Colossus issue with 3.3.8

[IanSpringfield]

Does anybody on this forum have NPVR working flawlessly with a Colossus card when it comes to watching LiveTV.

[sub]

I think there is very very few people here using a Colossus. What problems are you still having with it?

[IanSpringfield]

Same problems I've been having for months (actually, for me, forever). Freezing and channel change issues. Same as Scarybox and same as many threads. I'm pretty convinced that there is a systemic problem wrt NPVR and Colossus cards. Realizing so few people use the combo, perhaps it is not worth a great deal of effort to solve.

If interested, here are the most recent logs for a channel change freeze.

[sub]

If interested, here are the most recent logs for a channel change freeze.

Do you have you set top box set to output a fixed resolution? It really needs to be for Colossus/HDPVR style devices, otherwise you can end up with a stream where the resolution and timeline change a few seconds after changing channels, which leads to problems.

[mulletback]

Does anybody on this forum have NPVR working flawlessly with a Colossus card when it comes to watching LiveTV.

It's worked fine for me since 2011, but I use firewire to change channels. I don't usually watch live TV with NPVR, but I just tested 10-12 channel changes, no problems.

[IanSpringfield]

Do you have you set top box set to output a fixed resolution? It really needs to be for Colossus/HDPVR style devices, otherwise you can end up with a stream where the resolution and timeline change a few seconds after changing channels, which leads to problems.

Yep. I learned that 6 months ago. I also learned to set all the modes to 720p. I've tried every cocktail of inputs, decoders and settings.

[IanSpringfield]

It's worked fine for me since 2011, but I use firewire to change channels. I don't usually watch live TV with NPVR, but I just tested 10-12 channel changes, no problems.

Unfortunately, I've learned there is a difference between testing and using. Things may work fine when the sun is at 74 degrees and the tide is high but then is falls back to fail. On numerous occasions I thought I had the answer only to find that I didn't.

[sub]

Yep. I learned that 6 months ago. I also learned to set all the modes to 720p. I've tried every cocktail of inputs, decoders and settings.

As a next step, you probably want to take a close look at what's happening with the live tv buffer files when you have a problem. ie, check if a new file has been created for the most recent channel change, and the file is growing, and check if you can copy the file and play it. The answer to this would help decided what needs to be investigated next.

[IanSpringfield]

sub, I followed your suggestion. Here's what's happening.

While watching the liveTV folder.

1) watching livetv. file with channel ID is created. Everything works fine.
2) Change the channel.
[INDENT]A) when the channel change works properly, a new file is created with the new channel ID (for a second or 2, I now have 2 files in LiveTV.) Then, the old channel file disappears and the new channel file grows and everything is fine.
B) When the channel change does not work (ie, the picture freezes and never resumes), a new file is created with the new channel ID. Once again, for a little while, I have 2 files (old channel and new channel). The old channel file never disappears. In my tests, I played the new channel file. It plays correctly for 14 seconds and then stops and is no longer growing. [/INDENT]

[sub]

You'll need to reproduce the problem, with that file writer logging enabled, that was mentioned early in the thread. Also set LogSlipFile=1 and LogReaderAutomap=1, which will cause a couple more files to be created in c:\temp. After you reproduce this problem, post the logs from c:\temp, and the npvr.log/nrecord.log and I'll take a look.