serious issues with hang-ups in recordings (solved) & occasional hicups in recordings

[K.S.]

i'm using version 0.98.8b with pinnacle DVB-T 200e USB device & CyberLink MPEG Muxer VERSION: 5.0.2022 plugins: shutdown & bleepbloop.

hi sub,

wanted to report 2 problems, the first one i've already solved (still the same, it was a PITA, you or maybe everybody else also might be interested in the general behavior)

first problem started after getting an error upon startup of watching a show through tv-guide (live tv, no timeshifting), the error was something like "cannot get lock on BDA device" (unfortunately, the gbpvr.exe logs are no longer available, can't tell for sure).

after that error, i simply rebooted the machine & checked live tv which was ok. had some recordings scheduled during the following days and every record after that reboot was a mess. what's worse: i've only discovered the problem 2 days after that because only recordings where affected, live tv was still ok.

what did i do to get it fixed?
- checked the logs & wondered why it submited repeatedly a tunning request even during recordings
- switched back to blue skin & checked signal strength on live tv, signal strength was shown as nonexistent
- disconnected the device, rebooted, waited 10 minutes & after that reconnected the device. checked live tv & signal strength was now nearly 100%, recordings after that reboot are ok in general

the resulting recordings where unplayable with GBPVR, Media Player & VLC, to fix them i tried retime, didn't work, multiplexing failed 'cause of glitches in audio file. mencoder at least fixed the glitches so far that GBPVR was able to play them (duration was allways shown as 0:00, so no skipping allowed ), Media Player still couldn't play them, only VLC was able to play them, show accurate duration & allow skipping (the results where not what i would call high quality )

i don't know how you're handling live tv vs. recording (is live tv also using the muxer?) but wouldn't it be less error-prone to submit some tunning request at the beginning of a recording & quit this requests after some time? if it had success that would at least not cause a totally messed up recording, it not, well then it doesn't matter either

since that error occured until i rebooted without USB device connected, i got the following errors

GBPVRRecordingService.exe.log

02.12.2006 11:01:46.437 VERBOSE [5] Signal not locked. Trying re-lock...
02.12.2006 11:02:16.453 VERBOSE [5] Checking signal status on Pinnacle DVB-T 200e BDA:1
02.12.2006 11:02:16.453 VERBOSE [5] Signal not locked. Trying re-lock...
02.12.2006 11:02:46.515 VERBOSE [5] Checking signal status on Pinnacle DVB-T 200e BDA:1
02.12.2006 11:02:46.515 VERBOSE [5] Signal not locked. Trying re-lock...
02.12.2006 11:03:16.656 VERBOSE [5] Checking signal status on Pinnacle DVB-T 200e BDA:1
02.12.2006 11:03:16.656 VERBOSE [5] Signal not locked. Trying re-lock...
02.12.2006 11:03:46.828 VERBOSE [5] Checking signal status on Pinnacle DVB-T 200e BDA:1
02.12.2006 11:03:46.828 VERBOSE [5] Signal not locked. Trying re-lock...
02.12.2006 11:04:16.843 VERBOSE [5] Checking signal status on Pinnacle DVB-T 200e BDA:1
02.12.2006 11:04:16.859 VERBOSE [5] Signal not locked. Trying re-lock...
02.12.2006 11:04:47.015 VERBOSE [5] Checking signal status on Pinnacle DVB-T 200e BDA:1
02.12.2006 11:04:47.015 VERBOSE [5] Signal not locked. Trying re-lock...
02.12.2006 11:05:00.062 VERBOSE [5] Recording has passed endtime+padding. Stopping.
02.12.2006 11:05:00.062 VERBOSE [5] Stopping recording oid:1
02.12.2006 11:05:01.015 VERBOSE [5] Adding G:\Video\The Naked Chef - Genial kochen\The Naked Chef - Genial kochen_20061202_10101055.mpg to commercial detection queue
02.12.2006 11:05:01.015 VERBOSE [5] Not adding G:\Video\The Naked Chef - Genial kochen\The Naked Chef - Genial kochen_20061202_10101055.mpg to conversion detection queue. Conversions are currently disabled.
02.12.2006 11:05:01.015 VERBOSE [5] RecordingStatus is now RecordingStatus.RECORDING_COMPETED
02.12.2006 11:05:01.015 VERBOSE [5] RecordingFactory.save()

