Black screen on live TV, what tools for managing codecs

[fluffykeith]

It's all going horribly wrong.

I lost the ability to play live TV on the Nova-S so switched to timeshift playing.
Thak worked for a bit but now I only get a blank screen, no audio, when I watch TV. This is in timeshift mode.
I suspect its a codec thing - however when I select the codecs that worked before it now doesn't work. So I'm not sure how these things actually get used but I guess it's possible that the version have be changed by installing some bit of software.

The problem is how do I fix it?

I have seen some tools for listing and managing codecs - eg, direct show filter manager. What is the best tool for managing codecs, eg listing versions, adding and removing, etc. ?

I will post some logs later when I get back to the media PC.

cheers

Keith

[stustunz]

gspot lets you set the what codecs will be used
graph edit shows you what combination of filters will work (i find it a bit strange to use and how exactly you are meant to put the filters into action once you have the ones you want so i just use it to see how they respond and if they will work i feel like im missing something)

[fluffykeith]

I played with these some time ago - I think you load up the file and it indicates what what codecs/filters are used.

However I don't understand how to use them to find out what pvrx2 is using for liveTV and timeshift TV?

I think I'm missing something as well.

If I am selecting the playback codecs in the pvrx2 config then I assume these are used for both playback and livetv and recordings.
If not how do I determine what is being used in these three cases as they are clearly performing differently.

I guess I just don't understand how these are controlled / configured and they seem to have got changed by some other install or config change.

I need an idiots guide :/

[stustunz]

all i did was went into gspot and made all the codecs that i thought might be used and set them to do not use
and removed as many as i could
i figure if windows has less decoders to choose from it will use the ones i want
basically i only have nvidia and power dvd and divx(which i dont really need)

you can select tv live preview or encoder passthrough on the misc tab

[fluffykeith]

you can select tv live preview or encoder passthrough on the misc tab

When I use live preview I can't see the nova-S but I can see the nova-T. I changed to timeshift which worked for a bit but now don't get anything.

I think I may install the default MS codecs and re-install any other software that has codecs.

It's a bit frustrating as it was working fine.

I had a play with Direct Show Manager - seems quite good.

[fluffykeith]

For my original problem that I could not see my nova-S in live preview but could in timeshift. Is it true that the only thing different is the MUX?

Is it possible that the mux I registered, that I did not put in system32 has been replaced by one in system32 or somewhere?

Keith

[sub]

Reproduce the problem, then zip and attach the logs and I'll take a look.

[fluffykeith]

Sub - it seems to have started working again (only in timeshift, live preview is still not right for the sat but I'm using timeshift now instead), I scanned through the logs and there was not errors but I will post them later (not at media pc right now!).

I have a theory (thats a dangerous thing, eh!) that it may be something to do with using the DVD player in PVRX2. I have not done any extensive experimenting but it seems that this problem occurs after I have used the dvd player.
It seems to fix itself after I play a couple of recordings. After which I can then view the timeshift TV again.
Is it possible that some driver handle (I have no idea how it works, just throwing ideas around) is not released by the dvd player.

When I have a spare minute I will view a dvd and see if it then fails.

cheers

Keith