"save as" hangup

[iambhall]

I'm using Vista and version 2.5.5.512

After cutting out the commercials of a .dvr-ms file, I try to "save as" to my desktop. The process goes fine until the last 2-3 seconds when the program hangs up and stalls on me.

This only happens with dvrms files. Mpgs work fine.

Any suggestions?

[phd]

Have you tried waiting to see how long it takes to finish?

[MasterofDungeons]

I had a similar issue but after ~10 minutes of staring at 00 seconds remaining the process wrapped up without any apparent issue. Might be worth trying again and seeing if it spits the file out. Good luck.

[GGoodrum]

I too have seen this problem. It can take anywhere from 10 minutes to well over an hour to "finish" the file. If you don't let it do this, the MCE's VCR controls act screwy. I'm guessing that when the basic file copy function is complete, it goes back and does some sort of re-indexing of the file, something MCE must need. The file ends up slightly bigger.

In any case, it is a pain, and it happens every single time.

[DanR]

I too have seen this problem. It can take anywhere from 10 minutes to well over an hour to "finish" the file. If you don't let it do this, the MCE's VCR controls act screwy. I'm guessing that when the basic file copy function is complete, it goes back and does some sort of re-indexing of the file, something MCE must need. The file ends up slightly bigger.

In any case, it is a pain, and it happens every single time.We will try to duplicate the behavior here.

How long is your source file in hh:mm:ss, and what is the size?
What about the edited file duration and size?
Please post the audio and video characteristics (paste from Tools>Show Program Info).

Thanks.

[Tudor]

Have just moved to a new Vista machine I have built and had a backlog of DVR-MS files to process.
When I click on the "Save as" button the machine hangs for anything between 3 and 8 seconds then the box appears for the file location, enter name click and save is ok. NO further hangups. I have repeated this some 12 times on various length files, it is hard to tell, but the hangup time might be related to the file length.
I'm not worried, hey it's only 8 seconds, but it might help with you with the diagnosis of the problem.

[GGoodrum]

We will try to duplicate the behavior here.

How long is your source file in hh:mm:ss, and what is the size?
What about the edited file duration and size?
Please post the audio and video characteristics (paste from Tools>Show Program Info).

Thanks.

They are all one hour shows that I take the commercials out of, which end up about 45 minutes long. Also, they are all HD files, recorded using MCE with several different ATSC tuners, and range in size from 4-8gb.

I checked on a few that I did yesterday, and in each case the file ends up being 11 bytes longer than it was when it first hangs.

Here's the Show Program Info from a typical file:

Program Duration: 01:00:48.35
File Type: DVR-MS
Encoding: MPEG 2
Video stream Id: xE0
Encoding Dimensions: 1280 x 720
Display Size: 1280 x 720
Aspect Ratio: 16/9
Frame Rate: 59.94 FPS
Bit Rate: 17.643 Mbps
VBV_Buffer: 860 KB
Profile: Main/High
Progressive: Progressive Only
Chroma: 4:2:0
Audio Format: 5.1
Audio Stream Id: Raw PS1
Audio Bit Rate: 384 Kbps
Audio Sampling Rate: 48000 Hz



This one was 720P but it also does the same thing for 1080i-recorded shows. This also is not a new problem. It has done this for me ever since I first started using VideoReDo a couple of years ago. It also did this on machines that ran Windows XP, in addition to my current one that has Vista installed.

I've tried this on 1/2-hour shows and it does the same thing, but the "hang time" is a lot less. I also tried running up to four instances of VRD. As soon as one would hang, I'd start another. Eventually all four were hung up, and it took about 3-1/12 hours before the first one would finally come unstuck. About 20 minutes later the 2nd one came back, with the other two following minutes later.

This has to be one of the easiest problems to recreate, as it does it on every conceivable mix of computers, versions of Windows and ATSC tuner types.

[DanR]

Is it only on HD material or SD material as well?

[GGoodrum]

Is it only on HD material or SD material as well?

