Calling Axum and Uridium

Brooktop

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Sorry to page you guys directly, but it's fair to say that you are pretty much the authority on file types and codecs etc (I just wish the same could be said of the Sony Playstation helpline staff - who don't even seem to know that Play TV records as m2ts!).

I have a problem with Play TV as outlined here http://www.avforums.com/forums/ps3-media-streaming/1094421-moving-e4-recordings-xmb.html and although the title is now misleading (I realise it's not just E4) and I have ordered a new Play TV box, I don't really think the issue is hardware related.

To cut a long story short, SOME of my recordings - depending on the channel - get corrupted once transferred to the XMB. Or should I say that the PS3 thinks it's corrupted, because PCs play the resulting m2ts file fine. Even using PS3MS doesn't help, unless I go into the transcode folder - but that's obviously just converting the m2ts file to mp4.

Any advice you could give me would be most appreciated. It's stuumped me, Sony and there's nothing on the forums.
 
Have you tried a conversion with MKV2VOB? I believe this will take an M2TS as an input file. You can then output it as a PS3 friendly x264 MPG/VOB. Being a terrestial broadcast recording it will only be SD quality so you won't see any quality loss.

(Not tried the above as i don't use PlayTV but just my first thoughts....)

As for what's causing them to become corrupt in the first place I'm afraid I have no idea; it's quite an odd issue and one that I'd expect to be commonplace enough for Sony to have heard about if it's happening at all. doe sit happen with a certain file size threshhold? say only files over a certain size? is there any pattern to the files it occurs with?


oh and...
Sorry to page you guys directly, but it's fair to say that you are pretty much the authority on file types and codecs etc.

:blush:
 
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Thanks Uridium - there is no logic to it. It doesn't matter what the file size/time is - yet it only affects certain channels eg BBC1 and 2 ok, itv, ch4, ch5 all corrupt.

If I want to keep a file on the ps3 permanently, then yes I can re-encode it on a pc (I have used Handbrake to convert m2ts to mp4) - but it's not worth the effort if it's only for a view-once programme. The problem is, I like to use the transfer facility to easily jump past adverts (using the thumbnail feature/square button).

I know it's only an inconvenience but it's bugging me. As for Sony, I have a low opinion of most customer support lines; they rarely are able to solve problems I find and that's why tend to use forums as a first resort. Monkeys and peanuts and all that! It didn't fill me with confidence that the Sony guy didn't even know about m2ts :rolleyes:
 
Got a new Play TV box and it made no difference :(

This one's a real puzzler. I don't know why the error message would be 'There is not enough memory' though. I was hoping that may provide a clue but it seems to be that memory shortage issues relate to viewing webpages.
 
I can't believe it's throwing up an issue like this, not good at all, and i can't believe Sony support haven't got a clue...

I guess there's nothing really you can do, apart from taking it off and processing it on the PS3, which obviously defeats the purpose really...
 
I did some searching and that was something that has been suggested, that or the differences between your (presumably ?) upgraded internal HDD.

There was something about going into the PS3's diagnostic startup and running a pc-like chkdsk command on it...but that thread seems to relate to actual PlayTV start-up issues..
 
A big thanks guys for your respective thoughts and help.... I don't feel quite so alone with the problem :rotfl:

The HDD reformat issue was one that was jumped on by Sony....but I think they were clutching at straws. For a start, they (almost) tutted when I said I'd upgraded the HDD (How are you meant to use a 40Gb PS3 as a games console, media centre AND a PVR otherwise???). My comment was "why would it only affect certain channels though?" to which he said..."I see your point". He also said that when I put the HDD in and formatted it that not ALL of it may have been converted to FAT32. :eek: Correct me if I'm wrong, but the PS3 HDD is not FAT32...that's just the format for external media.

I've been through all the various settings options and nothing seems to work. I guess some sort of checkdisk can't hurt...but I don't know how to do that.
 
I think it's a form of NTFS.

I'll try the discheck...and maybe the Rebuild database. I hope that doesn't delete files though.
 
I did the option 3 ie file system restore. I got a message that it was corrupt and would restore it (I was getting hopeful at this stage).

Unfortunately..(yes, you guessed it)...no difference! :(

The only other option seems to be to reformat the HDD but someone would have to convince me that that could be the problem. I might be inclined to believe it if it was happening on ALL recordings - but why would it only do it on selected channels?
 
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It seems like a long shot and a big hassle to do that - especially as I have 100 Gb of data on the HDD and only a 40 GB (the original PS3 HDD) and 16 Gb penstick as a back up device (although I suppose I could borrow one from work). My main worry about that is if I lose my game saves.

I may not be an IT professional but I can apply a bit of logic. Surely if the HDD has bad sectors, then it would affect ALL transfers or RANDOM transfers. I can't see why it would mean that some channels (the same ones) would transfer fine and others won't. Of course, if someone more knowledgeable than me could explain why that COULD happen then I'd give it a go.
 
It all sounds like hassle to me, just sorry for you that you can't get it working and you can't get a satisfactory answer from anyone.

All i could think, coming from a somewhat IT background, although not in hardware, is if it pre-allocates areas on disc, defined by blocks of channels or something.

So without re-reading this thread again, it seems that some channels are ALWAYS fine, and some channels are ALWAYS corrupt ? Can you identify any sort of pattern to this, or (although this would obviously be a nightmare) can you identify which channels always produce corrupted recordings ?

Is there a PlayTV specific thread somewhere ? Can you/have you posted on there (if it exists) to see if anyone else is experiencing similar issues...?
 
Hi Axum - it's always the same channels - although it was with E4 that I noticed it first. I will go through all my favourite channels and work out which ones are doing it, but I guess that will be just for my own info. I did post in the official forum that you kindly provided the link to...but I don't think that forum gets as much traffic as AVF and the contributors don't seem as knowledgeable as some of the folks on here...plus a search returns results in foreign languages. :rolleyes:

There is a long Play TV thread - but it seems to be focussed on people having stuttering issues (not a cue for a joke :D). I have posted in the Freeview section but don't want to be a post pest :nono:
 
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On another forum someone suggested it was the signal...but I'm not sure as I get 80%. When I go into the recovery menu and select the 'Restore file system' option it says my HDD is corrupted and it then restores it. But if I go to the recovery menu again and select it once more, it STILL says it is corrupted :confused: Might it be worth trying the 'Rebuild database' option?
 
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