Tvheadend

Tvheadend does not alter the contents of the h264 stream in any way so there must be something else that's fishy here...

Maybe an issue with the muxer. See also here: https://www.lonelycoder.com/redmine/boards/5/topics/565
Demuxing of SD-Streams always works fine.

I also have problems with h264 recordings (SD): most of the recordings cannot even be played back properly using any player I have tried. Some parts play ok, some just freeze and the image stutters for a few seconds and then it comes back to normal.
All my mpeg2 recordings work just fine, the problem is inly there for h264 streams (the audio on those streams is mpeg2 and plays fine throughout the recording, it's jus the video stream that has problems).
Since this matter is ruining my (perfect, apart from that) TvHeadend experience, I would appreciate it if the developer (or any other person who can help) could give us some instructions in order to (at least) debug the issue, so that maybe a solution can be found...

One thing I noticed (and think that may be relevant to the issue) is that, although I know that the DVB-T h264 video stream has a resolution of 704x576, the recorded file (supposedly) has a resolution of 720x576 (this is seen both on the log when the recording starts and the mkv headers using mkvinfo).
Weird thing is that, even if I manually alter the resolution in the dvbtransports files, it is automatically set back to 720x576 after the first recording starts.

Is the developer intending to spend any time with TvHeadend again? I am wondering, since there are numerous issues here (some of the quite important; eg. a DVR should be able to at least RECORD streams properly(!)) and there is no reply from him whatsoever...
I have even made a pull request on git with a feature 1 month ago and I never even got a reply about why it never got merged.
It is really important for me (and for the whole community I suppose) to know, since it would save us a lot of time switching to an actively developing dvr solution (dvr, mythtv, etc) instead of filing issues to a dead project.
It's a shame, though, since TvHeadend is the most straightforward solution and dushmaniac is trying hard to get it to work properly with xbmc.
PLEASE, at least inform us if you ever intend to look at the important matters.
Thanx in advance.

Yes, I have the same problem. Tvheadend recordings not playing on some software and hardware players. I found that simple run of mkvmerge on recorded mkv's fix "wrong" mkv structure. But this is the partial solution because working on SD recordings only. HD channels not fixed by mkvmerge may be due h264 stream or something else.

In my case, mkvmerge doesn't fix anything.
Actually, it seems like some parts of the video stream are dropped while recording, since while trying to play the file back, I get image freezing from time to time (for 1-2 seconds), while the audio is playing normally and then video resumes properly.
The point is that we have no directions for debugging the issue in order to find out where the problem really lies.

Dimitris Kazakos wrote:

Is the developer intending to spend any time with TvHeadend again? I am wondering, since there are numerous issues here (some of the quite important; eg. a DVR should be able to at least RECORD streams properly(!)) and there is no reply from him whatsoever...
I have even made a pull request on git with a feature 1 month ago and I never even got a reply about why it never got merged.
It is really important for me (and for the whole community I suppose) to know, since it would save us a lot of time switching to an actively developing dvr solution (dvr, mythtv, etc) instead of filing issues to a dead project.
It's a shame, though, since TvHeadend is the most straightforward solution and dushmaniac is trying hard to get it to work properly with xbmc.
PLEASE, at least inform us if you ever intend to look at the important matters.
Thanx in advance.

Hi, Sorry for not attending these matters. As I've lined out in the recent news entry I've spent a lot of time on Showtime recently.

But I really feel bad for not attending Tvheadend too and these types of commets makes it even "worse" in a way. I began developing Tvheadend many years ago because I was frustrated with how huge and user unfriendly Myth and VDR were (and part also because I wanted to learn more about DVB in general).

Well, obviously a project that is not maintained is also very user unfriendly. Therefore I've no decided to give attention to Tvheadend at least one day per week (or actually one-evening-after-the-family-have-gone-to-bed) so I can atelast merge and review patches and triage and fix critical bugs.

Sorry for letting you guys down. I never intended to.
'

See info on bug #555