That, I don't know, as I've only ever recorded HD files. My tuners are all ATSC-only. I also only ever create DVR-MS files, as I use MCE to watch them. Don't know if that matters, or not.

[DanR]

OK, we will check it out. Just incase it turns out to be tuner sensitive, what tuners do you have?

[GGoodrum]

OK, we will check it out. Just incase it turns out to be tuner sensitive, what tuners do you have?

Believe me, it is NOT tuner-sensitive. I get the same results with every single tuner I've tried it with, including the four below that I currently have installed:

V-Box 3560 USB tuner
Win-HVR-1600
ATI HDTV Wonder
Win-HVR-950 USB

[DanR]

We've tracked it down to the metadata update routines. Don't yet know why its happening, and if its specific metadata entries that are causing the problem. That will take some further research.

[GGoodrum]

That makes sense, as the file size only increases by 10-11 bytes. I know that the indexing gets screwed up if you don't let this update finish. In MCE, you can't use the FF and/or Rev functions. You can only press Play and watch it.

Also, I don't know if this is at all related, but about 80% of the time, after the program finally finishes the file, you can't go on and do a second file. You can select the Open Video menu item, and select a file to open, but then sometimes it just hangs after that point, and puts "Not Responding..." in the title bar. The workaround I've been using is to just always get out of the program completely, and restarting it.

Keep us posted.

[GGoodrum]

So, no new news? Is this going to be fixed?

[DanR]

We will attempt to fix it. It's a very laborious process trying to track down the specific activities though, so please be patient.

[logifuse]

Just to quickly add my own experiences, I'm in Sydney, Australia & record DVB-T (50Hz PAL) with MCE. My experiences tally pretty much with what everybody else has said. It doesn't seem to matter if it's SD (576i) or HD (1440x1080i/1920x1080i/720p/576p). It's random too - I edited 2 episodes of the same series & the first closed immediately, while the second took nearly 8 minutes. Here is a comparison of the relevant part of the logs:

2007-05-17 17:12:30 DVRMS output starting close.
2007-05-17 17:12:30 DVRMS output file closed.
2007-05-17 17:12:30 DVRMS Finished writing metadata
2007-05-17 17:12:30 Output complete. Input file: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Recorded TV\RocKwiz_SBS_07_04_2007_21_20_03.dvr-ms
Output file: F:\Recorded TV 3\RocKwiz_SBS_07_04_2007_21_20_03.dvr-ms
Mode: Frame Accurate
Video output frames: 66519
Audio output frames: 110864
Processing time (secs): 71
Processed frames/sec: 927.90
Actual Video Bitrate: 4.49 Mbps
* Video resync frames removed: 3
* Audio resync frames removed: 14

2007-05-17 17:23:54 DVRMS output starting close.
2007-05-17 17:23:54 DVRMS output file closed.
2007-05-17 17:31:20 DVRMS Finished writing metadata
2007-05-17 17:31:20 Output complete. Input file: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Recorded TV\RocKwiz_SBS_14_04_2007_21_20_02.dvr-ms
Output file: F:\Recorded TV 3\RocKwiz_SBS_14_04_2007_21_20_02.dvr-ms
Mode: Frame Accurate
Video output frames: 64905
Audio output frames: 108176
Processing time (secs): 516
Processed frames/sec: 125.76
Actual Video Bitrate: 4.82 Mbps
* Video resync frames removed: 3
* Audio resync frames removed: 22

I also get the odd edited file that still reports the unedited length (e.g. says that it's 1:17:00 when it's been edited to 41:35). They still play fine.

Could it be something to do with the fact that the output folders I use are watched folders for RecordedTV in MCE? The MCE shell isn't open when I'm editing.

I'm using MCE2005 & currently VRD beta 516, but it has happened on all builds I have used. Also, the hard drive light is constantly on during the mystery time (I have the source & destination on 2 different drives).

