Playback Issues - No Skip or Time Watched/Remaining

[Striker:WG]

I have some video files that do not allow me to skip forward/backward and they do not properly track the time watched (so I can't partially watch and resume later).

If I re-encode the files with Handbrake, then I can playback without issue but that's a pain and requires intervention after realizing the video won't play.

I've noticed it with MP4 and MKV files, and the format is simply "Quicktime" not something like "Quicktime[H.264/2.0Mbps 15:8 1920x1024@24fps, AAC/144Kbps@48kHz Stereo]".

If I load the files up in Graph studio, the graph will show the files being played with either LAV or Microsoft DTV-DVD decoders. In either case, I can scrub through the files in Graph Studio without issue, so it seems to be a SageTV issue with reading the files.

I've tried installing the Media Format Parser plugins to see if that would help resolve but it hasn't.

I have everything set to use LAV decoders and Direct Show in the Sage options.

I've got the registry key set to 1 for the "EnableStandardFilePlayback" and 0 for the "EnableSageTVStreamDemux" in Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Frey Technologies\Common\DirectShow\.

Running SageTV as a server in an Unraid Docker. Running Windows PC based SageTV clients and HD200s. The issue occurs on both clients.

Any suggestions?

[peternm22]

I have the same issue as you, and judging by your settings (LAV and the demux registry tweak) we have similar setups.

I think the file lengths aren't being detected properly by SageTV, so even though the files can play the seekbar is broken. I've noticed the aspect ratio detection is also broken sometimes, so a 2:35:1 movie gets stretched instead of having black bars on the top/bottom.

I tried the new media parser plugin as well, but it doesn't seem to work for me (I get a bunch of errors in the log).

I spent hours trying to fix this. I was originally running HD300's and shelved them due to not supporting newer codecs. I switched over to Windows clients and now have the timeline detection problem you are having. I'm just about to give up on SageTV after almost 20 years.

I've started using MPC-HC to playback these files outside of SageTV. I setup Eventghost with a USB-UIRT so I can use a remote as well. I wish it had a nice interface to select files to play via a remote though. I've tried Kodi but there are so many weird choices it makes it a pain to use (if a file fails to have meta data scraped, it will simply not show up at all in Kodi instead of SageTV where it will just show the raw filename).

[trk2]

The media format plugin won't fix files that were detected by Sage before the plugin was installed unless you set force_full_content_reindex=true in properties.

[peternm22]

Originally Posted by trk2

The media format plugin won't fix files that were detected by Sage before the plugin was installed unless you set force_full_content_reindex=true in properties.

I can't seem to get it to work for any files, including new ones after I installed the plugin.

[Striker:WG]

The video does detect the length in the Video Details page (unless it's just pulling it from a property value and not actually scanning the file?).

The other workaround I've been using is the External Apps plugin to run a command in a batch file that launches VLC and passes in the path to the video file from Sage. It works alright, but even with my Harmony remote I find the VLC control just isn't as nice as it is in Sage.

I'll give the force full reindex thing a shot, but based on Peternm22's experience it sounds like that might not be the magic bullet....

[wayner]

I have this problem too and sometime these files also have issues in other video players like MPC.

I find that these can usually be fixed using the Qucikstream fix (or something like that) in Video Redo. Unfortunately Video Redo is now gone.