Controls cause black screen freeze

[jotwmt]

New to NextPVR; installed on Win10 machine (standalone).

Clicking on the timeline of a recording or using the skip or pause buttons results in a black screen that is frozen (no video or audio). ESC or right-click gets back to Menu screen. Recording can not be Resumed but only restarted from beginning.

Presumably I'm missing something obvious here? Thanks...

[Graham]

Clicking on the timeline of a recording or using the skip or pause buttons results in a black screen that is frozen (no video or audio).

The LAV video decoder gives some people trouble when used with NextPVR ... Is there another decoder in the dropdown list that you can try?

My stock advice regadring decoders is ... SAF is an installer that installs decoders to work pretty much everywhere ... Send a forum private message to Hoborg and ask for the "unlocked" version that includes the "best" decoders ... http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...post414049

[jotwmt]

The LAV video decoder gives some people trouble when used with NextPVR ... Is there another decoder in the dropdown list that you can try?

My stock advice regadring decoders is ... SAF is an installer that installs decoders to work pretty much everywhere ... Send a forum private message to Hoborg and ask for the "unlocked" version that includes the "best" decoders ... http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...post414049

Thanks for the tip; that did the trick! The CyberLink Video Decoder (PDVD13) enables proper operation of all the screen controls.

Appreciate the help...

[jotwmt]

Well, I spoke too soon above. All is not well.

The new decoders seemed to work very well for a few hours (watching Olympics). Then the previous behavior of freezing to black screen returned when skip / resume tried. Don't know why it would work fine for a few hours and then stop. It also will randomly freeze and then only allow Play of recording and not Resume. Rebooting doesn't fix the situation.

I noticed that when I try a control (skip, resume) the NextPVR service increases its Disk Transfer rate from ~1.5MB/s to ~350MB/s. It seems to be doing serious disk access but the video/audio is blank.

Any insights welcome! Thanks...

[Graham]

... the previous behavior of freezing to black screen returned when skip / resume tried. Don't know why it would work fine for a few hours and then stop. It also will randomly freeze and then only allow Play of recording and not Resume.

It may be that the symptoms are the result of glitches in the stream. Simply stated, NextPVR copies the stream that it receives to a disk file and will copy any gaps or other errors that are present in the received stream. How do you receive the TV stream? For example, is it cable TV or over the air via an aerial? Is the cabling all good? What happens if you remove all splitters and connectors from the cabling?

Alternatively, I sometimes get problems when my disk is nearly full and free space on disk is fragmented.

[jotwmt]

It may be that the symptoms are the result of glitches in the stream. Simply stated, NextPVR copies the stream that it receives to a disk file and will copy any gaps or other errors that are present in the received stream. How do you receive the TV stream? For example, is it cable TV or over the air via an aerial? Is the cabling all good? What happens if you remove all splitters and connectors from the cabling?

Alternatively, I sometimes get problems when my disk is nearly full and free space on disk is fragmented.

My free space is okay. I am using OTA. I'll check the cabling but I don't think this is the principal issue as I was able to play and control a recording initially after install of the unlocked SAF w/ the new decoders for a few hours with no issue but now I can not play that same recording with any controls (skip/resume).

Regardless, all of this "just worked" with Windows Media Center before we upgraded to Windows 10 and WMC went away.

Do you have a recommendation of an app / program that can analyse the quality of the incoming stream?
Thanks!

[jotwmt]

Okay, I've done some more poking and it does appear that various recordings *do* work with skip/timeline controls. I found one recording where no matter how far to the right in the timeline I click, it plays from the same place and continues into the future. So, it does appear that something is wrong with the indexing of the file (if that's the proper term).

I've cycled power on the OTA antenna and reset all connections to see if that indeed is the culprit here.

Thanks for the continued help Graham! Much appreciated...

[scJohn]

You might want to try VideoReDo:http://www.videoredo.com/en/index.htm

the above program has an option that will scan your ts file and fix video/audio sync problems.

You could also try playing the file with Windows Media Player (the desktop version, not the Win10 App). I have found that WMP can play thru recording errors that NextPVR will choke on.

[jotwmt]

You might want to try VideoReDo:http://www.videoredo.com/en/index.htm

the above program has an option that will scan your ts file and fix video/audio sync problems.

You could also try playing the file with Windows Media Player (the desktop version, not the Win10 App). I have found that WMP can play thru recording errors that NextPVR will choke on.

Okay, VLC Media Player for the win here! WMP choked where NPVR seems to be choking but VLC Media Player rumbles right on through (note that there are no apparent video or audio defects in the recordings). So, at least we can watch the Olympics here with less frustrations right now. Thanks for the suggestion scJohn !

I'll take a look at the VideoReDo and see what I can learn.

Thanks!

[jotwmt]

Okay, VLC Media Player for the win here! WMP choked where NPVR seems to be choking but VLC Media Player rumbles right on through (note that there are no apparent video or audio defects in the recordings). So, at least we can watch the Olympics here with less frustrations right now. Thanks for the suggestion scJohn !

I'll take a look at the VideoReDo and see what I can learn.

Thanks!

Ran VideoReDo (trial mode) on one of my glitchy files and it found 7 bad frames and cleaned them up. Now that file runs perfectly in NPVR (and WMP as well; VLC played original file just fine). So it appears that my recorded stuff is glitched up just enough to throw NPVR and WMP off. Arg. Will investigate incorporating VideoReDo in batch mode potentially until another more robust fix is available...

Thanks for all the help!