[MPlayer-users] AC3 errors in DVB and ATSC broadcast TV

[Michael Holland]

Ryan Olf wrote:
 > I'm trying to play an ATSC stream from my newly installed AirStar 
HD5000 card
 > in mplayer, and am experienceing some problems, I believe with 
a52/ac3.  For
 > a minute or so, video and audio play well, but I experience tons of 
errors:


[replying 5 months later...]

I have long-since had the same problem with Australian DVB-T digital TV.
Could it be that 'a52' does not handle imperfect mpeg streams?
So DVDs work, but broadcast TV fails except with perfect reception?
Can _anyone_ out there play TV broadcasts with AC3 on mplayer?
If so, what is your bit

Standard-definition channels use stereo MP2 (i think) and work fine,
but the high-def channels use AC3, which give the same two errors from
mplayer, over and over:

a52: error at resampling
a52: CRC check failed!  0.042 ct:  0.122 379/379 74%  5%  1.8% 58 0 49%

until it squeaks, gets badly out of sync, and eventually quits.
This happens with every version of mplayer, and every AC3 5.1 TV 
recording. I just tested current CVS.
   AC3 2.0 can be watchable by seeking a bit when it gets out of sync,
but 5.1 surround is hopeless. AC3 from DVDs works correctly.

I have a small AVI sample (1.3MB) with original AC3 audio, and highly
compress mpeg4 video:
http://members.westnet.com.au/myk/sample,ac3-5.1.avi
Here is a few seconds of mpeg TS:
http://members.westnet.com.au/myk/7hd-short.ts

These are too short for mplayer to fail, but does generate the errors on
my systems.

If I use the s/p-dif output (-ac hwac3), I get the CRC errors, but no 
resampling errors. And it causes brief sound dropouts every second or two.
   Also, I can only get stereo, not 5.1, on the S/PDIF, but I'll save 
that for another post.

I'd love to solve this, because I currently have no way to watch HD-TV .

cheers, Mike.