PTS/DTS parsing errors in MPEG-TS streams causing stream rejection

[lfleuter]

Hi!

When streaming MPEG-TS via SRT to OvenMediaEngine (0.18.0), we encountered an issue where the stream is rejected due to invalid PTS/DTS header bits. Here are example log outputs from the server:

[2025-06-08 03:22:30.505] E [SPSRT-s9999:13] MPEG-2 TS | mpegts_pes.cpp:381 | Invalid PTS_DTS start bits: 7 (07), expected: 2 (02)
[2025-06-08 03:22:30.505] E [SPSRT-s9999:13] MPEG-2 TS | mpegts_pes.cpp:335 | Could not parse PTS
[2025-06-08 03:22:30.505] E [SPSRT-s9999:13] MPEG-2 TS | mpegts_pes.cpp:250 | Could not parse table header
[2025-06-08 03:22:30.505] E [SPSRT-s9999:13] MPEGTS_DEPACKETIZER | mpegts_depacketizer.cpp:324 | Something wrong with parsing PES

The stream originates from a streaming application that appears to produce MPEG-TS packets with non-standard PTS/DTS headers. While this, as I understand, violates the MPEG-TS specification, other live streaming servers seem to tolerate such errors and continue processing the stream.

Would it be possible for OME to handle malformed or missing PTS/DTS headers more gracefully? Alternatively, is there an existing workaround or configuration we could use?

Thank you very much in advance for any guidance or feedback!

[getroot]

If the input packet is only incorrect in the start bits, you can try bypassing the validation.
However, if the length is also incorrect, it could cause serious issues in the system.
Try commenting out the if (prefix != start_bits) block in the code below and test it.

OvenMediaEngine/src/projects/modules/containers/mpegts/mpegts_pes.cpp

Line 379 in 21a7592

if (prefix != start_bits)