topic USB recordings are jerky when played back. in Android TV

USB recordings are jerky when played back.

Mooly01 — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 12:21:04 GMT

I've added a comment to the FAQ's on USB recording as someone over there has mentioned this problem, but I feel that this warrants a thread of its own.

Having got to grips with how to record onto a USB drive I am finding that the replayed images are very slightly and subtley jerky. What might be a smooth zoom in and out, or a pan left to right on the original broadcast is replayed as if there is a random dropped frame every few 10's of milliseconds. It is subtle but hugely annoying and renders the USB record feature useless imo. The problem is identical on recording both HD and SD broadcasts.

There has been another identical report of this on a different model over in the FAQs section with no outcome or resolution. None of the TV settings appear to satisfactorily correct this problem.

Re: USB recordings are jerky when played back.

Garymjh — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 13:13:43 GMT

I also have the same problem as you know. You may be right in that the tv isn't capable of recording tv without a slight stutter due to the limitations of the tv itself. My brother however also has an Android TV which he says has no stutter at all on usb tv recordings. I'll test his tv with my usb stick over Christmas and post the result later in the week.

Re: USB recordings are jerky when played back.

rooobb — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 13:27:36 GMT

Have you tried rebooting the TV (power off pressed untile the tv reboot itself)? The usb recording is done by writing the stream as -is from the antenna to the drive and the TV uses the same process while playing it from the USB than from the live stream so there is no reason (apart a faulty drive) to skip some frame

Re: USB recordings are jerky when played back.

Garymjh — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 13:48:05 GMT

I've tried rebooting the tv and factory resetting the tv. Are you saying
your usb tv recordings play with no stutter at all? If so then it may be
that both me and the original poster simply have faulty tvs.

Re: USB recordings are jerky when played back.

Anonymous — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 13:53:48 GMT

@Garymjh wrote:
I've tried rebooting the tv and factory resetting the tv. Are you saying
your usb tv recordings play with no stutter at all? If so then it may be
that both me and the original poster simply have faulty tvs.

Or the USB drive itself, as you mentioned in your previous post. I would be interested and curious to know your results though, once you test your drive on another TV

Re: USB recordings are jerky when played back.

Garymjh — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 14:00:05 GMT

in the other thread I mentioned that I've tried usb sticks, my passport
drives, Seagate drives, all sorts. They all have stutter on tv recordings
so it's definitely the tv. I also meant to mention that the tv can play
huge Hd and 4k files from a usb stick or wd drive and they play flawlessly.
Anyway thanks for responding quinnicus as you may actually be able to
report the issue to Sony.

Re: USB recordings are jerky when played back.

rooobb — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 14:44:05 GMT

i can only confirm that my own XD83 records and play without any problem both hd (1080i) and sd programs. I'm actually using a 5 years old wd mypassport 500mb hdd

Re: USB recordings are jerky when played back.

Mooly01 — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 15:07:00 GMT

Interesting mix of replies here.

I haven't tried a reboot for this but I will, and I will also do it with a drive connected. I do have another drive I can try, an older USB 2:0 one rather than a USB 3:0

I'll be honest, when I first tried manually recording yesterday I did not notice this effect but I did have an issue of not being able to find any timer menus or to be able to set a timer event from the program guide. A reboot brought the menus into view and allowed timer recording from the EPG. So that was one real problem solved but now this has shown up. To me, this all smacks of compatability/software/firmware issues rather than a hardware fault.

It will probably be tomorrow before I can try this because I will have to deregister the HDD on the TV and then move everything from the other older drive to this one.

Re: USB recordings are jerky when played back.

rooobb — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 15:26:05 GMT

be aware that there is no easy way to copy recording from one drive to another... maybe a cloning tool but it's not guaranteed. and for sure will not work if you deregister the device

Re: USB recordings are jerky when played back.

MiCal1967 — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 15:27:33 GMT

Check this from Sony. Does not report the kind of your issue though

http://sony-eur-eu-en-web--eur.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/44709/~/problems-using-your-tv-hard-disk-drive-(hdd)%3F-discover-how-to-troubleshoot

Try firstly To deregister your hard disk drive, press HOME > System Settings > Recording Set-up > HDD Deregistration.

