MP2 audio hickups

[Sundtek]

Do you have this issue with both tuners or only one of them?

Those tuners are EOL already, however still supported.

[Yoshi]

Both tuners showing same symptoms.

[Sundtek]

Then you might try it with Windows, maybe your CPU is going to an end with those channels on your target platform (watch it with "top")

According to the log file /var/log/mediasrv.log the stream integrity should be okay. If the stream would be more damaged it would print realigning stream regularly (but according to the log file it only writes those lines after changing the channels).

[Yoshi]

The XBMC client pc's don't show peaks or spikes when playing the error occurs. Those channels are encrypted and I don't know how to decrypt with the smargo using Windows.

About the realigning stream line in the log; you mention it prints this when changing channels. Are you sure about that? I didn't change channels when writing the log. A few seconds before the hiccup occurs, it does print realigning stream.

[Sundtek]

Then something else changed the channel / frequency in the background. The driver itself does not change any frequency - only external applications can trigger that. Try to have a closer look at that, maybe that's your Problem.

[Yoshi]

Maybe it's the second tuner fetching epg data. I'll try the logging with just 1 tuner attached, playing only 1 affected channel.

Edit Yes, turns out to be the epg grab function in TVHeadend.

Can we conclude this issue is not on the Sundtek side but one the TVHeadend side?

[Sundtek]

Were you able to disable the EPG grabbing with tvheadend?
Does it work now?

Yes it's certainly not the tuners fault if tvheadend switches the channel for EPG parsing.

[Yoshi]

I can't find the option in TVHeadend to disable EPG grabbing. It even grabs EPG on the transponder the tuner is using while playback.

What I can see in the status tab in TVHeadend is that the grabbing of the EPG is not causing the hiccups in audio on those radio channels.

I guess something in TVHeadend is causing the messed up audio then 

[Sundtek]

just leave the readsignal command running while listening to radio, if it changes the frequency something is wrong.

You can do some EPG settings in the device tab of tvheadend.

[Yoshi]

I disabled one tuner, started listening one of those stations with the remaining tuner. Frequency stays the same, so the changing of the frequency we saw on the previous logging was due to EPG grabbing with the second tuner.

Is there anything else I can try?

I use the git version of TVHeadend and can't disable the EPG grabbing by the way.

[Sundtek]

Windows with DVBViewer, for the rest you need to check in the internet how to get it work.

If no further realigning stream messages show up in the logfile the stream integrity is fine as mentioned, the tuner won't be able to do anything different.

Do you have a configuration file /etc/sundtek.conf ?

[Yoshi]

I don't have a sundtek.conf file.

[Sundtek]

then everything is default, I don't see how the device can cause hickups on your side, it's possibly related that those channels are encrypted/paytv. Maybe increasing the buffers somewhere in the decoding chain might work (please note that we cannot support the software you are using due legal reason).
We certainly support our driver that it delivers data which is okay.

[Yoshi]

I guess this is indeed the conclusion. If I find the time tomorrow maybe I can setup a Windows tv server with Mediaportal.

[Yoshi]

For feedback, did some further investigation and it turns out the Tvheadend stable version doesn't have this issue. So, it's Tvheadend. Thanks for your help!