HomeRun problems scanning channels

[johnsonx42]

if you look in the sticky thread linked in my signature, you'll find a link to my postprocessing.bat which runs comskip. it includes a bit of script that limits the number of comskips that run at one time (I currently run no more than 2). you could adapt the same code to limit transcodes to 1 or 2 at a time.

there are some encoders that can offload work to a real graphics card (the GeForce 7150 isn't); AMD offers one that works with HD4000 and up. however I think your bigger issue is that the 7150 doesn't help much with playback either, if it all, so you need a lot of CPU to do HD playback. if instead you had a decent video card helping with playback decode, then if the cpu were busy doing transcodes it wouldn't matter.

overall, if you have a few $ to spend, you'll get far more bang out of a better video card than a faster quad-core cpu.

[mvallevand]

Can you see if this fixes it?

I tried this to see if I got anything extra and it found all these bogus streams that show as SD MPEG unencrypted, but they all just are junk. Given that they all have the same service ID is it possible that the scan is now including streams it shouldn't?

Code:

2011-07-25 20:36:35.180    [DEBUG][1]    (unknown channel: Unknown 94.62351)
2011-07-25 20:36:35.180    [DEBUG][1]    (unknown channel: Unknown 101.62351)
2011-07-25 20:36:35.180    [DEBUG][1]    (unknown channel: Unknown 102.62351)
2011-07-25 20:36:35.180    [DEBUG][1]    (unknown channel: Unknown 103.62351)
2011-07-25 20:36:35.180    [DEBUG][1]    (unknown channel: Unknown 104.62351)
2011-07-25 20:36:35.180    [DEBUG][1]    (unknown channel: Unknown 105.62351)
2011-07-25 20:36:35.181    [DEBUG][1]    (unknown channel: Unknown 106.62351)
2011-07-25 20:36:35.181    [DEBUG][1]    (unknown channel: Unknown 107.62351)
2011-07-25 20:36:35.181    [DEBUG][1]    (unknown channel: Unknown 108.62351)
2011-07-25 20:36:35.181    [DEBUG][1]    (unknown channel: Unknown 109.62351)
2011-07-25 20:36:35.181    [DEBUG][1]    (unknown channel: Unknown 110.62351)
2011-07-25 20:36:35.181    [DEBUG][1]    (unknown channel: Unknown 111.62351)
2011-07-25 20:36:35.181    [DEBUG][1]    (unknown channel: Unknown 112.62351)
2011-07-25 20:36:35.181    [DEBUG][1]    (unknown channel: Unknown 113.62351)
2011-07-25 20:36:35.181    [DEBUG][1]    (unknown channel: Unknown 114.62351)

Martin

[sub]

Can you see if this fixes it?

[snagglewest]

Fully agree the GeForce 7150 isn't a real graphics card... no argument there.

if instead you had a decent video card helping with playback decode, then if the cpu were busy doing transcodes it wouldn't matter.
overall, if you have a few $ to spend, you'll get far more bang out of a better video card than a faster quad-core cpu.

Actually I'm only using 10-15% CPU during HD playback, the choke point seems to be the MP4 encoding with handbrake. A 1 hour show took 5 1/2 hours to convert and the CPU was maxed out the whole time and it wan't doing anything else. I'm going to try a few other options like FFmpeg to see if I can get that down to a reasonable time. 99% of the recordings are during the day when nobody's home so live TV isn't an issue normally. I think a bit more CPU might help there. Besides, it's a good excuse for an upgrade

[sub]

A 1 hour show took 5 1/2 hours to convert and the CPU was maxed out the whole time and it wan't doing anything else. I'm going to try a few other options like FFmpeg to see if I can get that down to a reasonable time.

Unless you've got a really strong need to do the conversion, I'd just stick with the original TS file. Too much CPU time to be worth it in my book.

BTW, some software packages that can use a video card GPU to assist with encoding cant do it from a background session (where the desktop isnt tied to a real video device), so you might find it difficult to do this even with a more modern card.

[mvallevand]

Can you see if this fixes it?

No, they still show up.

Martin

[mvallevand]

I extracted the stream and it is valid program, except it is all null packets.

Code:

Table
   table_id: 0x0 (program_association_section)
   section_length: 13
   transport_stream_id: 1
   version_number: 1
   current_next: True
   section_number: 0
   last_section_number: 0

   program_number: 62351
   program_map_PID: 8173

Section CRC: F2 AA 73 3E

Martin

[sub]

Hmm, here is another one you can try.

[mvallevand]

No sorry, they still are there. It might be a coincidence, my cable company could have recently added these and I would rather NPVR find more streams than less.

Martin

[snagglewest]

Sub, I get the same problem as mvallevand with bonus channels. I thought they were channels possibly active channels the cable co is holding for future upgrade or something. I'll try the new NPVRTMon file when I get home from work this evening too.

As far as the conversion, I only need to convert a couple of shows the wife watches in her gym while working out. I'm using a WD TV Live plus media player to view her shows in that room. The WD TV player doesn't like .TS files for some reason, i only plays the first 18min of any show. If I convert it to MP4 it plays perfectly. Weird, but I can live with it, other than that, the little WD HD TV Live plus box does a great job.