BBC MHEG Bug - wrong MHEG startup screen

[SimonP]

Just for the record, I am having similar problems to the above. I was going to post about it, then I found this thread.

 

It is quite hard to test these things without having access to live streams

If it would help I could set up a spare computer here (Bristol, England) with a DVB-T tuner and give you remote access to it so that you could test on a live machine? I only have 1.5Mb/s upstream so I don't know if that'd be fast enough for you to be able to use from there but I'm happy to give it a go if you like? Drop me a PM to let me know and tell me which OS you'd prefer.

 

Cheers,

Simon.

Edited May 11, 2011 by SimonP

[mobiwan]

I can do same for Saorview. I have 1Mbps upload speed on Broadband (well genuine 0.96MBps).

 

He doesn't need to stream the streams but can use tools ON the remote PC and use PCoIP, VNC, RDP etc to remote control and see what's happening ...

[hackbart]

This was a mean one, because the Mheg Application calls a "Stop Video" in order to display the channel logo. Since this is an i-frame and regular stb's only decode either tv stream, or i-frames a stop should close the video decoding process. In case of the DVBViewer the stop forced a stopped graph.

The next update will fix this problem.

 

Christian

[groovyclam]

I'm still getting the wrong MHEG startup screens bug with 4.8.1

 

( The audio on BBC channels is fixed though )

[xtonys]

I use Astra 2A/Eurobird1 - I get working audio on bbc radio, but some issues still....

- The scrolling text on the BBC radio MHEG "homepages" stops after 20 seconds or so.

- OSD doesnt work on BBC radio when MHEG content is visible.

 

Press Red now appears on BBC 1 HD (whilst simulcasting BBC News), BBC 2, BBC HD, BBC News

- OSD doesnt work on BBC TV channels when MHEG content "Press red" is displayed.

- Tried many MHEG pages whilst watching BBC News - all seem to correctly keep the video in the window.

 

CBBC/BBC Three, CBeebies/BBC Four - Press red (or their equivilent) doesnt appear.

 

Look forward to 4.8.2...

Almost working!

[Bootross]

Yeah I'm getting the same probs as above....

 

Looking fwd to the next fixes

[hackbart]

It is not a bug that if Mheg is active the OSD does not work. This behaviour is equal to those stb's and can not be changed. I honestly don't think that the red button behaviour is wrong, since the whole evaluating of the mheg application/stream is done completely by the engine. Simplified it means that i provide the stream, a few rudimentary channel informations plus the input commands and the engine returns the display.

 

Christian

[groovyclam]

@ Hackbart

 

I understand your comment about OSD not working when MHEG starts ( and I agree with you ) - this thread's original purpose has been hijacked somewhat by others to turn it into a general list of things wrong with the MHEG engine rather than the specific reason I originally posted about the wrong MHEG startup screens for BBC channels on DVB-T.

 

Are you saying that you think that v4.8.1 is doing exactly as it should be for BBC Channels and there is no more to be looked at to fix the wrong BBC MHEG screens starting ?

 

If so, I would humbly beg to differ.

 

No settop box for DVB-T in the UK starts up the wrong MHEG startup screen for a BBC Channel. There must be some piece of information that is being passed to the MHEG engine in UK DVB-T settop boxes so they can work out which BBC MHEG to launch, that isn't being taken into account in DVBViewer v4.8.1

 

To all other posters - please stop confusing this thread by posting all your different MHEG bugs - post them in a relevantly titles thread.

[free spirit]

has this problem been fixed? as i am getting it on the new 1.0.10.10 Mheg5 engine and version 4.9 of DBViewer Pro

[groovyclam]

I am getting this still as well with v4.9

[xtonys]

Hi

 

Just installed DVBV 4.9 and latest MHEG engine.

 

Good news...

- The MHEG video window seems to be changing size properly on BBC TV channels tested.

 

Do others agree these are bugs to work on?

- OSD

I did some Freeview and Freesat TV product research at my local store for you...

All 12 TVs (Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, Technika, etc) show both MHEG+OSD for Now/Next, Channel List and Clock.

