Microsoft DVR-MS video container support request

[buhd]

this would be awesome, link up my mce pcs with my box... the dvr-ms format is an mpeg-2 in an asf container. i don't know how hard it'd be but it should be possible maybe. excellent work so far btw...

-buhd

[Frodo]

we're using mplayer/ffmpeg codecs for decoding the various formats.
i'm not sure if dvr-ms is already supported, if not
please ask the ffmpeg & mplayer group to add it
if they add the correct codecs/demuxers then you'll see it in xbmc also

ffmpeg:here (http://ffmpeg.sourceforge.net/index.org.html)

mplayer: mplayer (http://www.mplayerhq.hu)

frodo

[andrewjm]

is there a way to make xbmc have the ability to play .dvr-ms files? they are the mpeg2 windows media center files that you record live tv on.

[Gamester17]

please read this => http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin....;t=1921 (http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.pl?act=st;f=4;t=1921)

[loonytunes]

any chance of support for this format being added to xbmc in the near future? its basically an mpeg in a custom microsoft wrapper, patches are available for xp to allow playback of these files couldnt these be adapted for addition to the xbox??

[connoleg]

i have ccx server installed on my windows mce machine and can see the files with the drv-ms extension. xbmc does not seem to handle these files currently.

[Gamester17]

=> to all people requesting new codecs, read this! (link) (http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.pl?act=st;f=4;t=1921) <=

[andrewjm]

will there ever be support for dvr-ms files from windows media center?

it is hard to convert dvr-ms to mpeg2 to play on the xbox, and direct dvr-ms support on xbmc would be great

[Gamester17]

is it possible to play the recorded tv files from mce (microsoft media center edition) in xbmc.no. merged your port into the existing feature suggestion thread on the topic. (in the future please search before posting!)

[Zeosstud]

is there any plan to support the microsoft media center recorded dvr-ms files with xbmc. i ask because the can be viewed in media player 9 and i was thinking that most things media player 9 can see, xbmc could handle also.

zeosstud

[DoughBoy]

here is info on the dvr-ms format...

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library....ges.asp (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnwmt/html/dvrfilechanges.asp)

i wouldn't necessarily call this a codec request because the dvr-ms format seems to be a container.

i believe that mce does not encrypt recordings (although capability exists). there are utilities for the pc that demux to elementary streams and even a converter program to convert to wmv (xbmc can play these btw). this wmv converter is very slow but the author says it will be way faster in final release.

check out utilities here...

http://www.thegreenbutton.com/downloads.aspx

the dvd 2 wmv converter is linked in their forum under 3rd party apps.

[Toaster]

i can add to this thread, of course i would also like to see xbmc play .dvr-ms files from a media center edition pc. *i was able to edit the .xml file to "see" the .dvr-ms files, when i navigate to the proper directory on the mce box, but any attempt to play the .dvr-ms files results in the xbox locking up :(

and to be honest, i'd like to see the "click'n'play" feature of xbmc added to windows media center- maybe as a add-on feature- i'd like to be able to browse my network and click on a .bin, .iso or .img file and see it play on my windows media center pc- like it does on the xbox.

i know you can add "more programs" to mce, i'd love to have xbmc compiled for windows just for that reason! excellent app guys!

if there is anyway to run xbmc on a mce pc, let me know!!!!!!!! :d

[mainsg]

is xbmc ever going to support winxp mce's native recording file format of dvr-ms? just wondering. thanks!!

btw, great job guys. xpmc is awesome!!!!!

[Gamester17]

is xbmc ever going to support winxp mce's native recording file format of dvr-ms?please search the entire forum before posting in the future, tia (moving and merging post into the existing suggestions thread).
please also read this post (link, click here) (http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.pl?act=st;f=4;t=1921) for a technical and more detailed answer to your question. again, search before posting.

[mainsg]

ahhhh, but i did search all groups for dvr-ms. came up with zip-o-la, that is why i asked. check it for yourself. nada...

[deltop]

ahhhh, but i did search all groups for dvr-ms. came up with zip-o-la, that is why i asked. check it for yourself. nada...
can't have tried that hard:

http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin....0150e90 (http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.pl?act=search&code=02&sid=412b7b0140150e90)

tip: when searching in forums don't search for "dvr-ms" search instead for "dvr ms" it was the "-" that was most likely throwing your search off.

[jayz1220]

hello everyone, sorry if this has been asked about already, but i could not find any info in my searches.

is xmbc able to playback files recorded on a windows media center computer. i attempted this earlier and made xbmc browse the directory that the windows media center (mce) files were in, unfortuantly from the "file" menu in xmbc it did not play these files. i cant access the mce box right now but i think the file extensions were .dvr- or something like that.

i checked to see if these files can be played somewhere else, and they played back just fine on a desktop with wm9 installed.

if anyone can give me some information about the capabilities regarding this file format/extension i would be grateful.

many thanks
jay

[senergy]

i dont think you searched hard enough. here is the main thread (http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.pl?act=st&f=4&t=46)
and the answer is no it cant play them. it may in the future but probably not as ms use a closed source container.

[Gamester17]

fyi, ffmpeg (http://ffmpeg.sourceforge.net) has just coded/implemented a dvr-ms demuxer into libavformat (http://www1.mplayerhq.hu/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/ffmpeg/libavformat/?cvsroot=ffmpeg&sortby=date#dirlist) (asf.c/avienc.c) less than 24 hours ago :cool:
now mplayer (http://www.mplayerhq.hu) that don't use libavformat demuxer library from ffmpeg but they could probebely port that part easily ???
...so 'all' you need to do is nag the mplayer-devs (http://www.mplayerhq.hu) to port/implement that dvr-ms demuxer from ffmpeg to mplayer (http://www.mplayerhq.hu) ;)

note! before you ask; no, this will/can not circomvent drm protection (http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.pl?act=st;f=4;t=2277) that microsoft (may) have on your dvr-ms files!
(drm drm = digital rights management decrypting/cracking/hacking (http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.pl?act=st;f=4;t=2277) is a separate issue and should be treated as such!)

[ezar2003]

yes...
if you would like to test download this mplayer_20041030 (http://www.telefonica.net/web2/ezarzone/mplayer.rar) and copy .dll and .conf to mplayer dir...

now,
a) rename .dvr-ms to .avi (or add .dvr-ms extension to xboxmediacenter.xml)
b) creates a .conf file... (if you have a sample.dvr-ms creates sample.dvr-ms.conf in same dir) and add demuxer=35 inside...

sorry for delay!!

[Gamester17]

@ezar2003, are you looking/aiming to submit that demuxer as a patch to mplayer for linux (and mplayer for windows) and/or xbmc? :cool:
ps! remember that the mplayer-devs are really fussy about accepting patches, make sure add doxygen tags/info, and don't do cosmetics

[loonytunes]

i am really suprised that dvr-ms support has not been included yet either by the xbmc devs or the mplayer team...
microsoft are about to release their xbox extenders for mce but it would be nice to see xbmc add support and beat ms at their own game.................anyone got any info about the possibilities of this being considered??

[chadoe]

http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin....6;st=15 (http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.pl?act=st;f=4;t=46;st=15)

[loonytunes]

b) creates a .conf file... (if you have a sample.dvr-ms creates sample.dvr-ms.conf in same dir) and add demuxer=35 inside...

hi, this is great stuff, but can someone clarify this bit please??

ta

[loonytunes]

hi ok, this maybe a matter of not having some config right, (see above post) but i can now play dvr-ms- sort of....... :-(
very blocky and freezes up after a few seconds any help please??

[ezar2003]

hi,
that is an example:
1. you have a file that it names sample.dvr-ms
2. create a text file and names it sample.dvr-ms.conf (put this file in the same dir that sample.dvr-ms is it)
3. now edit sample.dvr-ms.conf and put demuxer=35 inside...

conf example file (http://www.telefonica.net/web2/ezarzone/sample.dvr-ms.conf)

and... if you want to test dvr-ms sample file (ftp://ftp.mplayerhq.hu/mplayer/samples/dvr_ms/microsoft-new-way-to-shove-mpeg2-in-asf.dvr-ms) (rename it to sample.dvr-ms)

[umopdn]

greet guys,

i've been following this thread a bit, and i have the video playing on the xb, however no audio. video stream seems to play fine (sometimes a bit blocky, but decent)

could i be missing a codec to play the audio? if so, how to fix?

thanks alot!

[loonytunes]

hi as i see it, this can play a file as long as you create a custom file with the same name as the file you are trying to play, is there a way of actually getting playback for a all dvr-ms on my drive without having to create a file with names for every file???? and is this being submitted to the mplayer guys for building into the mplayer releases which would mean in xbmc too, i just want to play my dvr-ms :bowdown:

[ezar2003]

hi,
@loonytunes: can you test with this mplayer (2004-11-08) port (http://www.telefonica.net/web2/ezarzone/mplayer.rar) (you don't need .conf file!!!) - i send it to mplayer guys -
@umopdn: please post a sample file

[loonytunes]

ok, image quality is fine, but i have no sound on any dvr-ms files, everything now plays without having to have the config file though...

this is coming on really well so much respect to you for doing this...

issues...

1: no sound
2:cant fast forward or rewind faster than 4x or it crashes
3:everytime i stop playback everything sticks and i have to restart my box

[Gamester17]

@everyone: again, fyi; note that dvr-ms container/demuxer support has not yet been implemented into xbmc cvs!, just fyi

[ezar2003]

please, send me more dvr-ms samples...
@umopdn: thank you for your sample!!

[webby1571]

i have a desktop with mce 2005, but my older version of xbmc doesn't play the dvr.ms files. *has this functionality been added, or is it to remain unsupported? *i'd like to use xbmc instead of an "extender". *the extenders won't stream any hbo shows due to drm issues. *thanks.

[ezar2003]

[experimental] only video... audio not yet (http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.pl?act=st;f=4;t=46;hl=dvr)
(use .conf file ... )

[dinero112]

ls.

searching through various articles i have not come across any postings about dvr-ms which leads me to believe it is not supported (yet).

as i understand it correctly dvr-ms is the format xp-mce uses when recording tv.

my question:

are there any plans to support dvr-ms in the near future?

answers appreciated,

françois

[Gamester17]

searching through various articles i have not come across any postings about dvr-msyou've not searched hard enough, merging your post into the existing request for it, (it's is even mentioned in pinned topic (http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.pl?act=st;f=4;t=1921) :stare: )

[dinero112]

you've not searched hard enough, merging your post into the existing request for it, (it's is even mentioned in pinned topic *)



this is really funny! i just tried searching the whole forum again on "dvr-ms" and it still does not return any search results. i am sorry but i am not smarter than the average search engine...

francois

[Gamester17]

ex.
a search for "dvr and ms" (from 'the beginning') gives result http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin....4e1e10c (http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.pl?act=search&code=02&sid=41a211eb64e1e10c)
a search for just "dvr" (from 'the beginning') gives result http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin....1accbac (http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.pl?act=search&code=02&sid=41a2122e651accba)
a search for just "mce" (from 'the beginning') gives result http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin....57e2ae8 (http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.pl?act=search&code=02&sid=41a212a1657e2ae8)

[loonytunes]

just found out that mediaportal seems to record in dvr-ms now as well, i would love to see mportal and xbmc as alternatives to the mce/extender system but if the dvr-ms thing dosnt get properly taken on board by xbmc system then thats a pipe dream and that is dissapointing

[Phocea]

to add to the discussion. if xbmc is ever able to play properly dvr-ms, will it also get a built in way of acquiring drm licences ?
i work in the tv industry and we are currently working on a demo for a show in 2005 showing streaming of licenced rights using the microsoft drm. wm9/10 are supporting this, not sure what would be required into xbmc to do this though .. just thought i would ask :)

oppss just seen gamester post on page 2 .. will go and have a look at the drm topic :)

[speciestraitor]

i don't know if this will help the devs or users of xbmc, but i have been using arcsoft showbiz dvd (http://www.arcsoft.com/en/products/showbiz/) to transcode the files from ms-dvr to mpeg which works flawlessly in xbmc.

it is also a video edit suite as well as compression suite. there are other utilities as well like dv2wmv...but i had a hard time getting it work correctly.

not a one stop solution, but it has helped me with streaming my dvrs to my xbox. it has a 15-day shareware trial.

i hope this isn't seen as spam...

