6.6.2 timeline off on converted files

[troycheek]

I'm a little slow, so I didn't get around to upgrading to 6.6.2 until a couple of weeks ago. Since then, I've noticed a problem with some of my converted recordings. My setup is such that DirMon2 fires off CC extraction and commercial detection while my favorites are being recorded. After recording is complete, DirMon2 calls a program of my own similar to Media Shrink which converts the mpg file to an avi of the same name in another directory in the same partition, deletes the mpg, and immediately moves the avi into the original location. SageTV file recovery (or whatever it's called) later picks it up and associates the new avi with all the metadata from the old mpg. This has worked for the last several versions of SageTV.

Since installing 6.6.2, the process still works except that 1) Recording Detail no longer shows which tuner encoded the show (no "Encoded by:" line at all) and 2) the timeline often shows quite a bit of red prior to the start of the show, as shown in the attached image. For this half hour show, while the timeline says it starts at 0:00 and goes to 30:00, playback appears to start 32:31 into an hour or so of program. The little yellow hashmark shows what would have been the end of the show, I think. Playback proceeds as normal, except that SageTV doesn't mark the show as Watched when it finishes playing.

I can revert to 6.5.14 and shows converted while this version is running don't have this problem. Likewise, shows converted while 6.5.14 is active remain okay even after I go back to 6.6.2. I even recorded a show with 6.6.2. and reverted to 6.5.14 before doing the conversion, and it played fine. Converted files played outside of SageTV (with VLC for example) don't show any abnormalities. It appears the problem is with 6.6.2's file recovery process which for some reason thinks that shows are longer than they actually are.

Anybody else noticed this or know of a solution, or do I need to send in a bug report?

[RobJ]

I'm going to be guessing a little here, as I have not had exactly the same behavior you have seen, but then I don't have the horsepower to run all of those things on the same machine.

The one relevant change in the v6.6 versions is that the media scan no longer does all of what it used to do, you have to also manually rescan from the Setup Menu. I'm not exactly sure what is different, because SageTV still does its 5 minute scans of the video folders, and the network spikes look about the same graphically, but the files are NOT picked up in their new locations, if I have moved them, until I do a manual rescan. The manual rescan also appears to be doing something new, correcting the file's time stamp (which establishes the end time for the show). It may have been doing that before, but I always manually adjusted the timestamps back, and was not aware of this feature. I use a tool that adds a "Touch to oldest" to the right-click context menus, after highlighting both the original recording and its compressed replacement.

I think therefore that in your case, it sees the new and doctored file with a new time stamp, created after all of the processing you did, and that results in the timeline you are seeing. You might try running the manual rescan, and see if that corrects the time stamp, and therefore the timeline too.

[RobJ]

Sorry, the 'manual rescan' I referred to is actually 'Refresh Imported Media', on the Setup Menu of the default menu setup.

[troycheek]

Based on your comments about the file's time stamp establishing the ending time of the show, I went back and checked time stamps and log files for the affected shows. It seems that the problem occurs when the conversion finishes within a half hour or so of the end of the show. The time stamp stays the same and SageTV uses that time as the end of the show. A show recorded from 2:00 to 2:30 which finished processing at 2:53 shows 23 extra minutes at the front. Looking again, I see that the Recording Detail even says that it thinks that show was recorded from 2:23 to 2:53.

All the shows which play correctly have time stamps reflecting the end of the show, regardless of when the converted file was actually created. As a test, last night I told DirMon2 to wait 2 hours after the file was finished before it started the conversion. So far, all of the recordings have time stamps reflecting the end of the show and none have the timeline issues.

So, SageTV is apparently checking the files and is correcting the time stamps when they're way off but leaving them untouched if they're close. Which I don't think earlier versions did. Or earlier versions didn't judge the end of the show by the time stamp. Or something.

Anyway, the two hour delay seems to be working. For now.