They all switch off MHEG for DVB subtitles and for EPG.

- BBC Radio - scolling text - eg BBC 5live... hangs part-way on 2nd page still.

- User not registered plugin

I forgot to enter my licence into the MHEG plugin. Pressed red and DVBV crashed. Perhaps it could flag up a register/enter licence screen instead?

 

I will check on certain BBC stream channels where there is multiple audio options and see if "Press Blue" menu works... eg F1 races

 

BTW - I saw the youtube video of BBC iPlayer - look forward to this...

[uglyned]

Can confirm that audio and video are restored after exiting a full page MHEG screen, but the video is patchy and jumpy until I rebuild the graph, like it's out of sync and constantly trying to correct itself.

 

The changelog says partial support for VOD such as iPlayer added. I don't seem to be able to get at iPlayer - is there a setting I need to change in order to enable it?

[uglyned]

Oh and one mroe thing - when switching to an interactive stream on Freesat, the channel changes but, as before, the MHEG application just quits. It should continue to run.

[John D]

This topic got hijacked by people who wanted to talk about something else. The problem that concerns me, and groovyclam, is covered by postings #1 to #9.

 

I have just installed DVBViewer 5.2 and the new MHEG-5 module, and the problem is still there. It only affects DVB-T, and I can understand why it hasn't been fixed because Christian has no access to direct UK DVB-T.

 

Fortunately, there's a work-around, and that's why I had not persued the matter. However, the work-around has changed. Before 5.2, if I got the second (wrong) screen from the first posting, I could press escape, it would switch to BBC 1 and, after a short pause, I could select a channel again. Now 5.2 crashes when I press escape - dvbviwer cannot continue - please tell Microsoft about this problem.

 

It seems to have got worse, not better.

[hackbart]

Well the HbbTV handling works quite nicely and i started adding the same behaviour to the Mheg engine, since both act from the client view similar. I hope the next release will solve a few issues with Mheg (Griga was so kind and provided some newer dumps, since i worked with two year old recordings). I guess the next update will have a significant better handling in general.

 

Christian

[uglyned]

This is really welcome news, thank you Christian. Especially with everything that's going on for you.

 

I'm happy to do some formal testing and feedback - action, expected outcome, actual outcome etc. Just let me know.

[Griga]

It only affects DVB-T, and I can understand why it hasn't been fixed because Christian has no access to direct UK DVB-T.

 

Maybe it would be useful to also check DVB-T samples. I've recorded the Freesat MHEG samples for Christian with TransEdit (download from the members area) in the following way:

 

- In the TransEdit main window select the transponder resp. frequency in question and launch the TransEdit Analyzer. Wait some seconds until all streams are listed in the Analyzer's PID list.

 

- In the Analyzer treeview expand the PAT node, right-click the service resp. channel in question (one of the child nodes) and select "Select PIDs" in the popup menu, thus letting TransEdit select all streams belonging to the channel in the PID list. One of them should be an MHEG stream (with "MHEG" displayed as stream type).

 

- Click the "Start Recording" button and let the Analyzer record for approx. 2 minutes. The output directory can be selected on the Settings -> Analyzer tab (see main menu in the main window).

 

- Find some web space to upload the TS file, or if you can't, drop a note here that you have a sample you would like to contribute.

[John D]

Thank you all for these most prompt and helpful replies.

 

I have had a go at doing some recording with Transedit. I am slightly handicapped because I don't really know what I'm doing. I don't know what a PAT PID is, or a NIT PID, or a PMT PID, or a PCR PID , or even a PCR PID.

 

Al this has prompted some questions. Since the problem mainly happens when changing channels, is it enough to just record one channel?

 

Since the problem occurs with BBC Radio channels, is it enough to record one of them? The recording would be much smaller.

 

I use the DVBViewer Recording Service, and I see that one of the options when making a recording is to record the entire TS. Would such a recording be useful? It would avoid having to rely on a Transedit operator who doesn't know his PID from his elbow.

