No video or audio

[telii1]

I added an external DVD/CD to my system over the weekend. It added some new decoders to the list of available. They do not work and they seem to have stopped the old decoders from working. This addition is the only thing I can think of that has the possibility of causing my new problem. I get a black screen and no audio if I try to watch live TV. If I try to playback a recorded video it never leaves the recording menu, I don't even get the black screen. Any ideas? I have included the logs.

[Zeb]

Hi. I'm not good at interpreting logs but I'm repeatedly seeing this: "GetDuration returning 0". Perhaps that might mean something to senior members?

I note from a previous thread that you're using an analog tuner connected to an STB. Is the box still outputting 480i signal on Channel 3? Has your channel lineup changed?

RE: Recordings you can't play: Are the files 0 Bytes? Wish I could be of more help.

[hoborg]

Hi.
Remove all installed codecs and install unlocked SAF.
Problem solved

[Zeb]

I've been thinking that when you installed the external DVD drive, you must have also installed some playback software (otherwise I don't understand why you ended up with more decoders). Did your computer not already have Windows Media Player? Uninstalling the new playback software might get your system back to where it was before. However, my decoder dropdown lists reveal that my system still has decoders from a video-editing program that I uninstalled years ago. Fortunately, these excess decoders don't seem to prevent NPVR or any other program from working properly.

Removing all installed codecs as hoborg suggests sounds rather drastic to me. Are you sure you have the necessary SoftPVR components for an analog tuner? http://www.nextpvr.com/nwiki/pmwiki.php?...ugeSoftPVR

[telii1]

Yes all SoftPVR components are installed. Everything was working. New playback software was installed with the external DVD. Now that I think of it I also opened Windows Media Player for the first time and I unintentionally let it take over being the default for all audio and video. Could that be a problem? Here is the part of the log where I see a problem, "ConnectPins: Failed to find output pin named ~CC". Does anyone know what this means?

2013-03-19 12:15:59.909 [DEBUG][1] Adding EVR renderer
2013-03-19 12:15:59.958 [DEBUG][1] about to load decoder
2013-03-19 12:15:59.968 [DEBUG][1] added decoder to graph
2013-03-19 12:16:00.045 [ERROR][1] ConnectPins: Failed to find output pin named ~CC
2013-03-19 12:16:00.050 [ERROR][1] ConnectPins: Failed to find output pin named ~CC Out
2013-03-19 12:16:00.065 [DEBUG][1] Static Reference clock set to: MPEG1 Audio Renderer
2013-03-19 12:16:00.567 [DEBUG][1] restoring last aspect ratio
2013-03-19 12:16:00.587 [DEBUG][1] Playback graph running...

[Graham]

I suspect that CC = Closed Caption. Not sure if that helps. Sorry.

[Zeb]

I was also suspicious regarding "ConnectPins: Failed to find output pin named ~CC" until I checked my own logs and found it there also. My NPVR is working fine, no external devices installed, so I think you can scratch that. However, "GetDuration returning" is never "0" in my log, which is why I pointed it out above. Does anybody out there know the meaning of that?

I also doubt that Windows Media Player is causing your problem - in fact it's listed as a prerequisite for running NPVR under some old versions of Windows (probably for its codecs). BTW what version of Windows are you running? RE: Letting WMP be the default for CDs and DVDs: You can easily change that to see if it makes any difference: Start/Control Panel/Hardware and Sound/AutoPlay (at least under Vista). If WMP can successfully play CDs and DVDs from the external drive, then why not try uninstalling new playback software?

I hesitate to suggest uninstalling/reinstalling NPVR, especially since a new version will be out soon (which is likely why senior members are scarce now). But after rechecking your decoder settings, you might try restarting your computer.

[telii1]

Resolved. I am not sure what fixed it. I uninstalled the new playback software and reinstalled most of the components of NPVR/SoftPVR. In any event, crisis averted. Thanks everyone for your time and patience.

[Zeb]

Sounds good! My hunch: New playback software changed default audio renderer to something that can't support NPVR (in which case a different audio renderer setting might have allowed you to keep software).

Are you now able to play CDs and DVDs with WMP? I also have iTunes for Windows installed which can play CDs. They don't seem to interfere with each other or with NPVR (which can also play DVDs). [Edit] (Which might be why you need to reinstall NPVR after installing a DVD drive?)