PVRX2 repeatedly crashes when playing recording

[time_lord]

Hi, I have a new GBPVR setup (latest version). I tried my first recording last night; it seems to have worked well but when I play it back, after several minutes pvrx2 GPFs. It's done thing several times, sometimes after 5 minutes, sometimes after 1-2 minutes.
Each time it crashed I restarted then fast-forwarded to just before the crash (and it would play past this point), but eventually die again. After eventually getting through about 20 minutes, I gave up.
I had a quick glance at the gbpvr logs but nothing stood out (but a trained eye may spot something!).

Any suggestions?

[sub]

Is it all recordings, or all recordings from a particular channel, or a sipecific recording?

Is this recording from DVB-S/DVB-T/Analog?

[time_lord]

Is this recording from DVB-S/DVB-T/Analog?

Recording from DVB-T.

I ran out of time earlier, so I'll try to spend some time tonight testing analog and capturing with different quality settings, etc to see if that makes any difference. But will take quite a while since it may be several minutes between each crash.

[time_lord]

I ran some more tests last night; Recorded:
C4 - default Med quality - crashed every 3-5 minutes on playback
TV3 (AC3) news - default Med quality - crashed after 2:58 playback; tried again from start, crashed after 2:29
TV2 - low quality - played for 12 minutes, no crash

(I'm using all the default vid/aud codec settings from the initial install, IIRC.)

Another problem: I quickly set up an analog channel this morning (to test & see if it would crash on playback), started recording at 7:55 and realised it would finish at 8, so set up another recording for 7:58-8:30. But I couldn't see how to interrupt/stop the first one. I went into the recording, selected update, and tried to adjust the time in the hope of stopping it.
Anyway, the second recording didn't start. The first one still says it's 'recording' but clearly it isn't (file size not growing, no hard disk or cpu activity), and it's more than 30 minutes after it was meant to end. I tried setting up a third recording and this won't start either. What have I done wrong?

I was going to clear my logs and get a capture of the playback crash problem, but after the recording issues this morning I couldn't.

Phil

[sub]

(I'm using all the default vid/aud codec settings from the initial install, IIRC.)

Its hard to guess what video/audio decoders will be used on your machine. I'm think your crash is something to do with these though, so I'd try other decoder and see what difference it makes.

[time_lord]

Its hard to guess what video/audio decoders will be used on your machine. I'm think your crash is something to do with these though, so I'd try other decoder and see what difference it makes.

If I can see which decode is being used, it there anything I can do (or any particular logging) to help determine what causes the crash?

[sub]

If a particular decoder crashes, all you can do is try it with another renderer, or try another decoder.

[JonnyCam]

C4 - default Med quality - crashed every 3-5 minutes on playback
TV3 (AC3) news - default Med quality - crashed after 2:58 playback; tried again from start, crashed after 2:29
TV2 - low quality - played for 12 minutes, no crash

By the way, just use default quality when recording from the DVB-T. The quality settings are only for analog - as the digital is exactly how TVNZ / TV3 send it.

When you go into config, what choices do you have for preferred H264 decoder?
Could be a problem with your videocard hardware H264 decoding (if your card does that) which causes a crash?

[time_lord]

By the way, just use default quality when recording from the DVB-T. The quality settings are only for analog - as the digital is exactly how TVNZ / TV3 send it.

Cool, makes sense

When you go into config, what choices do you have for preferred H264 decoder?

How do I know what the 'preferred' is? I.e if it is set to 'system default', how do I know what the system default is?
The options I have available are 'System default', 'CyberLink H.264/AVC Decoder (PCM45)', 'ffdshow Video Decoder'.

Could be a problem with your videocard hardware H264 decoding (if your card does that) which causes a crash?

I have a Leadtek 8500GT which apparently supports H.264 (but I haven't yet looked - since installing - into seeing if there is any driver update, but will do now).

[time_lord]

Hi, in the GBPVR config playback tab I tried changing the PVRX2 renderer from 'VMR9 Custom' to each of those available (VMR9 Fullscreen Exclusive, EVR, Overlay Manager), none of these fixed the PVRX2 crashes.

I didn't try changing GBPVR video renderer settings - if I understand correctly, gbpvr.exe was the old exe for the program?
I then tried each of the mpeg2 video decoders with no improvement (but again if I understand correctly, this is only used for analog recordings, but I am trying to play digital recordings, so the mpeg2 decoder should be irrelevant).

Lastly I changed the H.264 decoder (which I presume is the setting that matters) from 'System default' to 'CyberLink H.264/AVC Decoder (PCM45)' then 'ffdshow Video Decoder' and neither of these fixed the problem.

So where to from here - regardless of the renderer or decoder, PVRX2 crashes while playing back DVB-T recordings, so I can't imagine all renderers/codecs are faulty!