Video freezing, or not even appearing, after channel change - particularly HD chans

[peter_h]

I've just installed a card and GBPVR, so I'm a newbie going through the pains of something new and unfamiliar, and am in need of a little help.

In Config>Playback, all my options for decoders are on FFDShow, except HE-AAC, which is set to Monogram. See my signature for details of my setup.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think all NZ Freeview channels are h.264 video with HE-AAC audio. (Could someone confirm this for us?)

Despite my CPU never reaching 100%, LiveTV is feeling sluggish and unreliable.

All of the HD channels are unwatchable - the video freezes for a while and then plays a few seconds, then freezes, etc. It's as if the CPU is maxed out - but it isn't. e.g. on the "Freeview|HD" channel, it was doing this while the CPU never got above 40%. On the TV3|HD channel, it just was blank, but the CPU went to 80-90%. Sound played generally fine during this, but sometimes with some choppiness.

Also, changing channels takes at least 3 secs. Longer if I'm going in or out of HD channels, I think. (I'm not 100% sure, as I'm not exactly sure which channels are HD and which aren't - is there a list somewhere, for NZ channels?)

It's as if its having trouble getting the signal, or the signal is dropping out. Which would be odd, as I'm so near the transmitter. Hauppauge Signal Strength Meter reads an SNR of 32, and gives me the green light.

Or there's something faulty about FFDShow? Is there a better h.264 decoder I should be using?

Appreciate all suggestions...

[sub]

Unfortunately the ffdshow decoder is far from ideal when it comes to using it for H.264 DVB channels. Its flakey at best for this.

With the ArcSoft H.264 decoder that Hauppauge ship on thie WinTV CD (or certain versions of Cyberlink H.264 decoder), and an nvidia 8600 card, and DXVA2.0 capable operating system (like Windows 7 or Vista), you'll probably get a low 20% CPU or similar.

Signal may also be an issue for the problems you're seeing though.

[peter_h]

Here's a little more info:

Despite the freezing, the GBPVR gui remains responsive. Sometimes when a channel's video has frozen for too long, I can still change channel to get out of it.

I did a 10 minute recording of the unplayable "Freeview|HD" channel. I've just played it back perfectly in VLC player, with CPU never going over 50%. So I'd say that it's not the signal dropping out.

When playing back the problematic channels, I get 2 FFDShow icons in the system tray. When I roll over them, one says "FFDShow video decoder raw;Input YV12 (uncompressed); Output YV12 adj" and the other says ""FFDShow video decoder ;Input H264 (ffmpeg-mt h264) ; Output YV12 adj". Should there be 2 icons?

[sub]

I dont use the ffdshow decoder, so unfortunately I cant answer your questions about the tray icon. See comments above about using the ArcSoft or Cyberlink decoder if you can. I'm not sure whether you'd get any acceleration with these decoders on XP, but they certainly perform better than ffdshow for use with H.264 channels.

[peter_h]

Just installed the CoreAVC h.264 decoder (It has a reputation for speed and supports CUDA acceleration for my 8600GT), and unselected FFDShow in all options in Config>Playback tab. Things were looking up - playing back smoothly at 20%, until it froze and PVRx2 suddenly popped up "No signal detected. Check cable...". I just ALT-TABbed out to write this, and now PVRx2 is "not responding", so I can't get back to it.

Odd thing is, I still have a FFDShow system tray icon (the "raw" one). Should this be there?

[sub]

Unfortunately the CoreAVC decoder isnt great either. It works well for watching H.264 movies, but not great for live tv. Specifically, it often has screen corruption and lock ups when changing channels. It appears to not like the video attributes changing mid use, like when you change from 720p to 567i or 1080i etc. This typically doesnt happen when you watch a video file, which is what most people use CoreAVC for. The author has indicated he hopes to correct this behaviour in a future release.

I'm not sure about your ffdshow icon question, but if you post the pvrx2.exe.log and pvrx2.exe-native.log, I'll see what I can tell you.

The best behaved decoder is the Arcsoft H.264 decoder, if your HVR-4000 came with the WinTV7 CD.

[peter_h]

Next steps taken: Just uninstalled FFDShow and rebooted.

Started LiveTV, watched a channel for 10 mins, CPU 20%, perfect sound and picture. Then changed channel and poof, PVRx2 just closed up shop, disappeared for the holidays. OS and other apps OK, cpu back to 2%.

Uninstalled WinTV (after copying the Signal Monitor folder out of program files, so I can still use that). Made sure it's tray program was closed.

Ran PVRx2 again. This time, 10 secs of "Freeview|HD" and then anther "No signal..." popup from PVRx2. Should I re-crimp new connectors onto the cable's ends? Is there any way that that error could be caused by any kind of software problem, or is it 100% a Hauppauge hardware or antennae problem? Should I replace the HVR4000 card with an HVR1700 which I have sitting here? Should I make a longer recording, and see if that has any issue? While recording, if PVRx2 detected a signal loss, would it popup that message then too?

[peter_h]

Thanks for the replies, Sub. Just thought I'd mention that my posts are out of phase with your replies a few times, as I often haven't seen your last speedy reply before I've posted up the next bit of info. Funny though - you seem to know what I'm going to say/find out next! i.e. "coreAVC is unreliable when changing channels".

[peter_h]

Well I reckon you'd have the most stable PVR system in the world, Sub, so I'm going to do exactly as you say! I've not got a HVR4000 CD (got the card secondhand off trademe). I've done a search on a PVR150/250/350 CD that I have, but not found any files with arcsoft, asoft or arc in the name. Not sure exactly what I'm looking for.

If anyone's got an original Hauppauge install CD with the arsoft decoder on it, and would be willing to spare me the chase for my card's disc by zipping up the appropriate files and emailing them to me, then a very grateful me would be at the end of pete (a) webflex dot co dot nz. And hopefully, at the end of my struggle for a useable system

[peter_h]

I've done some reading, and the arcsoft decoder file is named "ASVid.ax". So I'm assuming it's a matter of copying that to the windows\system32 folder and running "regsvr32 C:\WINDOWS\system32\ASVid.ax"? Or maybe it needs additional files? I dunno, but at least we have the name of one file to look for.

Hmmmm... Seems like I do need the original disc installation. I thought about downloading a trial from Arcsoft, to try it out, but looks like that's not going to work: http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?p=333371