Convert Network Stream - Video frozen

[RogerX19]

I installed VLC 1.1.4 on a Windows 7 32 bit Home Premium machine, and after some messing around, got it to record a live stream successfully.

(http://bglive-a.bitgravity.com/twit/live/high)

It worked fine for a few months, then I decided to upgrade to 1.1.11.

The audio was good, but the video was "blocky" (pixelated)

Uninstalled 1.1.11 , deleting the cache at the same time, and rebooted, then reinstalled 1.1.4.

Now the video stops at the first frame, but the audio continues OK.

Searched the Forum, including the Stickies for a solution. Read one message about someone who had a similar problem (video froze after two seconds)

Deleted the vlc folder from AppData/Roaming (the only place in AppData where I found it)

No change.

Set Messages to Verbose =2, and get the following continuously: (every 5 seconds?)

avcodec error: more than 5 seconds of late video -> dropping frame (computer too slow ?)
avcodec error: more than 5 seconds of late video -> dropping frame (computer too slow ?)
avcodec error: more than 5 seconds of late video -> dropping frame (computer too slow ?)
avcodec error: more than 5 seconds of late video -> dropping frame (computer too slow ?)


The computer is not too slow ... it has worked fine in the past (AMD Phenom II X4 3 Ghz with 4 GB RAm)

Any ideas?

thanks

rX

[VLC_help]

That is a avcodec bug. But I would suggest using demux-dump since run-time conversions aren't good for quality.
http://wiki.videolan.org/Demuxdump

[RogerX19]

Hello

Thanks for trying to help, though at first I had no idea what you were talking about.

I read through the link that you sent, but thought it was some kind of error code dump that I would run, then post the results here.

Finally, I guessed that it is a command line function that would give me the desired output file, without running the codec that you mentioned has a bug.

As the stream URL is: http://bglive-a.bitgravity.com/twit/live/high

And vlc is in: C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe

and I wanted a test output file of D:\vlcdump.mp4

I opened a Command Prompt window and ran:

C:\"C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe" http://bglive-a.bitgravity.com/twit/live/high :demux=dump :demuxdump-file=D:\vlcdump.mp4

This opened the vlc gui, and created a file "vlcdump.mp4" in D: , but the file was 0 bytes (using Windows Explorer). I let it run for a bit, then Refreshed the screen, and the file was still 0 bytes.

I closed the vlc player, then went back to Windows Explorer and noticed that the file was now 13,1336 KB.

I reopened vlc and used it to open the file.

The video was perfect (no freezing), but there is no audio at all!

What did I miss?

thanks

rX

[RogerX19]

Stop!

Before you scratch your head too much on this, the audio is fine!

After I posted my latest question, I went to IE to watch the regular stream, and it had no audio!

After rebooting the computer, both the audio on the stream, and the audio in the test file (vlcdump.mp4) work perfectly.

So thanks for your help ... Your suggestion to use demux dump works perfectly, even though it took me a while to figure out what I was supposed to do. Luckily for me I started with computers back in the DOS 3.3 days.

rX

ps .. if you're curious as to why rebooting fixed the audio, this computer is connected to my big screen tv via HDMI cable. I have found in the past that the tv has to be on before I boot the computer, or the computer won't find it. Today, I pressed the power button on the TV, and then the computer, but I guess I didn't press the TV button firmly enough.

When I noticed the computer was booting with no output to the tv, I powered up the tv and then switched it to Antenna mode , then back to the HDMI input. The TV then displayed the computer output, showing my email homepage, but I did not realize it was only displaying the video output, not the audio.

After I went through everything that I already mentioned (above) and rebooted, it is all working.

thanks

[RogerX19]

Hello again.

The demux-dump works perfectly as far as recording the video and audio, and playing them back.

However, if I try to move forward in the playback using the slider, the playback crashes and exits back to the interface. I can restart the playback, but the same thing happens if I try to scrub forward.

Any ideas?

thanks

[VLC_help]

Remux the stream after you have saved it. You can use MP4box+yamb to remux MP4 files.