Newbie desperate for assistance

[johnsonx42]

The problem you described on viewing the NBC recording is due to your decoder not de-interlacing the video for display by the computer. I don't use VLC, but I imagine somewhere in the menu is a setting for de-interlacing. This would be completely unaffected by what mux you use to record, as all three muxes simply record the stream as provided by the broadcaster.

Your initial channel scanning problem is something pretty much everyone has with 1.4.7, especially those of us in the US. Sub will fix it when he returns from his business trip (he's in Florida last I heard). This problem is not causing your other troubles though, so once you've fixed your tuning request by hand, put it out of your mind.

I have no idea what's causing your 5.5k file problem. I've never run into that; other people have said it's due to getting no signal to record, but then the TS Mux wouldn't record anything either.

You do seem to still have some missing filter problems:

Code:

2009-10-05 18:54:17.484    VERBOSE    FindFilterByName failed to locate filter: Microsoft Network Provider

Code:

2009-10-05 18:54:17.500    VERBOSE    FindFilterByName failed to locate filter: GB-PVR PSI Parser

The GB-PVR PSI Parser is non-optional, so you'll need to get back to running the reregisterfilters.bat as discussed on the first page of this thread. I'm not sure about the Microsoft Network Provider filter. Anyhow, get the GB-PVR filters re-registered, and try again.

[whurlston]

Third - the NBC channel, which is the only 1080i channel I get and keeps returning a strange tuning request after scanning with config, records poorly, even though it looks great while viewed using SiliconDust's QuickTV app. All other channels, which are 720p and appear to return proper tuning requests in config, record free of the motion problems that I get with the NBC channel.

I agree with johnsonx42 on the NBC video issue being due to no deinterlacing. For VLC, see http://wiki.videolan.org/Deinterlacing

As for the tuning string issue, I posted a utility at http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?t=44119 that should help until sub gets back home and can take a look at it.

[RiverNoord]

Thanks johnsonx42 and whurlston -

I've been surprised by the deinterlacing issue - I was, obviously with poor info, under the impression that interlacing would be ending with analog TV. Live and learn...

OK - in order to improve playback of the NBC files, I had to finally dump VLC - I just couldn't get any of its filter options, including deinterlacing, post processing, etc., to effect a significant improvement.

My solution of that issue, for now, involved running Config, choosing Overlay Manager as my PVRX2 Video Renderer, then playing the files back in PVRX2 - this yielded immediate improvement. My assumption is that selecting overlay means that my ATI Catalyst Control Center settings have taken over issues such as deinterlacing. Maybe I'm wrong, but whatever has happened, it has improved playback a great deal.

The second thing that seemed to help (although I may be mistaken...) was de-selecting "Use built-in Transport Stream Reader filter for .ts files." After doing this, it seemed to me that the playback was a bit smoother - does that setting override the chosen MPEG-2 Playback decoder in config for .ts files? Again, I could be wrong, but making this change appeared to smooth things out a bit more.

Now, about the problem of being unable to select any mux other than TS Mux for successful recording - no change, but a few things I've figured out.

1) Johnsonx42 - re-registering psiparser.ax solved the Recording Service's failure to find the GB-PVR PSI Parser. Of course, I had to do it with by way of calling the regsvr32 program in the Windows\SysWow64 folder, as I discovered earlier and have described in this thread. It's a Windows XP x64 thing. Registering the PSI Parser didn't solve the overall problem, however.

2) The "Microsoft Network Provider" filter issue could be at the heart of things. According to graphedit, there doesn't appear to be a generic "Microsoft Network Provider" filter on my system. However, there are several HDTV Microsoft Network Provider filters, such as (the one that is being successfully identified by the recording service at another point) the "Microsoft ATSC Network Provider." At this point, I can only speculate about the absence of the filter, but I'm guessing that it is significant to the problem of being unable to record with any other mux. I've been unable to find much info on the existence/non-existence of such a filter on XP x64.

So - After my original install of GB-PVR, I was able to record using the muxes I chose (except the NBC channel, which had an erroneous tuning request and recorded by default using the TS-Mux), something, at some point, happened, and now every attempt to record with any other mux results in 5.5k files. Multiple reinstalls of HDHomeRun software, C++ redistributable, and GB-PVR, did not change this. Getting the PSI Parser registered didn't, either. Could the problem be with the apparent absence of the "Microsoft Network Filter?" I'd be grateful for any ideas...

Thanks again,

Dan

[whurlston]

It looks like you have all your decoders set to "System Default" in config. I would specify the decoders to use and select something other than DScaler (which I'm pretty sure is not helping your 1080i issue). My personal favorite for MPEG2 is the MPC-HD standalone MPEG2 decoder. A popular one around here is the MPV decoders.

Hoborg also has a codec pack specifically designed for GB-PVR: http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?t=40821

I wouldn't worry about not having the MS Network Provider Filter, the ATSC Network Provider filter should suffice for you.

[RiverNoord]

Thanks whurlston -

I removed dscaler and a couple of other codecs earlier, and modified my decoder choices one at a time to see what kind of results I'd get. I'll gladly check out the codecs you mentioned.

[johnsonx42]

My solution of that issue, for now, involved running Config, choosing Overlay Manager as my PVRX2 Video Renderer, then playing the files back in PVRX2 - this yielded immediate improvement. My assumption is that selecting overlay means that my ATI Catalyst Control Center settings have taken over issues such as deinterlacing. Maybe I'm wrong, but whatever has happened, it has improved playback a great deal.

As a general rule on a modern system you should probably be using the VMR9 Custom or Full Screen Exclusive renderer. Overlay is there for compatibility with older/slower video cards. But, if you get better results with Overlay then that's fine. Changing the renderer has nothing to do with the decoder, although some decoders may work better with different renderers than others. The key thing to remember though is that VLC has it's own decoders built-in, while GB-PVR uses the decoders installed in Windows. As Whurlston pointed out, if you leave your playback decoder setting at "System Default" then GB-PVR just lets windows pick; this is generally not a good idea (although on my particular setup I have to use System Default or it won't work but that's an unrelated story).

The second thing that seemed to help (although I may be mistaken...) was de-selecting "Use built-in Transport Stream Reader filter for .ts files." After doing this, it seemed to me that the playback was a bit smoother - does that setting override the chosen MPEG-2 Playback decoder in config for .ts files? Again, I could be wrong, but making this change appeared to smooth things out a bit more.

It is my understanding that that setting no longer does anything; GB-PVR now depends on certain features of it's own TS Reader, so it's no longer possible to use an alternate reader for .ts files. I thought sub was going to remove it, but there's always a thousand things that he doesn't get to. Even if it did work, no it doesn't override the playback decoder. The GB-PVR TS Reader is a Source Filter, not a decoder.

It works like this: A Source Filter knows how to read a given media file and splits the data into at least an Audio and a Video stream (but has not done anything about decoding them; this first filter is often called a Splitter). These two streams are passed to Audio and Video decoder filters that can decode the data into a raw Audio stream and a sequence of Video frames. Those data streams are then connected to a Audio renderer and a Video renderer. These renderers take the audio data and video frames and prepare them for output to the speakers/screen (along with any additional video information such as text and on-screen graphics); from there they go through the audio and video drivers and finally to the hardware.

In GB-PVR for reasons I don't completely understand you almost always want your Audio Renderer to be System Default. You choose your Video renderer based on your system specs and other requirements.

edit: this entire sequence of filters is called a "Playback Graph" or just "Graph"; the filters in the Graph used to playback a given file is spelled out in the PVRX2.exe-native log