Trying to teach dvblast to use a file as input but having a small problem

// these 2 values taken from a seperate include file
#define TS_SIZE 188
const int i_bufsize = TS_SIZE*32;

/*****************************************************************************
 * file_Read : read packets from the device
 *****************************************************************************/
block_t *file_Read( mtime_t i_poll_timeout )
{
    i_wallclock = mdate();

    {
        block_t *p_ts, **pp_current = &p_ts;
        int i, i_len;

        if ( !i_last_packet )
        {
            switch (i_print_type) {
            case PRINT_XML:
                printf("<STATUS type=\"lock\" status=\"1\"/>\n");
                break;
            default:
                printf("frontend has acquired lock\n" );
            }
        }
        i_last_packet = i_wallclock;

        i_len = 0;
        for ( i = 0; i < i_bufsize / TS_SIZE; i++ )
        {
            *pp_current = block_New();
            i_len2 = fread( (*pp_current)->p_ts, 1, TS_SIZE, file_input);
// If i remove this code the following if check fails
// But leave the code like this and the warning says i_len2 is 188 bytes
            msg_Warn( NULL, "read from file %s (%s) %d %p",
                       filename, strerror(errno), i_len2, pp_current );
            if ( i_len2 < 188 )
            {
                msg_Err( NULL, "couldn't read from file %s (%s) %d %p",
                         filename, strerror(errno), i_len2, pp_current );
                i_len = 0;
                break;
            }
            i_len++;
            pp_current = &(*pp_current)->p_next;
        }

        pp_current = &p_ts;
        while ( i_len && *pp_current )
        {
            pp_current = &(*pp_current)->p_next;
            i_len--;
        }

        if ( *pp_current )
            msg_Dbg( NULL, "partial buffer received" );

        block_DeleteChain( *pp_current );
        *pp_current = NULL;

        return p_ts;
    }

    return NULL;
}

Whats wrong with this code?

Any ideas, got blinked on this one

joolz