New remuxer

Channels DVR Server Troubleshooting
#1

Per your post here there is a new remuxer.
https://community.getchannels.com/t/new-option-on-recording-regenerate-streaming-index/18309/3

Running pre-release version 2019.07.12.0039.
I regenerated the streaming index for an older recording I have and then tried to play it back in the web browser.
I see nothing in the web UI settings, the player/viewer window or the log file about the remuxing.
It's playing with no audio and severe macroblocking.
Clipboard01

Here's the details from View Details of the recording
Clipboard02

If I set the Web Player quality to 720p@3mbps it transcodes and plays fine.

#2

This is normal. There's nothing that runs when you try to watch it. All the work is done beforehand during the indexing.

What channel was this recorded from?

#3

What channel was it recorded from? National Geographic on cable via my HDHR Prime.

Here's the output from MediaInfo on the recorded file.
General
ID : 0 (0x0)
Complete name : .\ChannelsDVR\TV\Rookie Moonshot Budget Mission to the Moon\Rookie Moonshot Budget Mission to the Moon 2019-04-23 2019-04-25-2100.mpg
Format : MPEG-TS
File size : 1.69 GiB
Duration : 1 h 0 min
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 3 960 kb/s
Movie name : Expedition Mars: Spirit and O
Law rating : TV-G
FileExtension_Invalid : ts m2t m2s m4t m4s tmf ts tp trp ty

Video
ID : 5214 (0x145E)
Menu ID : 7 (0x7)
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : [email protected]
Format settings : CABAC / 4 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, Reference frames : 4 frames
Codec ID : 27
Duration : 1 h 0 min
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 3 182 kb/s
Nominal bit rate : 5 000 kb/s
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 59.940 (60000/1001) FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.058
Stream size : 1.36 GiB (80%)
EBP_Distance : 2.000
EBP_Mode : Explicit

Audio #1
ID : 5215 (0x145F)
Menu ID : 7 (0x7)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Commercial name : Dolby Digital
Codec ID : 129
Duration : 1 h 0 min
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 384 kb/s
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel layout : L R C LFE Ls Rs
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 31.250 FPS (1536 SPF)
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Delay relative to video : -952 ms
Stream size : 168 MiB (10%)
Language : English
Service kind : Complete Main

Audio #2
ID : 5216 (0x1460)
Menu ID : 7 (0x7)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Commercial name : Dolby Digital
Codec ID : 129
Duration : 1 h 0 min
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 kb/s
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel layout : M M
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 31.250 FPS (1536 SPF)
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Delay relative to video : -936 ms
Stream size : 83.8 MiB (5%)
Language : Spanish
Service kind : Complete Main

Text #1
ID : 5214 (0x145E)-CC1
Menu ID : 7 (0x7)
Format : EIA-608
Muxing mode : SCTE 128 / DTVCC Transport
Muxing mode, more info : Muxed in Video #1
Duration : 1 h 0 min
Bit rate mode : Constant
Stream size : 0.00 Byte (0%)
CaptionServiceName : CC1

Text #2
ID : 5214 (0x145E)-1
Menu ID : 7 (0x7)
Format : EIA-708
Muxing mode : SCTE 128 / DTVCC Transport
Muxing mode, more info : Muxed in Video #1
Duration : 1 h 0 min
Bit rate mode : Constant
Stream size : 0.00 Byte (0%)

Menu
ID : 70 (0x46)
Menu ID : 7 (0x7)
Duration : 1 h 0 min
List : 5214 (0x145E) (AVC) / 5215 (0x145F) (AC-3, English) / 5216 (0x1460) (AC-3, Spanish)
Title : Expedition Mars: Spirit and O
Language : / English / Spanish
Law rating : TV-G

#4

If you can upload the recording somewhere and email us a link that would be helpful in debugging.

#5

Sent you a DM

#6

Can you download and send http://x:8089/dvr/files/1268/m3u8

#7

Also what browser are you using on which OS

#8

DM sent for m3u8 file.
Mozilla Firefox v68 on Windows7-64bit.

#9

Trying to play the same recording in Safari on iPadPro with iOS 12.3.1 results in this error message "The media playback was aborted due to a corruption problem or because the media used features your browser did not support" and it doesn't play.

#10

Very strange as we were able to remux the recording and play it without issue. Will see if your m3u8 matches ours.

Are other recordings doing the same thing or just this one?

#11

Same issues (no audio & severe macroblocking) with 3 recordings from last night, two History channel, one TruTV. These recorded files play perfect in VLC player. The only recordings that play normally in the web UI are the older ones that don't have a streaming index generated for them.

#12

Just updated DVR to 2019.07.12.1935 and now playback is fine from iPadPro in Safari, but still have same issues in Firefox web player.

1 Like
#13

Okay we were able to reproduce in Firefox and Chrome. Looking into it.

1 Like
#14

Besides creating the m3u8 playlist (stream index) for a recording job, does the new remuxer create an hls stream of recordings it indexes somewhere?

#15

No, it only creates an index which is later used to do things on demand.

#16

OK, did you need me to test web UI playback with any other browsers or do you have a handle on the issue?
I have an mepg2 recording coming up in 30 minutes and an h.264 recording in 3 hrs.

#17

I see ffprobe is being used (taking up very little CPU time) to construct the m3u8 file while the DVR is recording a 12mbps mpeg2 stream from my HDHR Prime.

#18

Will let you know when we have some fixes to test.

#19

I've not been able to play this recording successfully from the web UI using any browser.
Tried CHROME, EDGE, FIREFOX, IE & SAFARI.

So I deleted the file ChannelsDVR/Streaming/m3u8/1265/stream.m3u8 and it now plays in all browsers using the old ffmpeg muxer.

I'm assuming this means if a stream index exists for a recording file, the new remuxer is used, if not the old one runs.

I removed all directories under ChannelsDVR/Streaming/m3u8/ and now all my recordings will play in the web UI until the fix comes out.

#20

New build is out which will automatically fallback to ffmpeg based remuxing for browser playback of cable recordings.