Troubleshooting Quick Reference

Use the follow quick reference table for help if you are experiencing problems or unexpected behavior from your Pearl device.

Troubleshooting Quick Reference

Problem Action(s) to Resolve
4K features not working The most likely problem is that the 4K Feature add-on is not activated. You can lean more about activating this feature here: 4K
Not sure if the connected video inputs are being captured.

Check each source's input from the source preview in the Admin panel.

OR

Use the front screen and control key interface and check the screens for each video input source.
No sound is coming from an audio source.

Verify that you are using the correct audio input, see: Configure encoding.

OR

Use the front screen and control key interface and check the audio meters or use the 3.5 mm headphone jack on the front of Pearl Nano to verify audio, see Confidence monitoring using the front screen.
Captured SDI audio contains audible "clicking" sound or other audio distortions upon playback. Ensure audio sample rate is set to 48 kHz. Lower sample rates (i.e. 32 kHz and 44 kHz) can sometimes cause audio distortion.
When previewing a channel using the Live broadcast link or the preview link in the Admin panel, some web browsers do not play audio.

The Flash (FLV) plugin must be installed for your web browser to play back audio that's encoded as PCM.

Web browsers that use Flash players to preview video do not support audio that's encoded using 48 kHz MP3 or 48 kHz PCM.
All my input names don't look normal in the Admin panel menu after I applied the default preset Refresh your browser to clear the cache and restore the proper input names displayed in the Admin panel.
Time stamps between Pearl Nano and an RTSP source are not synchronized. Reconnect your RTSP source to reset desynchronized time stamps. Verify that you are using a local NTP server on your Pearl Nano as a time synchronization server for your RTSP source, see Configure a time server.
There's an audible clicking noise in recordings and live streams of my RTSP video source Remove the RTSP source using the Admin panel and recreate it to resolve the issue.
Too much noise is present in the audio output. Check the input level of the audio source to make sure it's the correct level. Modify the input gain if necessary, see Adjust audio gain and delay.
Video playback is fine, but when I play the clip in Adobe Premiere Pro the audio and video are out of sync. Adobe Premiere Pro has a known issue handling video that is recorded using a variable frame rate. Convert the clip to a constant frame rate using a third-party software, such as Handbrake, before editing in Adobe Premiere Pro.
Adobe Premiere Pro won't load my .mp4 recording from Pearl Nano. Check if the selected recording format in Pearl Nano is MP4-Fragmented. Adobe Premiere Pro does not currently support fragmented .mp4 files. Before editing in Adobe Premiere Pro, convert the clip to progressive .mp4 format. Run the file through ffmpeg or a third-party software such as Handbrake to preserve both audio and video output.
Image quality is poor or insufficient.

The following tips can help improve image quality:

  1. Ensure the source resolution is used as the output or recorded resolution.
  2. Increase the Bitrate value and/or decrease the Limit frame rate value in the Encoding menu. See: Configure encoding.
Frames per second are lower than expected.

The following tips can help improve frames per second (fps):

  1. Increase the Limit frame rate value and/or decrease the Bitrate value in the Encoding menu. See: Configure encoding.
  2. Reduce the number of actions happening simultaneously on the system (i.e. if streaming, recording, and copying files, consider waiting to copy files until after streaming and recording are complete).
  3. Enter a low negative value (i.e. -5) in the Frame Grabber's Vertical Shift field.
Stream won't play in my media player or browser.

Verify that the Stream Type matches with the media player used and that you have the correct url or SDP file for the player. See: Share a live broadcast stream (HTTP, HTTPS, or RTSP) and Streaming to a media player or smart TV.

If you still cannot see the stream, try disabling your local computer firewall.

If the issue is still not resolved, contact Epiphan Support at support@epiphan.com.
The stream interrupts or the image breaks up.

The following tips can help diagnose image problems:

  1. Ensure the source resolution is used as the output or recorded resolution.
  2. Increase the Bitrate value and/or decrease the Limit frame rate value in the Encoding menu. See: Configure encoding.
  3. Check network settings including filters, routers and application settings. Packet loss can result in stream failure.
The video streamed to my set-top box is dropping frames. If you're streaming to set-top boxes that have 10/100 Mbps interfaces on the same Gigabit Ethernet and you notice frames are dropping, you can limit the bandwidth of the stream using traffic shaping to adapt for lower bandwidth set-top boxes and prevent frame drops, see Set up traffic shaping.
Recording won't start. If recording will not start, check the Disk Status Information to see if the system is out of storage space. See Storage capacity and maintenance and Manage recorded files.
AFU to my CIFS server doesn't work. Pearl Nano supports Automatic File Transfer (AFU) to CIFS servers (also known as SMB or samba) with samba version 1.
Firmware upgrade fails. Reboot the system and try again. If the problem persists, contact Epiphan support at support@epiphan.com.
Certain Media players won't play encoded videos but others will.

Depending on the media player used, there could be different issues. If you encounter a playback issue, try using a different media player. Some issues we know of include:

  1. On Windows 10, the Movies & TV app sometimes fails to playback MP4-fragmented files with MP3 audio: try changing your MP4 audio encoding to AAC.

  2. VLC doesn't play MP4-fragmented files normally.

  3. Streams and recordings at very low frame rates (e.g. 1 fps) are not playable in VLC media player, use Windows Media Player and Quicktime Player instead.

Certain Media players won't play MOV videos.

Some media players won't play MOV videos that are recorded with MP3 audio encoding, including:

  1. VLC 2.2.4 (Microsoft Windows) if MP3 audio encoding is at 48 kbps.
  2. Movies & TV 10.16122.1029 on Windows 10.
  3. Windows Media Player 12.

Choose a different audio encoding when recording MOV files or use a different media player to playback the recording.

The MOV file type on Pearl also has a time limit of 13h15m, exceeding this limit will render the file unplayable.
There's no audio when I playback an MP4 file in QuickTime 10. Apple doesn't support MP3 audio. If your MP4 file is created with MP3 audio, you will not hear the audio during playback in QuickTime 10. Choose a different audio encoding when recording MP4 files or use a different media player to playback the recording.
I can't hear the audio in VLC or the video won't play.

VLC version 3.0.3 won't play audio for MP4 fragmented files. In VLC's Input/Codecs settings page, you can try increasing the file caching parameter.

VLC version 3.0.6 (windows) won't play MP4 fragmented video files. This is a VLC issue.
There's noticeable latency on the video output port. Disabling the audio on the video output port improves latency for the port, see Disable or enable audio and output port volume.
System is not starting up correctly. Ensure there is no USB stick inserted into a USB port during power up. A potential conflict with the internal hard drive could cause unexpected behavior.
I can't register my Pearl Nano with Kaltura using the same device name that I just deregistered. If you deregister Pearl Nano from Kaltura and then too quickly register again using the same name, you may receive the following error message "Unable to register device: System name [MyPearl] already exists". To avoid this, ensure the deregistered Pearl Nano entry in the list of encoder devices disappears before registering again using the same device name.
My login attempt to create an ad hoc event from Pearl Nano was denied. Kaltura or Panopto has denied you access to create unscheduled ad hoc recordings and webcasts using Pearl Nano. Contact your CMS administrator to either activate your CMS account or enable the necessary access rights.