[ultrabrutal]

Ok the results are in. Outofsync after 39:30 but not much. Later on it becomes alittle more out of sync.
I think it's the small reception errors which are in the stream multiple places. I wonder why you had no problems with sync as Time Machine had problems too with receptionerrors.
Running out of options/ideas. Think I will try to record it again as it's still aired every few days. Damn...

[plugh]

That log you posted from mpeg2repair is the 'key', I think...

That long series of time related messages has to be the root cause of the audio / video timing issue. If that was understood and addressed (Is it something DVB-S related? Are those transport streams 'differant' in some fashion? Or is it Dreambox related?), I bet the reception glitches would be easier to deal with...

Did you look at the faqs / postings in the doom9 'hdtv/dvb' forum? Have you checked out any of the doom9 'dvb capture' guides? Perhaps there is a better TS demuxing tool that can deal with whatever is differant about those dvb-s streams to give you clean video, audio, (and subs?) files...

[ultrabrutal]

I have looked through guides, forum, irc, google...
ProjectX is a Java application which processes Transport Streams. It has insane number of options. It can even generate our SRT files. Demuxing video and audio gives many details to the errors and the options can fix them.
The problem at 39:19 is clearly visible.

http://www.mytempdir.com/1121596

The two pass encode had framedrops in high action scenes (streaming over smb with software decoding)? I'm starting over from scratch with my new files from ProjectX...

[plugh]

And without software audio decoding (ie digital audio out?)?

[ultrabrutal]

Didn't have time to test that (christmas shopping). I did try the first 9 min of the new encode using the new ProjectX files. There are two reception faults in the original which are very visible and was too in my earlier encodes, but somehow ProjectX fixed this so it's not visible at all in the new encode!
Maybe you should try this with Time Machine if you still have the source

Tonight when I return home, I will mux the audio with the video and cross my fingers and toes. Later...

[plugh]

I read about ProjectX, but was hesitant about having to load the JRE. Guess I'll bite the bullet...

Get a copy of BeSweet, and use it to convert your AC3 5.1 down to a stereo MP3 stream (it can even make it a Dolby Prologic surround mix if you want). Mux this in as your primary audio track, and the AC3 5.1 as alternate sound track.

When you play movie on 'other' systems, you get software decoded stereo audio by default; when on main system (with digital audio out), select ac3 stream in xbmc. Thus, you are not trying to do software decoding and down-mix of 5.1 'on the fly' on the systems that can't use it, and you pipe the 5.1 stream out to your external decoder on the system that can. You 'move' this decode / down-mix processing to the encode stage, rather than during playback.

I haven't actually measured the cpu hit for mp3 decode, but ac3 2.0 decode was a very small load, so I'd guess mp3 decode would be as low if not lower...

[plugh]

PS - keep the sample rate at 48K, as I believe other rates (eg 44.1K) have to be converted to 48K PCM 'on the fly' during playback due to xbox sound chip.

[ultrabrutal]

I deleted my first test movie, Blade Trinity, as it clearly has issues. Using ProjectX the AC3 would show weird length and bitrate. MP2 was fine. However the encode would miss 9 minutes for some reason.
I then starting testing with Million Dollar Baby where AC3 worked fine. I did an encode using both AC3 and MP2. While encoding I was able to play it back fine, however when done XBMC wouldn't start playwork. Nothing happens when pressing A on the file!? Tried demuxing and muxing again. Same problem.
Did you ever see this before?

Next movie is Black Hawk Down which is 1080p...

[ultrabrutal]

Hmmm apears the problem is that there are two soundtracks in the AVI. When I mux with either and just one, it plays fine. This must be a XBMC problem since the AVI's play fine on PC (Windows Media Player and VLC)

[ultrabrutal]

Made a segment of the AVI and XBMC can start it and I can choose between the two tracks. Howcome it doesn't start the full AVI? It's less than 4 gb and I also tried it from HDD.

The movie played with analog audio decoding with 19 frame drops via SMB - all services except FTP was disabled. Not bad but not perfect either. Didn't test Digital decoding because I assume it always works if Analog does!?

If two tracks is not possible in a huge AVI I guess I have to encode it all over with just the AC3 - this will give a little more video bitrate and still keep it under 4 gb FATX limit, but might thereby yield a larger frame drop count and I'm not sure disabling FTP will make it disappear.

Should I use the "Second pass ALT" instead?

[plugh]

"Second pass alt" is my code, so yeah, that's definitely what you want.

Odd about the dual audio; I know it can work, as your segment test showed, and I don't think it's a size related issue. I've never tried it with MP2+AC3; I have files with multiple AC3, multiple MP3, and MP3+AC3...

Do you have the xbmc log enabled? What did it say about the failing file?

[ultrabrutal]

DOH! That could explain the framedrops then maybe. May I suggest a rename to "Second pass XBMC optimized" instead or something


To the dual audio problem, here is a part of the log file:

10:39:54 M: 7639040 SEVERE: DLL: Q:\system\players\mplayer\mplayer.dll : malloc failed, crash imminent (Out of memory requesting 9124480 bytes)
10:39:54 M: 7639040 ERROR: CMPlayer::OpenFile : Access violation at 0x00f64e30: Writing location 0x00000000
10:39:54 M: 21606400 ERROR: Playlist Player: skipping unplayable item: 0, path [smb://computer/share/file.avi]

Seems it fails to get 9 mb memory and afterwards it tries to access the memory it didn't get and therefore get an access violation and skips the file. Nothing is shown on screen. A good idea for devs (if anyone listning in) would be to catch the exception and say something like "Not enough free memory for operation".
However I think there should be pleanty of memory. I will have a look later and perhaps try to lower cache settings (at default currently) and see if I can get the file to play.

[plugh]

That's kind of odd, particularly if you've got FTP etc off.
Is your display set at 720p or 1080i? Are you using default skin?

[ultrabrutal]

1080i in the menu and 720p when viewing videos... PM3 skin. I will play around and see if I can get it to play

[ultrabrutal]

I disabled FTP server also which freed 2 mb up.

1080i PM3 skin uses 13 mb more RAM than 720p skin. WTF?! When pressing A to start playing the file, I have 22 mb available RAM. Why it cannot allocate 9 mb I do not understand. Cache is set to 256 kb so that cannot be the cause.
It plays if the menu is at 720p, but not 1080i...
Why does a movie with 2 tracks require more memory than one track? It only plays one of them anyways. Something is wrong here.

I think the movie will play without drops with your ALT second pass even with software AC3 decoding, so never mind the second audio track - I won't trade my 1080i menu sharpless for an audio track which I do not need and also getting a little better video for the 232 mb MP2 file left out