Corrupted recordings

[Bluethunder]

:confused:

Having an odd problem.

My system is a Hauppauge Colossus box. Since upgrading to 3.2.9, I've been getting corrupted recordings after a week to 2 weeks.

I went away for 10 days so I've got a full week of corrupted recordings, and it looks like it started corrupting on the 21st on a topgear episode. It starts with audio, then each recording afterwards advances slightly further into choppy video and audio stuttering.

I've included the only log that goes back that far. I had a look, but I don't see any errors about recording faults.

Not sure how where to start looking on how to fix it.

When I was running the previous version (3.1? with the 2 patch packs), the computer would run for months at a time with out a restart.

Next time it happens, I'll try restarting NPVR / Recording service, and see if that cleans it up. Restarting the PC definitely fixes the corruption.

I can stick a corrupted recording on my server if some one wants to see or look into what it's doing to the .TS files.

Thanks, Joe

[Bluethunder]

Happened again.

This time I had a chance to shutdown NPVR and the recording service..

Went from terrible stuttery live tv, to normal again.

That tells me it isn't a hardware problem, windows 7, or drivers.

[sub]

My system is a Hauppauge Colossus box. Since upgrading to 3.2.9, I've been getting corrupted recordings after a week to 2 weeks.

I went away for 10 days so I've got a full week of corrupted recordings, and it looks like it started corrupting on the 21st on a topgear episode. It starts with audio, then each recording afterwards advances slightly further into choppy video and audio stuttering.

I'm not really sure what to suggest on this one. When it comes to recordings from a Colossus, the app just writes the data it supplies to disk, so any choppy video or audio in the recording must be generated by it's encoder. In this case all I could really suggest is trying different versions of the drivers, or making sure your PC isn't overheating.

Another possibility is high CPU usage on your PC from other stuff happening at recording time resulting in the Colossus not being able to deliver all it's data at the time, so chunks of data are missing.

[shaunpatrick77]

I'm getting the same issue, and seem to creep in about the same time. Stuttering live TV and recordings after about a week. I've got both a Colossus and DVB-T and both are affected.

I had been restarting the PC when it happened, but after seeing this post have confirmed that restarting the recording service fixes it.

[Bluethunder]

Right on schedule, it started again. Watching live tv this time, started as audio cutting in and out, then video stuttering. It's not just playback, the file is corrupted.

Checked cpu usage, i'm 80% idle, 2.5 gb of memory free, temperatures fine. NPVR was at 200mb memory usage, and nrecord was at 12mb.

Shutdown Nrecord, restarted it, and everything is fine.

Next time, I'm going to leave Nrecord running, and see if the arcsoft video recorder misbehaves in the same way.

I'm running out of ideas, I guess the next step might be image the current drive, and do a windows 7 re-install..

[christheman]

Right on schedule, it started again. Watching live tv this time, started as audio cutting in and out, then video stuttering. It's not just playback, the file is corrupted.

Checked cpu usage, i'm 80% idle, 2.5 gb of memory free, temperatures fine. NPVR was at 200mb memory usage, and nrecord was at 12mb.

Shutdown Nrecord, restarted it, and everything is fine.

Next time, I'm going to leave Nrecord running, and see if the arcsoft video recorder misbehaves in the same way.

I'm running out of ideas, I guess the next step might be image the current drive, and do a windows 7 re-install..

Either of you try changing these parameters in the NPVR config.xml file?
(look for these two lines)
<UseHigherPriority>False</UseHigherPriority>
<HigherPriorityLevel>Normal</HigherPriorityLevel>

(and change parameters to this)
<UseHigherPriority>true</UseHigherPriority>
<HigherPriorityLevel>AboveNormal</HigherPriorityLevel>

Or maybe even try setting that second line from "Normal" to "High".

I do processor-intensive VideoRedo 2-pass encoding while I also capture with NPVR. The VRD low priority setting gets set to "Low" by me (within program) while I set NPVR to "AboveNormal" (via config file). On my computer, if either or both of those programs have their process priorities set to "Normal", then I sometimes get captures that stutter.

Maybe the Hauppauge Colossus-related software or something else bundled with it runs at a priority higher than "Normal" in the background?

[Bluethunder]

Either of you try changing these parameters in the NPVR config.xml file?
(look for these two lines)
<UseHigherPriority>False</UseHigherPriority>
<HigherPriorityLevel>Normal</HigherPriorityLevel>

(and change parameters to this)
<UseHigherPriority>true</UseHigherPriority>
<HigherPriorityLevel>AboveNormal</HigherPriorityLevel>

Or maybe even try setting that second line from "Normal" to "High".

I do processor-intensive VideoRedo 2-pass encoding while I also capture with NPVR. The VRD low priority setting gets set to "Low" by me (within program) while I set NPVR to "AboveNormal" (via config file). On my computer, if either or both of those programs have their process priorities set to "Normal", then I sometimes get captures that stutter.

Maybe the Hauppauge Colossus-related software or something else bundled with it runs at a priority higher than "Normal" in the background?

Thanks muchly!

I'll let you know how it works, in about 2 weeks :-p

Cheers.

[christheman]

sorry..duplicate post.

[christheman]

Thanks muchly!

I'll let you know how it works, in about 2 weeks :-p

Cheers.

Another thing you could do is go to your Windows Task Manager, or wherever you can go to manage the processes, and right-click on each process under the Process tab, then hover the mouse over Set Priority of each one to see what priority each is running at.

I am running Windows XP SP3 and the only processes I have running above the "Normal" process priority are "csrss.exe" (High), "taskmgr.exe" (High), and "winlogon.exe" (High). All of those are normal operating system services on XP which don't affect NPVR operation and cannot be changed. Of course I also see "Nrecord.exe" (AboveNormal) and VideoRedo4.exe (BelowNormal), as per my settings.

Perhaps you could narrow down the offending service(s) in a similar way.

[Bluethunder]

Another thing you could do is go to your Windows Task Manager, or wherever you can go to manage the processes, and right-click on each process under the Process tab, then hover the mouse over Set Priority of each one to see what priority each is running at.

I am running Windows XP SP3 and the only processes I have running above the "Normal" process priority are "csrss.exe" (High), "taskmgr.exe" (High), and "winlogon.exe" (High). All of those are normal operating system services on XP which don't affect NPVR operation and cannot be changed. Of course I also see "Nrecord.exe" (AboveNormal) and VideoRedo4.exe (BelowNormal), as per my settings.

Perhaps you could narrow down the offending service(s) in a similar way.

Things were looking good, and today, my recordings are buggered again.. Right on schedule..

This time, i didn't reset nrecord or shutdown NPVR, and loaded Arcsoft Showbiz.

Arcsoft showbiz feed from the colossus card is 100% solid. Stop Showbiz, run live TV, and it is completely unwatchable.

I checked the CPU usage during live stuttery tv, it was about 10% for npvr. nrecord was about 0-2%. Memory was 136mb for nextpvr, and 15mb for nrecord.

Nothing i could see was running at more than normal priority.

And, restarting Nrecord, fixes the problem.