NextPVR 3.2.9 - Current Patches and Getting Started Info

[johnsonx42]

Current patches for 3.2.9 - see post #2 for getting started and other reference info, and [NEW THING HERE!!!] post #3 for New Feature highlights/documentation.

Cumulative Update - None Yet

Files Included:
ANY NPVR USERS EXPERIENCING PROBLEMS SHOULD INSTALL THE CUMULATIVE PATCH UPDATE AND RECREATE THE PROBLEM BEFORE POSTING A SUPPORT REQUEST. These updated files represent the latest version of NPVR code, and may include other changes not documented, so your problem may already have been fixed. Also, other later patches you may find posted by sub may fail if all your NPVR program files are not up to date. (no, it is not necessary to install any patches before upgrading to a new release of NextPVR - unless otherwise stated, you can upgrade from any release of NextPVR to any later release).

=== Individual patches for NPVR 3.2.9 ===
1. Fix Socket Error with CableCard devices (DCR-2650, HDHomeRun Prime) - http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...post473573 (already included with NPVR 3.2.9 installer if you downloaded it more than a day after initial release)
2. fix new metadata screens in Recordings shows only recordings in default recording directory - (included with patch 4 or 7)
3. fix .net exception thrown when exiting Archive dialog with no action - (included with patch 4 or 7)
4. fix recordings in-progress not shown in red in TV Guide - http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...post473669
5. --a fix I meant to document, but have forgotten what it was-- (included with patch 7)
6. --another fix I meant to document, but have forgotten what it was-- (included with patch 7)
7. fix/improve some issues in EPG and Recordings screens - http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...post474021
8. fix for NextPVR client app for Samsung SmartHub (fix incorrect JSON response) - http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...post474045
9. correct problems with Freesat UK EPG option - (replaced by patch 10)
10. additional fix for Freesat UK EPG option - http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...post474612
11. fix for current recordings not showing in red on PC Client tv guide - http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...post474929
12. add hard-coded support for "Digital Devices DVB-T Tuner" - http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...post475268

It should be noted that patches are listed generally in chronological order, but not perfectly so. The thread a given patch is posted in may contain additional information on exactly what a given patch was intended to do, and may also contain information on additional settings required if you wish to use the functionality provided. Finally, not all patches actually fix what they are supposed to, or are merely extra logging to help diagnose a problem, but the changes usually remain in the file going forward so they are listed as part of the update history.

Installation Notes These "patches" are simply replacement files for the existing NPVR program files. You should extract them and copy them over the existing files; the default directory is C:\Program Files\NPVR. If you are running Vista or 7 and have UAC enabled, you will likely need to grant administrator permissions, or do the copy from an elevated command prompt.

Before installing patches, you must exit NextPVR.exe, shutdown the NPVR Recording Service and close the NPVR Tray Icon (using the "Stop NPVR Service" icon accomplishes both).

I recommend that you restart your system after installing patches. I've seen numerous cases where the Recording Service is not able to restart properly due to a socket error. You can check your NRecord.log to see whether it did or not, or just reboot to be safe.

[johnsonx42]

NPVR Getting Started information

The primary documentation is the Wiki: http://www.gbpvr.com/nwiki. This post is meant to provide some basic information to get you pointed in the right direction.

The current NPVR Installer: http://www.gbpvr.com/NPVRSetup_3_2_9.exe
- v3.2.9 released March 29th, 2014 (NZ Time). Release notes: http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...post473432

NextPVR 3.x now relies on .NET 4.0, but for the first time includes an automatic installer. It also brings with it the required versions of the VC++ runtime .dll's, so there's no longer any need to install them separately. For most users, the only separate pre-requisite runtime needed is the Full DirectX Runtime: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/det...px?id=8109 (YES, even if you have DirectX 10, 11, 12, or 326, you still need the DX9 runtime)

Getting Started & Accessing Settings:
http://www.nextpvr.com/nwiki/pmwiki.php?...FirstSteps

NPVR Directories
NPVR has a program directory and a data directory. By default:
[PROGRAM] = "C:\Program Files\NPVR" (32-bit versions of Windows)
[PROGRAM] = "C:\Program Files(x86)\NPVR" (64-bit versions of Windows)

[DATA] = "C:\Users\Public\NPVR" on Windows 6.x variants (Vista, 7, 8)
[DATA] = "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\NPVR" on Windows 5.x variants (XP, 2003).