My PC is an Athlon X2 3800+ with 2GB DDR2 667 (dual channel) & 3 x SATAII 250GB drives.

Hope that gives some clues.

Justin

[DanR]

Justin, The problem is in the metadata update that occurs after the file is closed. This is where we copy all the metadata over from the source file to the output file. Its related to some MCE specific metadata since if you edit a non-MCE file and output it in dvr-ms format there's no delay.

We will try to get to it ASAP.

[DanR]

Here's an update. We've tracked it down to the amount of metadata being written after VideoReDo closes the file. If you have a lot of metadata being copied from the source file to the output file, the DVR-MS driver needs to move the entire contents of the file around.

We are now waiting to hear back from our DVR-MS developer on the best way to resolve it. Once he gets back with us we will get a fix out to you ASAP.

[DanR]

I think we may have it corrected. On our FTP site, in the DVRMSOUtputTest is beta build 520. Can you guys please give it a test and let us know if it works? Install this build into a seperate folder so that you don't distrub the release build.

Thanks.. Dan

[logifuse]

I think we may have it corrected. On our FTP site, in the DVRMSOUtputTest is beta build 520. Can you guys please give it a test and let us know if it works?

Hi Dan,

So far so good. I've edited about 10 shows from various channels & formats & the finish has been snappy every time. Still using the watched folders for both the source & destination.

Justin

[Matt Olsen]

I think we may have it corrected. On our FTP site, in the DVRMSOUtputTest is beta build 520. Can you guys please give it a test and let us know if it works? Install this build into a seperate folder so that you don't distrub the release build.

Thanks.. Dan

Great! I'm new to VideoReDo but ran into this issue every time I made an edit in the trial version and now the full version. I didn't know if it was expected behavior or not, but now I'm anxious to try the beta fix. If it works, it should save me all kinds of time.

Thanks for keeping on top of these issues, Dan!

[Matt Olsen]

Alright, after getting the 520 build downloaded, I was anxious to try it on a movie because this problem occurred 100% of the time with me. This time, it was a dream. No post-processing delay and, as a bonus, the program didn't hang after the output was saved. Thanks again!

[jonaskp]

I have this problem too, so I tried to download that 520 build and try again. But it didn't help much.
The program still hangs.
I think this is the same problem, because it goes all the way to the end, and then hangs at somewhere around 1-10 seconds left. ill post a screenshot, just to clarify.

My system (where I do the video-edit, not my HTPC):
P4 3,0 GHZ
1 GB ram
80 GB IDE hdd
Windows Vista Business.

The tuner in my HTPC is a Haupaugge pvr-500. I'm Using MediaPortal for recording, but since it still uses Dvr-MS i figured this was the right place.

I'll post info of the last file I tried it with:


File Name: \\HTPC-STUE\Recordings\Forhandleren.dvr-ms
File Size: 0 ( 0.00 GB )
Program Duration: 02:54:44.09
File Type: DVR-MS
Encoding: MPEG 2
Video stream Id: xE0
Encoding Dimensions: 720 x 576
Display Size: 720 x 576
Aspect Ratio: 4/3
Frame Rate: 25.00 FPS
Bit Rate: 12.000 Mbps
Profile: Main/Main
Progressive: Prog or Int
Chroma: 4:2:0
Audio Format: Layer 2
Audio Stream Id: xC0
Audio Bit Rate: 192 Kbps
Audio Sampling Rate: 48000 Hz


The File Actually is around 10GB, but I don't know it it's because of it being on the network it can't figure that out.
I'll try later with a different file and both via the network and when the file has been copied to my main PC.

Say if more info is needed.

[DanR]

Send us your log file, videoredo.log to support@videoredo.com. Please mention this topic number in the subject line.

Thanks.

[logifuse]

Hi Dan,

Version 2.5.5.520 is still going strong for me. I haven't had a metadata timeout with it. It's only got 18 days left though. :( Is there a replacement beta on the way?

Thanks,

Justin