NextPVR Forums

This may be related to the other recording cut short threads here.

Given the following scenario:
3 tuners installed,
2 programs ending the same time,
1 program starting the same time that the other 2 are ending,
pre and postpads being used,
The programs are scheduled as one time recordings.

the result:
One of the earlier programs will be cut short by several minutes, and the cut short recording will end about 5 seconds before the minute mark. The NTFS last modified times on all files will be correct (having included the postpad), implying that the files were all closed at the correct time, and that one tuner stopped sending data several minutes too soon.

I haven't determined if the pre and postpad times affect the result. I use a prepad of 3 minutes and a postpad of 8 minutes. The cut short recordings are about 11 minutes short.

I have 3 nPVR boxes. Here are some notes I've compiled:

nPVR Box 1 (nwlp), Lenovo Thinkpad T61:
XP Pro 32bit, Core2Duo 2.0Ghz, 2GB RAM, 500GB SATA2 NCQ working, nPVR 2.4.3,

Box 1, tuner experiment A (this is the setup I'm currently running):
(2) Hauppauge HVR-950Q USB
notes: no problems

Box 1, tuner experiment B:
(3) Hauppauge HVR-950Q USB (via a D-Link DUB-H7 powered USB hub)
notes: recording cut short issue exists

Box 1, tuner experiment C:
(2) Hauppauge HVR-950Q USB
(1) Silicondust HDHomeRun (dual tuner)(via gig-e switch or dedicated USB LAN adapter)
notes: recording cut short issue exists, HDHomerun has ~50 bad frames per hour dedicated LAN or not and I tried it on 2 other machines too and with their command line recorder... probably the use of UDP at fault
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nPVR Box 2 (bsod), Sony VAIO PCV-7752:
XP Home 32bit, P4 2GHz, 512MB RAM, 200GB IDE, 300GB IDE recording drive, nPVR 2.4.3,
amazingly this ancient box is sufficient to record 3 streams, I named it BSOD because when I rebuilt it, all it would do was BSOD... hehe.. finally determined the RAM bus drivers were weak and it would only run stable with 1 stick..

Box 2, tuner experiment A:
(2) Hauppauge HVR-1150 PCI
notes: no problems

Box 2, tuner experiment B:
(2) Hauppauge HVR-1150
(1) Dvico Fusion5 HDTV PCI
notes: recording cut short issue exists, Fusion5 has ~50 bad frames per hour, also causes BSODs every few days (this is nothing new.. the other boxes this card has been in since 2006 have suffered BSODs caused by the Fusion5)

Box 2, tuner experiment C:
(2) Hauppauge HVR-1150 PCI
(1) Sabrent TV-PCIDG PCI
notes: recording cut short issue exists, Sabrent stream quality is as good as the Hauppauges and is half the price (wish I'd known that a few months ago...)

Box 2, tuner experiment D (this is the setup I'm currently running, I try to schedule such that it's only using 2 tuners max):
(3) Hauppauge HVR-1150 PCI
notes: recording cut short issue exists
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nPVR Box 3 (hdtv), HP dc7800pC8:
XP Pro 32bit, Core2Duo 2.33Ghz, 2GB RAM, 80GB SATA1, 500GB SATA2 with NCQ working recording drive, nPVR 2.5.5

Box 3, tuner experiment A (this is the setup I'm currently running):
(3) Hauppauge HVR-1150 PCI
notes: recording cut short issue exists, I have (3) HVR-1250 and (2) HVR-950Q I'd like to install for 8 tuners total after the cut short issue is resolved, I built this box this month and it's eventually going to be my main recording box but for now it's to help resolve this issue
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I'm receiving ATSC via a 15 ft Channel Master antenna (yeah a little overkill, but I used to live 70 miles away, plus I like the outdoor eye candy of a big antenna..hehe..). No amp as I'm only 11 miles from the TX farm. RG6 coax, Antronix splitters, PPC compression connectors.

The OS installs are all new and the boxes are only used for nPVR. I don't run antivirus on them. They are headless and I only use them to record, controlling them via NEWA from my main machine. I use UltraVNC if I need to get to the desktops. I image with Ghost 2003 after any significant changes and use it to revert to previously known good states if anything bizarre happens (and when removing tuners so no remnants of previous tuners remain). The XP installs have all Windows updates (including DirectX) and the only codec installed is FFDSHOW. I use Schedules Direct for program info.

I use a post processing app written with Delphi 4 to generate a batch file that renames via the file's alt. data stream (with a lookup table for the virtual chan num) and moves the file to my file server. I usually run the batch file via the Windows Task Scheduler only when nothing is recording (to reduce the chance of bad frames).

The only thing I haven't ruled out is the Hauppauge drivers. In all my experiments, there has always been at least 2 Hauppauge tuners present. I do have 2 more of the Sabrent cards on the way to experiment with a Hauppauge-less box.

