Live TV

[Mark Fordworth]

I have one USB TV tuner attached to this computer. It was recognized and the channel scan went fine. It records great, so I would think it is working with the software. I have installed the Direct X 9 update.

In nPVR in the settings on the General page I have PVR mode selected. But the main screen still has a Live TV option. If I move to that and hit enter, I get a message that reads "Unable to find available capture device", and, of course, I get no TV. No recording is happening while I do this (but at least in theory I have recordings pending, see my previous post for details on that issue).

I can change the general setting from PVR to TV Viewer, but then I just get a black screen, and still no TV.

Why would I get the message about no available capture device? Have I failed to set up something properly?

And as I work through the documentation and try to take in all of the features of this software, I get the impression that it might be able to show other live video than just from a TV tuner, perhaps things from the Internet. Can anyone point me in the right direction to do that, or just tell me that i'm confused about that.

[sub]

In nPVR in the settings on the General page I have PVR mode selected. But the main screen still has a Live TV option.

Thats normal. PVR mode sees the menus etc, live tv, recordings, tv guide etc.

]If I move to that and hit enter, I get a message that reads "Unable to find available capture device", and, of course, I get no TV. No recording is happening while I do this (but at least in theory I have recordings pending, see my previous post for details on that issue).

Reproduce the problem, then zip and attach the npvr.log and nrecord.log and I'll take a look.

I can change the general setting from PVR to TV Viewer, but then I just get a black screen, and still no TV.

The black screen is normal in TV Viewer mode. This is for people that dont want all the flashy menus etc, and just want to be able to right-click, select 'Channels' and choose a channel to watch. These two modes shouldnt make any difference to your problem though. Other than showing the menus, they run all the same code.

Why would I get the message about no available capture device? Have I failed to set up something properly?

Hard to nkow, but post the logs and I'll see if anything stands out.

And as I work through the documentation and try to take in all of the features of this software, I get the impression that it might be able to show other live video than just from a TV tuner, perhaps things from the Internet. Can anyone point me in the right direction to do that, or just tell me that i'm confused about that.

There is nothing built in for viewing internet tv. Martin's Universe plugin lets you view stuff like youtube etc, and might give you want you need.

[Mark Fordworth]

Thanks. I went to do as instructed, but first i did a "Restart Recording service". That may have changed something, but didn't completely fix the problem.

Now when I go to start Live TV I no longer get the message about not finding a device, and get a message that says "Please wait"; after 5-10 seconds the message goes away and I have a black screen. Still no TV. At the top of the screen it shows the nPVR name and a TV channel. I can try to change the channel, but the result is still a black screen (with the new channel name next to nPVR on the title line).

I shut down NPVR and zipped the npvr log just fine. When I went to add the NRecord log to the zip I was informed it was in use. I shut down the tray app but I expect that the background recorder still had ownership of the Nrecord log because I still couldn't zip it. I rebooted the system. Of course, background recording still owns the record log, but NRecord.log.1 is available and covers the same time as the npvr.log when I saw the black screen. That is included in the zip.

I should mention that this is a low priority issue, my main concern is in using nPVR to record video, and that works (although my previously pending recordings are no longer showing in the GUI and the over the air EPG has issues, but it is still far better than the ATI program that came with the tuner).

[sub]

The capture side is working fine, but the playback side is failing to start.

2011-01-28 19:46:16.843 [ERROR][1] Playback graph failed to Run()

I've not seen this problems in other users logs, but I'm pretty sure it'll be related to one of the decoders you're using, so start by trying other decoders:

2011-01-28 19:46:16.859 [DEBUG][1] - CyberLink Video/SP Decoder (PCM45)
2011-01-28 19:46:16.859 [DEBUG][1] - MPEG Audio Decoder
2011-01-28 19:46:16.859 [DEBUG][1] - CyberLink Audio Decoder

[Mark Fordworth]

The capture side is working fine, but the playback side is failing to start.

I've not seen this problems in other users logs, but I'm pretty sure it'll be related to one of the decoders you're using, so start by trying other decoders:

I assume this means that I should go into the settings and select one of the other decoders listed on the decoders page under decoders. Just did that several times with different decoders, for both the Mpeg2 video and the H264 video, but still no video under Live TV. I also tried changing the Video Renderer setting from ERV to VRM9, AVRM7 or Overlay with no results.

As I was doing this I realized that I didn't quite come out and say this so let me make it clear now, I have no tv audio as well as no tv video. So maybe it is not a matter of the video decoder selected. But I have now also tried different audio settings, and the result is always blackness and quiet. However, I just recorded Fringe last hour and that went well (played back the .ts file with VLC).

[sub]

As I was doing this I realized that I didn't quite come out and say this so let me make it clear now, I have no tv audio as well as no tv video.

The playback graph isnt starting, so you wont get either audio or video. We have to work out what it is about your machine, or settings, which are causing the graph to fail when NPVR tries to start it.

I assume it's more than just live tv though? ie, you have the same problem when you try to play an existing .ts file?

[Mark Fordworth]

Now it is working. I restarted the program with the renderer set to Overlay and suddenly had audio but no video. Changed it to VMR9 and restarted again abd now I have both video and audio. Not sure what change or changes really fixed it, but apparently it was both changing the settings and restarting that did it. Current settings are video renderrer VMR9 (was EVR). Audio rendered Default (recommended), no change for the original setting on this. Mpeg2 video decoder is now PP MPEG2 video decoder (was one of the Cyberlink settings), H264 decoder is unchanged, ATI MPEG video decoder. So somewhere in allof that I tripped across a working combination. Thanks for your help.

[Mark Fordworth]

I assume it's more than just live tv though? ie, you have the same problem when you try to play an existing .ts file?

Never tried to play back a .ts with nPVR. It doesn't seem wise to try to break it again to test that, but if it manages to break itself (and I may have to reinstall, so it might), I'll be sure to test that then.

[johnsonx42]

if you have Windows XP (and I think you do), then the EVR renderer would have given you all the problems you describe. As you've found, VMR9 works with XP.