Playback Problems with Wireless MVP

[buddy]

I recently got a new wMVP with the built-in wireless support. I've been using the wired interface for now until I can get everything working.

First, I installed GB-PVR 97.9, which doesn't appear to support the wMVP model by default. After reading some posts, I got ahold of Hauppauge's 2.5.24023b dongle, which then got GB-PVR working on the MVP. So far, so good.

Then, when I play some WMV files from Video Library, they start playing fine, but then often end prematurely, and the UI returns to Video Library (buffer underrun?). This will usually happen a few minutes into the program, and higher bitrate files do appear to make the problem worse. The server, BTW, is a new, fast PC with plenty of RAM and not doing much else.

I've tried changing the Video Decoder (is that relevant for MVP playback?), as well as upping the MVP Transcode pre-play delay to its max of 16000.

Videos will also stop if I play one and then hit the skip button once it's playing. Is that by design?

There are also some files that GB-PVR won't play at all on the MVP, but will play fine on the GB-PVR's PC interface, like 960x540 WMVs.

Any ideas? TIA.

[sub]

Then, when I play some WMV files from Video Library, they start playing fine, but then often end prematurely, and the UI returns to Video Library (buffer underrun?). This will usually happen a few minutes into the program, and higher bitrate files do appear to make the problem worse. The server, BTW, is a new, fast PC with plenty of RAM and not doing much else.

This is exactly what happens when you PC is unable to transcode the WMV to MPG in faster than real time. You could try bumping up the 'MVP transcode pre-play delay'.

I've tried changing the Video Decoder (is that relevant for MVP playback?), as well as upping the MVP Transcode pre-play delay to its max of 16000.

You can set it to a larger value by editing the <MVPTranscodePrePlayDelay> setting in config .xml

Videos will also stop if I play one and then hit the skip button once it's playing. Is that by design?

You can get this if it is having to transcode the file from a non native format like WMV.
The MVP hardware only plays MPEG1 or MPEG2 files, so you'd be better off sticking to these types of media and converting existing files you have.

[buddy]

Thanks for the reply.

This is exactly what happens when you PC is unable to transcode the WMV to MPG in faster than real time. You could try bumping up the 'MVP transcode pre-play delay'.

This is what I suspected. Note that the vendor's software that came with the unit can transcode these files on the fly, without a long pre-play buffering pause, so it can be done. If I force it to struggle by intentionally running another CPU-intensive task, the worst that happens is that the video stutters and pauses a little. But it's smooth under normal circumstances.

The MVP hardware only plays MPEG1 or MPEG2 files, so you'd be better off sticking to these types of media and converting existing files you have.

That's exactly what I was hoping not to do. Just for grins, I used Trans2MVP.exe to convert a WMV to an MPEG, and the file went from 257MB to 715MB. Not good, though the output file did seem to play okay on the MVP via GB-PVR.

OTOH, manually converting all WMV/Avi/Divx/etc. to MPEG defeats the whole purpose of on-the-fly transcoding.

[sub]

This is exactly what happens when you PC is unable to transcode the WMV to MPG in faster than real time. You could try bumping up the 'MVP transcode pre-play delay'.

This is what I suspected. Note that the vendor's software that came with the unit can transcode these files on the fly, without a long pre-play buffering pause, so it can be done. If I force it to struggle by intentionally running another CPU-intensive task, the worst that happens is that the video stutters and pauses a little. But it's smooth under normal circumstances.

Yes, but GB-PVR does its transcoding a different way and it requires the machine to be able to transcode in faster than real time.

The MVP hardware only plays MPEG1 or MPEG2 files, so you'd be better off sticking to these types of media and converting existing files you have.

That's exactly what I was hoping not to do. Just for grins, I used Trans2MVP.exe to convert a WMV to an MPEG, and the file went from 257MB to 715MB. Not good, though the output file did seem to play okay on the MVP via GB-PVR.

OTOH, manually converting all WMV/Avi/Divx/etc. to MPEG defeats the whole purpose of on-the-fly transcoding.

I understand your desire to do this, but the reality is that the MVP is not a good choice of device for watching non MPEG video files. There is some rudimentary support for this in GB-PVR so the user can watch the occasional other video, but its never going to be as smooth as watching MPEG videos.

If you really need to watch lots of these types of video, you may need to stick with the Hauppauge software.