[Toaster]

according to http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design7/news.html

they have added support for .dvr-ms files... does this mean we will be able to play .dvr-ms files from windows media center pc's? :kickass:

any idea when the new player will be implemented into a release of xbmc? i can't wait!!!! so excited! :o :bowdown:

[houbie2001]

hi,

since a couple of weeks i'am using windows xp mediacenter 2005. when i do a recording form the tv it creates dvr-ms files.
maybe it is possible in future versions to put in a codec to support these filetypes.


rg

houbie

[eccosierra]

mplayer 1.0pre6: x-mas present is having support for dvr-ms
ffmpeg/libavcodec dvr-ms support in asf demuxer

i guess there may be support for dvr-ms in xbmc in the near future *:)

[dupfold]

xbmc really needs dvr-ms support now more than ever otherwise it will start to see a fall in users.

i have been streaming tv recorded on pc to my xbox (downstairs) using xbmc for quite a while now and have been very happy with it. i have now upgraded to mce 2005 and found xbmc does not support dvr-ms.

as it seems form this post, it is unlikely that support will be added to xbmc any time soon and therefore i am now having to seek an alternative to xbmc, maybe a second pc or a simple video send.

i would much rather keep xbmc but have no choice.

[Gamester17]

xbmc really needs dvr-ms support now more than ever otherwise it will start to see a fall in users.bah! how many xbmc-users here own a mce pc?, answer; not many (btw, those where retorical questions so please do not answer), eveyone think 'their' requests are most important :p

please read this entire thread from the beginning and realize that ffmpeg (http://ffmpeg.sourceforge.net)/mplayer (http://www.mplayerhq.hu) cvs'es gets updated every day, (and they are working on dvr-ms), we just don't have the time nor the will to port every single update to own own xbmc cvs every day, what we instead try to do is update/port their whole code when mplayer release a point release (like 1.0-pre5 and 1.0-pre6), so if you want to have the very latest latest updates from ffmpeg (http://ffmpeg.sourceforge.net)/mplayer (http://www.mplayerhq.hu) cvs'es in xbmc today (or any day) then you need to lean how to port the updated code over to xbmc source code and then compile it yourself, ...or you just have to have patience and wait for the next mplayer point release (1.0-pre7?) and then wait for the official xbmc devs to port it to xbmc cvs. ps! if you cannot code but still like to help, what you can do is test very latest ffmpeg (http://ffmpeg.sourceforge.net) and mplayer (http://www.mplayerhq.hu)) on your windows pc then submit proper bug-reports and problem-samples to their developers, (ffmpeg (http://ffmpeg.sourceforge.net)/mplayer (http://www.mplayerhq.hu) that is, and not team-xbmc as we are not codec developers (http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.pl?act=st;f=4;t=1921)).

[nigelbb]

according to the 1.0pre6 history / changelog it _does_ now have support for

* dvr-ms support in asf demuxer

http://www.videohelp.com/tools?changelog=393

[TeXBoX]

great!!!
now we just need to wait. :)

[Striker]

wait for what?
just enable the alternative mplayer in my videos settings
thats is the pre6 mplayer

[dupfold]

what build are you using? i have an up to date build and have enable the alternative mplayer in my videos settings, yet dvr-ms files are not being displayed and therefore cannot be played.

[kraqh3d]

add "|.dvr-ms" to the end of <videoextensions> in xboxmediacenter.xml.

[dupfold]

added this and ohhhhhhh my, the video is now present but when i tried to play it, xbmc crashed harder than a 10 ton lorry after the brakes had become faulty while doing 90mph on the motorway in snowy conditions!

[kraqh3d]

i never said it would work, only how to make that filetype appear in the file list :)

[dupfold]

cheeky! :lol:

[alow]

any updates on this topic? has anyone been able to play the dvr-ms files in xbmc?

[dupfold]

i haven't as yet

[neosparq]

mplayer appears to support dvr-ms... does this mean the the latest build of xbmc will as well?

from the mplayer page:
"dvr-ms support in asf demuxer"
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design7/news.html



cheers,

sparqy

[brihyn]

i haven't uploaded the new 3/5 build to the box yet, so maybe it works now, but if not, add me to the list of people who really want this feature implemented.

[henryy]

i have tried to use the newest version(03/08), but it doesn't work.
seems we still need to wait... :(

[henryy]

neither the 03/12 version works

[dupfold]

er? neither? what do you mean, it does or doesn't work?

[henryy]

sorry for my bad english,
i mean the newest version doesn't work

[dupfold]

dam it! ok, thanks for the updates, keep them coming!

its only a matter of time before it works.

[henryy]

before the support for the dvr-ms is added, seems that videolan streaming to xbox method is a possible solution...
any people tried videolan to play dvr-ms file?

[dupfold]

er? videolan?

[adverb]

anybody else out there that would like support for their dvr-ms files?

[speciestraitor]

there has been moderate talk of dvr-ms files on this forum, more so since mplayer implemeted the files. unfortunately it isn't working for xbmc yet. ( as of the 3-12 build, but i'm sure if someone got it to work in xbmc it would be somewhere here or in the x-s forum)

here is the largest thread in the forum: ms dvr-ms video container support (http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.pl?act=st;f=4;t=46;hl=dvr;st=60)

[jlinhart]

i don't know if this will help, but i found this post on an mplayer mailing list that talks about playing dvr-ms files in mplayer.

dvr-ms in mplayer (http://www.itdp.de/mplayer-users/2005-01/msg00616.html)

i did a test directly in mplayer and it did play (no audio though).

anyone have an idea on how to get this working on the xbox?

[clueo8]

i know this is a long shot, but can xbmc play dvr-ms files recorded on an actual windows media center?

if not, is there even a chance that this will be implemented? or is there copy protection against it.

[WreckGar]

i know this is a long shot, but can xbmc play dvr-ms files recorded on an actual windows media center?

if not, is there even a chance that this will be implemented? or is there copy protection against it.
i'll save you the embarrasment of being told to go and search the boards, as you *really* should have done, but i'll sum it up for you because i'm such a nice guy.

no, it does not currently play it.

it may in the future, because mplayer can play it.

it is not clear whether anyone is actively working towards it at this moment, but last i heard, if you grabbed the right files with the right settings it would play without audio.

another option someone mentioned was using videolan to transcode and broadcast to the xbmc but no-one stepped up and explained exactly how to make that happen with dvr-ms files.

the releavent thread:
http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin....;hl=dvr (http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.pl?act=st;f=4;t=46;hl=dvr)

[speciestraitor]

for videolan to work w/transcoding, you first have to transcode to a format vlan can play natively (mpeg, avi, xvid, etc.) then stream it to your xbox via a vlan playlist.

there are alot of programs that can transcode dvr-ms files. some free, some not - but once its transcoded you can just stream the files however you want (smb or your xbmc media server of choice) and don't need vlan at all.

here are two free programs.

automated dvr-ms to mpeg (http://www.thegreenbutton.com/community/shwmessage.aspx?forumid=26&messageid=98810)

graphrenderer (http://www.thegreenbutton.com/community/shwmessage.aspx?forumid=26&messageid=100797)

i have only used automated dvr>mpeg, but graphrenderer offers some sort of commercial skip/strip as well as transcode.

automated dvr is awesome ime.

[thesilenttheatre]

i just use the autodvrconvert i got from tbg to a smb and play them through xbmc from there. takes up twice the space on your mce, but you can set it do delete the dvr-ms file once its done converting.

[Heimiko]

for all who are interested, autodvrconvert will soon have an update with an internal xns server. this internal xns server will help integration mce with xbmc. for owners of hauppauge pvr cards, there will be an option to watch life tv within xbmc. (also, through the xns share)

stay tuned.......

[Gamester17]

for all who are interested, autodvrconvert will soon have an update with an internal xns server. this internal xns server will help integration mce with xbmc. for owners of hauppauge pvr cards, there will be an option to watch life tv within xbmc. (also, through the xns share)hmm, someone should tell them that the xns-protocol was made obsolete a long time ago in favour of the xbms-protocol (which for example ccxstream and ccgui uses) (http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/downloads/ccxstream-1.0.8.tar.gz) :hmm:

[dupfold]

i've found a solution for the time being.

autodvrconvert - autodvrconvert will automaticly convert your mce recorded television files into mpeg files (ready for playback on your xbox!)

http://www.mcesoft.nl/index.p....t&cat=2 (http://www.mcesoft.nl/index.php?option=com_remository&itemid=128&func=selectcat&cat=2)

works a treat :thumbsup:

[Toaster]

i'm gathering from re-reading this thread, no progress has been made in the effort to have xbmc play .dvr-ms files ? :(

using programs that convert .dvr-ms files to .mpg? *you have to convert them before playing? *whats the point of that....? i have an mce box on my living room tv, and have a dedicated xbox in my bedroom, where at night, i browse my lan for video files to watch, stuff i've downloaded or whatever.. :pirate: .. i'd like to be able to browse the mce recorded tv dir and randomly select an already recorded show to watch while in my bed :) *i don't want to convert it first *:rolleyes:

is there somekind of on-the-fly server program we mce users can run on the mce box that would serve up the list to xmbc and auto-convert the .dvr-ms to a .mpg (or other xbmc friendly file type) as it streams to the xbmc? without the need of having both the .dvr-ms file and the .mpg on the mce box at the same time?

[Gamester17]

@toaster, no. now please read this => http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin....;t=1921 (http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.pl?act=st;f=4;t=1921) which explains when (and how) xbmc can fully support .dvr-ms

[dupfold]

autodvrconvert can auto convert dvr-ms files and delete the original dvr-ms file.

[gtiseb]

hey guys, i've pretty much setup xbmc the way i want it. it works perfectly. i've just got one problem and i was wondering if there was anyone who's figured it out. i have xbmc reading my media off a share on media [today's english lesson, our name is xboxmediacenter] pc, all my mp3's show up fine , as do my downloaded movies and pictures. the only thing that doesn't show up are the recorded tv files that media [today's english lesson, our name is xboxmediacenter] creates when it records tv shows. i've shared out the folder where it stores it and i can see it from xbmc. i can see any other file i put in that folder (.mp3, .mpg, .txt, .doc) but it will not detect any of the tv files. i know media [today's english lesson, our name is xboxmediacenter] encodes extra info in those files and it's a wierd format, is there something i'm missing?