 

Regards to you all,

John

[Griga]

I don't know what a PAT PID is

 

A packet identifier (PID) specifying a broadcasted "table of contents" enumerating all services that are available on a transponder. Read more about it here, if you want to get more insight. However, you don't have to. Just follow the steps above.

 

Since the problem mainly happens when changing channels, is it enough to just record one channel?

 

I don't know.

 

Since the problem occurs with BBC Radio channels, is it enough to record one of them?

 

Yes. However, the recording must contain all data streams that are associated with this channel in the PMT (if you know what I mean ). it can be achieved by right-clicking the service resp. channel in question (one of the PAT child nodes) and select "Select PIDs" in the popup menu.

 

one of the options when making a recording is to record the entire TS

 

You can achieve the same with the TransEdit Analyzer by selecting all streams in the PID list (right-click it -> Select All) The result will be quite over-sized for our purpose, though.

[John D]

Thanks for this reply. It was very helpful.

 

I made a 2 min. radio recording this morning, before posting my first message. I think it's got all the data streams. It comes to 23MB.

 

How can I get it to you? I don't have access to a server on which I can leave it. I could write it to a CD and post it by snail mail.

 

Regards,

John

[dvbrewer]

Thanks for this reply. It was very helpful.

 

I made a 2 min. radio recording this morning, before posting my first message. I think it's got all the data streams. It comes to 23MB.

 

How can I get it to you? I don't have access to a server on which I can leave it. I could write it to a CD and post it by snail mail.

 

Regards,

John

Stick it on dropbox in a public folder, then post a link.

Edited July 18, 2013 by dvbrewer

[dvbrewer]

 

Maybe it would be useful to also check DVB-T samples. I've recorded the Freesat MHEG samples for Christian with TransEdit (download from the members area) in the following way:

 

I don't know whether you know, but the BBC radio channels also have some MHEG content, did you do these, if not I'm willing to do them .

[uglyned]

I wonder if, with the channel change issue, the problem is actually around use of a different tuner.

 

The problem as I remember it is when we change channel using MHEG from within MHEG (Press blue for different stream etc), the channel does change, but the MHEG application exits.

 

I wonder if, on a STB, when MHEG requests a channel change, the STB actually assigns it a different tuner, so that the original channel can remain tuned and the app can continue?

[John D]

Well, I've tried to set up a shared Dropbox link. The data is there, but is it really shared? Try this link.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ucyvqa61r47cp6p/Terrestrial%20%28UK%29%20Blind%20Scan%20498%2007-18%2011-36-18.ts

 

If you look at my previous posting, you will see that this is a radio recording. I'm ahead of you.

 

Does the link work?

[Gioxy]

Does the link work?

 

[Griga]

Does the link work?

 

Perfectly. Thanks. I'll forward the sample to Christian, and then we'll see...

[John D]

I have been trying the new 5.2.7 version, with the accompanying new MHEG-5.

 

MHEG-5 can now co-exist with the OSD. That's a big step forward. Many thanks.

 

Unfortunately, the problem reported in this topic still happens, about as frequently, when changing channels on DVB-T. The difference is that, when the "wrong" screen appears, pressing Esc now stays on the same channel, but MHEG-5 appears to be disabled. Before it would switch to BBC1 or the program would crash altogether.

 

I can live with the present symptoms, until a fix comes along.

 

The new version is a lot better. Many thanks.

[John D]

And, by the way......

 

There's now a horizontal black line that shouldn't be there.

 

It's not important but, if no-one mentions it.........

[hackbart]

Well the Mheg Plugin uses a simple but fast software based pixel scaler which causes this problem. From the technical point of view the plugin scales all images which are designed for 720x576 PAL resolutions in Mheg (only the Australians use a higher resolution) up to 1280x720 and the DVBViewer scales the image to the current resolution. These lines are caused by the software scaler, but it definitively looks more awful if the plugin does not resize the images to 1280x720 pixels.

 

 

There are some pages with a lot of text which do look much more significant:

 

 

The biggest problem here is that i can test the plugin only with samples provided by others (e.g. from Griga). I live far to east to receive the beam on Astra properly and its physically impossible to receive the DVB-T data. So if someone could provide a bigger ts dump with Transedit it would be nice.

