TVNZ TV One no longer works

[DylanHall]

Has anyone else noticed issues with TV One on Freeview in NZ?

Sometime recently (last month I think) something changed and I started getting "no signal" when trying to view TV One. I finally got around to upgrading to SageTV 7.0 a couple days ago and I'm now able to tune TV One again but now I'm getting issues with the audio. On my HD300 I get a clicking/stuttering noise. On my HD200 I get lip-sync issues and a less pronounced clicking.

Has anyone else seen this or better yet, knows a fix?

Thanks,

Dylan

[JREkiwi]

Dylan, haven't noticed anything, but I'm in Auckland.

I assume you've done the obvious things, like making sure you've still got an aerial pointing in the right direction.

John

[DylanHall]

I'm viewing from Kaukau in Wellington.

I'm assuming it's not an antenna issue because I can get the remaining TVNZ channels without any issues which are on the same transponder.

That said, I was planning to crawl under the house and tinker with aerial cables to remove a no longer needed split in the cable to another room. I've also got another tuner I'll try tonight to see if that makes a difference.

[DylanHall]

I think I'm getting closer to the issue, I've found that Parliament TV is also showing this issue. As best I can tell, the common difference is that both TV one and Parliament TV are transmitting with two sound tracks.

JREkiwi - can you select options->detailed info on TV One and see if it's reporting one AAC-HE sound track or two?

Thanks,

Dylan

[JREkiwi]

It is showing 2 HE-AAC sound tracks. Ironically, one is labeled as Italian, although it is English. TVOne plays fine on my HD200. I'll check with someone who has an HD300, But I'm sure he would have noticed if there was something awry.

John

[halfrunt]

Evening,

I have the same issue here with Sage 7 in Auckland: TV One is stuttering to the point that every syllable of speech is uttered twice - if that makes sense. Other channels seem fine, but I haven't checked Parliament to see if it's the extra audio track that is the common theme.

I have the same 'ita' second language option on TV One, but selecting it or 'eng' in the UI makes no difference.

Any ideas on how to go about finding the cause for this? (just re-installed Sage for the first time in years) Or is it out of our hands and something Sage needs to look at?

I'm using Monogram AAC for the audio codec - is that still the one to use for Freeview NZ's AAC or is there something newer we're all using?

Edit: this is all on the same PC - no extenders involved.

[JREkiwi]

What video codec are you using? WinDVD8 works OK for me, and what version of the monogram decoder? I'm using 0.9.6.0

John

[halfrunt]

What video codec are you using? WinDVD8 works OK for me, and what version of the monogram decoder? I'm using 0.9.6.0

I've tried Cyberlink's (PDVD10), Microsoft's (the built in one on Win7) and ffdshow - all have the same issue.

I've got that version of Monogram AAC too - although I wondered if it was out of date due to still being called 'beta'.

Another thing I've noticed is that TV One takes a very long time to tune in - about 30 seconds with a black screen and a please wait 'swirly thing' before the stuttering video kicks in.

Cheers

[DylanHall]

I've now tried a different tuner and tweaked my aerial setup, none of which has helped.

I've just raised a case with the SageTV support people.

I'll post an update when I've heard back from them

Dylan

[markarm1]

I have the same problem on Tv1 (I'm in Auckland) as described by halfrunt ie the audio is being repeated like an echo. Other channels Ok (dont have Parliament tuned so cant comment on it). This must be due to a change in the way TV1 broadcasts. It started a few weeks back, went away for a day or so, then came back permanently. I look forward to hearing what Sage say. PS all on one PC as well

[DylanHall]

I'm wondering if there is a pattern in what's working/not working.

I'm using DVB-T, HD-200/300 with SageTV 7.0 running on Linux.

JRE, you're DVB-? and an HD-200 with SageTV ?? on Windows?

halfrunt, you're DVB-? with SageTV ?? on Windows, no extenders.

markarm1, you're DVB-? with SageTV ?? on Windows, no extenders.

I'm wondering if it's failing on DVB-T but working with DVB-S for example.

Has anyone tried with SageTV 7.1.5-beta? If no one else has tried it I might give it a whirl


Does anyone have a fairly in-depth knowledge of codecs etc? What I'm wondering is which part of the application is responsible for which bit of the decoding. e.g. does Sage get the stream from the tuner, de-multiplex all the video/audio, then hand them to the codecs/extenders or is the de-multiplexing done by the codecs/extenders.

Assuming it's Sage that does the de-multiplexing, I wonder if it's sending both audio streams at once or otherwise corrupting them during the separation from the other material.

Dylan

[halfrunt]

I'm on DVB-T (2 x Nova-T tuners).

I've also already tried the 7.1.5 beta - to no avail I'm afraid. TV One behaved exactly the same.

The two audio streams do seem like likely culprits - not sure if there's something buried in the properties files where we could specify a different splitter.

