Timeshift LiveTV & program boundaries

[ermon]

Hi all,

I recently acquired a WinTV PVR USB2 - and it seems to works surprisingly well.
GB-PVR offers one of the better interfaces to using it, but I have encountered some issues.

The most serious of these is that while timeshifting LiveTV seems to miss program boundaries - It simply continues to record for a few seconds and then stops, never transitioning to the next EPG entry - The only thing that continues to work is the audio - and even that doesn't always work... I am not even sure it ever worked (I have also experienced some audio/video mismatches.. But one problem at a time)

I find that quite strange. I would guess that the capture graph stays on the old file for some reason...

A secondary issue, which might be related, occurs with LiveTV in non-timeshifting mode. While it works in overlay mode, VMR7/VMR9 result in a high CPU usage that renders it pretty much unusable - It is almost as if the overlay portion fails to allocate... But it works fine in timeshift mode... Another issue with building a capture graph?

For reference:
PIV-1.8G/Radeon 9600/1024MB-RAM
Storage files are created on a secondary HD

Any ideas and suggestions would be welcome...
-Eyal

P.S: Any way to change brightness/contrast/etc from within GB-PVR? The only method I have found so far is tweaking the INI files...

Edit: Corrected the description of the problem - Audio doesn't seem to go beyond the program boundary either

[sub]

Quote[/b] ]The most serious of these is that while timeshifting LiveTV seems to miss program boundaries - It simply continues to record for a few seconds and then stops, never transitioning to the next EPG entry - The only thing that continues to work is the audio - and even that doesn't always work... I am not even sure it ever worked (I have also experienced some audio/video mismatches.. But one problem at a time)

I'll dust off my PVR USB2 this weekend and give it a try. Are you using tuner/composite/svideo?

Quote[/b] ]I find that quite strange. I would guess that the capture graph stays on the old file for some reason...

Same code is used for all devices. It'd be annoying if it doesnt work for the PVR USB2 drivers.

Quote[/b] ]A secondary issue, which might be related, occurs with LiveTV in non-timeshifting mode. While it works in overlay mode, VMR7/VMR9 result in a high CPU usage that renders it pretty much unusable - It is almost as if the overlay portion fails to allocate... But it works fine in timeshift mode... Another issue with building a capture graph?

VMR does use much more CPU than Overlay, but I'd that the problem is more likely the combination of VMR and receiving uncompressed video data across the USB bus (large amount of CPU to service this). I did try this new live preview mode with my PVR USB2 on my HTPC that uses VMR8, and it seems to work very well but I've got a 2.8Ghz P4 in that machine. I dont really have any suggestions here.

Quote[/b] ]P.S: Any way to change brightness/contrast/etc from within GB-PVR? The only method I have found so far is tweaking the INI files...

Just the INI file.

[ermon]

Thanks for the quick reply, Sub.

I am using the tuner.

As for the live TV mode, I wasn't aware that the WinTV PVR series was capable of uncompressed output... That would explain the CPU overhead.

BTW, I also checked the working directory after the transition - The new file is being created and grows (and I can play it with WMP after quitting GB)... It seems as if it is just the playback that's a problem.

-Eyal

[ermon]

Hmm... I just tested to see if the problem I am experiencing is unique to VMR9 - and it seems to be a VMR problem (both 7 & 9)

Using overlay mode there seems to be no problem moving across show boundaries... This may well be related to high CPU usage in live TV mode problem I am encountering, as it also disappears under overlay mode.

BTW, I have some filtering options checked - could those have something to do with it? I think that the TV quality in overlay mode is a bit lower than that under VMR9... (noisier)
-Eyal

[sub]

Quote[/b] ]BTW, I have some filtering options checked - could those have something to do with it

Could do. Try disabling them and see what happens.

FFDShow (if thats what you're using) is known for requiring a lot of CPU power.