[streaming] Re: VLC and HD streams, issues after a few days of streaming

[Viktor Kompaneyets]

Thomas Kernen wrote:

> 
> I'm currently testing various HD streams from Astra and Hotbird such as
> the Astra HD demo channel, Canal + Demo and HD Forum demo. In parallel I
>   do have a few SD channels running (BBC World, Euronews).
> 
> The box is a running Linux 2.6.12.1 and has 3 Skystar II rev 2.6B, vlc
> 0.8.2 and the last libdvbpsi from the svn.
> 
> All is fine with my SD channels but the HD streams seem to die after a
> few days. SDP still sees the announcements, the processes are still
> running but the VLC client connecting to the multicast group never
> receives the stream. The last message seen on the client is
> "prebuffering", no TS over raw UDP and following steps are achieved.

Check the memory stats for VLC. There are a small memory leakage in VLC -
very small, but with bugs in error handling in ffmeg or libmpeg2 (or a
heavy errors on stream), after days of streaming it can eat all of RAM.
When VLC goes to swap it stops receiving any data from DVB card and closes
any opened for streaming sockets. 

Another headache - when the ES PIDs goes out from transponder the driver can
lock iteslf, and only program restart helps. 

I have the same problems with non-HD streams, when one broadcaster stops
sending A/V pids periodically.

For  me works (partially - memory leakage present) workaround, in which we
do switching to VLM mode and setting up the fake input for failed DVB
stream (colorbars TS file) as the second "input" for each program in
vlm.conf and sceduled broadcasts.

> 
> I've swapped the vlc streams around between the cards but that doesn't
> appear to solve the problem in any way, which leads me to suspect that
> it is not related to a specific piece of hardware.
> 
> Before I look into this any further, is there anyone on the list who had
> the same problem or may have a suggestion about where I should be
> investigating first.

So - try to check (in such order):
- memory (there should not be any swap usage!)
- DVB signal presence at all (even seconds-long absence of responce from DVB
card of selected PIDs/programms can lock VLC od dvb driver)
- CPU thermal throttling (In HD mode there are possible CPU locks, that can
cause program to stop responding). 

-- 
Viktor Kompaneyets
Wnet project manager

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