[mcqueary]

hey guys, i've pretty much setup xbmc the way i want it. it works perfectly. i've just got one problem and i was wondering if there was anyone who's figured it out. i have xbmc reading my media off a share on media [today's english lesson, our name is xboxmediacenter] pc, all my mp3's show up fine , as do my downloaded movies and pictures. the only thing that doesn't show up are the recorded tv files that media [today's english lesson, our name is xboxmediacenter] creates when it records tv shows. i've shared out the folder where it stores it and i can see it from xbmc. i can see any other file i put in that folder (.mp3, .mpg, .txt, .doc) but it will not detect any of the tv files. i know media [today's english lesson, our name is xboxmediacenter] encodes extra info in those files and it's a wierd format, is there something i'm missing?
the moderator who edited the above post (inserting "today's english lesson...") seems to confuse "xbmc" with windows media center edition, which is very clearly what the poster was referring to.

[robneal81]

hello,

i have a windows mce server that acts as my tivo. *i have shared the directory which my tv shows are recorded to and set up a link for them in xbmc, but the .dvr-ms files won't even show up. *

is xbmc compatible with those files?

is there any way to watch them using xbmc without buying an xbox extender kit?

thanks guys.

[robneal81]

...nevermind. i just saw the post about autodvrconvert. sorry.

[black88mx6]

with orb i see that i can now record in .dvr-ms, this bypasses microsoft media player and makes it very easy to schedule and record programs from anywhere. now if only xbmc could play them without having to convert them.

[fowen]

if this was available it would allow me to stop building a second mce machine to put in the living room.

i was looking on the mplayer website and it says "dvr-ms support in asf demuxer" under the "ffmpeg/libavcodec" section of the change log for mplayer 1.0pre6 released on 12.23.2004.

i could be reading it wrong but doesn't that say the support is listed in the player since 12.23.2004?

[js3350z]

i have mediacenter on my computer (the actual operating system)...

mediacenter records in a format of .dvr-ms, the files are very large (1.4 gb for 30 min) i have xbmc recognize the file type, i tried streaming it useing smb workgroup comp (or something like that) it started and then instantly messes up, i changed the cache size to see if that would help, then i thought it maybe to big to stream, so i put it on the xbox harddrive and still did the same thing.

i searched the site for dvr-ms but couldn't find anything... (it plays wmv files that are converted from the dvr-ms files but it is a pain in the @$$ to convert, the program used to convert crashed all the time)

thanks for any help

[kraqh3d]

dvr-ms files are not supported.

[js3350z]

ok, that was simple enough :(

just curious (those of you who have media center on comp and get dvr-ms files what do you use to convert them)?

thanks

[win2000b]

does xbmc support dvr-ms files?

files from windows media center 2005

thanks

[elupus]

well.. somewhat.. it's possible to get them to play, but if i remember correctly it's not very well working.

[win2000b]

do u know if people are working on it? or is there no interest in it?

[Loto_Bak]

read this
http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin....;t=1921 (http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin/forums/ikonboard.pl?act=st;f=4;t=1921)

[black88mx6]

orb uses the dvr-ms to create video files. until xbmc can play them natively i use autodvrconvert.

[Gamester17]

a patch was commit on january 21th 2006 to ffmpeg's cvs that fixes dvr-ms demuxing support in libavformat (more specificly in the asf.c and asf.h source code files), (libavformat is the container demuxer/splitter code ffmpeg cvs, but this fix has not yet been ported over to mplayer or xbmc; note and understand that libavformat is not used by mplayer (or the mplayer-core in xbmc) so the fix have to be ported over to mplayer (and the mplayer-core in xbmc) before xbmc can take advantage of it (meaning a programmer/developer need to volunteer to code a patch for it then submit it as a patch to mplayer and xbmc), ...however know that the dvdplayer-core in xbmc is using libavformat so the code could probebely be ported over to that with ease by the avarage c/c++ programmer ('simply' by comparing the difference between the old asf.c/asf.h in xbmc and new asf.c/asf.h in ffmpeg's latest cvs) if he or she has the tools and means to compile xbmc and the dvdplayer-core for xbmc, ...using the dvdplayer-core in xbmc to playback .dvr-ms could at least be a workaround until proper dvr-ms support is added to mplayer, (or until mediaportal starts to use mpeg-ts instead of dvr-ms).

someone then submitted a patch for this to the mplayer.devel mailing-list under the subject "patch] - fix for missing audio stream in dvr-ms asf files" but i can't seem to find that patch anymore.

any volunteers?, if this was implemented in xbmc then xbmc should be able to play dvr-ms files nativly.

http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design7/dload.html
http://www1.mplayerhq.hu/cgi-bin....by=date (http://www1.mplayerhq.hu/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/ffmpeg/libavformat/?cvsroot=ffmpeg&sortby=date)

ps! sorry but i'm not a programmer/developer myself so i don't have the skills requires do this or help out any more than making suggestions.

[jstraten]

hmmm, it appears that xbmc can't play windows media center recording. i thought i could simply change the extension, but now it just plays with artefacts and no sound...

is this under development? or, is there a workaround?

thanks,
jst

[jmarshall]

white -> play with... -> dvd player may do the trick.

you can add the extension to the <videoextension> list in xboxmediacenter.xml to save you renaming it.

[jstraten]

i actually added the extensions to the <videoextension> list, but it seems that these recordings require a different codec because i have square artefacts and no sound.

[Robo983]

i haven't actually modded my box yet but will this weekend. i use meedio for my pvr. unfortunately the dvr-ms recording format is probably the only achilles heel to meedio and is the reason i am building a mod'd xbox because the dsm320 wont play them or just about any other video with out serious transcoding which i am hoping to solve with xbmc.

i didn't see any plug for dvrmstools on this thread and thought some might be interested. i haven't been able to get the scheduling to work yet but have used it manually to convert dvr-ms files to mpeg, wmv, wma. it will do an hour show in about 10min on a 2.4ghz celeron. it also has a great commercial skip feature that works fast. i am hoping those features will port over to the xbox once dvr-ms is supported since the same program that implement on the dvrmstool box works directly on meedio with the dvr-ms files.

[dbrossard]

is this in the works? i can't find anything on this in the forums. dvr-ms files do not contain drm so it should be possible.

even better would be to reverse engineer how media center extenders connect to mce and use the full menu for playback. i already have mce but would much prefer xbmc for playing my tv files than the slow xbox media center extender....

[dbrossard]

i got "slapped" for requesting this and basically told what everyone else was told... to ask for it form ffmpeg or mplayer.

mplayer has supported dvr-ms since 2005. it was added to the
mplayer 1.0pre7. if you don't beleive me search for dvr-ms here:
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/news.html

so again. i request that, since it is already added to mplayer, that xbmc now add it to thier release.

add:

additional information on playing dvr-ms in mplayer:
--snip--
plays in mplayer ok, have to edit codecs.conf and put format 0x20525644
under videocodec mpeg12. also you need lavcformat compiled into mplayer.

then use -demuxer 35 to play it

so mplayer -demuxer 35 testfile.dvr-ms works fine :)

mplayer's asf demuxer needs some help however.
--snip--

[lysis]

is there a way to integrate the capabilities of turning this unit into a windows media center connector device? or give it the codec to read the mce recorded tv files? please let me know if this is already a possibility and i overlooked it.

-lysis

[Zuke]

it's in the post immediately above yours!

[enzoweb]

I use a freeware TV scheduler program called Webscheduler to capture TV shows on my PC. The developer has decided to stop supporting AVI and the closest format it saves in is DVR-MS. I can play these fine on my PC with Windows Media Player, but XBMC doesn't even see them.

I've looked around for a DVR-MS to AVI / MPG converter, but haven't found one that works.

[kraqh3d]

dvr-ms is not a default filetype for xbmc. you add it however. Read this for instructions: http://www.xbmc.xbox-scene.com/wiki/index.php?title=AdvancedSettings.xml#.3Cvideoexten sions.3E

even if you add it, i dont know if it will play. i think the most current mplayer partially supports dvr-ms, but i dont think the version that comes with xbmc using does. (xbmc uses an older build of mplayer.)

if the files are protected, they definately will not play. you should really investigate some new software to record with.

[Araltd]

So I guess STILL no .dvr-ms support? Can anyone verify this?

[elupus]

no i can't verify it. it was fixed partly a few days ago. it should play, albeit abit choppy on some samples. and it's in the default extensions

[Gamester17]

FYI; DVR-MS files should play in XBMC-builds from 9th of August 2006, (thanks to John Donaghy (http://www.xbmc.xbox-scene.com/forum/showthread.php?t=17813)), however development on this is still in prograss so playback may not be perfect just yet, you may experince slightly jerky, choppy or stutter effects like Elupus stated. Please feel free to submit bug-reports and problem samples (http://www.xbmc.xbox-scene.com/wiki/index.php?title=HOW-TO_Submit_a_Proper_Bug_Report) as normal though.

Big thanks also goes to elupus for his continued development of this (and everything else) :cool:

[GrandGazoo]

Hello,

I just updated my Xbmc with the XBMC-CVS_2006-09-13-T3CH release, and I can play Dvr-Ms video file now, which I think is a great addition! But I only get the video feed of those files, no sound. I have sound for every other format I could try (mpg, mov, avi, divx) but not for dvr-ms. I also tried the XBMC-2006-09-11-PIMPED release for good measure, again, no sound.

Is this a known bug (I looked in the know_issues but there was no mention of this).

I have a Xbox v1.0, with an EvoX (don't remember which version though). I read my dvr-ms file from a smb share over my MS MediaCenter 2005 box.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[elupus]

yea i think this is know. or atleast i have some vague recognition of that it might be so. there is still no fully working dvr-ms demuxer in mplayer nor libavformat as is.

[black88mx6]

dvr-ms files were playing with sound on the 8/09/2006 version. In the 9/13/2006 build the video plays better (prob the 9/9/06 to use livavformat) but sound is no longer working. Will try and get a bug submitted if it is not already.

[black88mx6]

As of the 9/24/06 build, DVR-MS files are playing again. While the video before did look better we need to have sound. Hopefully some day we will have both the updated video and sound, but for now at least it is working and my wife is happy!

[elupus]

so video is worse? i didn't think there was that much wrong in the dvr-ms demuxer of mplayer.

[Jorisdp]

As of the 9/24/06 build, DVR-MS files are playing again. While the video before did look better we need to have sound. Hopefully some day we will have both the updated video and sound, but for now at least it is working and my wife is happy!

Well that is great news! We are coming further:grin:

I tried this new release today with DVR-MS files from my mediacenter 2005 and indeed there is sound, but the sound is out of sync a few seconds on my Xbox.

Is it possible that I have to do a complete reinstall of XBMC or are there more people who get out of sync sound.

I use a analoge tv signal on my mediacenter 2005.

[elupus]

i'd wait.. since apperently i commited the wrong fix for the issue. will fix it soon.

