New - having difficulty

[3Deviant]

Hi, just got me a hauppauge media player, the wired version.
Im having major problems getting the thing to work properly.. please help if you can :o

I had the GBPVR software running on my regular PC, but menus were slow and .avi files would crash the media player, to a point i had to power cycle it and restart the server software to get it back - basically an unworkable situation.
The machine was fairly good spec, athlon 2600, 1.5GB 333mhz RAM, plenty of disk space...
I noticed that a process "ffmpeg.exe" was eating 100% CPU when the files were playing, but afer a while the process just dissapeared resulting in playback failure on the TV.. and the media box crashing in a big way.

So, in an attempt to fix this (after scanning the forums) i decided to move GBPVR to a better machine, my server. Its a Dual core pentium D 2.8Ghz, 2GB 533Mhz RAM and s**t loads of disk space..
I noticed a major improovment right away, menus were faster and .avi skipped through much better, but that damn process ffmpeg was eating 100% CPU time on one of the pentiums cores.. not so much of a problem when you have a spare core, but again the process dissapears after some minutes and the media box still crashes... what can i do??

-oh um, im using the latest version downloaded from here, no additions just out the box as is.

[sub]

Are you talking about using an MVP? If so, then its using ffmpeg to convert AVIs to MPEG2 files for playback on the MVP. When it does this, ffmpeg will use 100% of the available CPU, but it doesnt this at low priority, so anything else requiring CPU will get it in preference.

but again the process dissapears after some minutes and the media box still crashes...

What crash? What does the error or crash message say?

[3Deviant]

wow, quick thanks!
yes im using a MVP, and ffmpeg is doing what you described. the problem is the process just dissapears of its own accord, when i say the box crashes i mean the video on the TV freezes (co-incding with the process stopping), no error messages and the box doesnt respond to the remote, i have to power cycle it to get it going again.
here is an excerpt from the logs:-

29/10/2006 22:33:19.035 VERBOSE [11] mvpVideoDuration: 349
29/10/2006 22:33:19.035 VERBOSE [11] MVPGetCurrentFrameNumber 1950
29/10/2006 22:33:20.035 VERBOSE [11] mvpVideoDuration: 353
29/10/2006 22:33:20.035 VERBOSE [11] MVPGetCurrentFrameNumber 1950
29/10/2006 22:33:21.035 VERBOSE [11] mvpVideoDuration: 359
29/10/2006 22:33:21.035 VERBOSE [11] MVPGetCurrentFrameNumber 1950
29/10/2006 22:33:22.035 VERBOSE [11] mvpVideoDuration: 364
29/10/2006 22:33:22.035 VERBOSE [11] MVPGetCurrentFrameNumber 1950
29/10/2006 22:33:23.035 VERBOSE [11] mvpVideoDuration: 370
29/10/2006 22:33:23.035 VERBOSE [11] MVPGetCurrentFrameNumber 1950
29/10/2006 22:33:24.035 VERBOSE [11] mvpVideoDuration: 375
29/10/2006 22:33:24.035 VERBOSE [11] MVPGetCurrentFrameNumber 1950
29/10/2006 22:33:25.035 VERBOSE [11] mvpVideoDuration: 381
29/10/2006 22:33:25.035 VERBOSE [11] MVPGetCurrentFrameNumber 1950
29/10/2006 22:33:26.035 VERBOSE [11] mvpVideoDuration: 386
29/10/2006 22:33:26.035 VERBOSE [11] MVPGetCurrentFrameNumber 1950
29/10/2006 22:33:27.035 VERBOSE [11] mvpVideoDuration: 391
29/10/2006 22:33:27.035 VERBOSE [11] MVPGetCurrentFrameNumber 1950
29/10/2006 22:33:28.035 VERBOSE [11] mvpVideoDuration: 396
29/10/2006 22:33:28.035 VERBOSE [11] MVPGetCurrentFrameNumber 1950
29/10/2006 22:33:28.441 VERBOSE [8] MVP data taking too long, connection must have been dropped!
29/10/2006 22:33:28.519 VERBOSE [8] MVP Control thread waiting connection
29/10/2006 22:33:28.519 VERBOSE [9] MVP media connection recycle requested
29/10/2006 22:33:28.519 VERBOSE [9] MVP Streaming thread waiting for connection
29/10/2006 22:33:28.519 VERBOSE [10] Closing shoutcast stream (stopStreaming requested)

[sub]

You could try manually running ffmpeg on the file you're trying to watch, to see if it completes or if ffmpeg errors out with some message. I would expect it to exit out once it finishes converting the video file.

The exact command line used was listed in the gbpvr.exe.log.

[3Deviant]

what exactly do you mean? do i need to update ffmpeg or something? ffmpeg seems to be my problem, it just stops coding and leavs a temp .mpg in my c:
how can i run this ffmpeg manually against the file?

[sub]

If you look in the gbpvr.exe.log file, it'll list the command line it used when it ran ffmpeg to try to convert this avi file into an mpg file.

Start a command prompt window, then run ffmpeg with the same command line parameters and see what it says. If it doesnt like something about the file it'll usually tell you what.