Fix TS file with inaccurate reported play time?

[Jiggytrav]

I have a video that is in 3 TS MPEG2 parts. The first and last parts play fine, but the second part is reported wildly wrong play time when I open it in WMP or any other player. The actual length of the video is appx 45 minutes but the player reports it as over 8 hours! So if I drag the play time bar, it will show hours worth of play time when the actual content is only 45 minutes. The video still plays but if I try to fast-forward or rewind it just stops on a frame and won't play unless I start it over from the beginning.

I want to join the 3 files and then convert to WMV but when I joined them, it adds the incorrect time from the 2nd file to the total play time so it's still wildly longer than it should be.

My question is this: what causes the play time to be reported wrong and is there any way to fix it?

Thanks.

[jongov]

Hi,
You can try investigating your ts files with my MPEG TS Utils
http://tsviatko.jongov.com/index_prj_mpegtsutils.htm

Most likely there is something wrong with the PCR of the transport stream. Try demultiplexing the file and then multiplexing it again.

Regards,
Tsviatko Jongov
http://tsviatko.jongov.com

[Jiggytrav]

Okay, I demuxed the TS file into M2V and AC3 elementary streams, but what program do I use to remux them back to the TS container so I can combine the 3 files?

[Baldrick]

You can multiplex to one mpg with tmpgenc, file->mpeg tools, ImagoMPEG-Muxer and then convert the mpg to wmv.

Or run through the ts with ProjectX, add the ts and click on quick start and make a new ts.

[Soopafresh]

The only <$100 apps which will remux to valid TS files (ones recognized by hardware cards) are VideoRedo and the Womble products.


Try Mpeg2repair on the original TS file, since the output will also be transport stream. It is a slow app, but it fixes the issue quite often.

[Baldrick]

but as Jiggytrav are going convert to wmv it doesn't need to be a ts...

[Jiggytrav]

I tried a couple of the suggestions you guys mentioned:

- I ran the TS file through MPEG2 Repair and the resultant TS file had the same problem: the file would play fine but it shows a play time > 8 hours whereas the content itself is only 45 minutes.

- I tried demuxing in ProjectX but when I start the demux, it gives me a bunch of GOP errors. I did get the TS to demux using DGIndex but when I first opened the TS file in DGIndex, it said "Opening GOP is not closed" but I got this message even if I opened the other TS files that had the right time. So I did the demux and the video and audio streams seem fine. But when I put them back together again, they are not in sync anymore (the video will hesitate at regular intervals).

- I went ahead and joined the 3 TS files with HDTVtoMPEG2 which created one large TS file. The video will play (it's just over 2 hours with all 3 parts put together) but the play time is way off still. But I'm running it through Windows Media Encoder just to see what happens... to see if the resultant WMV also has the wrong time.

I wonder if the problem is because this is the middle of the 3 files... the 1st TS file has the start of the video and the 3rd TS file has the end. Maybe somehow the middle one didn't get the right time codes or something?

[Soopafresh]

It might work when it is transcoded into a WMV file. There's some other ways to repair the time length issue if you still have probs. And Baldrick is right, you don't have to remux into TS streams.

Restream is one possible fix. You can only load the demuxed M2V video file into it.