Video and Audio problems

[jsteele]

re: Video "Stuttering"

I've been running task manager and watching process CPU utilization. There is a definate correlation between the "stuttering" and a spike over 90% CPU utilization in "GBPVRRecordingService". There does not appear to be a fixed interval --- sometimes it does this within a minute or two and others it may take 10-15 minutes.

[jsteele]

Further to this I started the Performance Monitor and set up counters for GBPVR and GBPVRRecordingService. This confirms what I was seeing in the task manager. The GBPVRRecordingService spikes over 90% and GBPVR drops almost to zero.

[jsteele]

I've continued to run tests on this and when the video "stuttering" occurs it is ALWAYS accompanied by a sudden spike in the CPU utilization of GBPVRRecordingService to levels in the 90% range accompanied by a comensurate drop in CPU utilization to close to 0%. This situation lasts for a second or two and the GBPVRRecordingService utilization drops back to close to 0% again.

There is clearly something happening in GBPVRRecordingService on my machine on a periodic basis and I have been unable to make any further determination.

System: Windows XP SP2
Video decoder: Cyberlink
Audio Decoder: Cyberlink

GBPVR: 92.11 (1.0.1984.11204)

Information on GBPVRRecordingService.exe
File Version : 1.0.1984.11203
File Date: Tuesday, June 07, 2005, 5:16:18 AM

I don't know if this is meaningful but I monitored the GBPVRRecordService.log for a while and when the "stuttering" occured I coped the last few minutes of the log. There are thousands of entries in the log of the form:
"7/13/2005 4:14:29 PM.106 VERBOSE [126] ...."
But every few minutes there is the following entry:
7/13/2005 4:16:33 PM.106 VERBOSE [7946] RenewLease 6
7/13/2005 4:16:33 PM.106 VERBOSE [7946] RecordingFactory.LoadNext24HourEvents()

Note the value "126" changed to something else, in this case "7946" [note the number 7946 is not always the same, but it is always 4 digits]

Extract of GBPVRRecordingService.log:
-----------
7/13/2005 4:16:02 PM.106 VERBOSE [126] RenewLease 6
7/13/2005 4:16:02 PM.106 VERBOSE [126] RecordingFactory.LoadNext24HourEvents()
7/13/2005 4:16:03 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:16:05 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:16:07 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:16:09 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:16:11 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:16:13 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:16:15 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:16:17 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:16:19 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:16:21 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:16:23 PM.496 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:16:25 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:16:27 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:16:29 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:16:31 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:16:33 PM.106 VERBOSE [7946] RenewLease 6
7/13/2005 4:16:33 PM.106 VERBOSE [7946] RecordingFactory.LoadNext24HourEvents()
7/13/2005 4:16:33 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:16:35 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:16:37 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:16:39 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:16:41 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:16:43 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:16:45 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:16:47 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:16:49 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:16:51 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:16:53 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:16:55 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:16:57 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:16:59 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:17:01 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:17:03 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:17:04 PM.106 VERBOSE [126] RenewLease 6
7/13/2005 4:17:04 PM.106 VERBOSE [126] RecordingFactory.LoadNext24HourEvents()
7/13/2005 4:17:05 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:17:07 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:17:09 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:17:11 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:17:13 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:17:15 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:17:17 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:17:19 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:17:21 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:17:23 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:17:25 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:17:27 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:17:29 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:17:31 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()
7/13/2005 4:17:33 PM.481 VERBOSE [126] SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()

[sub]

It doesnt ring any bells for me. I dont get any CPU spikes while watching TV or recording.

The "SourceConfigurationContainer.LoadAll()" messages were a bug in the last release, and removed in the next release, but these wont be the cause of your problem.

There is nothing out of the ordinary in those sections of the logs.

Note the value "126" changed to something else, in this case "7946" [note the number 7946 is not always the same, but it is always 4 digits]

Just ignore the number inside the square brackets. Its just the thread ID so I can keep track of which things are which when multiple things are occuring at the same time. You'll probably find they show different numbers everytime you run it.

[jsteele]

Well, that's interesting. Is it safe to stop the recording service for a while to see if the "stuttering" goes away?

[sub]

You can stop it, but obviously you cant watch tv or record while its stopped.

[jsteele]

Well, that's not going to help :-)

Something else I noticed is that the "stuttering" only involves the video, the audio remains fine during these events.

[jsteele]

sub

I've been doing some experiments with the video "stuttering" problem. I set GBPVR.exe to "High" Priority using the Task Manager and for the past half hour I have not seen the "stuttering" problem.

In addition to the periodic "stuttering" I had been seeing stuttering or freezing when I Web Admin interface is used to search for programs, which I had accepted as "normal" given the disk activity of web interface when searching, etc. After the priority change this also appears that it may be gone.

[sub]

In addition to the periodic "stuttering" I had been seeing stuttering or freezing when I Web Admin interface is used to search for programs, which I had accepted as "normal" given the disk activity of web interface when searching, etc.

You machine doesnt sounds like it's multitasking very well. Have you done a disk defrag recently?

[jsteele]

Yes defragged to a fare thee well :-)