Dazzle USB A/V converter

[jay_r]

Je je... trust me: I don't want to mess with that old machine Too many years of all kind of experiments leave stuff behind that can only be fixed by wiping all the information and reinstalling the OS.

I downloaded a few applications to check the DirectX filters to see if one of them makes the trick. I'm planning to work on this over the weekend, but so far I know that:

- Both computers show the same error when enumerating the filters: ("WDM Streaming Capture Devices ({65E8773D-8F56-11D0-A3B9-00A0C9223196}) --
ERROR: IPropertyBag::Read(FriendlyName) failed: hr = 0x80070002")
- The old PC lists a "Pinnacle MPEG 2 Multiplexer", while the new one lists a "Pinnacle MPEG 2/AVC Multiplexer"
- Old one lists a "Pinnacle Bender AV Renderer" (twice). The new one doesn't list it

Beside this, the old computer has *lots* of additional filters. I'll try to check to see where they came from.

Cheers!

[jay_r]

Sigh...

Weekend is over, and here's the current status:
- FilterCheck kept crashing until I installed the oldest driver available for the DVC. Found it through the wayback machine.
- Filtercheck is reporting the same entries as before (when I ran it on the old machine)
- I can use the DVC from a 3rd party application (DVCCap)
- I managed to create a working video graph (yeeey!), but I have not toyed with audio yet
- When pressing "Live view" inside NPVR, I get " unable to find available capture device". Yet the output log doesn't seem to list any error (AFAIK)

I know Sub said NPVR wouldn't work without a tuner, but somehow on the older PC it does work. I just would like to know why it doesn't work on the newer, more powerful one. Could it be due to the fact that the old machine had a PCI capture card when I first configured NPVR (i.e. it would see an analog TV tuner, even if it was on a separate device)?

Both machines are running Windows XP Pro with SP3, except the newer one is a fresh install. All the Windows updates have been installed (to the best of my knowledge). I'm running v. 2.6.2 and SoftPVR is installed.

Ideas?

[Zeb]

If the newer, more powerful PC is running XP Professional x64 Edition, then failure is probably due to the lack of any 64-bit driver for the DVC170. The "WDM" error is certainly driver-related.

[mvallevand]

This will be the last time I post to remind users that XP SP3 has bugs with MPEG2 playback and you have to apply dvbfix etc.

Martin

[jay_r]

Well, well, well...
I decided to clean up a little bit the mess of cables behind the PC and ended up connecting the DVC170 on another USB port. Got the "new hardware found", went through the installation without asking much. Now I can report the DVC170 is working under NPVR - with the same caveats as before. Namely, when NPVR is first started the "channel" reverts to the S-Video input, and I need to use a 3rd party app to select the right channel. After doing so, I can change the inputs inside NPVR without problems.

To answer Zeb's question, the machine is running XP 32 bit. I didn't install any new driver since my last post, so the driver being used (or at least reported) is version 2.5.6.0 from 3/8/2006. Wisproxy is reported as being version 2.4.0.0.

So, for future reference:
I installed at one point or another four different versions of the drivers (in no specific order):
- the one installed with Pinnacle Studio 10
- the last one available from from Pinnacle (2.5.8.2, from 11/03/2006)
- a modified version of the previous one, designed to run with DVCCap ("DVC130(170)_Drivers2582_Mod2")
- the oldest one I found on the wayback machine. The file is called "PCLEUSB2_1.0.10.exe", and installs version 2.5.6.0

Only after installing the last one (the oldest one from Pinnacle) did Filtercheck stop crashing. I think at that point I had everything needed, but since the DVC was always connected to the same USB ports -apparently- the machine insisted on installing always the same (wrong) drivers.

To keep all the information on the same post, I'm using NextPVR version 2.6.2 and installed WinTV7/SoftPVR as described somewhere else on the website. During the debugging process I installed a codec pack (Combined community Codec Pack 2013-04-20) and the ATI TV Wonder Pro drivers, but of course neither one seems to have done the trick. I'm installing Windows Media Player 11 to be able to run dvbfix... I hope this doesn't break anything.

On this machine (Dell Inspiron 5315, AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+, 3GB RAM), CPU load with " Live TV" seems to vary with the scenes being displayed, fluctuating from 4.5% to an observed 15% or 20% (using Procexp). When recording, NPVR's CPU load is below 1% and there's an increase in the CPU used by the "interrupts" from accessing the hard drive.

Hopefully now I can *finally* start testing my network and all the stuff attached to it
Cheers!

[Edit] I just realized something: I checked the Dazzle DVC170 crossbar using GraphStudioNext. The composite input is pin 0, and the S-Video input is pin 1. Is there a default pin NPVR uses (i.e. the first one available)? Alternatively, can anyone think of a reason why NPVR selects the wrong pin, and can't seem to change it until I run another video capture app and use the Composite input? Is it possible to tell NPVR to use a different default input pin?