[black88mx6]

so video is worse? i didn't think there was that much wrong in the dvr-ms demuxer of mplayer.

I would say yes, the video on the patch that had no sound was better, with less artifacts. With the new sound fix I noticed that the sound was also "off" just a bit, but it is MUCH better than no sound at all. :0 Will wait next update to see what happens.

[Jorisdp]

i'd wait.. since apperently i commited the wrong fix for the issue. will fix it soon.

Ok thanks in advance!

[Robo983]

Before I say anything just want to say THANKS SO MUCH to all those working on this and submitting bug reports! I use Meedio and the only option to record is DVR-MS. Converting and having both formats just takes up too much space and getting this working will complete my absolute media playing utopia with my XBOXs.

I couldn't really tell from these posts if the audio was suppose to be fixed but it isn't working for me but the video looked great. I get a little audio static at first then it goes silent. All FF/RW controls seemed to work fine also.

I just loaded the latest posted T3CH last night...uh this morning..it was a long night/morning but I was too excited to get this working. I even tried Tversity as a Upnp with Transcoding always set to on to see if I could get it work but couldn't.

[Robo983]

I loaded the Final 2.0 Slim today and still no sound for my DVR-MS. I am going to try to load the 8/13 T3CH since it was stated there was sound in that load. If that doesn't work it may be that Meedio is using a different encoding for DVR-MS than Media Center. I may change around the codecs it is using to encode to see if that makes any difference.

[Gamester17]

Sound should be working in 2.0.0, (I think?), are you sure that you did a proper upgrade (http://xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/index.php?title=Updating_/_Upgrading_XBMC) (did you update the correct default.xbe and mplayer.dll)?, try to a clean install from scratch (http://xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/index.php?title=Uninstalling_XBMC).

PS! Know that the FFmpeg and MPlayer developers (who develop 'our' codecs/container-format code) (http://xboxmediacenter.com/wiki/index.php?title=Codec_and_Format_requests) are still activly working on the DVR-MS issues together with John Donaghy (http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=17813) so it is still in no way 'completly fixed'. You can follow their daily progress in the FFmpeg and MPlayer developers mailing-lists (there are several discussion threads in regards to "DVR-MS" and "ASF" which are released to this):
http://lists.mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/mplayer-dev-eng/
http://lists.mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/ffmpeg-devel/
:rolleyes:

[Robo983]

Thanks! I couldn't tell from the posts if sound was suppose to work. I completely deleted the XBMC folder on the XBOX V1.6 and then loaded the 2.0 then copied my Userdata folder. I will continue to check developement links but this may be a problem specific to Meedio. It seems those that are getting sound seem to be using Media Center. I am not technical enough to know if the codec Medio uses could cause this problem or if it is just how Meedio does the encoding. When I do a graphedit the PC is using PowerDVD 6 for the Audio and Nero for the Video. Seems like I tried to change this once before and ended up having to re-image my machine. I would be interested if one of the Media Center guys could post what codecs their Media Center is using. I do not think it is worth developement time to send a sample since Meedio is defunct now. I need an excuse to buy a new Media Center PC anyway and if this is working for Media Center I just might go that way.

[RalphUp]

Hi guys, I have a DELL Windows 2005 Media Center PC with a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1300 MCE-Kit
and use XBMC on my 1.4 XBOX with an X3 mod.

First off I would like to say THANK YOU!! to all the XBMC developers.

Just an update on my situation using XBMC 2.0 FAT Version:

4:3 recorded programs, the Video playback is split vertically and part of the righthand side of the video is diplayed on the left.

16:9 recorded programs, the video displays OK

both have audio sycn issues the Audio plays too fast.
Also if I try to FF then I end up back at the XBMC video selection screen.

In the second to last T3CH releases before 2.0 I had perfect video in 3:4 and 16:9 but no audio. Then the last T3CH release prior to the 2.0 release and the 2.0 release I now have the above problems

In earlier T3CH releases I had the video issue with 4:3 recordings and the audio play at the correct speed but was out of sync.

I'm definately not complaining...just giving feedback.

[Robo983]

Progress update:

I definately do not get sound for DVR-MS but get great quality video. Advance controls are a little unpredictable. I have tried various codecs on the PC end and hasn't changed anything.

For those that do not need or care about FF/RW, I did try Tversity for the Upnp server. It can transcode video files. I set it to transcode everything and can get the DVR-MS files to play with sound in-synch. There is a little casheing time on the front end but is acceptable. I have not watched a full show to see if it can play a full show with out re-cacheing. The only problem I have is that FF/RW do not work but the skip does. If you hit it too many times it will freeze though so it may not work for commercials.

You have to load the latest FFDshow filters and the Ty-Show filters but it does work. For me though I will continue to convert since I am a commercial skip junkie until the Mplayer folks get the bugs worked out. It is great that the XBMC is this far along and does support the UPnP stuff which I was addicted to before I moded an XBOX.

[RalphUp]

Hi Robo983

Bit of a stupid question, Where do I find the latest FFDshow filters and the Ty-Show filters?
I guess you install them in the same location as the MPLAYER files?

Thanks!

[Robo983]

If you do a google search you should be able to get them. I got my Tyshow at source orge.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/tyshow/

and the FFDSHOW at:
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/FFDShow.htm

It might have been missleading but these filter/codecs reside on your PC. I downloaded the executable for TyShow not the rar file. You know it applies them by doing a graphedit on the DVR-MS file. If you do not have graphedit I believe it is a free download from microsoft. It will show the FFDshow for the audio and MPEG2 something for the video. You just have to drag and drop them onto the graphedit window then it graphs it for you to show what codecs are being used. This is only nescessary if you plan to transcode with Tversity. If you do not have a dual core it will probably give you choppy video. Tversity is free for now and is great software. I used it when I had a DSM320. It would not FF/RW even the mpeg files and is why I moded an XBOX. XBMC now supports UPnP so I am back to trying to make Tversity work with it because I like the predefined online content you get with it. I haven't got the online content (TV, Radio,etc) working yet though.

[Gamester17]

@Robo983 , I think RalphUp thought that you updated the codecs in XBMC.
@RalphUp, Robo983 did not update any codecs in XBMC, you as an end-user can not update codecs in XBMC.

[Robo983]

Correct that states it more clearly than I did...only if you want to transcode using Tversity

[RalphUp]

Thanks guys, I didnt think I could!

Im using a standard Win XP 2005 Media Centre Edition to record my TV.

[anywonder]

DVR-MS support is very good now, I only get problems when rewinding (at any speed) and fast forward at more than 8x speed. I've also noticed audio tends to go out of sync quite a bit, but fast forwarding then pressing 'play' fixes it until the next time.

Another thing: has anyone figured out how to show the embedded closed captions on XBMC? If you press mute in MEdia Center it works, but of course.

I tried using the extractCloseCaptions from this page http://blogs.msdn.com/toub/archive/2005/09/17/470491.aspx

and get out put like this:

Start Display Clear Text Type Channel
00:00.0 00:02.4 00:02.4 ( ) PopOn 0
00:02.4 00:03.7 00:03.7 ( ) PopOn 0
00:03.7 00:18.1 00:18.1 ( ) PopOn 0
00:18.2 00:23.2 00:25.6 Annouer: FREAIF BARBADOS... PopOn 0
00:23.2 00:29.2 00:44.3 SPSORED BY: PopOn 0
00:29.2 00:47.0 00:47.0 >> FEATURING FITNESS EXPERT RollUp 0
00:47.2 00:50.9 00:50.9 ( ) RollUp 0
00:50.9 00:53.3 00:53.3 ( ) PopOn 0
00:53.4 01:00.6 01:00.6 ">> Slly: HELLO, I'M SHELLY" RollUp 0
01:00.8 01:01.3 01:01.3 McDONALD. RollUp 0
01:01.5 01:02.9 01:02.9 WELCOME TO BEAUTIFUL BARBAS. RollUp 0
01:03.1 01:04.6 01:04.6 WE'RE OUT TO DO A MUSCLE RollUp 0
01:04.8 01:06.0 01:06.0 CONDIONING WORKOUT AT A USE RollUp 0
01:06.2 01:08.2 01:08.2 CALLED ILLUSION ON A PMIER RollUp 0

but can't get it to convert to .ssa or .srt. Stephen Toub said it basically needs another app:

ExtractCloseCaptions is just a sample wrapper around my underlying sample library for extracting close captions from NTSC DVR-MS files. If you look at the library, it gives you back a .NET collection of the captions, and ExtractCloseCaptions just iterates through them and writes them to the console. You can write your own app to iterate through them and do whatever you want with them, including writing them to whatever format you desire.

[Jorisdp]

DVR-MS support is very good now

Based on which version of XBMC?

[anywonder]

2.0....well maybe pretty good is a better description ;) It at least plays it

[anywonder]

Is it just me, or does XBMC crash for anyone else when you play a dvr-ms file while the Media Center PC is recording live tv (simultaneously)

[Robo983]

I do not use MCE but have never had a problem with crashs on XBMC. Are you trying to play the file that is currently recording? I have never tried that but I still do not get sound on my DVR-MS files recorded with Meedio and haven't had a problem playing a file while Meedio is recording some other program.

[anywonder]

Hm, seems to be working now. I don't know why it crashed but it's definitely unpredicatable (usually crashes if I try to "resume video" too)...a/v sync issues maybe this can help? http://lists.mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/mplayer-dev-eng/2006-October/046423.html Too bad it came out after XBMC 2.0 was released

but what can I say it's free and overall I'm very pleased:D

[anywonder]

forgot to add (since we can't seem to edit posts here), sync problems could be b/c of this but I don't really understand what he's saying..

"

BTW - the file pts value in an ASF file is supposed to be the same for
every segment of the frame but for a dvr-ms file it seems to increase
by 1ms for each segment. Then the pts jumps by a small amount for the
first segment of the next frame - just enough to keep the value near
what it would be if the values were evenly spaced - but never
accurately enough for playback. I've no idea why it does this but
knowing the reason might help. The current code uses the pts in the
first segment of the frame but it could just as well use the last - or
the mid-point. None of these choices seem to be useful for smooth
playback however.

* Previous message: [MPlayer-dev-eng] [PATCH]Ad
"

[anywonder]

(again sorry for the triple post but I don't see an edit button)

seems that enabling (checking) "no cache" in the OSD fixes my sync issues. Does anyone know if there's a way to enable this permanently, since I mainly watch dvr-ms files on xbmc?

[elupus]

start a movie, check the no cache option, select set for all video files option in osd.

[Jorisdp]

(again sorry for the triple post but I don't see an edit button)

seems that enabling (checking) "no cache" in the OSD fixes my sync issues. Does anyone know if there's a way to enable this permanently, since I mainly watch dvr-ms files on xbmc?


It does not work for me :no:

Which release do you use? Mine is from october 15.

[sollie]

It does not work for me :no:

Which release do you use? Mine is from october 15.

Sorry, bad post.

[cheeha]

I just softmoded my Xbox for the first time yesterday and installed XBMC-2.0.0-FINAL-FAT-T3CH. Everything works fantastic except for playing DVR-MS files streaming from my XP Media Center 2005 box.

