BBC HD frame order judder

[TimW]

I often record BBC1 HD with a Hauppauge HVR 4400 and WinTV 7.0.30102. Up until recently, the transport streams played back perfectly in both software (I am using Cyberlink Power DVD, Smart Cutter, Nero and others), and on hardware. For hardware viewing I usually clean up the stream with TsRemux (and/or Smart Cutter), and then create a blu ray with multiAVCHD (which I think in turn uses tsMuxer), and burn to a Verbatim BD-RE with ImgBurn so I can watch in the lounge rather than on the PC.

Until recently the streams have played back perfectly witout fail on a Sony BDP S380, no problems at all. However, suddenly (June/July 2012) I am getting really bad judder. I have not changed any hardware. Using freeze frame on the BDP S380 it looks as though the frames are being played back out of order. Every 7th frame, the stream jumps two frames rather than one, then goes back and plays the frame it has skipped, then resumes. So the frame order is 1 2 3 4 5 6 8 7 9 10 11 12 13 14 16 15 ... It does this for the whole file. In software on the PC the exact same streams are playing back no problem! Incredibly, a blu ray disc made this way plays fine on a PC with Cyberlink PowerDVD, but not in the Sony blu ray player! This has all suddenly started happening without any changes to hardware or software, having been okay for years up to now.

I know the BBC have been making changes to do with Wimbledon and the Olympics, and have boosted the resolution of BBC1 HD to 1080x1920, but I can't see why this would have any effect, but I suspect it is something to do with the BBC's encoders, since ITV HD and Channel 4 HD are still working fine just as before with no issues (and at 1080x1920). If it is something to do with the BBC changing their encoders, it is beyond my level of understanding to get any further.

I have tried creating the blu ray with multiAVCHD and also with Arcsoft Totalmedia Studio 3 (demo version). I have also tried cleaning the stream with VideoReDo H.264 v4.2 (demo) and TSDoctor (demo). I'd have bought one of these if they'd fixed it, but no effect. Same result every time - no trouble on the PC, frames not in the right order on the Sony!

I know this likely has little, if anything, to do with the HVR 4400 or WinTV directly, but is anyone out there seeing the same effect, and does anyone have a fix?

[TheNewGuy]

It sounds like a bug in your Sony blu-ray player, triggered recently by changes the BBC have made recently to their encoding.

When it comes to digital recordings, WinTV is just capturing a dump of the broadcaster original bit stream, so unfortunately there wont be any WinTV or 4400 settings that would help with this.

[TimW]

Many thanks for that - I think you're right. I thought it was probably down to the Beeb's encoders like you say, but is it very frustrating. If anyone does find a workaround I'd be very happy to hear about it.

[TimW]

Mystery solved: the BBC has changed to coding with 7 consecutive B frames separated by one I or P frame. You can see this if you open the files in avidemux or other software that gives the frame type. This explains the 8 frame judder pattern observed in the Sony player. The blu ray standard is no more than 3 consecutive B frames. I would like to thank wavelet from another forum for finding the answer, but sadly this seems to mean there is no way round other than to re-code or get lucky with a blu ray player that will play non-compliant files.

[Robo_Raver]

TimW what about using a Media Player ? If you have a long network cable running into the living room why not just play back the recorded files directly of your computers hard disk ? (It will save you time and money).
I personally just use this: http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/site/prod...diamvp-hd.html