XBMC fails to play recordings (MKV) that have been split by tvheadend (the backend)

Wild Penguin

Hi!

I've made some recordings with tvheadend previously and only came around to install xbmc and it's tvheadend addons later on.

The thing is, sometimes the recordings have been split (probably because of changing video stream mode and / or audio streams). When a recording has been split, XBMC only plays the last (by timestamp) file from the recording entry, which is the wrong one in most (all) cases I have tested. But I checked manually, and the recording have been made correctly and can be played with mplayer/mplayer2/vlc/[INSERT YOUR GENERIC VIDEO PLAYER THAT CAN PLAY MKV HERE]...

Is this a known issue?

Tvheadend has (or had) been set up to record as mkv (maybe this was the mistake), and set to record 5 minutes before every recording and 15 minutes after, and to use just EPG data (because, though most of the time EPG data is reliable at least for my usage, but I made the settings just in case something is runnig late. Or early.). I was told in another thread that mkv has caused other issues (as compared to .ts), maybe this issue does not exist with .ts? I haven't switched yet to .ts though, since I couldn't reproduce "the other issue" after upgrading tvheadend to the recent git :). Even if I did switch now, it wouldn't fix the recordings that have already been made...

My setup: I'm on Gentoo, and using a live xbmc ebuild (XBMC Media Center 13.0-ALPHA12 Git:d5fa13898cc5060a5d0adf1e7fa6ad42032b573c it seems, currently) and a custom live ebuild for the addons (which seems to work; the reported version is 1.9.24 for the addon). The tvheadend version is HTS Tvheadend 3.9.383~g1745e0c-dirty, it seems. Also via a live ebuild :).

Cheers!

[EDIT: Changed topic to reflect that it has of course been the backend (tvheadend) that did the splitting!]

ProfYaffle

I suspect that tvheadend is reporting it as a single recording, so that's what the addon is getting when it asks for a list of current recordings: there's no way to report "one recording, multiple parts".

Thoughts...

1. Map a source to your recordings folder (e.g. through NFS) and navigate to it instead of via the Live TV menu. You can set it as a favourite if you like, then it's accessible from the XBMC home screen

2. Run a post-processing script that uses mkvmerge to re-assemble your files - potentially, rename as the last segment and see if it now appears on XBMC's list.

3. If it's splitting on audio/video change, is it always the middle segment you want to watch? Probable dangerous to delete or rename things, but that's an option.

4. Try .ts :) [and yes, I do get mouse/smiley issues - but not the first time I hover over the smiley face, although it is a race if I want one after that)

Wild Penguin

Hi!

Thanks for your answers! I have the same computer as a frontend-backend (no separate computers) so adding the folder to XBMC is quite trivial.

I haven't tried mkvmerge - can it merge fiels with different kinds of stream (resolution, audio tracks)?

As for the number of recordings - in most cases it's more than three (4-5 usually). That's probably because of some advertisements (of other tv programs), which may (or may not) have their own video format, and in between there probably is a jingle (or two) of the TV Channel, which is always in FullHD. So there's no way to predict which one is the right one (I'd guess, the only way to properly fix this, would be that tvheadend backend needs to keep track of which part of the split recording is during the marigins set by the user and which one is during the actual sheduled programme, and somehow report it via the interface for the frontend).

I guess I will change to .ts, however, since it seems most hassle-free.

Cheers!