Problems with stability

[shadowfaxjrr]

I love this program, I really appreciate that you made it. But I seem to have a lot of problems getting it up and running smoothly.

First, and most important, the program still seems to be locking up. I'll be watching a program while something is recording, or even just watching something recorded earlier, and the video stops. The audio will keep going for a while, skipping occationaly, normally until I hit back or some other button at which time the computer normally restarts. I know that this is most likely a driver issue, but can't seem to get anything to work. I'm using VM9 custom, tried overlay, and a few different drivers. If someone could recommend one, might be a good place to start.

Second, the quality seems to have issues. I wouldn't mention it except that it only seems to be on certain channels. One channel comes in very grainy and another has moving diagonal lines. Lately NBC has had moving vertical lines. I tried plugging the same cable directly into the TV and the channels were fine.

The last one is a little weird. I turned on my pvr today and on the TV guide channels 10 and 11 are not listed. I tried doing a search for a program on 10, and it came up and accepted the record request, not sure if it's going to work yet. So I went to watch tv from the TV guide and tuned to channel 10 and 11 and they worked, but still didn't show up in the guide. So I went into the config and tried changing a few things (deactivating the channels and reactivating them, making them favorites and then not) and then tried restarting the computer. When it started up this time the channels were still not there, but now I couldn't tune to them either.

Sorry to make this post so long, but I'm getting increasingly frustrated. I'm really looking forward to having this thing work how I'd like. Thanks.

Specs
-----------------
Tuner: HAUPPAUGE WINTV-PVR-150
Video Card: Leadtek A6600 GT TDH 128MB GDDR3 AGP 4X/8X
Processor: AMD Athlon XP 3000+ Barton 2.1GHz Socket A
Mobo: FOXCONN K7S741GXMG-6L SiS741 462
HDD: 120G|ST 7K 8M ATA100 ST3120814A
RAM: 512Gx2|CORSAIR D333

[sub]

First, and most important, the program still seems to be locking up. I'll be watching a program while something is recording, or even just watching something recorded earlier, and the video stops. The audio will keep going for a while, skipping occationaly, normally until I hit back or some other button at which time the computer normally restarts. I know that this is most likely a driver issue, but can't seem to get anything to work. I'm using VM9 custom, tried overlay, and a few different drivers. If someone could recommend one, might be a good place to start.

You've commented that this can happen watching something recorded earlier. If you watch the same record again, is the problem in exactly the same place? If you try playing the file in another player, does it also happen in the same place? ie, is the problem with recording or playback?

Second, the quality seems to have issues. I wouldn't mention it except that it only seems to be on certain channels. One channel comes in very grainy and another has moving diagonal lines. Lately NBC has had moving vertical lines.

This sounds like reception, interference or tuning problems. Can you post a screenshot so we can see what you it looks like?

I tried plugging the same cable directly into the TV and the channels were fine.

I dont think the tuners you get on the Hauppauge capture cards are as good as you'd typically find in a TV. They're probably not as good at locking onto a channel. They also use lots of different models of tuner on the same type of card - some better than others. Probably whatever is cheapest at the time.

The last one is a little weird. I turned on my pvr today and on the TV guide channels 10 and 11 are not listed. I tried doing a search for a program on 10, and it came up and accepted the record request, not sure if it's going to work yet. So I went to watch tv from the TV guide and tuned to channel 10 and 11 and they worked, but still didn't show up in the guide. So I went into the config and tried changing a few things (deactivating the channels and reactivating them, making them favorites and then not) and then tried restarting the computer. When it started up this time the channels were still not there, but now I couldn't tune to them either.

Have channels 10 and 11 been recently renamed? are you a zap2it user?

[shadowfaxjrr]

Thanks for the really fast reply.
Sorry I was a little incomplete, it felt like I had already written too much.

The locking up is mostly random, one file seemed to lock up in the same place but probably just because that particualar file likes to freeze it immediately. I tried playing every file in Cyberlink's player, and they all play just fine, the recordings seem to be good (the quality was still the same though).

Channel 10 was recently renamed to CW, but that happened a while ago and this problem only started today. I use zap2it, and everything seems to be right in the config. Under both the Capture Source and Channels tabs channels 10 and 11 are still there. Tried updating zap2it a couple of times.

I don't know how these photos will come out, I only have paint on the pvr.
Grainy Comedy Central:


NBC lines (hard to see in the shot, but when they're moving they're very annoying):


Unfortunately I can't post a picture of the diagonal lines on 11 as I can't tune to it anymore and didn't have any recordings on my HDD.

Thanks again for responding so quickly.

[elite]

I don't know how these photos will come out, I only have paint on the pvr.

You can create screenshots with paint - hit 'PrntScrn' and then paste into paint.

Second, the quality seems to have issues. I wouldn't mention it except that it only seems to be on certain channels. One channel comes in very grainy and another has moving diagonal lines. Lately NBC has had moving vertical lines. I tried plugging the same cable directly into the TV and the channels were fine.

From what your describing it does sound like interferance or poor signal quality - check your connections between your capture card and source, try to keep your feed away from mains leads (cross them at 90 degrees)

[sub]

The locking up is mostly random, one file seemed to lock up in the same place but probably just because that particualar file likes to freeze it immediately. I tried playing every file in Cyberlink's player, and they all play just fine, the recordings seem to be good (the quality was still the same though).

Can you play one of these files for a few seconds, then zip and attach your gbpvr.exe-native.log so we can see what filters it is using on your machine?

Channel 10 was recently renamed to CW, but that happened a while ago and this problem only started today. I use zap2it, and everything seems to be right in the config. Under both the Capture Source and Channels tabs channels 10 and 11 are still there. Tried updating zap2it a couple of times.

If you zip and email your database (gbpvr.mdb or gbpvr.db3) to me at support@devnz.com I'll check it out and come back to you.

Grainy Comedy Central:
NBC lines (hard to see in the shot, but when they're moving they're very annoying):

Can you check if you get a better picture in the Hauppauge WINTV2000 app? If so, I've got some suggestions for what you could try.

[shadowfaxjrr]

Couldn't seem to get WinTV to work, don't know why and I more concerned with the other problems so I'll put that on the backburner.

Didn't know which files were the logs as none ended in .log, so i just zipped all the text files, hope that's all right.

[sub]

Didn't know which files were the logs as none ended in .log, so i just zipped all the text files, hope that's all right.

Yes, those are the right files. They all have the extension .log, but you must have the Windows file explorer set to hide the extension of know file types (which causes .log files to show as text files).

The logs show you're relying on the system default video decoder. Its probably worth explicitly picking the decoder rather than rely on the default. In your case it seems to be using the Cyberlink one. It would be worth try another decoder to see if it has the same video freezing problem on one of these recordings that had problems in the past.

The database you tried to email was the wrong file. The file will be called either gbpvr.mdb or gbpvr.db3

[sub]

Thanks for sending the database through. As I suspected, your channel 10 and 11 have been recently replaced by zap2it. 11 was WYPNCA now WMYGLP. 10 was WBFL2 now WCJBDT2.

When these two new channels arrived, it couldnt save them at channel 10 and 11, because these were already in use, so a new number was automatically allocated for them. You'll find the listing for these channels on channel 98 and 99.

The best way to fix it is to edit your capture source settings and remove channel 10, 11, 98 and 99, then update your EPG again.