[vlc-devel] VLC player (vlc-0.8.6c-win32) crashes on H.264 bitstreams

[Mao, Zhiheng]

Hi, there,

I am doing live TV streaming with VLC player (vlc-0.8.6c-win32) as the
receiver/player and notice that the VLC player crashes consistently in
certain conditions: when the TV signal gets weak, or when I change
channels. To rule out the problems possibly being introduced by the
streaming (MPEG2-TS), I captured the H.264 video bistreams to files
before the streaming and then later play the files in the VLC player.
VLC player cashes at the same places as during the streaming. I have
included the two H.264 bitstream files for your analysis:
--- changeChannel-crashIn70seconds.h264
--- weakSignal-crashIn90seconds.h264
My hardware platforms includes IBM laptop and Samsung Q1 UltraMobile,
both running Windows XP. The VLC palyer crashes on both machines at the
same places when playing the saved H.264 files.

Like the files names say: VLC player crashes in cases of the channel
changing and during a period of weak signal. I suspect that the H.264
bitstreams might contain some "bad frames" in these cases which might
have caused VLC player to crash. I am just wondering whether VLC could
choose to ignore these "bad frames" without actually being caught.

I am using the VLC player for some of my demo work and the player has
been doing great overall. The crash itself is causing some trouble for
the work, so I am wondering if you would have a plan to put out a
patch-release with fixes in the near term, instead of a major release
which might be many month away. Thanks a lot!

Best Regards,

Zhiheng Mao
zmao at qualcomm.com
(858) 658-4076
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