Here is a weird one: SageTV recording playback in Plex

[Monedeath]

You'll see why this is placed in general discussion and not in the bug forums for Sage in a moment, as far as we've been able to discern, the SageTV recorded files are fine. However:

The problem files all originate from a single station: The local ABC affiliate(as recorded by Sage).

In every player we throw at it to try to reproduce the issue, it works fine and nothing seems wrong... until we stick the file in Plex and try to play it back on one of our TCL (Roku) 32" TV Screens.

When playback on the (mpg) files begin on the TCL TV(transcoded by plex), the audio immediately drops sync with the video and starts running off ahead of the video. (We have more than one of the TCL sets, and the issue is present on all of them)

Problem is present on "raw"(untouched) recordings, it is also on Video Redo edited files with or without quick stream fix being applied, and transcoding the files in Handbrake adds an even stranger layer to things.

Doing a standard transcode to h264, where I normally add a different audio encoding track in addition to an AC3-passthrough... The AC3 (passthrough) audio stream will begin working fine, even as the logs for Handbrake will report this:

[20:00:58] ac3-decoder done: 0 frames, 0 decoder errors, 0 drops
[20:00:58] mux: track 0, 151462 frames, 826624424 bytes, 2617.05 kbps, fifo 4096
[20:00:58] mux: track 1, 78966 frames, 121291776 bytes, 384.00 kbps, fifo 2048
[20:00:58] stream: 1652455 good frames, 0 errors (0%)

So no changes appear to be getting made to the audio(as befits being a passthrough)

While any additional audio streams that were newly created during the handbrake transcode will continue to have the previously mentioned audio-sync problem but only while played on a TCL TV(any other player/device selected will play the "problem" audio tracks without error).

Can't really point the finger at Sage or the encoder as everything seems to check out, other than the issue seeming to be oddly specific to the one network.

Can't exactly point the finger at Plex because playback on a number of other devices via Plex works fine, and other things we've thrown at the recordings can't find anything amiss.

Can't further isolate the problem either because the Roku Player that comes with the TV when we try to watch it by USB drive doesn't allow for us to choose audio tracks for playback(so we don't know which track we're listening to).

[troycheek]

Weird suggestion for a weird problem: When I recompress SageTV recordings with HandBrake or ffmpeg, I always skip the first full second of the video. For some reason, this clears up all sorts of A/V sync errors for me. I also skip the very last second of the video because of errors I sometimes get at the very end of the file. MCEBuddy recommends skipping the first 3 seconds of a video it's converting, if I remember correctly. I don't do that because skipping just one second leaves the comskip and CCextractor files close enough to still work.

[Monedeath]

Default padding is 3 minutes early, 1 minute later. So this should be getting done unintentionally when the recordings get the commercials and padding removed.

Playback has been resumed at other various points in the recording. Problem remains present if present to begin with.

[waynedunham]

I don't have a solution, but may be able to give you some insight as to why it might be happening.

I have Comcast and they are randomly switching their broadcasts to H264 (seemingly random channels at random times) which the default sage player can't play back. It locks SageTV up for several minutes and then will let you out.

I have found that by using the SageTV Convert function I can most times get the recording playable in SageTV. I find that MPEG4HDTV is the most successful that gives good quality video.

However sometimes I do see the same thing you're seeing on one of my SageTV extenders. The converted video will play well on my HD300's, but I see the same symptoms that you are seeing (video lagging further and further behind the audio the longer you play the recording) when I try to play certain converted recordings on my HD200.
A couple differences between the HD200 and HD300 is that that HD300 has double the onboard memory as well as a faster processor.

My supposition is that the HD200 can't keep up with the video processing which is why it falls behind the audio (press pause and the audio stops while the video catches up on my HD200).
So if I had to hazard a guess I'd say the TCL is suffering similar to my experience with the HD200 and offending files. Not enough onboard ram and/or lack of processor speed. Plex is probably transcoding to a format similar to the offending files I am seeing. Maybe there is a setting in Plex that allows you to change the output trancoding filetype?