Newbie: The Good And The Bad

[Kangaborg]

Hi, I'm a longtime MythTV user that got a little tired of problems (ran great with a few minor annoyances on 0.16 for a long time... finally recently upgraded to the latest version and it is causing nothing but headaches on my two client machines, although the server is still rock solid) and I decided to try GB-PVR instead.

Server "under the stairs" with dual PVR-250s, runs great. No issues here. When I plug in a monitor I can view live TV fine, change channels, etc. Looks great.

My living room client machine was an XBox. I will consider a Media MVP or something else later.

I also have a bedroom client machine (P3-933 MHz, 256 megs RAM, 20 gb hard drive, intel 810 chipset) which I know is supposed to be underpowered for GB-PVR (it is fine for MythTV), but I decided to try anyway.

I did all the XP-tweak tricks I found on this forum and then some (the machine shares video memory with main memory, so I'm only using 800x600 and 16 bit color to lower memory usage), and actually GB-PVR runs great! Even the menus are snappy (v 1.0.8, but the old GUI, not the new one). LiveTV works fine (I lowered the bitrate and resolution in the server config, I'm using streaming instead of the filesystem, and I'm using the MPV decoder and OM) - it's quite smooth. Believe it or not, it's even wireless (802.11g) between server and client.

Sub, I salute you! GBPVR is a very easy program to configure and use, and it performs beautifully. I'm impressed with the large number of plugins and will explore them soon.

Here's the problem: changing channels on this client machine. As soon as I try to change channels during LiveTV, it shows the new channel for a second or two, then freezes up and I need to kill the process in the task manager (which I can only get to via ctrl-alt-del).

I have another desktop not hooked up to a TV (it is used as a work machine) and when I try the client there, no such problems. It's a much more powerful machine and has a different mpeg decoder (it has a PVR-150 in it, currently not being used for anything, but it has whatever decoder was provided by Hauppauge). I can view LiveTV and change channels with no problems. Another difference between this client and the bedroom one is that this one is wired, not wireless, to the server. Also, I think it is set up for VMR9 instead of OM (I'd have to check) and it has an ATI Radeon (I have DX9c installed, but I rolled back quartz.dll on this machine to DX9b while testing/configuring to get smooth playback, but I'm not sure if it was absolutely required). All machines have XP Home. So the main differences are: video card, resolution and bit depth, cpu, memory, mpeg decoder, connection... I guess it could be anything!

Anyone encounter this before? Should I attach logs? Which ones?

I've tried a cyberlink codec (from the K-Lite codec pack), as well as the MPV one. The cyberlink one doesn't look as nice as MPV on my machine, and they both have the same lockup problem when changing channels.

Any help is massively appreciated.

[sub]

I'd be curious to know if temporarily attaching a network cable will correct the problem. Worth trying it to see.

[stustunz]

can i see your config file from you client machine ?

[Kangaborg]

sub - I'll try to do that later today. The machines are pretty far away from each other, so it'll involve extracting the bedroom PC from its mess of cables (video, audio, and its plugged into a router in WDS mode) and taking it downstairs (hence the reason I can't do it right now).

stustunz - I'm attaching my ZIPped config.xml here.

Thanks for your help!

[stustunz]

whats the name you use for your main server

[Kangaborg]

whats the name you use for your main server

\\pvr

[stustunz]

in the config file change the name localhost to pvr
<RecordingServiceLocation>tcp://localhost:7968/RecordingRemote</RecordingServiceLocation>

[stustunz]

do yu have any windows firewalls try turning them off
or even virus protection

[Kangaborg]

No virus protection or firewall on either server or client machine. Actually, the client that works has both!

Made the RecordingServiceLocation change. Fascinatingly, it worked a little better. The first channel change I made was fine. The second time I changed the channel, though, it froze as before.

It sounds similar to this issue:
http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?t=24591

I can verify that if I use file sharing instead of streaming, the problem does not occur (no freezing) but the video is unwatchable. Using streaming, the video is terrific, but experiences the freezing issue.

Time to head out to work. Thanks for all the help so far!

[stustunz]

restart the system try and recording service in task manager
although by now you have probably already done that
if the machine only has 256meg of ram im not surprized you are having this happen
you really need at least 512
have you given it more virtual ram

another thing i did to get one machine to work
i copied the config file off a client machine that was working good to the wireless one that wasnt and that fixed it (had to change the mpeg decoder but)