i dont thinik any software \ hardware can play it, as the recording itself is NOT recording in the first place, or at least properly
This is correct. I just tried a medium bitrate stream with my 3877 firmware, ie one of those ABC MPEG4 feeds. The actual bitrate of the video was about 23.4 mbps. This actually almost recorded properly, compared to similar quality mpeg2 streams in the 30-45 mbps range that I have tried in the past, which didn't come close to recording. I recorded a short 10 minute segment, and tried to play it back on the Azbox, and it kind of played back, but it was full of stops, pauses, loss of audio, etc, but it did seem continuous. Back when I tried this with MPEG2 in the 30-45mbps range, it was COMPLETELY messed up, and when I tried playing it back via computer streaming to ROKU or PopCornHour, the recording was full of errors, mainly associated with the timing I think, because it seemed to play back at the wrong speed or something, I can't remember exactly, but it was wierd. I think that the playback didn't have sound, and it played back for the proper amount of time, but only had 1/2 the video in it that it should. Whatever it was, it was very wierd.
THis recording was really close to working.
Plus, I just saw a post from a guy over at the Rick's forum that stated that he was able to record this same channel without any problems using the newer firmware. I moved my short recording over to my computer, and tried to bring it up in VideoReDo. VRD didn't seem to like it, it was trying to play it, but the audio kept repeating short portions several times before going onto the next segment. I had VRD convert a short section into a regular MPEG2 program file, and it seemed to cure the repeating audio problem, however the audio video sync was very bad. So, my 3877 firmware just doesn't quite work yet, but apparently the newer 4?66 or whatever it is, apparently can do this level of medium bitrate, so things seem to be improving.
Part of the problem may be my hard drive, however. When I FTP's the file to my computer, it was only transferring at 16mbps. Tried it over wireless and wired network, and speed was the same, so it's a hangup on the Azbox, but could be the Azbox connection to the hard drive. But since the recorded video seems pretty well intact, I'm thinking that this is just the priority given to FTP, not that the Azbox can't talk to external hard drives that fast.
Anyway, there were definately errors in the recording, but at least for medium bitrate mpeg4, things are close to working, and apparently there if I'd only upgrade.