Here are the logs for one of the cut short recordings. These are from Box 3.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]34308[/ATTACH]

Here are 3 programs I recorded, the NTFS last modified times, and the recording lengths (via Videoredo or MPC-HC):

2012-09-03 1600 13.1 WTVT DT Judge Judy.Anime Action Figures Missing.hdtv.ts
NTFS last modified time: 9/3/2012 16:38:01
Recording length: 00:40:57

2012-09-03 1600 3.1 WEDU HD Martha Speaks.Martha Runs the Store.hdtv.ts
NTFS last modified time: 9/3/2012 16:38:01
Recording length: 00:29:55 (this is short by about 11 minutes)

2012-09-03 1630 16.3 CREATE The American Woodshop.Sectional Plantation Table.hdtv.ts
NTFS last modified time: 9/3/2012 17:08:01
Recording length: 00:40:57

I'm thinking the cut short recording ending around the minute mark may be a decent clue as to the cause.
Any ideas?

I can see the scenario tht is causing it to fail. Its not easy to test this, but I'll put it on the list to look into.

Thank you for adding it to your todo list.

If anyone is wondering why I have 3 nPVR boxes.. in the old days it was MyHD and Dvico tuners and lots of fighting with the different schedulers, the tuner softwares crashing, the BSODs, the streams getting mangled.. so I'd have 2, sometimes 3 boxes recording the same program, hoping to get at least one good recording....

I built my first nPVR box this spring to get away from all that, but after some of the recordings were getting cut short, I threw together a second box to make backup recordings like in the old days until I could figure out the cause... it didn't take long to realize it only happened when 3 tuners were active and I also noticed it always happened on the same shows and I looked at what else was going on and noticed the pattern which the test I illustrated is based on.. I built the 3rd box to confirm that pattern brings out the bug and to eventually get my laptop back for normal use as I never intended for it to be a permanent nPVR box.. anyway... it'll be great to eventually get this sorted out.

Seeing as all your boxes are running XP have you found and applied the DVB fix dll?

Martin

mvallevand Wrote:Seeing as all your boxes are running XP have you found and applied the DVB fix dll?

I forgot about that one and just took a look:
hotfix has Psisdecd.dll version 6.5.2600.2640 dated 25-Mar-2005

I searched the C drive on the 3 boxes and I'm running 6.05.2600.5512 with a date of 14-Apr-2008. Search is showing it also being in the sp3.cab, so I guess SP3 updated it (sorry, forgot to note that I'm running SP3).
I used Offline Update (v7.3 and I created the ISO on 3-17-2012) and then Windows Update via IE to do the updates.
Thank you for suggesting it though, as it could well have been an issue.

That's maybe your issue, you definitely don't want SP3 to update that file.

Martin

I'm also running Sp3 but I still had to install the fix to get it to work properly... attached screenshot shows the date of the three files that came in the fix .zip.

ok folks.. thanks and my head is spinning after googling 6.5.2715.2883 Psisdecd.dll.
Seems I missed out on all the drama as it happened...
I'll install tomorrow and post what I find.

Search instead for "dvb fix"

Martin

mvallevand and Jaggy,
Thank you for the infos!

When mvallevand first mentioned the dvbfix, I thought he was talking about KB896626 which I had installed on my old Dvico tuner boxes on 1/21/2006. After reading the various threads from the googling, yeah I caught on that Microsoft did some Dogbert style tricks with the versions, and that an unofficial version known as dvbfix was available.

For other XP newcomers, here's the thread with the infos:
http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...post406180

Here are the versions in the dvbfix.zip file:
mpeg2data.ax 6.05.2710.2732
PsisDecd.dll 6.05.2715.2883
psisrndr.ax 6.05.2715.2883

For reference, here are the versions from XP SP3 32bit + Windows Updates and residing in my system32 (on box3 "hdtv"):
mpeg2data.ax 6.05.2600.5512
PsisDecd.dll 6.05.2600.5512
psisrndr.ax 6.05.2600.5512

Note the .bat installer simply unregisters the old ones and then registers the new ones (residing in the c:\dvbfix folder, copied there per the instructions).
Also note apparently the channel scan doesn't work with the newer files (I didn't verify, just saw that while reading). This thread has a workaround:
http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...l-bug-quot

And finally note, I still have the cut short issue after installing dvbfix.. argh...

Anyone know of a way to confirm the version (or file path) of a filter in use? While I had 3 "successful" popups on the unregistering of the old, and 3 "successful" popups on registering of the new, it might be helpful to have some way of confirming that the new dvbfix files are actually being used when recording a show (ya I've been googling for such a utility..getting blanks so far). I suppose I could try deleting them while recording and see what happens (worst case, I'll be restoring the ghost image made right before installing dvbfix).