GBPVR 09516 Problems

[PVRDon]

My setup:
Scientific Atlanta Explorer 2000 STB
S-video output from STB to Hauppauge PVR-150 card. Use Hauppauge 45 button remote and IR Blaster to change channels on STB.
Home-built Athlon 3000+ system with 1 Gig memory, ASUS A8V Deluxe Mboard, ATI 9800 Pro video card, two 200 Gig ATA-100 Seagate hard drives

What works:
Hauppauge Win TV2000 – video and audio are good to excellent. MPEG-2 recordings look good to excellent.
Beyond TV Trial Version – video and audio are good to excellent. MPEG-2 recordings look good to excellent.

Problems with GBPVR – build 09516:
1. Video looks fuzzy. Scrolling ticker on CNBC fuzzy and barely legible. Audio is OK.
If Hauppauge and Beyond TV get a score of 100 on video quality, then GBPVR gets 75. However, stationary text on screen in GBPVR looks sharp and appears almost equivalent to Hauppauge and Beyond TV.

2. Watching prior recordings does not work. Video looks like extreme slow motion, with a frame change once every 2 to 3 seconds or so. The recorded file itself is OK, and looks normal when viewed with Windows Media Player, or WinDVD. The quality of the file may be somewhat lower than those created by Hauppauge or Beyond TV – using same settings. However, more testing is required to be sure.

The recorded video is on a drive separate from the Windows system drive, but the drive configuration should not be a problem since both Hauppauge and Beyond TV function OK.

Any thoughts on the above two problems?

GBPVR is an excellent program, and fixing the above problems would go a long way to making it outstanding.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Donald

P.S. How do you advance more than one channel at a time in the GBPVR Program Guide, using the Hauppauge 45 button remote? I haven’t found the magic button yet.

[sub]

2. Watching prior recordings does not work. Video looks like extreme slow motion, with a frame change once every 2 to 3 seconds or so. The recorded file itself is OK, and looks normal when viewed with Windows Media Player, or WinDVD. The quality of the file may be somewhat lower than those created by Hauppauge or Beyond TV – using same settings. However, more testing is required to be sure.

Can you play a video, then attach your gbpvr.exe-native.log?

[sub]

P.S. How do you advance more than one channel at a time in the GBPVR Program Guide, using the Hauppauge 45 button remote? I haven’t found the magic button yet.

Just type the channel number and press enter, or alternatively press the ch+/- button to jump a page at a time.

[PVRDon]

Here is the requested file.

Thanks for your help.

Donald

[sub]

Watching prior recordings does not work. Video looks like extreme slow motion, with a frame change once every 2 to 3 seconds or so. The recorded file itself is OK, and looks normal when viewed with Windows Media Player, or WinDVD.

GB-PVR doesnt actually do the playback itself. Instead it just uses the directshow components already installed on your machine. In theory, the picture will look identical to Windows Media Player or WinDVD if it uses the same directshow components. Also both of these players use Overlay instead of VMR, which is known to work better with many older video cards (but lacks nice semi-transparent OSD). GB-PVR uses VMR by default, but can be switched to Overlay

Usually when tracking down this sort of complaint, I look at the list of directshow filters that were used during playback, to see if I can see any filters which are uncommon:

12:47:00.421 VERBOSE Graph contains the following filters:
12:47:00.421 VERBOSE - Default DirectSound Device
12:47:00.421 VERBOSE - Video Renderer
12:47:00.421 VERBOSE - InterVideo Video Decoder
12:47:00.421 VERBOSE - Ligos MPEG Audio Decoder
12:47:00.421 VERBOSE - MPEG-2 Demultiplexer
12:47:00.421 VERBOSE - I:\Morning Call\Morning Call_20051214_11001200-2.mpg

In your case, the only one I've never really seen in any other user's logs is the Ligos audio decoder. Audio decoders play a major role in audio/video synchronization, so this could easily a cause of the frame every two or three seconds which you described.

Try using a different audio decoder

[PVRDon]

Wow! Awesome debugging!

Thanks a lot.

I changed the audio codec using the GBPVR Config tool and voila!

I have no idea about that LIGOS audio codec thingy. I will check into it.

The Program Guide suggestions also worked great. Thanks.

I have attached my current GBPVR.exe-native.log for your review - if you care to look at it.

Thanks again.

Donald

[sub]

Yeah, that log looks much better.

My life has been whole lot easier since I started listing the directshow filters that are used. Makes it simple to track down most of these.

[bjt3]

Perhaps I should ask this in a new thread, but this seems germane to the conversation here. I peridiocally see some issues with playback: freezes, macroblock issues, etc...and then periods of pretty good quality. Makes me wonder what a "good" graph should look like.