Interestingly, recordings made by SageTV play with no sound (and with no stuttering) in WMP and GraphStudio. But I'm sure I have all the right codecs installed as MediaPortal has no trouble with TV One sound and video (and is entirely dshow based).

I didn't save any recordings of other channels before I uninstalled SageTV to see if this was just a TV One thing or just 'how it is' with Sage's own recordings.

Edit: Actually, since you have the same problem with a Linux server and extenders, with Windows and its DirectShow merry-go-round nowhere in sight, it leaves TVNZ, Freeview|HD and SaveTV itself as the only common factors.

Cheers

[JREkiwi]

Are you capturing as .mpg or .ts?

I do have mmc/encode_digital_tv_as_program_stream=false and encode_digital_tv_as_program_stream=false set on all my tuners.

John

[DylanHall]

Originally Posted by JREkiwi

Are you capturing as .mpg or .ts?

I do have mmc/encode_digital_tv_as_program_stream=false and encode_digital_tv_as_program_stream=false set on all my tuners.

John

All my recordings are .mpg and the properties in Sage.properties are all set to "true". I'll try toggling those settings tonight and see if it makes any difference

The SageTV support people have contacted me now, they've requested some debug logs which I hope to generate tonight and send them. I'll keep people posted on their response.

Dylan

[halfrunt]

Originally Posted by JREkiwi

Are you capturing as .mpg or .ts?

I do have mmc/encode_digital_tv_as_program_stream=false and encode_digital_tv_as_program_stream=false set on all my tuners.

John

Excellent idea, and I had a feeling it was going to work too.

But sadly no change (assuming I changed the settings correctly).

I changed it three times in Sage.properties - mmc/encode... and once for each tuner, then restarted the service.

All recordings are still .mpg files - should the file extension have changed to .ts if the config change had taken effect?

Edit: I see a TS file will still have an mpg extension, so that's that sorted. But the 'Format' displayed in Sage still says MPEG2-PS. Should it, given the config changes?

Cheers

[halfrunt]

Originally Posted by halfrunt

Excellent idea, and I had a feeling it was going to work too.

But sadly no change (assuming I changed the settings correctly).

I changed it three times in Sage.properties - mmc/encode... and once for each tuner, then restarted the service.

All recordings are still .mpg files - should the file extension have changed to .ts if the config change had taken effect?

Edit: I see a TS file will still have an mpg extension, so that's that sorted. But the 'Format' displayed in Sage still says MPEG2-PS. Should it, given the config changes?

Cheers

Excellent, that sorted it - thanks for the tip John.

Not sure what I did wrong when editing the properties, but they had reverted to 'true' when I restarted the service.

TV One now plays smoothly. However, every channel change now takes about 30s (whereas before it only took that long to switch to One). Is that a consequence of switching from PS to TS?

Cheers

[DylanHall]

Originally Posted by JREkiwi

Are you capturing as .mpg or .ts?

I do have mmc/encode_digital_tv_as_program_stream=false and encode_digital_tv_as_program_stream=false set on all my tuners.

John

Sadly that hasn't helped.

The recordings on disk now have a ".ts" extension, but the detailed info from the UI still reports MPEG-PS.

I've tried playing the files with vlc on my laptop and both the .mpeg and .ts files exhibit the same audio problems.

[halfrunt]

Originally Posted by DylanHall

Sadly that hasn't helped.

The recordings on disk now have a ".ts" extension, but the detailed info from the UI still reports MPEG-PS.

I've tried playing the files with vlc on my laptop and both the .mpeg and .ts files exhibit the same audio problems.

I had better joy (after I got the config changes to stick) and had the file extensions change to TS and also (from memory) having 'MPEG-TS' shown in the detailed info view.

But given the battle so far I think I'm down to just watching to see if Sage can get to the bottom of it. The channel changes are so slow now (the log fills with 'UI hang') that switching to TS isn't a usable option for me.

Of course all this is on the 7.1.5 beta, so I should probably go back and try the PS->TS change on a stable version before packing a sad!

Cheers

[DylanHall]

The chap from the SageTV support team has forwarded the fault details to one of the developers who has provided instructions for getting further debug (a dump of the entire transponder from the capture card).

I raised a couple bugs during the SageTV 7.0 beta and the same developer helped with those. My impression then was he's very clueful so I'm optimistic we'll get a resolution

An interesting note about the debug file produced. It's contains all the TVNZ channels and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that VLC could play the file, but also you could select which channel to play from the file, very cool Using that method TV One sounds fine. Playing the .mpg produced at the same time and the audio stutters.

I'll post another update when I hear more.

Dylan

[DylanHall]

The Sage developer has sent me the following fixed libraries:

Windows: http://download.sage.tv/users/qian/7.1.5/TSSplitter.ax
Linux: http://download.sage.tv/users/qian/7...bNativeCore.so

I've done a quick test of the linux version and I can now watch and listen to TV One

I'll do some more extensive testing later.