[John D]

Thank you for this prompt reply.

 

Forget about Astra. As far as I can tell, all the MHEG-5 features on the satellite channels work perfectly. The MHEG-5 content on satellite is similar to, but different from, that on DVD-T.

 

On DVD-T there are a few channels that only broadcast MHEG-5, and these seem to work. Apart from these, the BBC is the main MHEG-5 broadcaster. It uses MHEG-5 on all its TV and radio channels, though the amount of MHEG-5 on the HD channels is very slight, and does not seem to be a problem. The other companies' radio channels use a simpler MHEG-5 format.

 

I suspect that all the BBC TV channels use the same MHEG-5 stream, because the content seems to be the same for them all. The radio channels have individual different content.

 

In my area, all the BBC radio and TV channels, except HD, are on the same multiplex so, I suspect that what you would really like is a copy of the whole transport stream of that multiplex. This is going to be pretty big. I'm happy to have a go at this, but how am I going to get it to you? The companies like "dropbox" have a 5GB limit. I've got some old 20GB DAT tapes and I could post them to you, if you can read DAT tapes. I wouldn't want them back. Is that any good?

[hackbart]

Hi Technically i neither need video nor audio data. So everything except these two would be fine. This should keep a 2-3 minute recording quite low in size.

[John D]

Here's a 3 minute recording made with Transedit this morning.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/06ljk50p0m7ibgw/DVB-T%20UK%20498%2008-11%2012-24-02.ts

 

It contains the whole multiplex except for those PIDs marked as audio or video. A list of all the PIDs in CSV format is attached.

 

I hope that this is useful. It's easy to do so, if you want any more.........

 

(It won't let me upload CSV files, so I've changed it to .CSV.TXT)

 

DVB-T UK 498.csv.txt

[hackbart]

Thanks, i will have a look on it

What exactly happens if you select the "Big Fun Time" Link?

[John D]

I have no idea. I suspect that it's part of the children's channels. They're closed for the day now. I'll have a look tomorrow.

 

(I've never watched the kiddy channels!)

[hackbart]

The reason why i ask is that i opened the recording, "tuned" BBC One and selected the first Item. The result was a couple of, lets say, exceptions. The rest of the content works fine, even this bbc beebies game. It looks quite 80ies alike and compared to the sudoku application from itv (which was part of their mheg content years ago) a bit old.

[hackbart]

Good news is, i've got a new MHEG5 build from GKWare and it works nicely. Bad news is that i have to update the pro version as well as the plugin, since a few callbacks changed. At least it does not crash anymore

[John D]

That is good news. So, I assume that, until the new version is issued, you don't want to hear any more about the problems with the old version.

 

For the sake of completeness, the Big Fun Time button on Cbeebies is just the equivalent of Press Red on the other channels. So Big Fun Time was just a big disappointment - the story of my life.

 

Kind regards,

John D

[John D]

I have now tried DVBViewer 5.2.8 and the new version of MHEG-5 that was issued with it.

 

The main problem which is the subject of this thread of messaging is still there. The minor problem, the black line on some MHEG-5 screens, has gone.

 

There is another problem, which may not have been properly reported. You will see from message #3 in this sequence that I had reported :-

 

"In other BBC MHEG displays there is often a video insert, as there should be, and it is a scaled down version of the full screen picture on the channel being watched, as it should be. However, after skipping from one MHEG item to another a few times, for example reading the news headlines, the video insert is no longer scaled, just a fragment of the full-screen picture. That is wrong."

 

In the current implementation the video insert is now always a fragment of the full-screen picture and never a scaled-down image. Unlike the other problems, which only happens on DVB-T, this happens on DVB-S too.

 

I hope this information helps.

[hackbart]

Hmm do you use D3D Allocator as output mode?

[John D]

Thanks for giving this your prompt attention.

 

I am not aware of using D3D. I use the Overlay Renderer not VRM7/9, and I use ffdshow decoders. I am not aware of having ever ticked a box that said D3D, mainly because I would not have understood what it was, and would have tried to look it up.