Bugs as reflected in how AviDemux responds to Hauppauge Colossus

[Jan Gruuthuse]

Is beyond me to. Has to do with: not all frames are really there, most of frames only contain partial information and use previous/upcoming frames to rebuild picture information over certain time period. .500 seconds for your video, seen already where 1 to 1.5 second interval is appearing.
Don't have windows, so can't check if this will work and show frame info for your SD recording? MPEG-2 Transport Stream packet analyser
Have a look to in this part of the forum: Documentation & Tips see there some scripts for batch processing. Don't know if these use same source material as you use.
I still process my video recordings manually with avidemux, so fast no need for re-encoding: remove lead in: mark A at begin of clip, fast forward to 1st block end to cut: up/down arrow for exact cut point,  . Ctrl X that block is cut out. Move to next block to remove up/down arrow select begin for cut, mark A, move to end of block to cut, up/down arrow end point, mark B, ctrl X, that block is gone. When finished cutting goto end of video mark B. Save video with copy for both audio/video and 2 minutes later your video is saved. On average 4/5 one hour recordings with 15 minute lead in/out.

[TCmullet]

The problem starts here with last clip when you restart a clip on the DVR while you're are recording. This causes some kind of issue for avidemux (signal break, ....)
Still I was able to pass this point, but this is not workable:
Start of clip: press keyboard arrow up and again: you can't go any further at this point Now press left arrow key, now you can move forward and backward only with left/right keyboard arrows. Using mark A and mark B you can now mark section you want to copy/save.
Hope you have better success with .TS format?
This is all from user perspective! I'm just a avidemux user, that is all.
from 2013-2-20-23-42-4.sample-SD5-clip-from-Tom-Cook
part1: http://rapidshare.com/files/124895466/md5part1test.ts
part2: http://rapidshare.com/files/1356645340/md5part2test.ts

I failed to thank you for creating those, Jan.  THANK YOU!  I had downloaded them and played them.  But now I attempted to do your editing myself using the same SD5 clip.  (But I used the Mpeg TS muxer, and kept extensions ".M2TS".)  Yes, I could "up arrow" (or "next intra frame") from the first intra-frame (which was the first frame in the clip) to the 2nd one (over 11 secs. in).  Then I could delete all after that and save the 1st portion.  Then appropriate Ctrl-Zs to restore to the beginning, do "next intra frame" again (to the same one as before), delete all BEFORE that and save the 2nd (and last) portion.  Then I loaded both saved files into 2 AviDemuxes.  They play fine, and more importantly, each part now has MANY "key frames" (labelled P) that AviD WILL jump to!!

So apparently the problems at that 11 second point totally prevented AviD from seeing (or at least getting to) all those "hidden" keyframes, whether they were in the 1st portion (the portion BEFORE the bad transition), or in the 2nd portion.

But I'm agreeing now that as long as I'm capturing digital audio via the optical cable, that I must not record the DVR menu navigation screens (what I think you were referring to as the DVR "desktop").

The Bright House DVR, which is a Cisco Explorer 8640HDC (a very good one I think), generates a seamless transition from menu screen to recorded show, BUT apparently only under the following circumstances:

1.  Composite or S-video out and analog audio.  It provides a rock solid vertical sync, which has made it possible to always include the menu at the start of the capture with no problem for what I've been using for years; the Dazzle DVC-II Mpeg2 SD capture card.  If there was a problem, DVC would have barfed, but they must have a sync generator or TBC right before the outputs.  Never been a problem for me, til now getting the Colossus AND optical audio cable.  (The Dazzle was strickly analog audio.)  I always wanted to cap a few seconds of the DVR menu b/c it gave show ID info.  I did this b/c the capture software generated it's own cryptic file names, I'd capture a bunch of files, and I'd want to easily tie the show name, epis.title, and date/time to the file without having to write it down on paper.  Later I could load it into editor (Mpeg2VCR), mentally note the title, etc., then quickly exit and RENAME the file.  (Editing would be done later.)
2.  SOMETIMES it will provide a seamless (and therefore problem-free) transition from DVR menu to show, if the show playing previously was the same SD/HD format as the show about to be captured and audio is wired to capture from analog.
3.  SOMETIMES it wil be seamless if same as #2 but the audio is digital (via optical cable) AND it's the same digital format as what was previously playing!  (This can be a playback of the very show itself, invoked before going back to the menu again, befoe the capture starts.)  But even then, it may not be seamless; it's a gamble.

One problem appears to be that while the Colossus can accept changing audio formats and store both safely in the file with each audio segment's respective video, AviDemux at present does not like that.  Therefore I must go to the effort to not mix those audio formats in the same file.  Simple solution:  always start capture after the DVR menu has disappeared and the desired show is playing.  Worse solution, but doable...  Give up optical audio and go back to analog. (But I've tasted the formats that optical provides, and "I ain't going back!")

Also, I've done a bit of hunting and learned that it's not just I, P, and B frames any more.  There's IDR and possibly more.  I think I see that the author wasn't really intending to report frame type, but only give it out as it relates to the programs internal perspective.  (To the program, a certain kind of I-frame is like a P-frame, so it outputs the "P".)

The important thing is that maybe a messed up file like this one CAN be salvaged by cutting the two parts apart.  THEN the keyframes apear just fine and further editing can be done.

And I willl report to Hauppauge that this mystery seems to be solved.

[Jan Gruuthuse]

Avidemux handles multiple audio tracks, don't know if Hauppauge can provide a solution for that? Avidemux 2.6.1: Main Menu: Audio: Select Track.
Understand why you keep .M2TS, (overkill, if you ask me: digital->analog->digital) Still do small recording in .ts format: DVR menu, switching to channel. And see how avidemux 2.6.1 reacts to this recording? Glad things moved forward for you.