[vdr] VDR 1.2.26 records corrupt MPEG streams

[Tobias Haustein <haustein@aixmail.de>]

Hi folks,

I've finally managed to get my equipment together and to install a dish on
the roof. I'm using the most current version of vdr and the driver as well 
as the dxr3-plugin.

Watching TV works great but not perfectly. About twice an hour, there are
audible errors which sound like single bit errors in the audio stream. The
video seems to work without problems.

The problem is that recording doesn't work. If I start a recording (or
multiple recordings, that does not matter), the live channel becomes 
distorted. The recording itself (regardless of whether I'm justing recording
the current channel or whether I switch the channel) has the same distorted
stream. There are errors in both, the video and the audio.

These errors start about 30 seconds after having started to record, and
become stronger after some further ten seconds. After a while, the picture
jumps from one still image to the next. If I record multiple channels at the
same time, the errors seem to start immediately, not only after 30 seconds.

mplayer has the same problems playing the recordings (even if played on a
different computer using VGA output). Obviously, the problem is in the 
recording, not in the playback.

What confuses me is that vdr does not show any signs of errors or unexpected
conditions in the log file. mplayer on the other hand complains about a bad
file: "@@@ libmpeg2 returned from sig11... (bad file?) @@@".

When all recordings stop, the problems go away (after some seconds at
least). There is a bug in vdr regarding stopping recordings --> see my next
mail.

I'm using this setup:

HW: ASUS A7V8X mainboard, AMD Athlon(TM) XP 1800+, 128 MB RAM
    2 x WinTV NOVA-S ("low budget")
    2 x Videologic DVD Player (DXR3-compatible)
    1 x IDE Harddisk Maxtor 6Y120L0

SW: SuSE Linux 8.1 with standard kernel
    vdr-1.1.26
    vdr-dxr3-0.1.7a (DXR3-plugin)
    linuxtv-dvb-1.0.0-pre2 (DVB drivers)
    em8300-0.13.0 (DXR3 driver, tried with and without patch from plugin)

As one can see, my vdr makes use of the DXR3 plugin, since I don't have a
full featured DVB card. The second card with EM8300 should not harm, since
there are no problems if I play a DVD using mplayer on the second card 
while using vdr on the first.

The last thing I could add is that I've also tried to compile vdr with 
a modified "dvbdevice.c" where I commented the defines for multiple
recordings on the same card:

// #define DO_REC_AND_PLAY_ON_PRIMARY_DEVICE 1
// #define DO_MULTIPLE_RECORDINGS 1

After that, recording multiple channels from one card did not work anymore,
so I did it right. However, the problems remained.

Is there anything I can do? Or better: Does anybody have a clue where to
start with debugging? I'm quite comfortable with C++ programming on linux so
I'd like to track the problem down.


Ciao,

Tobias

-- 
Tobias Haustein

E-Mail tobias.haustein@aixmail.de


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