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PVR9200T to PC USB Transfers - File Repair Utility
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Hi all,
I have developed a utility to analyse and repair 'broken' video files due to the rather flakey Hummy to PC USB transfer process.
As some will know, there is no error checking / correction on the USB connection so many errors creep in, seemingly randomly, during the USB transfer process.
Being a user who uploads stuff to PC and burns to DVD regularly I wanted something that was more reliable and produced better results. As the request to fix the USB link is fairly low priority in the eyes of Humax, I decided to have a go at developing some sort of workaround solution myself until which time Humax improve the process for us by way of firmware / eLinker update.
I did some analysis on some corrupted uploaded video files and noted that although errors occurred randomly, they were also consistent in their nature.
The utility essentially works in the following way:
1. Upload a file from the PVR to PC.
2. Run the utility against the file. If it detects no errors (due to USB transfer) then all well and good - you have a good file.
3. If errors were detected then request that the user uploads another copy of the same file from the PVR and then rerun the utility against the second file.
4. If the errors in the first file do not overlap the errors in the second file then the utility rebuilds the video stream using the good bits from both files to derive the original video file (as stored on the Hummy).
5. Of course if unlucky and overlapping errors occur between the first two files, request that the user uploads a third version of the file and again rerun the utility.
The above is repeated until the complete file can be reconstructed from start to finish using the good bits from all versions of the files uploaded.
From the tests that I have done so far, i've not yet had a situation where a third file is required but i'm sure this situation will arise from time to time!
Demuxing the repaired files using ProjectX results in error reports jumping down from the thousands to under ten errors/warnings in some cases. This implies that errors due to file transfer have been eliminated. Of course errors due to broadcast / reception problems will still remain.
Although this is by no means a perfect solution (you usually have to upload files twice which is slooooow at the best of times!) at least you get the opportunity to remove the errors due to the transfer process itself.
The utility can be downloaded from the following link:
http://www.enigma.eclipse.co.uk/humax/humax9200.htm
Feel free to download it and try it out.
The utility is a first version attempt and is pretty basic. Installation and usage instructions can be found on the web site and in the #Readme.txt file bundled in the ZIP file.
Good luck!
Andy Chappell.
I have developed a utility to analyse and repair 'broken' video files due to the rather flakey Hummy to PC USB transfer process.
As some will know, there is no error checking / correction on the USB connection so many errors creep in, seemingly randomly, during the USB transfer process.
Being a user who uploads stuff to PC and burns to DVD regularly I wanted something that was more reliable and produced better results. As the request to fix the USB link is fairly low priority in the eyes of Humax, I decided to have a go at developing some sort of workaround solution myself until which time Humax improve the process for us by way of firmware / eLinker update.
I did some analysis on some corrupted uploaded video files and noted that although errors occurred randomly, they were also consistent in their nature.
The utility essentially works in the following way:
1. Upload a file from the PVR to PC.
2. Run the utility against the file. If it detects no errors (due to USB transfer) then all well and good - you have a good file.
3. If errors were detected then request that the user uploads another copy of the same file from the PVR and then rerun the utility against the second file.
4. If the errors in the first file do not overlap the errors in the second file then the utility rebuilds the video stream using the good bits from both files to derive the original video file (as stored on the Hummy).
5. Of course if unlucky and overlapping errors occur between the first two files, request that the user uploads a third version of the file and again rerun the utility.
The above is repeated until the complete file can be reconstructed from start to finish using the good bits from all versions of the files uploaded.
From the tests that I have done so far, i've not yet had a situation where a third file is required but i'm sure this situation will arise from time to time!
Demuxing the repaired files using ProjectX results in error reports jumping down from the thousands to under ten errors/warnings in some cases. This implies that errors due to file transfer have been eliminated. Of course errors due to broadcast / reception problems will still remain.
Although this is by no means a perfect solution (you usually have to upload files twice which is slooooow at the best of times!) at least you get the opportunity to remove the errors due to the transfer process itself.