Then insert to PC delete partition and format to exFAT.

Re-insert to TV and register again HOME > System Settings > Recording Set-up > HDD Registration

I don't know if an unformatted disk can be formatted directly during registration on TV but you can try.

Re: USB recordings are jerky when played back.

Garymjh — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 15:35:05 GMT

no I'm simply going to take the same usb stick and use it to record on
another Sony android tv. I'm pretty certain it will play back perfectly and
the fault is with my tv or model of tv (55x8005c)

Re: USB recordings are jerky when played back.

rooobb — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 15:39:05 GMT

you cannot use recording from one tv and play it on another. they are encrypted by the source tv

Re: USB recordings are jerky when played back.

Mooly01 — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 18:19:38 GMT

A couple of interesting bits of info in amongst that link. I'm pretty sure the HDD I used is NTFS because the drive itself was from a Dell laptop that I swapped out for an SSD. I popped the old drive in a caddy to make a new portable USB 3:0 drive... but it would be NTFS by default. Hmmm.

I've deregistered the HDD now and moving around 200Gb of files from the drive I want to try next. That is an older USB 2:0 one which I will format as either FAT32 or exFAT.

Having deregistered the drive (and ejected it correctly using the TV menu) I found it was not recognised by Windows. Had to use the disk management console (it showed up there) to delete the volume and create a new simple volume. Two minutes work but something to be aware of.

Re: USB recordings are jerky when played back.

Garymjh — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 19:26:07 GMT

I think the link that was given referring to usb hdd recordings refers to
older Sony tv's and not android tvs. I seem to remember it doesn't matter
what format the usb is on android tv's as the tv completely formats the usb
anyway. Let me know if it makes any difference though. The problem is Sony
only addresses the "no recording at all" issue and has no mention of "crap
stuttery recordings" anywhere. We've done everything correctly, it's just
the tv is messing something up on playback.

Re: USB recordings are jerky when played back.

Garymjh — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 19:31:30 GMT

Rooob, I know I can't play recordings made on another tv. That's why I'm simply going to use the same usb stick to record on another Sony android tv which apparently records without a stutter.

Re: USB recordings are jerky when played back.

rooobb — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 20:06:05 GMT

ok i was just unsure what you were trying to do

Re: USB recordings are jerky when played back.

Mooly01 — Fri, 23 Dec 2016 18:38:18 GMT

The alternative USB 2:0 drive is now in place having been formatted to exFAT.

The problem is still apparent although curiously it seems less pronounced on the program material I tested it with today. What does definitely seem to be a factor is the actual picture content and how fast any movement (including zooming and panning) happens to be. A slow studio camera zoom for example seemed pretty near perfect while a L/R or R/L pan was OK at slow speeds but as the pan speed increases then the jerking is apparent.

I've set a couple of timer events to see just how problematic or annoying this really is when watching a program normally rather than in hyper critical 'analysis' mode..

Conclusions so far... I feel there is a bug in the way the recording and/or playback process handles picture content, possibly related to the way the broadcast information data stream has to be converted to a format suitable for writing to an HDD, a format I assume that is 'lossless' as regards quality loss due to data compression. Something amiss is going on though.

Re: USB recordings are jerky when played back.

Garymjh — Fri, 23 Dec 2016 19:31:05 GMT

The easiest way to see the issue is by recording a football match. The
stutter is dreadful then and it's unwatchable. The real mystery is why this
issue has not been reported on a wide scale. This makes me think it has to
be a fault rather than an inherent flaw in the tv. The stutter on 4k boxes
such as Sky Q with Sony tvs was a major issue with a huge amount of reports
but jerky tv recordings on the usb connection- Zilch. I really can't
understand why.

Re: USB recordings are jerky when played back.

rooobb — Fri, 23 Dec 2016 19:46:05 GMT

cannot be a bug. on my xd83 i've just recorded and played back juventus Milan in fullhd without any problem. it should be something in your specific setup.

Re: USB recordings are jerky when played back.

Garymjh — Fri, 23 Dec 2016 20:02:05 GMT

I wish it was something in the set up. I've tried literally every
combination of setting on the tv. Nothing will stop the jutters and
stutters.