Controls cause black screen freeze

[Graham]

... another more robust fix is available...

Is your aerial outside and on the roof or inside and on a shelf?

The tuners in computer TV devices are reported to be less sensitive than the tuners in TVs so if reception is borderline the quality may come and go. In the past, my reception was affected by the trees around the house. My solution was an aerial on a tall pole and a better aerial amplifier.

And ... there are more decoders to try ... for example, ffdshow is used by some around here ... You may need to click the (...) in NextPVR Settings --> Decoders to enable NextPVR in the blacklist or whitelist for ffdshow.

[jotwmt]

Is your aerial outside and on the roof or inside and on a shelf?

The tuners in computer TV devices are reported to be less sensitive than the tuners in TVs so if reception is borderline the quality may come and go. In the past, my reception was affected by the trees around the house. My solution was an aerial on a tall pole and a better aerial amplifier.

And ... there are more decoders to try ... for example, ffdshow is used by some around here ... You may need to click the (...) in NextPVR Settings --> Decoders to enable NextPVR in the blacklist or whitelist for ffdshow.

Big UHF antenna on mast outside. But, certainly possible that the trees are bigger and leafed out more these days I suppose. Again, it seems to be fine for the old Windows Media Center and the current VLC Media Player.

I'm running:
.. ethernet Silicon Dust HD HomeRun CONNECT Model No: HDHR4-2US
.. UHF Antenna Amplifier Channel Master Model 0747
.. UHF Antenna Channel Master Model 4228HD

What amplifier do you recommend?

I'll investigate more decoders. Perhaps I can figure out what VLC is using?

Thanks Graham!

[Graham]

What amplifier do you recommend?

I'm too far away to be much help with that ... I would expect an amplifier to be marked with the signal gain that it claims to achieve ... bigger is better. You may be able to test reception by removing all splitters and connectors in the coax for the duration of the test.

Perhaps I can figure out what VLC is using?

VLC software is technically different from other media players such as Windows Media Player and NextPVR (which sort of relies on WMP). VLC has its own decoders built-in ... this is why it can give different results to other players.

[scJohn]

Try running HDHomeRun View and HDHomeRun Config side by side on your monitor/TV. Rotate thru your channel list on The View program and monitor the resulting stream stats on the Config program. Monitor each channel for a good 5 minutes. Of the 3 stats, Signal Strength %, Signal Quality % and Symbol Quality %, I give more weight to Signal Quality and Symbol Quality. You also need to know what direction(s) the broadcast towers are in relation to your antenna. If you see a weak signal from one station compared to the others you may need to adjust your antenna.

You have to careful that you signal amplifier is not over amplifying the signal. That can just as bad and a weak signal. I suggest unplugging the amplifier and see what effect is has in Config and then plug it back in.

Most video players are expecting a perfect stream but with OTA you will not have perfect streams. You have bad weather, strong winds, air planes fly by, or a bird flys by and decides to take a dump. All the above can result in a imperfect stream which will generate an error condition in your player. Some players (and codecs) are more fault tolerant than others. WMP and MPC-HC are my goto players for playing OTA ts files made by NextPVR.