Jerky Video

[sub]

HOWEVER, I think I have found the reason behind the CPU spikes that cause the stutter. The trouble is I don't have the technical skill to resolve the problem. GBPVRRecordingService.exe uses 100% of the CPU every 5 seconds. If watching live TV this is exactly in time with the jumpy, stuttering images and sound. In fact, it makes no difference whether viewing live TV or making a recording. Stop the GBPVRRecordingService and the spikes stop. Restart it and the spikes return. So whatever GBPVRRecordingService does every 5 seconds is the root of the problem.

Any thoughts???

I cant really think of anything that happens every five seconds in the recording service, but zip and attach the logs and I'll take a look. I've just check my machines here with perfmon and I'm seeing no spikes.

Can you also attach your config.xml?

Is the built in web server enabled?

[sub]

Can you also attach a graph that shows these spikes?

[wtg]

How big is your gbpvr.mdb? I wonder if this thing has just grown really big and needs to be compacted. Sub, doesn't the recording service check this every few seconds to see if there's a new recording request?

You could try using the ChangeDatabase utility to switch from the Access MDB database to SQLite. Sub has mentioned dropping support for the original MDB database at some point anyway, and the SQLite DB does offer better performance. You'll find the ChangeDatabase utility in the gbpvr directory.

[sub]

Sub, doesn't the recording service check this every few seconds to see if there's a new recording request?

No it doesnt. It loads the recording list at startup, and only checks again when its told by the client that there has been an update.

[JulianJames]

OK - I'll try to include all observations in response to the advice in this post:

gbpvr.mdb is 2852KB and is modified regularly so I suppose I'm not using SQLite.

Many of the items that tipstir has disabled are disabled. I will try disable them all in due course.

I have attached the logs, config.xml and image of the CPU spikes. You will see that the GBPVRRecordingService is the culprit from another couple of images. Something that may or may not be relevant is that after every spike the Memory Usage also changes.

Following the last bit of advice from sub I checked the web server and un-ticked 'Enabled GB-PVR web server on port:'. Straight away the CPU spikes stopped and GBPVRRecordingService memory usage is static! I had been using the web interface previously but on the upgrade to v98.13 this had stopped working anyway. Shame as it is much easier to specify recordings through the browser than using the default TV Guide. I'm now going to do a full set of live tv and recording tests to see how things have changed. Turn the web server back on again and the spikes return.

So, it looks as though the web server may have something to do with it. Hopefully the logs will enable you to figure out why!

Then I'll give you my next problem about moving the default directories (as I had to when I put in the second HDD) but retaining the programs within the recordings menu. I suspect this is featured elsewhere though or perhaps I can edit gbpvr.mdb.

I'll let you know how I get on with the live and recording tests...

[sub]

Following the last bit of advice from sub I checked the web server and un-ticked 'Enabled GB-PVR web server on port:'. Straight away the CPU spikes stopped and GBPVRRecordingService memory usage is static!

Ok, thats good progress.

From the command line, can you execute the following commands:

Code:

cd "\program files\devnz\gbpvr\web"
dir /s > web.txt

...then zip and attach the resulting web.txt file.

[JulianJames]

Zipped web.txt as requested.

[sub]

I cant see anything obvious in there. Is there any error messages in the Windows Event Viewer?

[JulianJames]

Nothing in Event Viewer apart from indications of the GBPVRRecordingService starting and stopping. Even when the web server is enabled and the CPU starts spiking again there is nothing unusual.

[sub]

Sorry, I dont know.