Newbie desperate for assistance

[newyankee]

The scan.cache just holds the values for all channels found during a scan. You probably need to re-map the problem channel in config after editing the scan.cache file. Delete the old mapping and the obviously wrong and obsolete tuning info and then remap with the data from the scan list. Otherwise, the database will keep the old setting.
Can't say anything about the cause though, I don't live in ATSC land.

[RiverNoord]

Thanks for the feedback newyankee - it solved the problem.

After editing the cache files, deleting the problem channel in config, then re-scanning, I can now watch it in LiveTV and it is recording with the mux I choose.

So, basically, the install program doesn't register program filters in XP x64, resulting in a need to manually registering them, most simply by editing the ReRegisterFilters.bat file to specify the Windows\SysWow64 version of regsrv32. Then, for some reason, one channel was designated as an H.264 video source. This had to be manually changed in the cache files (dual tuners), then the channels removed in config and re-scanned.

Nothing to it!

Seriously, I got tremendous help from 4 very considerate people during the wee hours on a Saturday night. I can't imagine this sort of thing happening with a commercial software company. I want to thank you all very much for your thoughtful help, and I will be removing BeyondTV and SageTV from my systems promptly. Hope my problem with XP x64 can be helpful to someone in the future.

[newyankee]

From my experience, this is the most pragmatic and peaceful forum I have participated in. That together with this excellent piece of software makes it a great experience.

Welcome to the crowd of happy GBPVR users.

[RiverNoord]

It appears I was premature in my conclusion of success... Although I can now see and hear the problem channel in LiveTV, it appears that the manual re-edit and rescan of the channel has broken all recording functionality.

I now get two 5.5K files only as the result of recording any channel, not just the previously problematic one. The problem appears to be identical to the one that I spotted in another thread, but (I'm sorry) I forgot to keep the link so that I could point to it. The thread ended without a resolution...

[mvallevand]

Maybe you need sub's update to config.exe

http://forums.gbpvr.com/showpost.php?p=3...ostcount=3

and maybe even this update to PsiParser

http://forums.gbpvr.com/showpost.php?p=3...stcount=31

Martin

[whurlston]

It appears I was premature in my conclusion of success... Although I can now see and hear the problem channel in LiveTV, it appears that the manual re-edit and rescan of the channel has broken all recording functionality.

I now get two 5.5K files only as the result of recording any channel, not just the previously problematic one. The problem appears to be identical to the one that I spotted in another thread, but (I'm sorry) I forgot to keep the link so that I could point to it. The thread ended without a resolution...

Are you using the "TS Mux"? If not, try setting it to that. Also, make sure that you have added the GBPVRRecordingService.exe to the list of firewall exceptions. If you still experience the failed recording, zip and post your logs showing a recording attempt.

[johnsonx42]

For your new problem, post new logs showing attempts to record several channels. Manually changing a channel mapping won't be the cause (unless you managed to corrupt the rest of the channel mappings, which doesn't sound likely). As whurlston suggested, you might also try with different muxes. TS Mux is sort of the official mux for GB-PVR, but I've settled on DVR-MS as being more tolerant of glitches in the broadcast stream and being much more accurate with comskip - once you have automatic commercial skipping you'll never give it up.

For the rest of it, I'll just make a few comments:

1) As you've probably seen I deleted my comments about XP64 as not being constructive for this thread... slightly ironic then that at least one part of your problem seems to have been XP64 specific. I'm not aware of anyone having to do that on any other 64-bit windows. It's just interesting, no need for any further discussion.

2) I hadn't actually looked in your logs as whurlston did to see your incorrect tuning request (being lazy I guess), I just knew that was the problem having run into similar scanning issues with 1.4.7. Now seeing that GB-PVR Config actually misunderstood not only the video stream id but the video type as well, it makes sense why you mentioned H.264 (given that ATSC video is strictly MPEG-2, at first I presumed it was just an unrelated and unimportant misunderstanding). That also explains why your recordings on that one channel would revert to TS Mux: the mux selection in config pertains ONLY to digital MPEG-2 streams from BDA devices. H.264 streams always get recorded with TS Mux. It's nice to see the puzzle pieces fall into place.

[RiverNoord]

lol - johnsonx42 - I was really worried that no one would be able to make sense of my initial post, since I don't really know what stuff is taken for granted and what isn't by the good people of the forums :-) I was hoping that perhaps one possibe "solution" to the whole H.264 default thing would be to somehow up the quality settings for the TS Mux, if I couldn't get the channel to record using MS-DVR or another filter, but I haven't seen anything suggesting that...

The XP x64 regsrv32 issue required a lot of searching after I saw the results of the ReRegisterFilters.bat file on my system. It's apparently a "feature"... - if you're running XP x64 and do Start - Run - regsrv32 (pathname\file).ax, you get an error message and the filter fails to register. However, if you do this: C:\Windows\SysWow64\regsrv32 (pathname\file).ax, all is good. Go Figure...

I think what I am going to do at this point is the following:

1: Ensure that the filters in the ReRegisterFilters.bat file are properly unregistered

2: Uninstall GB-PVR thoroughly, using a thorough uninstall program.

3: Uninstall all HDHomeRun software thoroughly.

4: Uninstall the C++ package that came in the recommended vcrest file.

5: Download all new files again (including the patches that whurlstun suggested).

6: Start installing in reverse order.

7: Ensure that the filters in the ReRegistersFilters.bat file are registered (I've simply
re-written it to call the 32-bit regsrv32 program. (I'll upload it and call it
ReRegisterFiltersXP64.bat)

8: Attempt to tune first using GB-PVR, not the HDHomeRun setup software - if that
doesn't work, then first the HDHomeRun setup, then GB-PVR cofig.

9: If I still have the "one channel records only with TS Mux" problem, apply the patches
suggested by whurlston one at a time, testing after each.

10: Copy GB-PVR log files at each critical stage.

11: Hope the problem goes away! - if it doesn't, I should have plenty of documentation
in the logs...

I think that this seems like a sensible approach - if there are any red flag issues that anyone thinks of, please let me know. I'll probably start the unistall process at about 10:30 Central Time US.

Thanks for all the help and I'll report the results if I don't get a "Stop you idiot and do this instead" post first :-).

[Jaggy]

I was hoping that perhaps one possibe "solution" to the whole H.264 default thing would be to somehow up the quality settings for the TS Mux, if I couldn't get the channel to record using MS-DVR or another filter, but I haven't seen anything suggesting that...

I am fairly sure I have seen some posts by sub that saying in certain circumstances it will record .ts file no matter what you have set the mux too. What is wrong with your ts recordings? As sub has already said .ts is going to be the way of the future I have gone down that route to get my system playing back .ts recordings properly.

[RiverNoord]

Thanks Jaggy - movement in the ts recordings is "stuttery" - what is very smooth movement during live viewing comes out as very "jerky" in the ts recordings. As I mentioned in my very first post of the thread, I'm not very knowledgeable about H.264, and was really just hoping for a good recording method for now. I've used several H.264 decoders to try to improve playback, but I don't seem to get very good results that way. If you could suggest a very good H.264 decoder and high performance settings for playback, I'd love to try for better results. However, I just can't shake the feeling that the problem is somewhere in the recording itself.