NPVR LOGS
NPVR logs pretty much everything it does in several log files. The default log location is in the logs directory under the npvr data directory:
Windows Vista & Windows 7: C:\users\public\npvr\logs
Windows XP: C:\documents and settings\all users\application data\npvr\logs

You MUST [b]ZIP and attach your logs to any support post.[/B] I can't stress this enough: Everyone providing help on the forums is pretty smart, but we're not clairvoyant; a good problem description AND logs makes it a lot easier to see what's going on, and you're more likely to get a correct first answer. To attach the logs, use the 'Go Advanced' button when posting, then click the paperclip and follow the onscreen instructions.

--my personal pet peeve: posted logs must be in .zip format or I probably won't look at them. someone else probably will, but not me... sorry, but I'm just THAT WAY about it--

Setting up your tuner(s) & TV channels:
One key thing to understand is that you must setup each tuner device that you will be using in Settings->Devices. You MUST setup the physical TV channels that each tuner will be receiving on that screen as well. For Analog devices, you can do a channel scan to find available channels, or you can import the channels from your EPG source which is much easier (discussed below). For digital devices of all types, you MUST do a channel scan to find the channels. If you have multiple devices of the same type connected to the same source (i.e. two digital tuners connected to an antenna), once you configure the channels on the first tuner the software will offer to copy the channels to the second tuner.

AFTER you have your tuners configured and channels assigned, you can deal with the logical channels on the Channels screen. Here you can merge channels that are the same across multiple tuners (even of different types), map your channels to your EPG data source (critical), and change the logical channel number assigned to each channel.

Analog Tuners/Capture Devices:
For ALL analog capture devices, you will need the Hauppauge SoftPVR components from WinTV7. If your Analog capture source does not show up in Devices, then the needed components are missing. See the wiki for additional installation instructions: http://www.nextpvr.com/nwiki/pmwiki.php?...ugeSoftPVR

Some Analog devices will also need an appropriate entry added to the AnalogDevices.xml file; if your analog device won't show up AFTER successfully installing the SoftPVR components, see the wiki article here: http://www.nextpvr.com/nwiki/pmwiki.php?...alogDevice. If you need help, post a support request with the FilterCheck log attached.

North America Digital Cable (QAM) Support
See Wiki for setup instructions: http://www.nextpvr.com/nwiki/pmwiki.php?...eWithSDEPG

Some devices that advertise QAM support will not actually work. NPVR uses a standard method of selecting QAM tuning supported by many devices (Hauppauge, SiliconDust, ATI, ASUS, others), however some other devices use some other method to switch to QAM, and stubbornly remain in OTA ATSC mode (most notably many KWorld devices, though others have been reported).

Some ATSC/QAM digital tuner drivers do not properly identify QAM support for the device, and thus the device will appear only as ATSC. If the QAM entry for your device does not show up, view the devices screen then post a new support thread with your NPVR.LOG attached, along with a "please sir". sub can use data in the log to add QAM support for your device via a patch (the above note still applies).

Multi-Record
In the digital age, multiple TV channels are carried on the same transmission frequency or MUX. NPVR can access all of the channels on a single frequency simultaneously with a single tuner. This can be a major advantage over other PVR solutions. When you look at your digital channel scan results you will see which TV channels are transmitted together.

SiliconDust HDHomeRun
Ensure that you have firewall exceptions to allow NextPVR.exe, NRecord.exe and NDigitalHost.exe to communicate on the network, else the device will not deliver any data. In the HDHomeRun setup choose "Other - ATSC/QAM" as the Application; we're seeing more and more reports of problems when selecting "NextPVR" as the application.

EPG (Electronic Program Guide)
See the Wiki documentation: http://www.nextpvr.com/nwiki/pmwiki.php?...ration.EPG
While you can "just watch TV" without an EPG, configuring your EPG is essential to the complete NextPVR experience.
For users in North America, Schedules Direct is highly recommended. Create an account at http://www.schedulesdirect.org; quality, legal EPG data is only $26.00 per year (7-day free trial)

Batch files executed by NPVR:
NPVR uses several batch files (aka scripts) to coordinate external activities; such activities include downloading and enhancing EPG data, running comskip, transcoding recordings, and other functions. You may not need any of them, or you may need them all, but in all cases they're up to you to create to do what you want. Most are listed in the wiki here: http://www.nextpvr.com/nwiki/pmwiki.php?...BatchFiles.

There are a few new ones:
ScreenSaverStart.bat & ScreenSaverStop.bat: called when screen saver starts or exits
PostCancel.bat: exactly what the name implies.

New script variable: the processing scripts are now passed the Title of the recording as %5

Here's an example ParallelProcessing/PostProcessing.bat for running comskip: http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...post387833

PLEASE NOTE: most scripts are run by the Recording Service which runs as 'Local System', not your normal desktop user. Among other things, mapped network drives will not be there. Use \\server\sharename or \\ip\sharename instead. Also, when a script runs the working directory is NOT what you think it is! Begin all scripts with a "cd" command to set the working directory. example cd /d c:\comskip or cd /d e:\mc2xml or even cd /d "%~dp0" if you just want to run in the scripts directory.