The utility can be downloaded from the following link:
http://www.enigma.eclipse.co.uk/humax/humax9200.htm
Feel free to download it and try it out.
The utility is a first version attempt and is pretty basic. Installation and usage instructions can be found on the web site and in the #Readme.txt file bundled in the ZIP file.
Good luck!
Andy Chappell.
0
Comments
That is great, but, I and many others cannot get past about 20% of the transfer. A short music 'track' is ok, but any longer and it goes funny.
What we need is new transfer software, you sound up for the job!
Well done...........
Keep up the good work.
SD00
My setup uses an old and very slow PC (800MHz) with a generic USB2 PCI card (purchased from Scan in Bolton I think), short USB cable (1M - nothing special). The PC is just used for grabbing stuff from the PVR then transferred across the network to the faster main PC.
My setup frequently craps out on transfers and I quite often have to pull the plug on the PVR and sometimes even reboot the PC to get it going again. It is a real pain but I can usually get something from it eventually, fortunately for me.
I usually find that doing virtually anything on the PVR (menus and recording) quite often breaks the USB link so I tend to do transfers in 'quiet time' (overnight or when not using the PVR). This tends to increase my chances of getting at least some stuff from the box.
I've had problems with built-in motherboard USB sockets before with other devices which is why I purchased a cheap PCI USB card. Also using a short cable can help I think. Some USB sockets are powered sockets whereas others are not powered sockets - that can sometimes be a problem. However, from other posts in this forum, it seems that it's pretty much pot-luck if you can get it to work or not.
Borrowing another PC (or even bits of PC's like USB cards, USB cables, etc) might help to narrow down where the problems are occurring. Of course it could just be that the Humax itself is faulty. Only trial and error will determine that. But from the sounds of things you've probably tried all this stuff already.
Anyway, I hope you can sort something out.
Andy.
One tip I have always followed is to use a motherboard with an INTEL chipset as the reliability and stability is rock solid, irrespective of cards and cables subsequently used.
If only it was as simple as writing new transfer software, I'd have done it already. Unfortunately half of the software is embedded in the Humax (the bit that communicates with eLinker, fetches the chunks and sends them down the line). Both ends need to cooperate and hence, both ends need to have error checking, and resend facilities built in.
Unfortunately the source code, and even the build environment (I believe they use Wind river for this), for the Humax firmware are not easy to lay your hands on, unless you work there.
There are some things that can be fixed easily on the eLinker alone, such as renaming illegal filenames, as this only has to be done locally. I'm working on a fix for this.
That is great news, many thanks and I am sure a lot of people will welcome this.
Top stuff Martin!!
http://www.ourcottage.plus.com/merge.htm
Ian
http://www.ourcottage.plus.com/merge.exe
The link on the site contains a rogue backslash which causes firefox to resolve the url as http://www.ourcottage.plus.com/%5Cmerge.exe.
The page works fine in IE7 beta2 though which resolves the url to:
http://www.ourcottage.plus.com//merge.exe
I notice on that site it says:
"NB To reduce the number of errors in the first place ensure that the 9200 is doing as little as possible (e.g. NOT recording or playing back) when transferring files. In fact the best idea is to tune to a channel that has no obvious output like “8” (the old teletext location) or perhaps channel 300."
I was disappointed that I couldn't mount the 9200T on my PC while it (the 9200T) was in stand-by. One for the wish list, perhaps?
You need the CPU running pretty fast to pump USB and need the hard disc spinning to get at the recordings so standby isn't quite what you want. You can already stop buffering and most CPU use by selecting the game menu.
Be nice if it could wake from standby on incoming USB connections into the same reduced state, with the screen disabled so my TV didn't wake up but I doubt they could get it working reliably given the shocking USB implementation.
Yeah, you might also like to wish to be able to do this with the PC in standby. :-)
Standby is good. Standby saves power. But you have to kind of accept that you might get a little less functionality in return.
Ian
Yeah, adherence to standards, what where they thinking lol!