Plextor ConvertX PX-TV402U: mpg not muxed to avi

[turbo]

I'll get into the detail here, and then summarize the questions at the end.

I just bought SageTV 6.5 last week, and I've been spending a lot of time since then searching through the forum for some way to fix this problem. None of the fixes seem to work for this version, so I'm wondering if anyone has other suggestions.

I'm hardware encoding divx at 640x480 resolution.

I'm using a Plextor ConvertX PX-TV402U, and I'm occasionally getting instances where the .mpg file is not muxed into an avi after the recording completes. There are also .tmp files left over. Usually the .mpg files are numbered from 0 and up (rarely past 1).

Now my understanding of why this happens, is because something caused the encoder to stop/fail but then recover so another mpg file was started to continue the program recording (possibly due to something in the broadcast, though I'm recording an analog signal so not sure what that issue is). Sagetv takes the raw hardware encoding stream from the Plextor device and then at the end, tries to mux it into an avi container. But because of the multiple .mpg files, it fails (although this sometimes happens when there is just one .mpg file).

When I look in the SageTV GUI conversions list, and it states that the conversion of the file failed (I know this isn't a standard media conversion, but this is where all of the recordings show up when you're using the Plextor device).

Some postings suggested rebooting my machine (or restarting the service or gui). I've tried all combinations of the three, and although the tmp files change in their modified date (which tells me sagetv is trying the conversion again) the issue does not resolve (and the items still show up as failed to convert in the list, sometimes I can see it still trying in the GUI list as in progress).

On old posting suggested that I turn off the setting to record live tv as mpeg4 so that it records directly to an AVI container. But when I tried that, the avi just vanished for my next recording. I tried rebooting and then my SageTV service wouldn't even stay running (it kept failing). So I don't know why, but I only seem to be able to keep things working if I keep that setting enabled (believe me, I'd love to be able to record directly to an AVI container).

Now the .mpg files won't play video in any of my players. When I try to convert them (or join them) using a 3rd party app I get an error (from whatever app I try) that there is no video stream in the files (only audio). I know there is video, because it plays fine in SageTV, and the file sizes are the correct size.

I must assume that SageTV retains some kind of metadata for the video stream (possibley in wiz.bin?) that it correctly applies to the file to play.

I've tried using SageTV to convert the files to one of their preset formats (like IPOD or DVD) but all it does is convert the audio stream to the outputted file.

Is there any way to fix these files?

I'd be satisfied if I could just repair the file so that other applications can correctly identify the video stream (even if SageTV is still unable to remux it to an AVI, I can use something else once the file is repaired).

This is particularly frustrating for me, because I'm trying to record a lot of Canadian TV shows that are rare and not available through any other means (and will never be on DVD). I don't want to lose the data. Although I can still view the video in SageTV, I want to be able to play it on my other media devices.

This problem happens about 1/10 of the time, which is not major (and for some shows I've been able to obtain the episode at a later showing) but it's enough to be problematic for 4 videos I currently can't obtain any other way and want to fix (I'm sure there will be more in the future).

Otherwise, you could say I'm overjoyed with the SageTV product. It's breathed new life in my Plextor Convertx, which I'd stopped using out of frustration for failed or bad recordings with WinPVR and GoCAP.

SUMMARY:

Is there any way to repair these files so that they play or convert outside of SageTV?
Is there a way to prevent this from happening again?
Is there a way to directly record to an AVI container?