Video and Audio Decoders
You must provide and select decoders for the video and audio streams that you will be playing. NextPVR DOES NOT INCLUDE DECODERS!

Analog video: MPEG-2 Video and MPEG-1 Layer 2 Audio. The decoders provided with Windows XP/Vista/7 are usually sufficient for this.
USA Digital video: HD-Capable MPEG-2 Video, MPEG-1 Layer 2 Audio and AC3 Audio. The Microsoft DTV-DVD Video decoder works well for many users, however the Microsoft DTV-DVD Audio Decoder will not work for AC3 Audio. Try AC3Filter (http://ac3filter.net) instead.

Digital video around the world: H.264 Video and various forms of Audio are in use; you should familiarize yourself with the format(s) used in your country.

SAF6 - Our good friend Hoborg has developed a codec pack for NPVR which will play video and audio everywhere: http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?50227

Web Access: NEWA - NPVR Enhanced Web Access
http://www.nextpvr.com/nwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Manual.NEWA
There is also now a mobile version called iNEWA which will be displayed if NEWA detects a mobile device.

What happened to GB-PVR?
GB-PVR is no longer being developed. 1.4.7 was the final release, there will be no further changes, patches or bug fixes. Plugin developers have also ended developement of their GB-PVR plugins. NPVR is the successor to GB-PVR, but does not contain any GB-PVR code; GB-PVR skins and plugins are NOT compatible with NPVR. Limited support is still provided in the GB-PVR Support (Legacy) forum.

Migrating from GB-PVR to NPVR
GB-PVR and NPVR can run at the same time, but be careful not to have both programs attempt to use the same tuner(s) at the same time.
NPVR can import your existing Ready recordings; click Import on the Recording screen in Settings, and point to GB-PVR's recording-dump.xml.
There is a utility for importing season recordings, see: http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?47438

[johnsonx42]

NEW & UPDATED FEATURES DOCUMENTATION - this list is for 3.1.1, though still relevant to users coming from 2.x. I'll update it for 3.2.9 when I get a chance (or this post may just go away if I find I don't really have anything to add to sub's change log... I felt many of the changes in 3.1.1 warranted some extra explanation, but this may not be the case with 3.2.9).

It's been over a year since the last major release. NPVR 2.6.2 released early last year was basically a bug-fix rollup release for 2.5.9, meant to be a *mostly* complete release that didn't need any patches while work proceeded on NPVR 3.x behind the scenes. The pre-release testing cycle lasted far longer than originally planned, over 5 months, not because of so many bugs, but because so many new and updated features were added, along with major changes and additions to the developer's API's and interfaces for new and improved clients. The latter bits will bear fruit in the coming weeks and months, but that's not my area of knowledge. Instead, I would like to call out the important user-facing changes and new features. It's tough to see them in the huge changelog.

For the moment I'm going to take them in the order they appear in the changelog:

1. New "Now/Next" Guide: Press the up/down arrows while watching Live TV, and a much improved channel guide will appear. Arrows to select, Ok/Enter to change channel. The full channel guide remains available by F1.

2. Recording to multiple folders based on available disk space: this feature was added several releases ago, but actually didn't ever work. Now it does, AND there's a checkbox for it in Settings->Recording. To use this, just define your default and additional recording folders, and check the box. As each recording starts, NRecord will send the recording to whichever path has the most available space. You can also explicity send one-off and recurring recordings to paths you define here, and you can use the Archive function to move recordings around. USEFUL TIP: if you have a recording location you want to be able to use for specific recordings or archiving, but don't want recordings going there automatically based on disk space, then Share the directory in Windows and then define the path in NPVR as a network location. NRecord will then ignore it when considering locations based on disk space.

3. Support for Freesat and Freeview HD EPG: self-explanatory. I think this was available as a 2.6.2 patch.

4. New EPG-based Live TV Timeshift Buffer: Live TV can now be buffered in files based on the EPG time slot data, instead of files based simply on elapsed time. The setting for this choice is in Misc. In this mode you if you press Record on the show you're currently watching, the entire buffer back to when you first started to watch will now be saved as a regular recording. There are a few things to note:
- the saved recording will remain in the Live TV Buffer location, it will not be moved. You can move it after the fact with the Archive function.
- external recorder plugins will have to add support for this new mode; the only one I know of is mvallevand's Network Recorder plugin, and as of this writing quoth he: "works but EPG Mode LiveTV not supported"
- if you want to record a show you are watching, you must hit Record BEFORE the time the show ends in real time. If you're (for example) 30 minutes behind live in the buffer, still watching a show that runs from 8:00pm to 9:00pm, and you hit Record at 9:05pm, NPVR will record the show in the next timeslot rather than the one you're currently watching. This limitation may be addressed in a future release.
- currently only NextPVR PC clients support EPG mode. all other clients will revert to Time-based mode.