Unlike exerybody else I have audio but my video is like it's in fast forward.

[cheeha]

Since yesterday I have tried a few more releases of XBMC, still with no luck playing DVR-MS files...

XBMC-2.0.0-FINAL-SLIM-FIXED-T3CH: Audio is perfect but Video is in FF
XBMC-CVS_2006-09-24-T3CH: Again audio is perfect but Video is in FF
XBMC-CVS_2006-09-13-T3CH: Video is perfect but no audio

I'm not sure if this has anything to do with it but I'm in Australia and we use PAL not NTSC. Seems strange to me that black88mx6 & anywonder can play them and not me :( so I was thinking that possibly PAL recorded DVR-MS files may differ slightly?

[John Donaghy]

I didnt realize until just now that this thread was going on and that there was really any interest in this. I wrote the patches that make mplayer play dvr-ms and I need samples to help improve it. In particular I'd like some HD samples of at least a minute in length both PAL and NTSC, progressive and interlaced. Not sure how they could be sent - maybe megaupload.com?

If you're interested, the last patch I submitted to mplayer that was accepted should have smooth playback without audio sync problems but may only work on SD recordings. I wont know till I get more samples though. I dont think it's been ported to xbmc mplayer though.

The aspect ratio will stil always be 4:3 even if the file is HD. I might be able to fix this with samples though.

[elupus]

what they have in there cvs, we have in our cvs. however in the threads you noted that they applied the wrong version at some point. don't know if that is still the same.

the FF issue, I'm not sure about, but we used to have something similar for avi files a while back, came down to broken compiles never could track it down to any code issues.

J.D. on the >2gb issue for mplayer, it has never worked in mplayer built under cygwin. we use adjusted mingw headers to get around the issue. Sadly the mingw people never added large file support using off_t of 64 bits, only explicit support with separate functions. idiotic.

[John Donaghy]

"what they have in there cvs, we have in our cvs. however in the threads you noted that they applied the wrong version at some point. don't know if that is still the same."

That's good - you're up to date. I just told them to ignore the subsequent patch as I discovered a problem with it.


"the FF issue, I'm not sure about, but we used to have something similar for avi files a while back, came down to broken compiles never could track it down to any code issues."

I'm not sure what you mean by "FF issue"?

"J.D. on the >2gb issue for mplayer, it has never worked in mplayer built under cygwin. we use adjusted mingw headers to get around the issue. Sadly the mingw people never added large file support using off_t of 64 bits, only explicit support with separate functions. idiotic."

Good that this isnt a problem for xbmc. Can you tell me where your fix for this is and I'll see if I can get it into the main mplayer sources?

[Jorisdp]

I didnt realize until just now that this thread was going on and that there was really any interest in this. I wrote the patches that make mplayer play dvr-ms and I need samples to help improve it. In particular I'd like some HD samples of at least a minute in length both PAL and NTSC, progressive and interlaced. Not sure how they could be sent - maybe megaupload.com?

If you're interested, the last patch I submitted to mplayer that was accepted should have smooth playback without audio sync problems but may only work on SD recordings. I wont know till I get more samples though. I dont think it's been ported to xbmc mplayer though.

The aspect ratio will stil always be 4:3 even if the file is HD. I might be able to fix this with samples though.

Nice to hear you are willing to work on it :)

I can provide you a analoge PAL resolution drv-ms file. Is one minut long enough?

The problems I have with my PAL recordings is that the sound is out of sync and only 3/4 of the image is visible. The lower 1/4 is not visible.

[John Donaghy]

Nice to hear you are willing to work on it :)

I can provide you a analoge PAL resolution drv-ms file. Is one minut long enough?

The problems I have with my PAL recordings is that the sound is out of sync and only 3/4 of the image is visible. The lower 1/4 is not visible.

I guess what I need is a long enough sample to see the sound going out of sync. How long does that take? Also, what do you think the is the best way to get a sample to me?

Didnt know about the picture size problem in PAL - I'll see what I can do. Are you willing to try out a test build of mplayer.dll if I think I have a fix for that?

[Jorisdp]

I guess what I need is a long enough sample to see the sound going out of sync. How long does that take? Also, what do you think the is the best way to get a sample to me?

Didnt know about the picture size problem in PAL - I'll see what I can do. Are you willing to try out a test build of mplayer.dll if I think I have a fix for that?

Hello the sound gets out of sync immediately.

I'am uploading a 45 seconds recording to megaupload.com, when it is finished I will let you know by a personal message (PM).

Yes with all pleasure would I like to test a new build of mplayer.dll

Thanks in advance!!

[elupus]

JD, it's fixed by replacing certain headers in mingw, so it can't be merged into mplayer. the problem is they don't have any header that is certain to be included at the right point all the time so it can't really be fixed easily.

check our xbmcsys folder in the mplayer repo. the fixes are in stdio.h, io.h sys/stat.h and sys/types.h. if you know some folks at mingw one might persuade them to fix it.

[John Donaghy]

I'am uploading a 45 seconds recording to megaupload.com, when it is finished I will let you know by a personal message (PM).


I got the file and played it here, thanks. I see the problems with av sync and framesize. Now I know or sure that the both the frame size and average frame time picked up from the file header are wrong in PAL format recordings.

Knowing that is a start at least!

[cheeha]

I've uploaded some samples (http://corbett.net.au/dvr-ms) of Australian digital recordings. When I play these on my xbmc the audio is perfect but the video is in fast forward.

[John Donaghy]

Thanks to cheeta and Jorisdp for the dvr-ms samples. They've been very useful and if anyone else wants to post any more I'd appreciate it - I'm especially looking for NTSC HD samples at this stage.

I've put a test version of mplayer.dll here: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=PFPJ112X

if anyone wants to try it out and give feedback. I know you said you wanted to Jorisdp.

It may fix the framesize issue in PAL SD but I cant be certain. I did post a framesize fix to the main mplayer tree that was accepted and this dll includes that fix. It also includes better A/V syncing and both of these fixes make the PAL SD sample from Jorisdp play ok on my PC.

However, the PAL HD sample from cheeta still appears to have A/V sync issues and I dont know why yet. Let me know...

[RalphUp]

Hi John,
I have tried the test version of mplayer.dll
All my previous issues with the screen being split in 4:3 aspect PAL recordings are gone now. but I still get audio sync issues fairly quickly.
I will try and makea few small clips to upload in the next few days.

[Jorisdp]

Thanks to cheeta and Jorisdp for the dvr-ms samples. They've been very useful and if anyone else wants to post any more I'd appreciate it - I'm especially looking for NTSC HD samples at this stage.

I've put a test version of mplayer.dll here: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=PFPJ112X

if anyone wants to try it out and give feedback. I know you said you wanted to Jorisdp.

It may fix the framesize issue in PAL SD but I cant be certain. I did post a framesize fix to the main mplayer tree that was accepted and this dll includes that fix. It also includes better A/V syncing and both of these fixes make the PAL SD sample from Jorisdp play ok on my PC.

However, the PAL HD sample from cheeta still appears to have A/V sync issues and I dont know why yet. Let me know...

Thanks for your great work!!!

I have tested it also and the framesize is perfect for PAL now.

But I also still have audio sync problems, at the start for a second of 5 it seems ok, but after that it gets out of sync rapidly.

If you need more information please let me know.

[rwijbenga]

@John

The aspect ratio problem's are also gone for me :)

But still having audio sync problems... :(

I have uploaded a small test file, I hope it helps you finding a solution....

Thanks for the great work !

http://www.megaupload.com/nl/?d=9CDCQSWR


Cheers !

[John Donaghy]

Thanks for the feedback everybody. Much appreciated. I've posted another version of mplayer.dll which I hope will give better results:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=L1OK3BCH

It seems to play the non-HD PAL samples ok. Let me know how it works out though.

However there does seem to be problems with the samples from Cheeta in that they seems to be slightly out of sync right from the start. I could get them to play if I ran mplayer from the command line with the "-delay" option. There's also a way to do this in mplayer interactively but I dont know if you can do it from xbmc. What I'd like to know is, if there are AV sync issues, do they get worse as playback progresses or do they stay just slightly out of sync.

John

[Jorisdp]

Thanks for the feedback everybody. Much appreciated. I've posted another version of mplayer.dll which I hope will give better results:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=L1OK3BCH

It seems to play the non-HD PAL samples ok. Let me know how it works out though.

However there does seem to be problems with the samples from Cheeta in that they seems to be slightly out of sync right from the start. I could get them to play if I ran mplayer from the command line with the "-delay" option. There's also a way to do this in mplayer interactively but I dont know if you can do it from xbmc. What I'd like to know is, if there are AV sync issues, do they get worse as playback progresses or do they stay just slightly out of sync.

John

It works :grin: :grin: :grin:

Thank you very much for your help! I really apreciate it!!

The audiosync is superb now and the framesize is still ok to!!

Very kind of you to help us with this :D

[nutski]

Have tried the new dll, been watching a show recorded on vista media center, audio gradually going out of sync, will try a few more records and see if it keeps happening

[elupus]

JD, audio sync correction is in xbmc's osd, so that's no problem.

[Jorisdp]

Have tried the new dll, been watching a show recorded on vista media center, audio gradually going out of sync, will try a few more records and see if it keeps happening

Mine is still doing very well, maybe because he used a recording of mine

I have watched severall recordings and it is working perfectly:grin:

Thanks to John, again!

[nutski]

Only watched one long clip all the way through, will try some more tomorrow and see what happens :)

[cheeha]

However there does seem to be problems with the samples from Cheeta in that they seems to be slightly out of sync right from the start. I could get them to play if I ran mplayer from the command line with the "-delay" option. There's also a way to do this in mplayer interactively but I dont know if you can do it from xbmc. What I'd like to know is, if there are AV sync issues, do they get worse as playback progresses or do they stay just slightly out of sync.

Hi John, the sync issue does get worse. On xbmc video continues on in fast forward while the sound is normal, when it runs out of video the file stops playing.

[John Donaghy]

Hi John, the sync issue does get worse. On xbmc video continues on in fast forward while the sound is normal, when it runs out of video the file stops playing.

Were you using the second version of the mplayer.dll I posted, or the first? I'd expect this problem when using the first version but not the second. If it is from the second version, can you post a 5 minute clip with mostly 'talking heads' so I can get a good look at the problem.

Thanks in advance.

John

[black88mx6]

On NTSC the audio is work great; are there any plans to clean up the video any more? Quite a few times I get blocking/pixilization using XBMC where I don't get the same when playing back from a PC.

[John Donaghy]

On NTSC the audio is work great; are there any plans to clean up the video any more? Quite a few times I get blocking/pixilization using XBMC where I don't get the same when playing back from a PC.
Maybe this is a network bandwidth issue. Does the file play ok if you first copy it to the xbox hard drive?

[black88mx6]

Maybe this is a network bandwidth issue. Does the file play ok if you first copy it to the xbox hard drive?

Will test this out, but the xbox is hardwired to a 100mb switch. During the time when sound was cut out completely video was signifigently improved. It was switched back because we lost sound. Those improvements would be nice to have with sound.

[Robo983]

I haven't checked this thread recently but am excited to see the interest continue and to get John's help.

