playing back high bit rate AZBOX recordings (over 20mbps) - on a PC?

[manikm]

hi there,

has anyone tried taking a recording from a hi bit rate feed (30-40mbps) recorded on the AZBOX and playing them back on a PC or a media streamer such as the WD TV LIVE box?

i guess what im asking, is the recording screwed up in the first place? or is it just a matter that it cannot be played back in the AZBOX>

PS dont shoot me, especially as this is my first post, but im from the UK and am a member of a very high reuptable satellite forum, and have been for many years, and apparently the new premium plus model, uses a different tuner to the Elite and Premium, and has HARDWARE BLIND SCAN.

i have no proof!!! but it looks VERY official.

Thanks all!!!

 

[B.J.]

hi there,

has anyone tried taking a recording from a hi bit rate feed (30-40mbps) recorded on the AZBOX and playing them back on a PC or a media streamer such as the WD TV LIVE box?

i guess what im asking, is the recording screwed up in the first place? or is it just a matter that it cannot be played back in the AZBOX>

....

I can't speak for the more recent weekly untested firmware updates, but with the last tested beta version, it's both the recording and the playback that's messed up. Ie it can't record high bitrates, and it can't play high bitrate recordings from other sources.
I THINK that there has been some improvements in recent versions, because it seems to handle slightly higher bitrates sent to it via UDP streams, plus it seems to handle mpeg4 a lot better, than mpeg2, so it does seem to be the actual bitrate not the quality of the video so much. Ie it will play mpeg4 video that is equivalent to mpeg2 video that it won't play, since the mpeg4 is a lower bitrate (not sure my sentence makes sense). Also, it seems like when I first started using the Azbox, the limit was around 20mbps, but it seems like it might be creeping up a bit, but the intermediate bitrates between what will work and what won't work are hard to find, so I'm not sure.
Ice said that he had some way to get around the recording issue, so perhaps he'll tell us.

 

[manikm]

cheers for the reply, it would be great to hear Ice mans workaround....

when you say, it cant record high bitrates, what actually happens? also, whatever this failure to record maybe, is it the same problem whether you're recording to internal, or external disk?

 

[dfergie]

Welcome to SatelliteGuys! will VLC touch it?, the 1st gen WDTV boxes can play some pretty high bitrate stuff , not sure about the live version...

 

[putney]

VLC would not play back. It is corrupted in the record process.

I think Ice uses the component or composite out and records to a stand alone DVD.

 

[Mr Tony]

it wont play back a high bitrate on either from what I heard

I use a DVD recorder/hard drive that has component inputs for HD feeds or a regualr HDD/DVD recorder for most other

 

[dfergie]

Anyone try Power dvd (a version that plays HD DVD & Blu rays?)

 

[AcWxRadar]

Anyone try Power dvd (a version that plays HD DVD & Blu rays?)

Dfergie,

I am not familiar with Power DVD. Is that a software program similar to VLC, but with more utility?

I can surely Google for information on this, but since you brought it up here, could you please elaborate upon it for everyone's benefit? At least to provide a rough overview, especially if this is something that you found to work for you.

For myself, I have not recorded anything that has caused me any troubles. Except if I record for an unusually long time, which I did simply to test a theory regarding the time limit for recordin. Otherwise, the only recording that I have done was on the PBS HD channels, the History channel and RTN. I have no problems with these signals at all, but these are not the signal types that the others are referring to.

Thank you for bringing "Power DVD" to the table for discussion. Maybe this is something that we can use. I do imagine that this is not freeware.

RADAR

 

[manikm]

i dont thinik any software \ hardware can play it, as the recording itself is NOT recording in the first place, or at least properly

 

[zamar23]

Open Sat who distributes AZBox has its own content rich forum, and there are many European forums that address the box technical deficiencies and available workarounds in more detail simply because AZBox has being sold for longer and in much higher numbers in Europe. So browsing the European web for more info would be another option, if you can't find the answer here.

 

[B.J.]

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.

 

[manikm]

thanks for your update mate.


why dont you upgrade to latest and test some recordings \ playbacks again!?

 

[B.J.]

thanks for your update mate.


why dont you upgrade to latest and test some recordings \ playbacks again!?

I will as soon as the Olympics are over. Afraid to mess things up, since most everything is working well right now.