I recently started using a couple MVP's, and they're great. However, I run into a problem that I can't find a way to cure.
I've been noticing a stutter while watching movies on the gbpvr PC and have finally tracked it down. When either MVP is turned on but not being used, every five seconds on the PC one of the MVP services spikes the CPU. It doesn't seem to hit it too hard, anywhere from 35-42% utilization, but it definitely introduces a noticable and irritating stutter in the video playback on the host PC (sound is fine). The strange thing is that my CPU utilitization during playback only uses about 25-30% of the CPU, so it would seem that the two running together shouldn't have a problem since it still doesn't get anywhere near 100%. But it also doesn't seem like the service should use anything like that much CPU when it's not doing anything either other than, I assume, polling for input. If I turn the MVPs off, the periodic CPU spike disappears.
Does anyone have any suggestions? Sub, is there any chance that the MVP service isn't yielding like it should and so holding on to the CPU just a tad more than it should?
I'm writing this as I am struggling to find much info relating to using Mini ITX boards from Via working well with GB-PVR...
I have been waiting for almost a year for the EPIA SP board to come out as it looked to be a bit more suited to HTPC... I was going to try MEEDIO but came across GB-PVR and liked what I saw...
I now have GB-PVR running on my EPIA SP board using most of the default settings... I had an aerial installed on top of the house (I get a 100% signal now) and am pleased with the results... this is my first attempt at a PC for the living room.
Overall, I'm quite pleased with the setup, although, I will look to upgrade the motherboard when its next versions come out as the Via C7 Chipset has full support for DX9... This is the main problem with the boards from Via... I have to use overlay for the video which works, but occationally jitters... However the recorded playback works fine...
I will probably end up watching Digi TV using a dedicated freeview receiver (because the channel changing takes about 5 secs to work on the PC), then flip to GB-PVR to record programs...
Is the slow channel changing a problem with all Digi TV cards??? are there ways to speed this up...
I have 2 capture cards. One set-top-box. Some shows that air 2 or more episodes in a row, with zero time between shows. I also need padding because of the inaccuracies of my EPG, PC clock and actual air-times (which are not always accurate).
When the show is on tuner-accessible channels, there is no problem.
For shows coming off the STB, I currently have only one of the cards connected, because there is only one STB and thus only one "real" capture source.
However, I have 2 cards, and have no problem to split the signal so that the other card's composite input will see the same STB output. I can't configure this as a separate capture source because that would cause conflicts over the single STB.
Right now, what is many times one episode will end a few seconds before teh first recording ends, and I will get a few seconds of the second episode in the first file. This is annoying, not to mention that I get a few seconds shaved off because GBPVR is "changing channels" to the same channel again, and not recording in between.
I could solve the problem by scheduling a manual recording over the entire timeslots for all episodes. But this is quite annoying because then I lose the guide info and the ability to watch one episode, and delete it when I done to free the space. I must watch all episodes in the chunk before I can delete it.
Any sugegstions?
Thanks,
GGF
P.S. Maybe this is a Wishlist item - to have a way to tell GBPVR that a capture source (other card's composite) is a "secondary" for some other, and that could allow GBPVR to add padding to consecutive shows on the same channel from the same STB.
I purchased a WinTV PCR-150 to drop in my PC so I could enjoy some low cost pvr action till I can build my seperate PC.
I have my TV hooked up to the video out on my ATI-9500 Pro. My desktop displays fine, no problem. Bur when I attempt to play video through WinAMP or Media Player, everything is fine on my monitor, but where the video should be on TV, there is just a blank space. To be more specific, everything dsiplays on TV except for the actual video. I see the desktop, the controls, etc. but in the space where the video should be playing, its just blank.
There's still a bug where the composite and tuner inputs conflict. I had scheduled progA from 8:30 to 9:00 on the composite input, and progB 9:00 to 9:30 on the tuner. There was 1 minute pre and post padding. At 8:58:30, progA was cut short in the mpg file, and the channel was changed for progB, but the recording went on until 9:01. (The padding is messing it up - if not for changing from composite and tuner, the padding would have been removed.)
Finally, the mpg file for progB is damaged and I can't play it, but it's only big enough for 10 minutes of the program instead of 30.
Since I was having difficulties with shows back to back on te two sources on one card, I decided to move everything to recording off of the composite jacks from the cable box and tune everything on it instead of the internal tuner. I went into the config and unselected all channels on the internal tuner source, and selected them all on the cable box via composite. Since doing that, I have had some shows record crap, like digital static, and the only thing I can think of is it was still via the internal tuner.
What I would like to know is if the shows were already pending before moving the channels, would the still try to record on that source. I remember reading that shows are assigned sources at time of scheduling.
If this is what happened, I guess this would be a bug, since I actually did tell it not to include those channels on that source.
Anyway, I just deleted the internal tuner source, and ALL scheduled and recuring recordings. Then I went back in and rescheduled everything. So either way, it "shouldn't" be an issue now.
I've always had the My Programs installed but it was the first release build (1.1 i think). With this build installed, none of the skins have ever 'flickered' - i.e., every 2 seconds, fonts would disappear and then reappear (sometimes, the app even crashes with an error)
Well, i upgraded the plugin to build 2.0.0.4 and now, my skins are 'flickering' all the time (i've checked with blue and blueMCE2).
If I unchecked the plugin in Config (and delete it from plugin dir) - no more flickering.
If reinstalled the plugin - flickering comes back.
FYI, I also have Video Archiver plugin installed - only have the VA Panel checked tho...
I did a search in forums and couldn't find anything...
Is the above a known pb with My Programs 2.0.0.4 ?
PS: thnx heaps for your work on the My Series ... it's what helped my family comfortably move to gbpvr
I'd like to improve the general look of GB-PVR, but unfortunately I'm artisically challenged, so I'll have to look to the wider community for help.
I'd like to replace the 'blue' skin with one that will give a better first impression. This may be a matter of adopting an already existing skin, or designing an entirely new one. I would like to hear people's thoughts on this, or if the ideal skin already exists then let us know. I'd love to see any general discussion on this, from color scheme's, good fonts, background images etc. This is your chance to get it looking the way you think it should.
To help ensure we can make a great skin, I'm happy to make changes to the core components of GB-PVR, but I have to be realistic about what can be changed in a reasonable period of time, and what can be done within the limitations of the devices we support, so not everything will be possible.
Stealing artwork from other applications may cause me legal problems, so we'll need to avoid this.
... it's what helped my family comfortably move to gbpvr 