I am still on the 2.0 Final Load Slim from I think 10/13 and have problems with the DVRMS files. I have great video but no Audio. It starts out like static then mutes itself in about 30 seconds.

I didn't see anything written about where to save the mplayer.dll file. Is it suppose to be on my PC or on the XBMC? Where should I save it to test it? Does Mplayer work on PCs running WinXP? I would love to test my video on the PC vs the XB.

If I can figure out how to record in HD I will try and upload a sample. I use Meedio to record and do not remember an option on recording in HD but will check tonight.

[anywonder]

mplayer.dll should go under E:\<wherever xbmc is on the xbox hard drive>\system\codecs\mplayer\mplayer.dll IIRC. THe audio sync issue is a tough one, if I play it on my Windows MEdia Cneter Extender it seems perfect but in XBMC it lags behind and then slowly keeps getting more out of sync, very odd. The other weird thing is jumping ahead with <timeseekforward> (set to 180 seconds in AdvancedSettings.xml---aka 3 minutes to skip most commericals ;)) as opposed to fast forwarding doesn't work, it skips to the end of the file instead of going ahead 3 minutes.

[anywonder]

correction:

E:\<wherever xbmc is on the xbox hard drive>\system\codecs\mplayer\mplayer.dll

should be:

E:\<wherever xbmc is on the xbox hard drive>\system\players\mplayer\mplayer.dll

I'm going to try this new version of mplayer.dll out myself sometime tonight and report back

[Robo983]

Thanks Anywonder. It took me a little longer to get to this than I expected.

I updated my XMBC to 2.0.1 fat dated 11/13 and then updated the mplayer.dll. I did not get any differenent result. Good picture but static for audio initially then it mutes the sound. I uploded a sample recording to

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=EU7H5IKQ

I also was going to try an HD recording and relized I would need an HD signal which I do not have so I was not able to try that.

Thanks for the help so far.

[John Donaghy]

I uploded a sample recording to

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=EU7H5IKQ

Thanks for the help so far.

I got this thanks and it doesnt play for me either - even using mplayer built on Windows from the latest source. mplayer thinks the audio stream is PCM uncompressed which I'm pretty sure is wrong but I dont know why. What software did you use to record this? Also what kind of TV signal are you recording?

Thanks,

John

[John Donaghy]

Will test this out, but the xbox is hardwired to a 100mb switch. During the time when sound was cut out completely video was signifigently improved. It was switched back because we lost sound. Those improvements would be nice to have with sound.

black88mx6 - did you get a chance to test this out yet? If it is still a problem I'm interested in trying to figure out what's wrong. Can you post a sample that demonstrates the problem?

Thanks,

John

[black88mx6]

Yes, went ahead and put the entire file on the Xbox HD. Still the same issue. The video breaks up every now and then. I would say about 2-3% with different blocks of color. The video captures are large. Over 2gb for 1 hour of video; and when playing you don't see it all the time. When I playback on the computer I don't see it at all, but I will see it in the same spots for playback on the xbox. Will have to try and cut a sample of this, but it happens on all my recorded videos in one place or another.

As mentioned before; it is ok, just not as good as when they switched to the other video player (but broke the sound).

[black88mx6]

John,

Can you give an example of something that will correctly edit a dvr-ms file? I have Womble and a few others, but they don't seem to clip the file for me properly.

[John Donaghy]

John,

Can you give an example of something that will correctly edit a dvr-ms file? I have Womble and a few others, but they don't seem to clip the file for me properly.

I've used this... http://www.inseattle.org/~dan/Dcut.htm successfully before but it may require Media Center - I cant remember.

I've seen some minor glitches a few times but not as many as you describe. It should be fixable though with a good sample. What software and TV signal are you using?

John

[Robo983]

John, I use Meedio to record. It was originally I think the myHTPC. Meedio got purchased by Yahoo and is now yahoo go tv. Hope that helps. I use it because of its user configurabilty. It was bought back in April of this year. I may try to load Go TV and upload a sample this weekend to see if it is going to have the same problem. At least Go TV is supported. The guys who created Meedio I think are over their now directing the development and it is in Beta and maybe can get their help if you can identify what the problem is with the files. Meedio is essentially free now the last release didn't require a key.

Thanks again for the help I hope that either the Meedio or Go Tv will work with Mplayer since it is so much more flexible than MCE.

[Robo983]

John, I use Meedio to record. It was originally I think the myHTPC. Meedio got purchased by Yahoo and is now yahoo go tv. Hope that helps. I use it because of its user configurabilty. It was bought back in April of this year. I may try to load Go TV and upload a sample this weekend to see if it is going to have the same problem. At least Go TV is supported. The guys who created Meedio I think are over their now directing the development and it is in Beta and maybe can get their help if you can identify what the problem is with the files. Meedio is essentially free now the last release didn't require a key.

Thanks again for the help I hope that either the Meedio or Go Tv will work with Mplayer since it is so much more flexible than MCE.

[Robo983]

John forgot to mention what TV signal I used, I am using a standard extended cable connection with no external box. The coax is connected directly from the cable out let on the wall to my Hauppauge PCI 150 tunner card.

[black88mx6]

I've used this... http://www.inseattle.org/~dan/Dcut.htm successfully before but it may require Media Center - I cant remember.

I've seen some minor glitches a few times but not as many as you describe. It should be fixable though with a good sample. What software and TV signal are you using?

John

John,

I am using orb, and an ATI video card sourced from cable TV. It may be more along the line of these minor glitches. These glitches do not occur when playback is done from the PC. Also, when the player was swtiched for awhile to the one without sound, picture quality was noticably improved. I suppose that was the basis of my comment. In no way does this prohibit waching dvr-ms files, just trying to bring up the quality some. I will see if I can capture some more samples to get the glitches to show up.

[Robo983]

I decided to try Yahoo Go TV since that should be the future of Meedio and got similar results. Great video but no Audio. I uploaded the file to:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=QNE1RO0O

I hopefully can get their support to get this working if you can let me know anything in the format that doesn't work or may not be correct.

[-wde-]

John,
I'm really excited about this project you are working on. I love being able to watch recorded SD shows on my xbox, and would really like to be able to watch recorded HD shows too.
Do you still need dvr-ms samples? I can provide NTSC SD samples recorded from analog cable tv as well as NTSC HD samples recorded from over-the-air broadcasts. I use MCE2005 to record using the Hauppauge PVR-150 for ananlog recording and the Avermedia A180 for digital recording.

[John Donaghy]

Do you still need dvr-ms samples? I can provide NTSC SD samples recorded from analog cable tv as well as NTSC HD samples recorded from over-the-air broadcasts. I use MCE2005 to record using the Hauppauge PVR-150 for ananlog recording and the Avermedia A180 for digital recording.

An NTSC HD sample would be nice. Also, feedback on how well playback works would be useful. Not sure if the xbox has the processing power to decode HD video though.

Thanks in advance,

John

[John Donaghy]

I decided to try Yahoo Go TV since that should be the future of Meedio and got similar results. Great video but no Audio. I uploaded the file to:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=QNE1RO0O

I hopefully can get their support to get this working if you can let me know anything in the format that doesn't work or may not be correct.

I was able to successfully play this file as well as the previous Meedio recording by writing some test code that replaced the audio stream type found in the file (which suggested the audio format was PCM as I said before) with a value that specified MP3 audio.

My guess is that Go TV is incorrectly specifying the audio stream header but I could be wrong about that - after all Windows Media Player can play the file successfully, but maybe it is just ignoring the header (format tag) because it knows the audio will be mp3.

I'm not sure if the mplayer guys will accept a patched based on this though but I'll post a message to the developer list and see what happens.

I'd be happy to talk to the GO TV devs about it if you can get their attention.

John

[jhiggi]

First time poster. Like user "-wde-" I am very interested in the possibility of streaming my over the air recorded HD DVR-MS recoreded tv shows. I am using the same Avermedia A180 Digital tuner card. I would be more than happy help with any development in any way possible. I can easily post up pieces or Digital HDTV recorded shows , do any tests that you would like me to perform, or give specific feedback while the develpment process occurs. I hope that it ends up that the Xbox has capable processing power to handle HD DVR-MS files. If not, it's not the end of the world. It sure would be a nice bonus though. Let me know how I can help.

[jhiggi]

Here is a link to a short HD DVR-MS file I just recorded. I am unable to play it through Xbox Media Center 2.0.1

[jhiggi]

Here is a link to a short HD DVR-MS file I just recorded. I am unable to play it through Xbox Media Center 2.0.1
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=AST9TB1T

[-wde-]

John,
Just posted a 2-3 minute NTSC OTA HD clip at http://www.megaupload.com/?d=IGHLK1KJ

[-wde-]

John,
As far as feedback goes:
SD DVR-MS files seem to work very well, although I did get some syncing issues a few nights ago but have been unable to duplicate the problem since.
HD DVR-MS files attempt to play but I get static and sometimes a very pixelated portion of the frame in the lower right hand side of my screen. It is almost unrecognizable.

You are right about the processing power of the xbox being able to display HD content. To quote xboxmediacenter.com:
To make this even clearer XBMC capability on a standard Xbox (with Intel 733Mhz PIII CPU):
- 720x480 pixel video output to 480p HDTV (720x480 progressive) = OK! (eg not upscaled).
- 720x480 pixel video output to 720p HDTV (1280x720 progressive) = OK! (eg upscaled).
- 720x480 pixel video output to 1080i HDTV (1920x1080 interlaced) = OK! (eg upscaled).
- 1280x720 pixel progressive video output to 720p HDTV (native 1280x720 progressive) = FAIL!
- 1920x1080 interlaced video output to 1080i HDTV (native 1920x1080 interlaced) = FAIL!

However, I thought I had read some posts about people being able to play HD content after tweaking some cache settings. So let me ask you this, would the mplayer.dll that you posted, play HD content given enough processing power and memory (or perhaps <<crossing fingers>> optimized cache settings)?

Thanks,

[John Donaghy]

John,
As far as feedback goes:
SD DVR-MS files seem to work very well, although I did get some syncing issues a few nights ago but have been unable to duplicate the problem since.
HD DVR-MS files attempt to play but I get static and sometimes a very pixelated portion of the frame in the lower right hand side of my screen. It is almost unrecognizable.
....

However, I thought I had read some posts about people being able to play HD content after tweaking some cache settings. So let me ask you this, would the mplayer.dll that you posted, play HD content given enough processing power and memory (or perhaps <<crossing fingers>> optimized cache settings)?

Thanks,
[/SIZE][/FONT]

wde

Thanks for the feedback. I got your HD NTSC file and it doesn't play for me either even on the Windows build of mplayer. I'll have a go at fixing it when I get a chance. Even if I do fix it I'm not hopeful that the xbox will be able to play it though without some kind of hardware upgrade. I'm afraid I dont know much about it though. In order to test this you could use a tool such as DVRMSToolbox to convert the dvr-ms file into an mpeg2 file and see if the xbox can play the converted file.

John

[John Donaghy]

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=AST9TB1T

I got this one too and it wont play either. I forgot to ask... were these HD NTSC samples recorded with Windows Media Center?

