2 x sound

[lemming]

Hi

My Dad also runs NPVR, and he rang with a sound issue a couple of days ago. He told me that the sound was being produced with an echo on some recordings..

Have had a look, and discovered is specific to NZ TV3. Was caused by AAC and AC3 audio being played at the same time. Have fixed (masked) by disabling the AC3 decoder.

Played OK in VLC.

Was working OK so not sure what changed... Is this likely to be an NPVR bug, or something in the system?? (don't have logs sorry, but could get in a few days...)

Running latest NPVR with all patchs. SAF6 (unlocked) on Win732 home.

As an aside, he also get video slow down while moving the mouse (time line displayed). Don't get that here, and was wondering if maybe video card performance issue ?? I have HD6670, while he is running a HD34XX

I would have thought the HD34XX would have been OK....

Cheers Chris

[sub]

Showing the OSD is quite CPU intensive, since it requires compositing fair large bitmaps in software, and GDI.NET is not very quick at this. What CPU has he got in his machine? How does the CPU look when he's doing this activity and the video slows down?

I'm not sure about the multiple audio problem. I just tried it here, and it didnt happen for me. Does it happen every time he watches TV3?

[lemming]

Hi Sub

CPU is a AMD duel core. Cant remember the exact model I used, but is as fast / faster than the older 5000+ & 6000+ CPU's I use..

The CPU was hovering from nothing to around 20% when looked. Didn't appear to change with OSD on top.

Was only focusing on 1 TV3 recording to sort sound, so will need to look. Dad started nodding when I discovered seemed to be TV3, so I made an assumption this was the case .... Will confirm next time I go around. Do you want any specific log(s)???

Cheers Chris

[sub]

Sorry, no ideas on the OSD. From past experience, this did relate to CPU usage, and affected high resolution desktops (1920x1080 etc), alot more than lower res desktop.

The npvr.log is the most likely log to show anything useful for this audio problem.

[lemming]

Hi, some more on the previous post...

Had introduced another issue when playing with the config, that randomly whole PC would freeze when stopping playback of TV / recording, requiring hard reset of PC (not blue screen, image frozen and no response).

Uninstalled all codecs, ATI drivers and NPVR and re-installed from scratch. Using only base Win 7 decoders + DivX for HE-AAC. 2 x sound now OK.

OSD still causes video choppiness. Checked the CPU load again, is OK. I installed the GPU side bar gadget and found the GPU running @ 40-60% watching TV or recording, but
spikes >90% when the OSD is shown.

Dropped the desktop to 720P, and is fine. I am assuming some part of the system must have changed how the GPU is used as it wasn't previously an issue.... Guess I could try and re create system as was, or throw a higher specd GPU @ it. I have HD4670 & HD6670 which both work fine @ 1080P.

Any suggestions what is the minimum GPU to look @ for 1080P??? He has a HD3400, which I would have thought should have eaten the Video without raising a sweat??.

Also frustratingly, the crash on playback stop is still present. Any ideas why this might be occurring. Seems odd to crash when stopping something that was working fine. Had a beginners look @ the NPVR.log, but only shows system start up (have to restart system to look).

Assuming not a random hardware issue, I guess next step would be complete Win re-install ??

Cheers

Chris

[sub]

Also frustratingly, the crash on playback stop is still present. Any ideas why this might be occurring. Seems odd to crash when stopping something that was working fine. Had a beginners look @ the NPVR.log, but only shows system start up (have to restart system to look).

I'm not aware of any issues that would cause this. You could try creating a c:\temp directory, and see if it creates a crash.mdmp file when it crashes You'll also need to capture the npvr.log showing the error - ie, either dont restart the app, or boot in safe mode or something.

[Reddwarf]

I think I may have the same problem, I installed R1 patches to make skipping work again, but after that I experience hangs, sometimes while watching a recording but mostly after Stop or Pause, but not always. I installed R2 patches again but the problem did not go away, the frustrating thing is that all interaction with the computer seems to have locked up, the HD-led is flashing is there is a ecording going on, so it seems it is working in the background but the only way to get out is a hard reset. After that there is no recent entries in the logs, probably because the buffers have not been flushed.

I have set up the htpc to accept remote connection so next time this happend I will try to connect and see if I can save the logs befor resetting.

[Reddwarf]

It froze again, I pushed Stop after watching Idol for an hour. Both NextPVR and the console is frozen, but the recordings is continuing in the background. I can connect to my htpc via newa from another pc and display tvguide, recordings etc. I also copied the logs from the share in case they provide any clues.

[lemming]

Sort of glad to hear someone else with the issue....

have swapped out the GPU for one of my ones to see if it makes a change...

[Reddwarf]

Another log from hang/freeze issue, this time the recording played to the end.