GBPVRRecordingService.exe-native.log

11:03:16.656 VERBOSE Preparing Tuning Request
11:03:16.656 INFO Submit-DVBT@T2
11:03:16.656 INFO Submit-DVBT@T3
11:03:16.656 INFO Submit-DVBT@T4
11:03:18.156 VERBOSE New tuning request submitted...
11:03:18.156 INFO Submit-DVBT@T5
11:03:18.156 VERBOSE ServiceID: 16406, PMT PID: 352, VPID: 353, APID: 354
11:03:18.156 VERBOSE SubmitTuningRequest() complete
11:03:46.828 VERBOSE checking signal stats took total: 0ms (0,0,0,0).....(,0,0,0)
11:03:46.828 VERBOSE SubmitTuningRequest(T:C34,578000,0,0,8~P:16406~V:353~A:354~PMT:352~TXT:359~N:>RTL2)
11:03:46.828 INFO Submit-DVBT@T1
11:03:46.828 VERBOSE Preparing Tuning Request
11:03:46.828 INFO Submit-DVBT@T2
11:03:46.828 INFO Submit-DVBT@T3
11:03:46.828 INFO Submit-DVBT@T4
11:03:47.625 VERBOSE New tuning request submitted...
11:03:47.625 INFO Submit-DVBT@T5
11:03:47.625 VERBOSE ServiceID: 16406, PMT PID: 352, VPID: 353, APID: 354
11:03:47.625 VERBOSE SubmitTuningRequest() complete
11:04:16.859 VERBOSE checking signal stats took total: 16ms (0,0,0,0).....(,0,0,0)
11:04:16.859 VERBOSE SubmitTuningRequest(T:C34,578000,0,0,8~P:16406~V:353~A:354~PMT:352~TXT:359~N:>RTL2)
11:04:16.859 INFO Submit-DVBT@T1
11:04:16.859 VERBOSE Preparing Tuning Request
11:04:16.859 INFO Submit-DVBT@T2
11:04:16.859 INFO Submit-DVBT@T3
11:04:16.859 INFO Submit-DVBT@T4
11:04:18.515 VERBOSE New tuning request submitted...
11:04:18.515 INFO Submit-DVBT@T5
11:04:18.515 VERBOSE ServiceID: 16406, PMT PID: 352, VPID: 353, APID: 354
11:04:18.515 VERBOSE SubmitTuningRequest() complete
11:04:47.015 VERBOSE checking signal stats took total: 0ms (0,0,0,0).....(,0,0,0)
11:04:47.015 VERBOSE SubmitTuningRequest(T:C34,578000,0,0,8~P:16406~V:353~A:354~PMT:352~TXT:359~N:>RTL2)
11:04:47.015 INFO Submit-DVBT@T1
11:04:47.015 VERBOSE Preparing Tuning Request
11:04:47.015 INFO Submit-DVBT@T2
11:04:47.015 INFO Submit-DVBT@T3
11:04:47.015 INFO Submit-DVBT@T4
11:04:48.656 VERBOSE New tuning request submitted...
11:04:48.656 INFO Submit-DVBT@T5
11:04:48.656 VERBOSE ServiceID: 16406, PMT PID: 352, VPID: 353, APID: 354
11:04:48.656 VERBOSE SubmitTuningRequest() complete
11:05:00.062 VERBOSE BDARecorder::StopRecording()
11:05:01.000 VERBOSE BDARecorder::StopRecording() finished


second problem (still open)

i occasionaly still get some minor glitches, again only during recordings & suspect the culprit to be found on that "checking signal stats" taking up to 110ms. what's queer: it almost always happens on the same channel (might happen on other channels in the same stream, have not checked yet as i don't record them). any way to get that fixed or any suggestions?

22:56:01.656 VERBOSE checking signal stats took total: 16ms (1,1,28,100).....(,0,0,0)
22:56:31.828 VERBOSE checking signal stats took total: 110ms (1,1,28,100).....(,0,0,0)
22:57:01.875 VERBOSE checking signal stats took total: 0ms (1,1,28,100).....(,0,0,0)
22:57:32.000 VERBOSE checking signal stats took total: 16ms (1,1,28,100).....(,0,0,0)
22:58:02.046 VERBOSE checking signal stats took total: 32ms (1,1,28,100).....(,0,0,0)
...
00:01:44.218 VERBOSE checking signal stats took total: 15ms (1,1,28,100).....(,0,0,0)
00:02:14.250 VERBOSE checking signal stats took total: 0ms (1,1,28,100).....(,0,0,0)
00:02:44.421 VERBOSE checking signal stats took total: 0ms (1,1,28,100).....(,0,0,0)
00:03:14.484 VERBOSE checking signal stats took total: 16ms (1,1,28,100).....(,0,0,0)
00:03:44.609 VERBOSE checking signal stats took total: 0ms (1,1,28,100).....(,0,0,0)
00:04:14.671 VERBOSE checking signal stats took total: 16ms (1,1,28,100).....(,0,0,0)
00:04:44.828 VERBOSE checking signal stats took total: 16ms (1,1,28,100).....(,0,0,0)
00:05:14.875 VERBOSE checking signal stats took total: 0ms (1,1,28,100).....(,0,0,0)
00:05:45.046 VERBOSE checking signal stats took total: 0ms (1,1,28,100).....(,0,0,0)
00:06:15.203 VERBOSE checking signal stats took total: 78ms (1,1,28,100).....(,0,0,0)
00:06:45.250 VERBOSE checking signal stats took total: 16ms (1,1,28,100).....(,0,0,0)
00:07:15.406 VERBOSE checking signal stats took total: 16ms (1,1,28,100).....(,0,0,0)
00:07:45.468 VERBOSE checking signal stats took total: 15ms (1,1,28,100).....(,0,0,0)
00:08:15.609 VERBOSE checking signal stats took total: 16ms (1,1,28,100).....(,0,0,0)
00:08:45.687 VERBOSE checking signal stats took total: 15ms (1,1,28,100).....(,0,0,0)
00:09:15.843 VERBOSE checking signal stats took total: 0ms (1,1,28,100).....(,0,0,0)
00:09:45.890 VERBOSE checking signal stats took total: 0ms (1,1,28,100).....(,0,0,0)
00:10:00.000 VERBOSE BDARecorder::StopRecording()
00:10:00.890 VERBOSE BDARecorder::StopRecording() finished

thanks in advance for your help

[sub]

1) If you muxchecker, is the 5.0.2022 mux the only Cyberlink mux you have listed? It sounds like the mux is doing a bad job.
2) If you set <BDACheckSignalStatusDuringRecording>0</BDACheckSignalStatusDuringRecording> in config.xml, then it wont perform these status checks.

[K.S.]

i'll set BDACheckSignalStatusDuringRecording to 0 and observe future behavior. that version of cyberlink is the only one shown in muxchecker, had also the feeling that it's rather crapy. might give ms-dvr a chance in the future if it's still got glitches.
thanks for that setting, i'll try it out & report results after a few days