John

[-wde-]

John,
The sample I posted was recorded with MCE.
FYI, I converted the posted sample to mpg2 with DVR-MS toolbox. It does play in XBMC although at a pathetic frame rate. I got something like 6fps. I tried making adjustments to the cache to no avail. I'm still going to hold out hope that there is a solution to this, other than forking over a lot of money for the modded xboxes with extra ram and a faster processor (dreambox?).
Let me know if I can continue to help.
wde

[anywonder]

John: the second mplayer.dll is really great, thank you :)

[anywonder]

actually I wonder if the xbmc devs will add this into the xbmc builds?

this new version of mplayer.dll plays .flv files better than dvdplayer (which xbmc now uses by default because previous mplayer couldn't play flv's)

[John Donaghy]

actually I wonder if the xbmc devs will add this into the xbmc builds?

this new version of mplayer.dll plays .flv files better than dvdplayer (which xbmc now uses by default because previous mplayer couldn't play flv's)

Thanks for the feedback on it working for you. I dont think this'll make it into the main build of mplayer.dlll for a while though because I'm guessing it first needs to be accepted into mplayer itself. I've submitted a patch already but it's taking a while for them to review and accept it.

John

[John Donaghy]

John,
The sample I posted was recorded with MCE.
FYI, I converted the posted sample to mpg2 with DVR-MS toolbox. It does play in XBMC although at a pathetic frame rate. I got something like 6fps. I tried making adjustments to the cache to no avail. I'm still going to hold out hope that there is a solution to this, other than forking over a lot of money for the modded xboxes with extra ram and a faster processor (dreambox?).
Let me know if I can continue to help.
wde

Good to know that it's recorded with MCE, thanks. Which version/rollup are you using? I'm interested because I was able to get sound working by doing something similar to what I had to do to get the Meedio sample working. At first I thought it was a medio-specific issue but now I know it isnt.

Basically the audio stream header contains a number that's supposed to indicate the type of audio - the value isnt what the MS documentation says it should be for both the Meedio sample and your HD sample. In your case the audio is AC3 - not the usual MP3. Not sure if I have enough information to submit a patch to mplayer to get this working permanently though.

Re playing the HD file on the xbox - I wouldn't hold out too much hope on that one (which is a pity because I'd like to do that myself at some point). At the minute I cant even play the file on my windows build of mplayer without dropping frames - and it does play fine using WMP. I'm planning to look into why this doesnt work at some point when I have a chance.

John

[-wde-]

Good to know that it's recorded with MCE, thanks. Which version/rollup are you using? I'm interested because I was able to get sound working by doing something similar to what I had to do to get the Meedio sample working. At first I thought it was a medio-specific issue but now I know it isnt.

Basically the audio stream header contains a number that's supposed to indicate the type of audio - the value isnt what the MS documentation says it should be for both the Meedio sample and your HD sample. In your case the audio is AC3 - not the usual MP3. Not sure if I have enough information to submit a patch to mplayer to get this working permanently though.

Re playing the HD file on the xbox - I wouldn't hold out too much hope on that one (which is a pity because I'd like to do that myself at some point). At the minute I cant even play the file on my windows build of mplayer without dropping frames - and it does play fine using WMP. I'm planning to look into why this doesnt work at some point when I have a chance.

John
John,
Thanks for looking into it.
I'm running version 5.1.2715.2773 (xpsp(wmbla),051011-0745) update rollup 2.

[Don_Karnia]

Hilo
I haven't yet connected my XBMC to my LAN, so I've been testing files via data-dvds. Everything else plays fine, but with dvr-ms, the video is in fast-forward but the audio is normal. Tried messing around with the video configuration settings, but nothing helps.
I understand dvr-ms isn't fully compatible yet, but I'm finding it kinda strange that nobody else seems to have this specific problem.
Running XBMC 2.0.1... on a PAL xbox (could that be the problem...?).

Thanks

[John Donaghy]

Hilo
I haven't yet connected my XBMC to my LAN, so I've been testing files via data-dvds. Everything else plays fine, but with dvr-ms, the video is in fast-forward but the audio is normal. Tried messing around with the video configuration settings, but nothing helps.
I understand dvr-ms isn't fully compatible yet, but I'm finding it kinda strange that nobody else seems to have this specific problem.
Running XBMC 2.0.1... on a PAL xbox (could that be the problem...?).

Thanks

Did you try using the second test version of mplayer.dll I posted a few weeks back?

[Don_Karnia]

Only just joined these forums so nup, I'll have a look for it.

[Don_Karnia]

Replaced the original mplayer.dll file with the latest one and now it won't play anything... :confused2:

[Don_Karnia]

Hmm, turns out it wasn't downloading the full file, and was saying finished before completion. Downloaded with Getright, and now dvr-ms files seem fixed, except the audio comes a few seconds before the video.
Also, the image gets kinda fuzzy when moving... but that might be only cos I'm using my older, small TV to test. I won't know until I get ethernet cables going from my router to my lounge room...

Still, a big improvement, thanks. :D

[John Donaghy]

Downloaded with Getright, and now dvr-ms files seem fixed, except the audio comes a few seconds before the video.

Is the audio out of sync or do you mean that it starts before the video. If it's out of sync, does it say out by the same amount or does it get worse as time goes on - I mean can you fix it with the OSD?

John

[Don_Karnia]

It's weird... I've got a recording of Smallville with a few minutes of Simpsons before it. For those first few minutes, the audio seems to come a few seconds before the video, and I can't fix it by fast-forwarding slightly or using the OSD... but if I fast-forward to Smallville, it's fine for 30 seconds or so, and then gradually gets worse. Blegh...

[John Donaghy]

It's weird... I've got a recording of Smallville with a few minutes of Simpsons before it. For those first few minutes, the audio seems to come a few seconds before the video, and I can't fix it by fast-forwarding slightly or using the OSD... but if I fast-forward to Smallville, it's fine for 30 seconds or so, and then gradually gets worse. Blegh...

I might be able to help if you can post a sample and tell me what kind of TV signal you're recording (HTSC, PAL or ATSC? framerate, resolution etc).

[elupus]

John, when you have something you feel is working for most stuff, give me a put on sf page and pm me. I wan't to get this stuff into the new mplayer.dll in the works.

[John Donaghy]

John, when you have something you feel is working for most stuff, give me a put on sf page and pm me. I wan't to get this stuff into the new mplayer.dll in the works.

A lot of things were fixed in the last patch I submitted to mplayer but I havent heard anything from them since I posted it - I think they're busy with other things. Do you want it anyway?

[sidneysides]

Hilo
I haven't yet connected my XBMC to my LAN, so I've been testing files via data-dvds. Everything else plays fine, but with dvr-ms, the video is in fast-forward but the audio is normal. Tried messing around with the video configuration settings, but nothing helps.
I understand dvr-ms isn't fully compatible yet, but I'm finding it kinda strange that nobody else seems to have this specific problem.
Running XBMC 2.0.1... on a PAL xbox (could that be the problem...?).

Thanks

I am having the same problem - MCE on Vista here with a Pal XBox (XBMC 2.01)

[anywonder]

View Post
It's weird... I've got a recording of Smallville with a few minutes of Simpsons before it. For those first few minutes, the audio seems to come a few seconds before the video, and I can't fix it by fast-forwarding slightly or using the OSD... but if I fast-forward to Smallville, it's fine for 30 seconds or so, and then gradually gets worse. Blegh...

You could try putting the video cache to 256kb (lowering from ~4mb), same as audio cache. I think that helped me out a bit

[elupus]

yea, probably. thou it's no rush as i'll put it in the new mplayer.dll in development (mplayer_prelim branch).

[anywonder]

Hmm, so I'm using the second mplayer.dll John posted and it fixed a lot of the crashing on resume and "SmallStepForward" problems.

But audio sync still is a problem for me! I don't know if it didn't notice it a few weeks ago or what, but I'm definitely noticing it again. If I play them in the (awful) Xbox Media Center Extender from Microsoft the a/v sync is perfect. (Go figure, the one file format it can play it does perfectly ;))

Stopping the movie and then resuming it in XBMC from the same position returns the audio to sync, but then after about 10 minutes or so, it loses sync again. This happens whether I skip over commercials or not.

[anywonder]

edit to add: and when I talk about sync, I mean the audio seems to start to get ahead or behind the video as it plays.

[John Donaghy]

Just to keep you up to date, I've decided based upon all the feedback and supplied sample that more work is required to the dvr-ms demuxer before I should send a patch in. The biggest problem is that several people are still having AV sync problems (which seem to be mostly in 720p samples). The good news is that I've discovered more (undocumented) information in the container format that looks like it might provide an acceptable solution. It may take me a while though cause it's tricky and I dont have much time to devote to it.

Thanks for all the feedback so far.

John

[elupus]

cool, hope you figure it out.

[anywonder]

Thanks John, what a shame about the documentation (Microsoft's fault? :(). I'll try to attach an hour-long dvr-ms sample from standard definition/NTSC to help too..

[anywonder]

John: here's an NTSC standard definition sample from Canada (I also pm'd it to you)

http://www.mediafire.com/?czy4yyn1bjm

[John Donaghy]

I've posted a new mplayer.dll to http://www.megaupload.com/?d=REBCWYZO

If you'd like to test it out and give me feedback on what works and doesn't I'd appreciate it. It uses a completely different method of extracting the video and audio timestamps than any previous version so feedback on a wide variety of sample types is very useful to me. It seems to work a good bit better on most sample I have but it doesnt work on one or two of them and I havent had time to investigate... so dont expect too much at this stage!

Having said that, the 720p ATSC samples now appear to work as do the Meedio samples but I'm not sure if the audio and video will stay in sync for whole shows...please let me know. Also, seeking only partially works at this point but I hope to fix that later.

Finally, keep a copy of your old mplayer.dll in case this turns out to be worse than the previous one.

Thanks in advance,

John

[anywonder]

WOW, Thanks John that was very quick :) Will test out tonight and report back

[Gamester17]

@John, are you using the 'old' MPlayer from XBMC's trunk (in the SVN (http://sourceforge.net/svn/?group_id=87054)) as a base, or are you using the 'new' MPlayer.dll development branch from the SVN (http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=23969)?

[John Donaghy]

@John, are you using the 'old' MPlayer from XBMC's trunk (in the SVN (http://sourceforge.net/svn/?group_id=87054)) as a base, or are you using the 'new' MPlayer.dll development branch from the SVN (http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=23969)?

I'm making my changes in mplayer itself and then porting those changes to "XBMC mplayer". At first I ported the changes to the development branch but they didnt work for some reason that I couldnt figure out. I'm sure it's nothing major but I didnt have time to investigate further so in the meantime I ported the changes to the main trunk and it worked. So the dll I recently posted is based on the 'old' Mplayer, but when I finally submit a patch it'll be based on the 'new' mplayer.

John

[anywonder]

I just tried it out on a one-hour show, NTSC analog cable, and it seems to work in sync longer than the old mplayer.dll. But when I got to about 30 minutes, the video fell behind again, creating that weird out-of-sync feeling.

I was watching it while skipping commercials though, so if someone watched it straight through I guess it could happen earlier, at ~twenty-three minutes?

[John Donaghy]

I was watching it while skipping commercials though, so if someone watched it straight through I guess it could happen earlier, at ~twenty-three minutes?

