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Multiple errors while transcoding in the same machine as tvheadend

Added by Giorgos Laskaridis about 7 years ago

I run Vmware ESXI on my 4 core xeon server and everything runs smoothly when streaming directly from tvheadend into my local network. The problem starts when I encode my stream with ffmpeg on the same server (virtually and literally). Lots of continuity errors arise and the video has numerous artifacts while the cpu usage is about 10% (out of 400%)!

Funny thing is when I do the transcoding on a separate server everything works great and continuity errors are almost 0!

I've tried a lot of different configurations and came up with this solution.

I am using stable tvheadend 4.2.4-10~g0771e34, and ran ffmpeg 3.2.4 on Mac, Freebsd and Ubuntu 16.04 all with the same errors.

Any idea how can I overcome this nightmare I'm into / Have you encountered similar behaviour?

Typical errors I get in tvheadend:

[mpegts 0x7fe5e9000000] PES packet size mismatch84 bitrate=N/A dup=41 drop=0 speed=1.01x
[mp2
0x7fe5e8822600] Header missing
Error while decoding stream #0:1: Invalid data found when processing input
[h264 0x7fe5e9010000] Reference 3 >= 2
[h264
0x7fe5e9010000] error while decoding MB 27 28, bytestream 19775
[h264 0x7fe5e9010000] concealing 382 DC, 382 AC, 382 MV errors in B frame
[h264
0x7fe5e93eac00] error while decoding MB 16 30, bytestream -6=42 drop=0 speed=1.01x
[h264 0x7fe5e93eac00] concealing 303 DC, 303 AC, 303 MV errors in B frame
[h264
0x7fe5e93ea600] Reference 2 >= 2=00:17:46.04 bitrate=N/A dup=42 drop=0 speed=1.01x
[h264 0x7fe5e93ea600] error while decoding MB 0 16, bytestream 17674
[h264
0x7fe5e93ea600] concealing 949 DC, 949 AC, 949 MV errors in P frame
[h264 0x7fe5e938d400] Reference 2 >= 2=00:17:46.96 bitrate=N/A dup=42 drop=0 speed=1.01x
[h264
0x7fe5e938d400] error while decoding MB 23 6, bytestream 16773
[h264 0x7fe5e938d400] concealing 1376 DC, 1376 AC, 1376 MV errors in P frame
[h264
0x7fe5e9010000] concealing 862 DC, 862 AC, 862 MV errors in P framep=0 speed=1.01x
[h264 0x7fe5e9010000] Reference 2 >= 2=00:17:53.04 bitrate=N/A dup=42 drop=0 speed=1.01x
[h264
0x7fe5e9010000] error while decoding MB 20 10, bytestream 9805
[h264 0x7fe5e9010000] concealing 1199 DC, 1199 AC, 1199 MV errors in P frame
[h264
0x7fe5e93eac00] concealing 47 DC, 47 AC, 47 MV errors in B framedrop=0 speed=1.01x
[h264 0x7fe5e93d9800] Reference 3 >= 2=00:18:20.32 bitrate=N/A dup=43 drop=0 speed=1.01x
[h264
0x7fe5e93d9800] error while decoding MB 27 12, bytestream 6466
[h264 0x7fe5e93d9800] concealing 1102 DC, 1102 AC, 1102 MV errors in P frame
[mpegts
0x7fe5e9000000] PES packet size mismatch56 bitrate=N/A dup=43 drop=0 speed=1.01x
[h264 0x7fe5e93e8c00] Reference 2 >= 2
[h264
0x7fe5e93e8c00] error while decoding MB 42 20, bytestream 7811
[h264 0x7fe5e93e8c00] concealing 727 DC, 727 AC, 727 MV errors in P frame
[mp2
0x7fe5e8822600] Header missing
Error while decoding stream #0:1: Invalid data found when processing input


Replies (4)

RE: Multiple errors while transcoding in the same machine as tvheadend - Added by Giorgos Laskaridis almost 7 years ago

I tried with also these and the same problem persists:
tvheadend_3.4.28~geb79aee~trusty_amd64.deb
tvheadend_4.0.8~trusty_amd64.deb
tvheadend_4.0.9~trusty_amd64.deb

There is a big possibility though that ESXI is causing the problem as this guy says:

https://timstallard.me.uk/blog/2016-04-11-tvheadend-vm/
At this point, the VM server was running VMWare ESXi, and making use of its USB passthrough options to allow a VM to use the USB Tuner. This worked OK with the standard definition tuner, but once I started using the HD tuner, there were a large number of data errors, making it completely impossible to watch TV.

I will try to install Ubuntu on bare metal to find out if anything improves

RE: Multiple errors while transcoding in the same machine as tvheadend - Added by Giorgos Laskaridis almost 7 years ago

I can confirm that this was the problem. Vmware ESXi was terrible at some point and cause all of these problems. I am leaving this here for your information.
Cheers

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