GBPVR unstable?

[Paulp33]

Have just tried the program and love the interface but I can't get it to run reliably.  I have the latest MVP software courtesy of SHS.  I have only used GBPVR so far to view mpeg files generated by an avertV dvbt card and a dvico fusionHDTV card.  Sometimes I get a blackscreen after pressing a button (from memory this has happened after confirming a resume, stopping a playing file and a couple of other times that i can't remember the preceding button press) on which it freezes.  Sometimes it goes back to the file list and freezes.  If I try restarting the MVP it goes direct to the filelist and remains frozen (rather than going to the frontpage).  I have to go to the server PC, close the MVP server window and restart it.  I can't pin down any particular thing that causes the problem but the response to button presses in general is quite slow (compared to the hauppauge software).

I just read the other thread about CPU usage and the symptoms sound kind of similar so i will check out CPU usage tonight.

I have an xcard in my lounge HTPC that runs with JovePlayer.  There is a great feature in JP that would be great (if it is possible) on the MVP as well.  You can key in a number with the number buttons, which appears on the overlay, and then pressing the FF/RW key makes it skip that number of minutes.  This is very effective for skipping commercials, combined with a 10 second skip on the skip keys, and also a great way to navigate to a particular point in a file very quickly.

One last question, is there a way to get the file information onscreen with a key press that does not do anything else ie can I get the file info without pausing?

[sub]

I would be interested in hearing more about you stability problems. Its seem to be  reliable for most people, but I am interested in fixing any bugs you can help me identify.

Saying you cant get to work reliably doesn't give me much to go on. Its very difficult for me without quality information. The best thing you can do is:
- Identify the specific issues you are having. It may be several different problems.
- Describe them to me as clearly as possible, in as much detail as you can. Ideally give me the steps that I can do to reproduce the problem.
- Ideally for each problem, after reproducing the problem also keep a gbpvr.exe.log file so that I've got a log file to go with your description.

The MVP can be a little slow responding to button presses. The round trip across the network, and then having to generate a new screen on the server, convert it from RGB to YUV, and then compress it before sending it back to the MVP all takes time. GB-PVR is slightly slow at generating its screens than the original Hauppauge software. The speed to the machine running the GB-PVR server process can greatly affect this. On my Athlon 3000+ it seems to be pretty much the same speed as the original Hauppauge software (a little less than a second per button press).

When playing back video, you can currently type in a number of seconds and push the skip forward or back buttons. This is useful for skipping commercials.

[Paulp33]

Quote[/b] (sub @ July 27 2004,21:19)]

I'll play with it some more tonight and see if I can figure out some consistency in what button presses cause the problem. The end result however was consistent, a freeze that was either on a blank screen or on the file list (and the last file played was still highlighted) and a restart of the MVP sends it to the file list still frozen (I can't be certain but I think it was still highlighting the same filename) whether it was on the black screen before or the filelist. The only way that I found to get it going again was manually restart the server application of the server pc.

Does the logfile clear when the server is stopped? If not then it should all still be there.

I am running a celeron 1.7 on my server so it is much lower powered than yours. Your reply about the slow button presses seems to be referring to navigation through menus? I'm finding the video buttons (play,pause,FF,RW etc) a bit slow, especially when I press two or more buttons in quick succession.

I'll try to work up some better info for you for tomorrow.

[sub]

Quote[/b] ]Your reply about the slow button presses seems to be referring to navigation through menus? I'm finding the video buttons (play,pause,FF,RW etc) a bit slow, especially when I press two or more buttons in quick succession.

Yes, I did think you were referring to menu navigation. The MVP doesn't seem to be super responsive when its playing video, it seems to take a long time to send me button presses etc. I suspect this is something that Hauppauge aren't doing very efficiently.

[sub]

The log files get rename .1 .2 .3 then deleted between runs.

[Paulp33]

It took a bit of playing around to replicate this and for a while I thought the problem had gone away but then I succeeded.

The first time I pressed RW/play/FF in quick succession (I do this sort of thing in the hauppauge software with no problem).  It went to a black screen with the stop icon in the top right corner and stayed that way for probably twenty seconds or so.  It then returned to the file list with the file i had been playing selected and would not respond to any button (except power on/off).  I tried turning the MVP off and back on.  It cycled through the little boxes about three times, whereas it usually goes about halfway through once, before GBPVR came back on line.  It went straight to the file list with the same file still selected and was still unresponsive to button presses.  I then turned the server software off and back on and everything started working again (the software went to the front page as i expected it should and all keypresses worked.

The log file said

18:36:53.078 INFO Log started

18:36:53.078 VERBOSE getSetting(ShowClosedCaptions)

18:36:53.109 VERBOSE getSetting(UseFFDSHOW)

19:19:17.625 INFO DirectShowHelperVMR9:hutdown()

19:19:17.640 INFO DirectShowHelperVMR9:top()

The times shown on the log do not represent continous effort to get a failure, I had to run off and do other things as well.

I then got it to fault again by pressing 999 and then skip forward.  The MVP spontaneously restarted, it took three or so times through the boxes to come back up and then went to the file screen like before with the file that had been playing selected but unresponsive to button presses.  Restarting the server fixed it.  The log said

19:20:45.343 INFO Log started

19:20:45.343 VERBOSE getSetting(ShowClosedCaptions)

19:20:45.359 VERBOSE getSetting(UseFFDSHOW)

19:28:13.562 INFO DirectShowHelperVMR9:hutdown()

19:28:13.593 INFO DirectShowHelperVMR9:top()



Then my wife wanted to use it and the playing stopped.  I can try some more tonight and see if those same button sequences  do it again.  The (rather unproffessional) feeling I got from it was that it was not keeping up with commands and freezing as a result.  On my setup it is definately much slower to respond to consecutive button presses than the hauppauge software, the hauppauge software responds pretty much instantly (eg to the RW/play/FF combination) whereas GBPVR takes several seconds to respond (ie RW wait a couple of seconds for response/play wait a couple of seconds for response/FF wait a couple of seconds for response).

I looked at CPU usage and it never got anywhere near 100%.

Hope this helps.

[sub]

Can you email your gbpvr.exe.log.* files? These should be quite large files.

[Paulp33]

Quote[/b] (sub @ July 28 2004,18:59)]Can you email your gbpvr.exe.log.* files? These should be quite large files.

Sorry, I thought these were the log files you wanted as they were the ones that were being renumbered1,2,3 etc. I'll send them to you tomorrow.

[sub]

No problem, just send any files with 'log' in the name from the c:\program files\devnz\gbpvr directory. This saves me coming back and asking for more.

[jelder]

Unfortunately I am seeing some of the same issues with unstability when FW/RW with the MVP, actually to be more specific, problems with skip forward and skip back.  Sub, I am really happy to hear that you are willing to put some efforts here, as this has to be stable in order to make GBpvr a permanent replacement for the Hauppauge software.  I love all the features and plugins of GBpvr.  

I am willing to do some detailed testing, but here is what I have seen so far:

While viewing two large files, one was a 2 hour movie (recorded by Sage TV at 3gb/hr on a PVR250) and one was a baseball game 2hr +, if I use the 1 minute skip ahead key repeatedly, eventually the video will crash.  I have also seen the skip back key stop working and actually start skipping ahead.  Once, the video stops, I have to go to the server and kill GBpvr through the task manager and restart the GBpvr MVP server.

I will do some more testing to see if I can replicate this issue with shorter recordings.  I am happy to forward logs.