5. Digital Device Crash Recovery: this is really slick. Until now, if a problem with a tuner caused it's associated NDigitalHost.exe to hang, then NRecord would hang too the next time it tried to talk to the "dead" NDigitalHost process, recordings would run on forever and no new recordings would start until you discovered the problem (invariably after "your stupid TV box" failed to record all the wife's favorite shows). Now NRecord is able to detect that the NDigitalHost has hung, stops trying to talk to it, AND launches a new NDigitalHost to run that tuner. The only adverse consequence is that one single recording may be bad, and there'll be an 'orphaned' NDigitalHost.exe stuck in memory; you can reboot the machine at your convenience to clear it (or them - I tested a triple-crash scenario, it kept on goin'!).

6. Hide the [..] entry on Library (videos/music/photos) screens: some have found the [..] entry incongruous and redundant. See the <HideDotDot> setting in config.xml.

7. Picture-in-Picture (PIP) enhancements: some bugs fixed, added configurable key-strokes to cycle the PIP postion ($ or Shift-4) and size (% or Shift-5). These settings are found in KeyMappings.xml (along with the * or Shift-8 key to start PIP mode, and # or shift-3 key to swap the main and PIP window - these buttons exist on most remotes next to the 0 button).
(NOTE: the upgrade overwrites KeyMappings.xml; if you made changes in there, be prepared to re-apply the changes after upgrade)

8. small fix to Find All: now more usable - if you select an entry in a Find All result list, then hit Back (Esc), it will return you to the Find All result list so that you can continue looking through the list.

9. Return of the Short Skip: if you like having the fast-forward and rewind buttons perform the "Fast Play" function (setting in Misc2), but sometimes still wished for the Short Skips (+/- 10 seconds by default), well, they're back! Now the left/right arrows do the short skips if you've set ff/rw to Fast Play. The Skip buttons continue to do the Long Skips, as always.
9a. Fast Play improved performance: on a related note, Fast Play now works better in Live TV. For me anyway, hopefully for you too.

10. Fixes to Deletion Logic - no more "orphaned" recording files: in the past, attempts to delete a recording file that was in-use elsewhere would result in the recording being removed from the database, but the recording file itself being left "orphaned" on the hard drive, chewing up space. Now NRecord checks whether the delete was successful BEFORE removing it from the database. Some scenarios were addressed in the last release, and this release adds the final scenario where NRecord was going to delete the oldest episode in a recurring group based on the "Keep xx episodes" setting. It now leaves the recording and sets a message on it explaining that it couldn't be deleted. All known deletion scenarios are now handled.

11. Recording Title now passed to Parallel/PostProcessing.bat as %5: this small enhancement didn't make the change log, but it's worth calling out for the script writers. I'm planning to use it to do automatic transcoding to a DLNA server of selected shows based on the Title. There's also now a PostCancel.bat, with all the same parameters as the regular parallel/postprocessing.bat scripts; a common use for this would be to test your postprocessing.bat code without having to wait for a recording to complete normally.

12. Beyond the above, lots of little fixes to this, that and the other thing. Lots of things too specific or small in scope to call out here (or things you never knew were broken!). Tons of new stuff for the client developers.

13. Plugins need to be updated!It's been said already, but to re-iterate, MOST plugins and some utilities will need to be updated to work with NPVR 3.x. If you have a plugin you can't live without, you'll want to check into it before upgrading.
- imilne has already updated his (AudioAdjust, AutoRefresh, MovieTrailers, ReClockOrNot, SubMenu, System)
- mvallevand is in-progress: http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...post464833
- alibert has released TV Listings 3.7: http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...0-released

[jwr7]

I installed and configured NextPVR on my Windows 8.1 PC. It is working fine. I also installed VLC Media Player and the NEWA TV Guide. I am able to see the guide in my Firefox browser and when I click on "View Live" another screen pops up with the Live TV Channel. What I now would like to attempt is to stream the live tv, first; to another computer on the same network and second; to another computer on a different network. Are these possible and where can I get instructions on how to do either or both of these?

[Reddwarf]

Johnsonx42, perhaps you should split this sticky in two, one "Current patches" and one "READ THIS BEFORE POSTING QUESTIONS" since it seems a lot of new users is posting questions about things explained in your excellent thread