-HD to HD transition in the first few seconds of the recorded file.

I have tried SageTV's built-in conversion to DVD, and the conversion works, i.e., reports no errors, but the resulting file is entirely a 4:3 ratio video with only a small fraction of the HD video showing. This is hard to describe. Imagine dividing a 16:9 HD screen into 9 "squares" - only the upper left square shows up in the converted video! In ohter words, I am seeing only a small portion of the original 1920 x 1080 HD frame size in a "window".

In fact, when going through the SageTV menu to convert the file - the bottom of the conversion screen reports the "current format" as a 4:3 video - which of course, is only true because the file starts out 4:3, then becomes 16:9.

When I try to convert the SageTV recorded file (presumably a Program Stream file) with 3rd party software - no matter which conversion software I use - it reports an unrecoverable error. Some seem to start the conversion process OK, but then after a few seconds, fail. This seems to match what I'm observing - that the PBS broadcast starts out as non-HD, and then becomes HD, and the software, including SageTV can't handle the change. In fact, one software version actually reports this as the error - saying something like "frame size changed" or "pixel difference" (I don't remember the exact error reported.)

I built this SageTV personal DVR for the express purpose of recording HD programs and saving them to DVD so I sure would like to solve this problem.

Any ideas? Solutions - would be appreciated.

System Descriptiohn:
Motherboard: Micro-ATX: ASUS M2A-VM HDMI AM2 AMD 690G HDMI
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Windsor 2.0GHz
Memory: 4 Gig PC2 6400
OS Drive: 40Gig WD, WD400JD-55MSA1 SATA
Video Storage: 500 Gig WD, WD5000AAKS-00YGA0 SATA
TV Card: Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1600 w/HDTV OTA receiver
TV Software: SageTV 6.3.9

Thanks in advance for any solution.
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[Opus4]

All I can say is: you may want to send a note to SageTV to see what they say about the file format. You're using a beta version, so if there are any issues, now is the time to let them know before it stops being a beta...

- Andy

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Thanks, I failed to mention that the problem has existed since the first "official release" version I purchased - I think it was 6.3.2. I have been loading the beta versions as I could get them to see if the problem was software or me. I still don't know the answer to that.

GoFigure

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I have confirmed my diagnosis. The broadcast stream starts out as 720x480i and then switches to 1920x1080i HD. SageTV records this stream properly, and can play it back properly, but SageTV does not know how to handle the stream when you ask it to convert the recording to any other format. SageTV simply decides the whole video is 720x480 and proceeds to convert it as such. Hence, when it encounters the change to 1920x1080i, SageTV simply crops the video to 720x480 and creates the new file. So, I will send an official bug report to SageTV.

Thanks,
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