The Live Stream Downloads Are Choppy And Jumpy

[MehNick Starrider]

The live stream downloads appear to be choppy, jumpy and they freeze every few seconds. I've the same issue on Firefox, Edge and Chrome. I've reinstalled everything including the companion app to no avail. The recordings used to be great, but this issue has started happening recently and I don't know what to do.

[mjs]

There is a setting in the extension you should change. Enable HLS as M2TS and click save. This makes the downloaded file play smoothly.

--

A vdh user

[MehNick Starrider]

Sorry I'm a bit late, the email notification landed in my spam.
I did exactly what you said and the recordings are still jumpy. The video freezes for like 5 seconds, then plays very fast, then normal, then freeze etcetra. It is really bizarre. I've updated the video codecs too, so it's not a codec problem. Could you please export and share your vdh-settings.json file, so I can import the settings you're using? Would that fix it?

[Wild Willy]

I already did something like that:

https://groups.google.com/g/video-downloadhelper-q-and-a/c/hOV6g2EYZS8

But I feel like we're some blind people in a room with an elephant.  One is holding the tail, one a tusk, one the trunk, one a flank.  Each of us has a different idea of what an elephant is.  Let's get a proper problem report from you.  Click this:

https://groups.google.com/g/video-downloadhelper-q-and-a/c/BzPLK2YyL-s

Search for "problem report" within the text of that web page.  That will reposition the page on a reference that contains a link.  Click that link, read what you find, & follow the advice.  Once we have a proper problem report from you, we might make some progress here.

[MehNick Starrider]

Yep, I read through all the text, downloaded your json file which was the last 100 lines, replaced my own json with the content of yours, imported it, started recording and BAM! Again with the jumpy, stuttery and choppy video! 
Went to your second link, searched for "problem report", followed that link and it's an Hindi-in-Latin-scripture title: " Chorem ki video dwanlod karni h kasy ho".  Please tell me if I'm missing something because all the other links don't really address this problem I'm having.

[mjs]

What is your system setup , your OS + browser and also a link to the problem videos you're facing. Provide all of this so it can be looked at

by other users.

[MehNick Starrider]

Windows 10 Pro / Firefox, Edge and Chrome have this issue. The videos are streams, anything from Twitch... to certain kind of sites etcetera.

[mjs]

The setting I told you about should have fixed it. Did remember to click save to bottom right of the settings page. It's a a blue save button.

VLC media player is also supposed to help if you play your files in it.

[MehNick Starrider]

No, unfortunately that didn't fix it.

[Wild Willy]

You have to read past the Hindi.  There is English in there.  We need the detail asked for in there: release numbers, specific URLs.  Not "latest."  Relese numbers.  Not site names.  URLs.  Not vague, specific.

In general, jumpy video is often caused by timed ID3 data.  Search this forum for that topic.  Sometimes, the HLS as M2TS setting seems to circumvent the issue.  Sometimes.  Not always.  If we have a specific URL, we can try to determine the cause.  My suspicion is that VDH settings are not causing this.  I suspect we're looking at content that VDH supports only imperfectly.

We are angling towards applying the investigative techniques laid out here:

https://groups.google.com/g/video-downloadhelper-q-and-a/c/sNfTCMYfiTU

You could try those things yourself without waiting for us to do it.

[MehNick Starrider]

In the next few days I'm gonna read the link and try some other stuff, and I will update this forum with my results for future reference.

[Denver]

I am having the same issue and some of the findings are below.

-It only started happening with the last update.

-I tried the "HLS as M2TS"with the same result

-The issue happens regardless of what player is used to play it back. While using Mplayer I was able to see that the video frames freeze/drop around every 10 seconds for about 2 seconds. The video will then keep playing but a/v sync appears off. Those stutters did not appear on the stream so I don't think it is missing chunks. Frames appear to be getting dropped somewhere on the recording.

-The issue happens with other conversion methods so I don't think it is the mp4 conversion process

-It happens with every video I download now

Let me know if there is anything I can do to help gather information.

Denver

[MehNick Starrider]

After a lot of trial and error I found out what to do to avoid getting a choppy live stream recording.
When a stream is playing and you click on the toolbar icon, you get a list of HLS streams you can choose from, right? To get a smooth recording NEVER choose the HLS that has the resolution (eg. 1920x1080 etc.) in its description. Rather, choose the stream that has a counting timer (eg. 01:20) in it.

So, for example, choose this:

LIVE STREAM TITLE 1234 WOW
HLS streaming – 00:10 – MP4

And not this:

LIVE STREAM TITLE 1234 WOW
HLS streaming – 1920x1080 – 5.6 Mbps – MP4

Do this only if it’s a LIVE stream. In any other case, select the one with resolution in the description.

[Tristan Nelson]

I am also getting choppy downloads. Hope someone can figure it out

[mjs]

It has been sorted out, try using the beta extension for Firefox or Chrome. Both found to the top of main group page.