PVR is failing (RANT)

[Torque]

No, there's nothing more recent than a year old in c:\windows\minidump

[sub]

Can you temporarily see if switch the audio and video decoder to something other than the Intervideo decoders to see if the disappearing still occurs?

I'm also doing some research on google to see if I can force the application to generate a minidump when this happens, allowing me to see in the debugger what exactly happened.

[Torque]

Sorry, didn't read your post till just about an hour ago. We watched TV on and off all day today and didn't have anymore disappearing acts with the Intervideo decoders. Had it recording while we were watching either the recordings or on the other tuner. Actually surprised me. I'm curious tho...I rebooted the computer last night after GBPVR disappeared and I zipped my logs... maybe something with the USB-UIRT fix needed more than just switch to your executable and params in the config... maybe it also needed a reboot?

I installed the trial version of Purevideo about an hour ago switched the decoders to that and tried to make it crash/disappear for quite a while and it was still stable.

I'm going to continue using the Intervideo for the next couple days. If it still works good, then I know it just needed the reboot after adding in your usbuirt exe. If not, I'll try the Purevideo decoders.

On a side note, the video fit with Purevideo on my TV is really bad. First tried the aspect ratio stuff with the decoder properties, but only minor changes could be made. The horizontal and vertical zoom were both set to 1.0 (where Intervideo fit is great) and the picture is almost lined up on top and bottom but black bars down the sides. I tried playing with the horizontal and vertical zoom in the config.xml (everything from 1.01 thru 1.25) so that it would just fill the screen without too much overscan, but I can't make it happen without making the people look really skinny and distorted. Not a big deal if it continues to be stable with Intervideo codecs. I recall having these issues when I tried the eval a year or so ago and that's why i stuck with the Intervideo. I do notice the video quality looks a little better tho with Purevideo. But CPU usage (with HW accel enabled) is 25-27% with Purevideo and only 15-18% with Intervideo.

Thanks for all the help, Sub, I appreciate it.

[zehd]

Hey Torque, I feel your frustration. Lats thing you wanna hear is someone saying, "hmmm, well it works fine for me.."

But I'm gonna say it... BUT I'll also say that I have my computer restart itself every night when I'm asleep, right after a nightly defrag. I have three fairly powerful computers, and I've been a tech for a lot of years, and I've always found a restart once a night has been really good.

But on my wifes computer, the MVP's GBPVR.exe instance would kak sometimes, and so I wrote a small program that sits in memory, counts the instances of GBPVR.exe and if the number drops to 0, fires it another one up...

That will probably not solve your problem. Maybe a different program that would check the Recording Service and restart it if it's down...

Or maybe, what sub said...

[sub]

On a side note, the video fit with Purevideo on my TV is really bad. First tried the aspect ratio stuff with the decoder properties, but only minor changes could be made. The horizontal and vertical zoom were both set to 1.0 (where Intervideo fit is great) and the picture is almost lined up on top and bottom but black bars down the sides. I tried playing with the horizontal and vertical zoom in the config.xml (everything from 1.01 thru 1.25) so that it would just fill the screen without too much overscan, but I can't make it happen without making the people look really skinny and distorted. Not a big deal if it continues to be stable with Intervideo codecs.

You need to view the device settings for the nvidia decoder and set the aspect ratio control to 'anamorphic', and from then on the aspect ratio should be correct. Without doing this, its trying to manage the aspect ratio itself, and GB-PVR and the decoder are butting heads over it.

[sub]

Hey Torque, I feel your frustration. Lats thing you wanna hear is someone saying, "hmmm, well it works fine for me.."

I know this wasnt too much of a dig at me, but everyone is well aware that I do say this from time to time - and I'm sure it can be pretty frustrating getting this answer.

I do try to help though, and I have at least a quick look into every problem that gets mentioned, whether its looking logs or trying to reproduce it based on their description. Unfortunately I have pretty limited time to spread around, so sometimes this is the answer that comes out of this, particularly if works ok for me and I cant see any reason why they'd be getting their problem.

[zehd]

I know this wasnt too much of a dig at me, but everyone is well aware that I do say this from time to time - and I'm sure it can be pretty frustrating getting this answer.

I do try to help though, and I have at least a quick look into every problem that gets mentioned, whether its looking logs or trying to reproduce it based on their description. Unfortunately I have pretty limited time to spread around, so sometimes this is the answer that comes out of this, particularly if works ok for me and I cant see any reason why they'd be getting their problem.

You're right sub, it wasn't at you, it was more at me and others that say that from time to time...

[Torque]

You need to view the device settings for the nvidia decoder and set the aspect ratio control to 'anamorphic', and from then on the aspect ratio should be correct. Without doing this, its trying to manage the aspect ratio itself, and GB-PVR and the decoder are butting heads over it.

Yes, I tried all of those, Anamorphic, Pan and Scan, and Automatic settings... all looked like crap and will require some sort of tweaking so it fits the screen. Maybe it has something to do with my 4:3?

I just did some searching and found this thread:
http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...zontalzoom

Looks like this is still an issue with nVideo's purevideo decoder.

[Torque]

But I'm gonna say it... BUT I'll also say that I have my computer restart itself every night when I'm asleep, right after a nightly defrag. I have three fairly powerful computers, and I've been a tech for a lot of years, and I've always found a restart once a night has been really good.

I did schedule a restart of the recordingservice.exe every morning at 2am but that didn't seem to help.

[sub]

Yes, I tried all of those, Anamorphic, Pan and Scan, and Automatic settings... all looked like crap and will require some sort of tweaking so it fits the screen. Maybe it has something to do with my 4:3?

I just did some searching and found this thread:
http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...zontalzoom

Looks like this is still an issue with nVideo's purevideo decoder.

I'm not aware of any issue.
Can you post a screenshot so I see what it looks like? Make sure its set to anamorphic when you do this.

You can tell the problem was caused by the video decoder trying to maintain the aspect ratio by playing video while in window mode, then dragging the window corner to make some extreme shape like very talk and skinny. If the video decoder is maintaining the aspect ratio, you'll get huge black bars at the top and bottom and the video still approximately the correct aspect ratio in the middle.