In this case, the "log that looks much better" has:

14:01:56.359 VERBOSE Graph contains the following filters:
14:01:56.359 VERBOSE - Default DirectSound Device
14:01:56.359 VERBOSE - Video Renderer
14:01:56.359 VERBOSE - InterVideo Video Decoder
14:01:56.359 VERBOSE - InterVideo Audio Decoder
14:01:56.359 VERBOSE - MPEG-2 Demultiplexer

While, for my current setup, I see:

21:14:27.500 VERBOSE Graph contains the following filters:
21:14:27.500 VERBOSE - Default DirectSound Device
21:14:27.500 VERBOSE - Video Renderer
21:14:27.500 VERBOSE - Elecard Audio Decoder
21:14:27.500 VERBOSE - Elecard MPEG-2 Video Decoder
21:14:27.500 VERBOSE - MPEG-2 Demultiplexer
21:14:27.500 VERBOSE - Encoder
21:14:27.500 VERBOSE - Capture
21:14:27.500 VERBOSE - Hauppauge WinTV PVR PCI II Crossbar
21:14:27.500 VERBOSE - TV Audio
21:14:27.500 VERBOSE - TV Tuner

Clearly, there are more items. Is this good, bad, or completely indifferent ?

Or, another example, specifying the InterVideo audio/video processing:
22:14:37.781 VERBOSE Graph contains the following filters:
22:14:37.781 VERBOSE - Default DirectSound Device
22:14:37.781 VERBOSE - InterVideo NonCSS Audio Decoder for Hauppauge
22:14:37.781 VERBOSE - Video Renderer
22:14:37.781 VERBOSE - Elecard Audio Decoder
22:14:37.781 VERBOSE - InterVideo NonCSS Video Decoder for Hauppauge
22:14:37.781 VERBOSE - MPEG-2 Demultiplexer
22:14:37.781 VERBOSE - Encoder
22:14:37.781 VERBOSE - Capture
22:14:37.781 VERBOSE - Hauppauge WinTV PVR PCI II Crossbar
22:14:37.781 VERBOSE - TV Audio
22:14:37.781 VERBOSE - TV Tuner

Even more items ! But, perhaps not necessarily bad or meaningful.

Do you have any words of wisdom or other suggestions for fix-it-yourself wanna-be's ? It would be both useful and interesting to know more about what to look for. A useful starting point would be knowing what you look for.

Thanks,
-b

[sub]

Those last two graphs would be expected to have more items, since these extra components are required for live tv. (except for having two audio decoders in the last graph - which cant be good.

Based on past experience, I'd say the Elecard components are the most likely items to be causing problems. Try disabling them in the Elecard configuration to see if it helps.

[bjt3]

As much as I love the quick response and information, it wasn't my goal to have you remotely debug a system that's very far away. I expect that's not your goal either. So, let's do the specific, and then move to the general.

As you can't see my system, the simplest descriptive mechanism is that I have

Video: {System Default, InterVideo NonCSS Video Decoder, CyberLink Video/SP Decoder and Nero Video Decoder}. DECCHECK assures me that the system default is the Elecard MPEG2 Video Decoder

Audio: {System Default, MPEG Audio Decoder, Cyberlink Audio Decoder, InterVideo NonCSS Audio Decoder, Nero Digital Audio Decoder}.

Audio Renderer: {System Default, SoundMAX Digital Audio, Cyberlink Audio Renderer, Cyberlink Audio Renderer for Dell, Default DirectSound Device, Default WaveOut device, DirectSound: SoundMAX Digital Audio}.

As I cannot see anything resembling an Elecard configuration, I try:

System Default/MPEG Audio Decoder/System Default. This yields a different graph of:

22:32:04.359 VERBOSE Graph contains the following filters:
22:32:04.359 VERBOSE - Default DirectSound Device
22:32:04.359 VERBOSE - Video Renderer
22:32:04.359 VERBOSE - MPEG Audio Decoder
22:32:04.359 VERBOSE - Elecard MPEG-2 Video Decoder
22:32:04.359 VERBOSE - MPEG-2 Demultiplexer
22:32:04.359 VERBOSE - Encoder
22:32:04.359 VERBOSE - Capture
22:32:04.359 VERBOSE - Hauppauge WinTV PVR PCI II Crossbar
22:32:04.359 VERBOSE - TV Audio
22:32:04.359 VERBOSE - TV Tuner

Probably ok. Output is slighly better, but I've seen it even better than this.
What's happened ? Beats me - I'm sure that something installed something that affected something else that modified yet something else that yielded these results. As with most PC related issues: good luck ! Can it be solved ? Sure ! Is it likely to be solved - well..... maybe and maybe not.

That's the specific case. The more general case is that there are several "wheels and knobs" and it's not at all clear what's connected to what. Turning "knob A" may have an effect, or not. It may modify what "knob B" does; or not. It's rather a guessing game. I (and probably others) could just assume that this is the way things are, or we can make the attempt to self-diagnose and fix. That approach, which I prefer by the way, needs a little more info and knowledge.

As much as I would dearly love to have someone else diagnose and fix my issues, that's not the real world and not very satisfying in many ways. My request is, whenever you can, to pass on some of your insights, knowledge, hunches and techniques. I believe that this is a high leverage approach that pays large overall dividends.

Even something as simple as a sample "these work well" graphs, or some insight into what's overkill (2 audio decoders ?), would likely be of interest and use.

Anyhow, enough, I think you get the point. I'd love to fix what's wrong with my system. I'd love to be able to do it myself. Right now, I just don't know enough to be able to.

Thanks !
-b