Can you tell me what happens if you dont skip? (seeking might be the problem here). You dont need to sit and watch it obviously - just see if it's in sync or not after an hour or so without skipping.

Thnaks,

John

[KrisuTeam]

Thanks for the mplayer.dll, I've been really waiting to get DVR-MS support for my XBOX. Next time would it be possible to upload the DLL file somewhere else besides MegaUpload. I always get a message, that my countries download quota is fully used and I need to install the MegaUpload toolbar. It's not spyware, but I don't really like installing strange toolbars on my computer. Keep up the good work. :grin:

Kristofer

[John Donaghy]

Thanks for the mplayer.dll, I've been really waiting to get DVR-MS support for my XBOX. Next time would it be possible to upload the DLL file somewhere else besides MegaUpload. I always get a message, that my countries download quota is fully used and I need to install the MegaUpload toolbar. It's not spyware, but I don't really like installing strange toolbars on my computer. Keep up the good work. :grin:

Kristofer

I'm open to suggestions.

[nutski]

Just given it a quick test, seems great so far except the records i have are from Media Center on Vista on a pal system, just standard uk freeview recordings, they show in 4:3 instead of 16:9, seems ok if i tell XBMC to stretch to 16:9, now gonna watch a show through and see if the sync is all good :)

[stepir]

Video and Audio sync works fine, but I had not the possibilities to try longer recording than 15-20min done with my xp mce.

With the latest dll the video show interlaced on my 480p plasma, while with the original one from xbmc where not. Any clue?

Thanks

[anywonder]

Can you tell me what happens if you dont skip? (seeking might be the problem here). You dont need to sit and watch it obviously - just see if it's in sync or not after an hour or so without skipping.

Thnaks,

John

sure, will try :) IN previous versions of the dll though, have had issues where not skipping still triggers it, but will try to watch a PBS show or something!

Thanks again, John, it's much appreciated!

(I think the a/v sync issues are related to my NTSC analog cable, I'm glad the rest of you don't have issues though :))

[anywonder]

BTW some other good services are here

http://sendspace.com
http://www.sharebigfile.com/index.php
http://www.mediafire.com/
http://depositfiles.com/en/files/122155/07_-_Bt_Ft_Tori_Amos_-_Blue_Sk.html
http://www.4shared.com/

[John Donaghy]

sure, will try :) IN previous versions of the dll though, have had issues where not skipping still triggers it, but will try to watch a PBS show or something!

Thanks again, John, it's much appreciated!

(I think the a/v sync issues are related to my NTSC analog cable, I'm glad the rest of you don't have issues though :))

anywonder - thanks for your help on this - I see the problem in the file you posted before. My recordings work ok but yours are somehow different. I guess there are a lot of slight variations in the format which is why I need so many samples and testing help. Anyway, I think I have a fix for you which I hope to post soon enough.

John

[anywonder]

Thanks John sounds great!

[John Donaghy]

Thanks John sounds great!

Here's the updated version...

http://www.mediafire.com/?ddnkzziyooh

[anywonder]

Works perfect, what more can I say :) Thank you John.

(Side note: I can't imagine ever using Microsoft's awful Media Center Extender again. I feel bad for people with XBox 360s whose only option is a MCX..)

[stepir]

anyone else experiencing the interlace problem?

[anywonder]

Here's the updated version...

http://www.mediafire.com/?ddnkzziyooh

Alright, just noticed a slight problem only on dvr-ms files (possibly only the ones in my file format) with this version. If I fast forward at 32x, at around seven minutes, the video stops. If I fast forward at 16x, at around three minutes it also stops.

I don't usually fast forward much so I didn't notice this at first.

stepir, if your problem is what I've had just with normal broadcast interlacing on any files, you might get around that by using one of the post-processing filters or de-interlacing on the video OSD. Or you could run in NTSC 4:3 or NTSC 16:9 and turn the flicker filter on.

[Don_Karnia]

Audio still goes off after a while for me - not sure how long, as I started it playing and came back maybe half an hour later.
So what length do you need for a good sample?

[anywonder]

Don, I gave him like a 40-minute sample, but of course I'm on a cable connection so..

[cheeha]

Hey John, love your work! I haven't checked the thread for a while but logged on today, downloaded your latest mplayer.dll and hey presto it works fantastic.

:D

[Gamester17]

@John, I've been following your progress via the MPlayer developers mailing-list (http://lists.mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/mplayer-dev-eng/) and sounds as you're close to finding some solutions, great stuff! Hope the MPlayer developers will accept any demuxer/codec or player fixes you find into their SVN.

PS! Looks like FFmpeg (http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu) have implemented several related fixes lately into their demuxer (libavformat) in their own SVN, fixes that looks directly or indirectly related to DVR-MS (like their asf and mpeg demux code). Have you been involved in their development as well?, or know if they have been cross-porting any of those ASF/DVR-MS fixes and improvements between FFmpeg (libavformat) and the MPlayer demuxer? (FFmpeg also have a maling-list for developers (http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu/mailinglists.html))

[John Donaghy]

Audio still goes off after a while for me - not sure how long, as I started it playing and came back maybe half an hour later.
So what length do you need for a good sample?

As anywonder says, a good sample would be about at least 40 minutes in length.
http://www.mediafire.com seems to work well for transferring files of this size.

Even a few minutes would help though, because I can at least look inside the file to see how it might be different.

I take it you were definitely using the latest dll I posted to mediafire?

John

[John Donaghy]

PS! Looks like FFmpeg (http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu) have implemented several related fixes lately into their demuxer (libavformat) in their own SVN, fixes that looks directly or indirectly related to DVR-MS (like their asf and mpeg demux code). Have you been involved in their development as well?, or know if they have been cross-porting any of those ASF/DVR-MS fixes and improvements between FFmpeg (libavformat) and the MPlayer demuxer? (FFmpeg also have a maling-list for developers (http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu/mailinglists.html))[/QUOTE]

Thanks. I had a look at the change log. I didnt see anything much that isnt in the mplayer native demuxer though. I'm planning to port my changes there eventually anyway - if they want them that is ;)

Thanks to everybody for the testing and feedback btw.

John

[Don_Karnia]

A 40 minute sample for me is 1.83gb, and Mediafire seems to allow only up to 100mb.
Should I just do a few minutes?

[cheeha]

Alright, just noticed a slight problem only on dvr-ms files (possibly only the ones in my file format) with this version. If I fast forward at 32x, at around seven minutes, the video stops. If I fast forward at 16x, at around three minutes it also stops.

I noticed this problem aswell, most of the time fastforward & rewind crashes my xbox.

I did also notice that the audio & video go out of sync slightly but is fixed by fastforwarding slighly.

Let me know if you'd like any more samples John?

[John Donaghy]

A 40 minute sample for me is 1.83gb, and Mediafire seems to allow only up to 100mb.
Should I just do a few minutes?

Do a short one to start with. Anyone know a better file host?

[Don_Karnia]

I tried a 2 minute file at around 95mb, but about halfway through the 2 hour upload, Firefox gave me a connection reset error.
I had to settle for a one minute file; I hope it's of at least some use...
http://www.mediafire.com/?ehzj4m5mnqd

[anywonder]

the other way you can do it is split a file into 299 mb chunks using something like winrar so it goes *.rar.01, *.rar.02 etc., then use mediafire to upload them all sequentially, but hopefully the two-minute helps a bit!

[anywonder]

I noticed this problem aswell, most of the time fastforward & rewind crashes my xbox.

I did also notice that the audio & video go out of sync slightly but is fixed by fastforwarding slighly.

Let me know if you'd like any more samples John?

OH yes rewind crashes my xbox quite a bit and doesn't work too well with _any_ file format really, because all my stuff is played across the network; I just use the 7 second recall in it's place though so I don't bother with it. The fast forward thing crashing at seven minutes with 32x speed is new to the latest version though, for my sample at least.

If your a/v goes out of sync and you're using the latest mplayer.dll from John, upload a 40 minute sample here because I had the same problem and he ended up fixing it :)

I must say, what the hell was Microsoft thinking when they created this file format? It seems like all of us have the same problems specific to our region or something, and now with Mediaportal using it too it's even more ubiquitous.

[anywonder]

some more free upload sites:

http://www.badongo.com/ (up to a gig)
http://www.uploadline.com/ (down right now but should be up tomorrow, have to sign up free for a gig)

[John Donaghy]

I'm been sharing my findings with the MPlayer devs over the last few days and, based on the information I supplied, the FFMpeg guy got interested and went ahead and extended the ffmpeg asf demuxer to use the dvr-ms timestamps that I discovered. I've tested it myself and asked someone else to test it on a bunch of HD content and it seems to work perfectly.

At this point I think we should switch back to using the ffmpeg demuxer to play dvr-ms files because it is currently more able to deal with the new timestamps. There isnt yet a consensus among the mplayer devs on how to proceed with extending the native mplayer demuxer to handle the dvr-ms tiemstamps. There may be some general mplayer demuxer design limitations that will need to addressed first. I have a working prototype but, as we know, there are still some glitches in it.

I know there may be some problems with this approach regarding seeking and audio but I believe I know how to solve them. Is someone willing to port the latest ffmpeg changes to the xbmc version and then let me know. At that point I will try to fix any remaining issues we find and submit patches for them. Once I have a working dll I'll post it somewhere and report back here and hopefully then we can get some feedback on how well it works.

Let me know if you think this isnt a good idea for any reason (such as issues with a bigger mplayer.dll)

John

[silversting]

anyone having trouble advancing (f. fwd or skip) within a file that is currently being written to by MCE? I cannot f. fwd at all, and when trying to skip ahead... it'll only advance a few seconds.

[Don_Karnia]

Any updates?

[elupus]

np, will make sure our libavformat is updated to the most recent abit later. we allways have libavformat compiled in anyway.

[John Donaghy]

np, will make sure our libavformat is updated to the most recent abit later. we allways have libavformat compiled in anyway.

Dont do it yet - I think I've finally got a solution that doesnt require lavf and should also be acceptable to the mplayer devs. I hope to post a prototype soon.

John

[djdanger]

good luck in doing this & thanks!

this feature will integrate xbmc nicely with my mce pc. at the moment i have to convert all the dvr-ms files first using DVRMStoMPEGGUI (which is a drag) before i can watch them without sync problems...

[John Donaghy]

Dont do it yet - I think I've finally got a solution that doesnt require lavf and should also be acceptable to the mplayer devs. I hope to post a prototype soon.


http://www.megaupload.com/?d=P58WYF3I

Here's the latest test version. It took me longer than I though because my build environment got screwed up somehow. Thanks to elupus for helping me get it sorted out.

This version is still built on the older version of mplayer but the next one wont be (promise!). So the aspect ratio will probably be wrong in some cases. But I'm hoping there wont be sync issues especially for 720i, plus it is along the lines of what should be acceptable to the main mplayer project. Let me know how you get on - and of course back up your old mplayer.dll in case this one doesnt work!

BTW has anyone got any 1080p ATSC recordings from a PAL region - I know they wont play on an xbox but I still need a sample of one of these. It's the only type I havent seen. If you do, even a very short clip would be really helpful. Cheers....

John