Live TV plays at about 3-4 fps with sound breaking down

[madbrain]

If I play live ATSC TV, the video is playing at a very low frames per second, I would say 3-4fps, and the audio is very choppy.

Problem is the same on HD or SD channels.

If I hit rewind and then play, everything plays fine.

I'm using the Windows DTV-DVD-Decoder for MPEG2 video, and LAV decoders for audio.

I didn't have this issue with NextPVR 4 with the same combination of decoders.

[sub]

If you do a recording, and try playing the file in another player, do you see the same issue? (ie, I'm trying to determine if this a capture or playback issue)

[madbrain]

If you do a recording, and try playing the file in another player, do you see the same issue? (ie, I'm trying to determine if this a capture or playback issue)

Not sure how to start a recording while in Live TV mode.
However, this is most assuredly a playback issue. When I rewind the live TV, the same content that was playing at 3-4 fps plays correctly at the full fps. Therefore, it must have been captured properly.

The problem isn't completely consistent. It is most visible the first time I go to live TV mode after starting NextPVR client.
If I never rewind and just switch channel, then every channel I switch to plays at 3-4fps.

Once I rewind just once in any given channel, I can switch to another other channel, and the video appears to play at near full fps. But the audio continues to be choppy. Again, that gets solved once I press rewind again. Very odd. And I wasn't seeing anything like that in NextPVR 4.

[sub]

Can you try scheduling a recording from the TV Guide, let it complete, then see if playing it shows the problem? If so, I might get you to supply the sample recording. Put the file somewhere like dropbox or onedrive, then let me know the url.

[madbrain]

Can you try scheduling a recording from the TV Guide, let it complete, then see if playing it shows the problem? If so, I might get you to supply the sample recording. Put the file somewhere like dropbox or onedrive, then let me know the url.

I just did, and they completed. There is no issue with the recordings. The problem is specific to Live TV.
I can make a video capture of it looks like if you want.

[sub]

I'm not really sure what the cause might be.

I'd possibly try temporarily removing NPVRCCExtractor.ax/NPVRCCDump.ax, to see if it makes a difference.

Otherwise, maybe try setting all the decoders to LAV to see if it makes a difference.

[madbrain]

I'm not really sure what the cause might be.

I'd possibly try temporarily removing NPVRCCExtractor.ax/NPVRCCDump.ax, to see if it makes a difference.

Otherwise, maybe try setting all the decoders to LAV to see if it makes a difference.

Unfortunately, neither removing those .ax files nor changing the decoders solves the problem.

I am also seeing some extremely weird behavior under Windows that persists even after exiting out of NextPVR client.
Other programs such as the Windows explorer or even CMD.EXE lag majorly, several seconds behind what I type something. Even the GUI in device manager doesn't repaint correctly. Context menus in all kinds of apps are particularly problematic. Once this behavior sets in, if I restart NextPVR, the context menu won't repaint - just the outline.

The only fix I have found was to sign out of Windows and sign back in. But the behavior tends to come back fairly quickly after I start using NextPVR 5 client again.

I have never seen any of these problems until I started using NextPVR 5. Admittedly, I am using the newest video drivers and Windows build (2004). I can try to go back to NextPVR 4 one more time. Not really sure what else to do. This is really frustrating.

[Graham]

I am also seeing some extremely weird behavior under Windows that persists even after exiting out of NextPVR client.
Other programs such as the Windows explorer or even CMD.EXE lag majorly, several seconds behind what I type something. Even the GUI in device manager doesn't repaint correctly.

It is not at all likley that NextPVR is repsonsible for this ... I have never heard of any such symptoms as a result of NextPVR.

Does Task Manager show an active process when this lag is happening?

Edit: Is it worth trying to uninstall your video drivers (and delete the drivers) in Device Manager and then reboot and let Windows re-install the video drivers?

[sub]

I am also seeing some extremely weird behavior under Windows that persists even after exiting out of NextPVR client.
Other programs such as the Windows explorer or even CMD.EXE lag majorly, several seconds behind what I type something. Even the GUI in device manager doesn't repaint correctly. Context menus in all kinds of apps are particularly problematic. Once this behavior sets in, if I restart NextPVR, the context menu won't repaint - just the outline.

I really can't see NextPVR causing any of that, and we haven't seen any other reports.

How is the CPU usage looking at the time?

As Graham mentioned, it might be worth checking for updated Video Drivers.

[madbrain]

I am also seeing some extremely weird behavior under Windows that persists even after exiting out of NextPVR client.
Other programs such as the Windows explorer or even CMD.EXE lag majorly, several seconds behind what I type something. Even the GUI in device manager doesn't repaint correctly.

It is not at all likley that NextPVR is repsonsible for this ... I have never heard of any such symptoms as a result of NextPVR.

Does Task Manager show an active process when this lag is happening?

Edit: Is it worth trying to uninstall your video drivers (and delete the drivers) in Device Manager and then reboot and let Windows re-install the video drivers?

I know how unlikely this sounds. I have been programming for 32 years. During that time, I have certainly seen some "very unlikely" things still come true. Some bugs are not easy to chase down. Though admittedly, the last time I played with graphics was poking at the VGA card directly in assembly in the DOS days in the early to mid 1990s. I'm only reporting what I'm seeing here.

Task manager doesn't show any high CPU usage when this happens.

I have uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers multiple times. I have even used Device Driver Uninstaller from Guru3D to do a clean/full uninstall.
The problem unfortunately always comes back.

I started seeing this problem over the weekend, and I have done this at least 5 times. Didn't immediately associate it with NextPVR5, but unfortunately it seems that it really is the root cause on my system.

I could reproduce the weird behavior within less than an hour of using the NextPVR5 client each time.

At 4am this morning, I reverted to NextPVR 4 once again. I'll be sure to report if I ever see this truly odd behavior again.