USB recordings are jerky when played back.

[Mooly01]

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.    

[timcock]

When I get back to Wales I will try "film mode" "high" setting on KD43XD8305. In the meantime, can anyone see any other degradation to the picture from doing this, i.e. does it cure, or hide, the problem?

[Anonymous]

@Mooly01

TV Model - KD-55XD8577

TV Channel - BBC News HD (CH 107)

I have justed tested this on my TV using the instructions you provided and setting Film Mode = High.  On the face of it, it does appear to resolve the issue.  However after watching the BBC News ticker tape for a few minutes, I am noticing that it mostly appears smooth but then briefly the judderness can be seen.  So its kinda like smooth, judder, smooth, judder, smooth.  When it does judder its only for like less than 3 seconds in each period.  Then its smooth for about 60 seconds or so. 

How long did you test for anyhow?

But yes, well done.  Now for the people who dont have this setting to 'high' - curious on what model TVs.

[Anonymous]

This is film mode:

[MiCal1967]

Hi

I tested too on BBC News HD and scrolling info.

This was almost as @Anonymous writes.

About first 60 seconds jerky but only on first recorded video and less than 10 first seconds on next videos.

Issue sometimes appears when background video changes and mostly when there is a Picture on background, possibly with lower resolution than transmitted HD channel.

Also recorded on Film Mode to Off.

What I noticed was that this same video recorded to Off, when played back to Film mode Off was jerky, but when played back to Film mode High it was OK. No juddering.

So this seems to be a PLAYBACK only issue and not a RECORDING issue.

KD-55X8508C

[Mooly01]

Thanks for trying this @Anonymous

I have just tried recording News24HD (107) and can confirm that for me it is 100% perfect on the scrolling text. As I mentioned in step 6 in the 'fix', the judder is apparent for a couple of seconds at most from the start of playback and then 100% stops. Almost like a servo locking. I can pause, go forward and back, and no judder on resuming play.  

I have watched a couple of hour long recordings now (and one of these playback sessions was commenced halfway through the recording slot) and they have been perfect. Even with my 'critical hat' on and switching to 'engineer mode' (lol, I am a former TV bench tech but out of the game now although still heavily involved in electronics) and I have to say its perfect. I'm looking for faults with regard to the judder and I can't find any.

Drive is the Sandisk Flair 64Gb Flash Drive.   

[timcock]

With KD43XD8305 and Maxtor M3 1TB portable drive, I have now tried the suggested high setting in Film mode. At first, this made no difference, until I discovered that Motionflow must not be set to "Off"! I don't consider it obvious in the Advanced Settings that Film mode is an attribute of Motionflow. Is there a detailed explanation anywhere of what these settings actually do?

[Mooly01]

Sounds like you have it working OK ?

I made a file of all my settings in case I needed to do a quick reset anytime. Lets see if the formatting holds:

Edit, no it didn't but it looks readable.

SONY KD -43XD8305   Serial Number XXXXXXX   Date of Manufacture 2016/11

Settings: Picture Digital TV.
Picture mode               = Standard
Auto picture mode          = Off
Brightness                 = 28
Colour                     = 55
Light Sensor               = On

Advanced Settings:
Brightness...Brightness                 = 28
Contrast                   = 85
Gamma                      = 0
Black Level                = 50
Black Adjust               = Medium
Adv. Cont Enhancer         = Medium

Colour…Colour                     = 55
Hue                        = 0
Colour Temperature         = Neutral
Live Colour                = Medium

Clarity…Sharpness                  = 60
Reality Creation           = Auto
Random Noise Red           = Auto
Digital Noise Red          = Auto

Motion…Motion Flow                = Standard
Film Mode                  = Off (note, set this to HIGH via the action menu for USB playback) 

Video Options…Colour Space               = Srgb/bt.709
Wide mode                  = Full
Auto Wide                  = On
4:3 Default                = Wide Zoom
Auto Display Area          = Off
Display Area               = Normal

Note for USB playback.1/ Record News24
2/ While still recording go and play back the material
  (so a severe test because the drive is being written
   and read from at the same time)                   
3/ Goto 'Action Menu' and select 'Picture'.
4/ Goto the advanced picture setting menus and select 'Motion'.
5/ Change ‘Film Mode’ to ‘High’ while leaving the motion flow setting as
  ‘Standard’.
6/ Press ‘Back’ and observe the ticker tape which after a couple of seconds
   should be steady.
   This setting appears not to effect off air TV. It also retains ‘Film Mode’ as ‘Off’ for HDMI inputs.


Settings: Picture HDMI 1
Picture mode               = Standard
Auto picture mode          = Off
Brightness                 = 28
Colour                     = 54
Light Sensor               = On

Advanced Settings:
Brightness...Brightness                 = 28
Contrast                   = 85
Gamma                      = 0
Black Level                = 50
Black Adjust               = Medium
Adv. Cont Enhancer         = Medium

Colour…Colour                     = 54
Hue                        = 0
Colour Temperature         = Neutral
Live Colour                = Off

Clarity…Sharpness                  = 60
Reality Creation           = Auto
Random Noise Red           = Off
Digital Noise Red          = Off

Motion…Motion Flow                = Standard
Film Mode                  = Off

Video Options…HDR Mode                   = Off
HDMI Video Range           = Auto
Colour Space               = Auto

[timcock]

I should have said, with Motionflow at Standard and Film mode High, the gross judder in USB playback has gone. Playback of Freeview HD now seems indistinguishable from off-air, but I would like to understand why these settings are needed only for playback. 

[Garymjh]

It would seem that the hardware or software on the tv hasn't been set up correctly. Even if we knew exactly why the judder is caused it won't really make any difference as Sony clearly has no intention of providing a fix. It's worth paying 60 or seventy quid for a second hand freeview recorder than trying to work out why the tv's won't playback without judder. 

[Mooly01]

Only Sony could answer that. What and how any processing is applied is inextricably linked to the chipset used and how it is implemented. For those models without these options then it seems at the moment an insurmountable issue, one that Sony should be pressured into resolving. 

I have noticed one anomaly (not related to this) and that is when I pick say a 1 hour program to record from the EPG, the on screen message says for example 11.8Gb space needed. When I look at the recorded program list I see the space used is much less, perhaps just 2 or 3Gb (from memory. This is consistent behaviour.

Its also a shame that the record start and stop times don't follow the actual program times (as with the older HDD recorders) and simply start and stop according to the clock.

It could all be so much better and a real winner if this had all been implemented properly.