Recording from HP Nova-T USB stop after a few minutes

[simonm]

I can schedule recordings and they start recording, but after a time period ranging from a few seconds to 4 minutes, the mpeg file on disc stops growing, despite the status window saying that the device is still recording. The quality of the small amount that is recorded is totally flawless though.

I'm using pdmpgmux.ax from an installation of the Cyberlink Make DVD trial.

I've only just got the card and haven't experimented extensively, but wondered whether any of you have suggestions.

Cheers,
Simon.

[sub]

I'm using pdmpgmux.ax from an installation of the Cyberlink Make DVD trial

From memory thats a really old flakey version of the Cyberlink mux. Try to find v5.0.0.727 or later if you can.

[simonm]

Thanks Sub. I've not managed to track down that version yet, although I have been able to test with ShowShifter's MpegWriter.ax version 3.12.0.2945. The results were similar. I scheduled 4 recordings to happen overnight and they all aborted after seconds/minutes. The resulting mpegs were between 10 and 53 MB in size.

Cheers,
Simon.

[sub]

Can you do long recordings with the Hauppauge software?

[simonm]

I managed to obtain a v5 Cyberlink mux (a later build than the one you mentioned), but it makes no difference. Looks like the mux isn't the problem.

The Hauppauge software has fell at the first hurdle, failing to tune any channels. I've seen mentions of the problem on the Hauppauge forums, but haven't investigated further (yet) because getting GBPVR working is my top priority.

I'm in the process of installing everything on a borrowed PC to see what difference that makes; The primary difference is that it is XP SP2, as opposed to Win2K.

Thanks for your continuing help. It's a great piece of software!

[sub]

Honestly, I think you should try to see if you can do long recordings in some other software to narrow down where the problem is occurring.

From past experience, if GB-PVR manages to start a recording then it'll typically continue to record to the end of the recording without any problems. The only situtation where I'm aware of recordings stopping part way through, were on analog hauppauge with some chipsets when sharing an IRQ with another devices. Whilst I've only heard of this was with analog cards so far, its worth checking.

GB-PVR doesnt actually do anything *during* a recording. It effectively sets up the recording then gives the 'start' command. When the recording is due to finish, it gives the 'stop' command. It doesnt do anything with device in between these two points. It sounds like in your case the driver has spontaneously decided to stop producing data (which is what happened with this IRQ sharing problem seen in the past).

[simonm]

Thanks Sub. I've installed everything on the borrowed machine and things are looking much better. I had marginally more success with the Hauppauge software (it appeared to scan for channels, but then didn't find any). However, GB-PVR seems to be working pretty well. The MVP rebooted itself on a couple of occasions (but only when stopping playback or channel-switching in Live TV), presumably due to it thinking it's lost the mpeg stream. I also noticed that the total time display in the upper-right corner of the OSD doesn't always update during chasing playback (an issue I'm sure I've seen mentioned elsewhere in the forums). Neither of these issues are a problem for me.

The main difference on the borrowed machine is that it has XP rather than 2K. I know the Nova-T only officially supports XP, but I've read that it supposedly works on 2K. My next experiment is to borrow another machine (identical hardware) that has 2K and see if that works.

Cheers, Simon.

[simonm]

A quick update. Shortly after my last post I plugged the Nova-T back into my Win2K machine and it seemed to all start working - at least for a couple of days, then the truncated recordings started again.

I've been running it since then on the XP machine (that I still have borrowed) and things seem pretty good. Until I have to give this machine back, I'm not going to worry about the problems I've had on my own machine.