Incorrect program duration

[paul49]

I've recently upgraded my media server to an i7, upgraded Mezzmo to v5 and retired Windows Media Centre in favour of Media Portal TV Server.
The previous server was too slow to transcode on the fly so I wrote a C++ utility to interrogate WMC every hour and repackage any new recordings from .wmv to MPEG program streams so that my Sony devices could play them natively. This worked well for years.

The new server is quick enough to transcode the transport streams coming from MediaPortal in real time so I've retired the utility. This is generally working very well.

However, I've noticed that occasionally Mezzmo is reporting incorrect program durations. I had a closer look at one of them and found that ffmpeg reports the correct duration (in this case 1 hr 17 min), VideoRedo reports correctly as does Windows Explorer and Windows Media Player. Mezzmo however, displays the duration as 15 minutes. When I try to play the program, the TV also reports 15 minutes and plays erratically. If I manually run up VideoRedo and do a Quickstream Fix on the recording, all is OK.

I've also noticed some other programs reporting as over 10 hours in Mezzmo when, in fact, they're only an hour or so.

It's only a minor issue but has anyone else noticed this behaviour with MPEG transport streams recorded from TV?

Thanks,
Paul.

[paulsalter]

Hi,

I have also had this occasionaly, along with ffmpeg not being able to detect the video width so the show fails to add

I have put it down to slight corruption in the file while the recording is in place, i tested mine on another dlna server that uses ffmpeg and it shows the same problem

Like you, playback of the file is fine when using local apps, just ffmpeg cant detect the info, a quick mpeg fix program corrects it

I can go weeks without seeing it, then get this a few times in a few days

[paul49]

I can go weeks without seeing it, then get this a few times in a few days

That's my experience as well.

[jbinkley60]

I've recently upgraded my media server to an i7, upgraded Mezzmo to v5 and retired Windows Media Centre in favour of Media Portal TV Server.
The previous server was too slow to transcode on the fly so I wrote a C++ utility to interrogate WMC every hour and repackage any new recordings from .wmv to MPEG program streams so that my Sony devices could play them natively. This worked well for years.

The new server is quick enough to transcode the transport streams coming from MediaPortal in real time so I've retired the utility. This is generally working very well.

However, I've noticed that occasionally Mezzmo is reporting incorrect program durations. I had a closer look at one of them and found that ffmpeg reports the correct duration (in this case 1 hr 17 min), VideoRedo reports correctly as does Windows Explorer and Windows Media Player. Mezzmo however, displays the duration as 15 minutes. When I try to play the program, the TV also reports 15 minutes and plays erratically. If I manually run up VideoRedo and do a Quickstream Fix on the recording, all is OK.

I've also noticed some other programs reporting as over 10 hours in Mezzmo when, in fact, they're only an hour or so.

It's only a minor issue but has anyone else noticed this behaviour with MPEG transport streams recorded from TV?

Thanks,
Paul.

If you go into the Mezzmo GUI and then look at Properties --> Video does it show the correct values there ? If not try the Get Properties from File option. If that fixes it then a likely culprit is that Mezzmo tried to discover the file automatically while it was still being copied or transcoded.

[paul49]

If you go into the Mezzmo GUI and then look at Properties --> Video does it show the correct values there ? If not try the Get Properties from File option. If that fixes it then a likely culprit is that Mezzmo tried to discover the file automatically while it was still being copied or transcoded.

Thanks jbinkley60. That fixed the file which Mezzmo reported as 15 minutes but not the ones which it reported as over 10 hours. Interestingly ffmpeg shows the incorrect duration for these as well but the other programs are correct.

[jbinkley60]

Thanks jbinkley60. That fixed the file which Mezzmo reported as 15 minutes but not the ones which it reported as over 10 hours. Interestingly ffmpeg shows the incorrect duration for these as well but the other programs are correct.

So for the 10 hour ones the Mezzmo Properties show the file length as 10 hrs ? If so the Mezzmo folks will need to help here.

[paul49]

So for the 10 hour ones the Mezzmo Properties show the file length as 10 hrs ? If so the Mezzmo folks will need to help here.

I suspect the problem lies with ffmpeg rather than Mezzmo. I assume that Mezzmo uses ffmpeg to read the program duration and ffmpeg is reporting it incorrectly. All my other tools (including plain old Windows Explorer) report it correctly.

There are quite a few tickets (one is recent) opened against ffmpeg regarding similar issues. When I get a chance, I'll do some reading and testing. I quickly ran ffmpeg with -analyzeduration and it's still wrong.

Hardly a show stopper - I can manually fix it in a couple of minutes. Thank you for your suggestions - as you said, it seems likely that Mezzmo might have added the (15 minute file) while it was still recording. That's easy to fix if it happens again.

[paul49]

I just had a look though my various Mezzmo folders and found quite a large number of programs all with around 10 hours reported and they're all from the same TV channel. But not all programs are wrong and even when there are multiple episodes of the same series, some are correct and some are not. The recordings from the other channels are correct in each case.

The channel in question has comparatively poor signal strength and quality and the recordings on this channel experience dropouts quite frequently.

I have put it down to slight corruption in the file while the recording is in place

Agree - maybe it's just corrupt timestamps and, for whatever reason, ffmpeg can't recover? I've never really had a reason to study ffmpeg's command line options in any great detail. If I get bored one day, I'll do some further research.