Decoder Gremlins

[lemming]

Hi, running NPVR 2.5.9 with all patches. have had the return of an old issue with annoying sound blips on live TV which worsen over time. Not a problem ever on recordings...

have tied it to enabling MPEG1 audio again after adding an analogue source (Sky decoder via composite). Proved it by turning on and off the decoder, and the blips disappear and re-appear.

Have tried all options for MPEG1 decoder, and all have same effect. Main decoder for HE-AAC is Lav, which works fine usually. Any known reason having a MPEG1 decoder selected will effect HE-AAC ??

Cheers Chris

[johnsonx42]

if you pause live tv for just a moment then play, do the blips go away?

[lemming]

Hi, spent some time last night on TV3 (NZ), after around 20 Mins, blips were possibly 10-15% of the audio. Paused and resumed, blips went away, but came back in similar timeframe...
Possibly should clarify that by "live TV" I mean selecting the channel to watch from the EPG.
Cheers Chris

[Reddwarf]

Hi, spent some time last night on TV3 (NZ), after around 20 Mins, blips were possibly 10-15% of the audio. Paused and resumed, blips went away, but came back in similar timeframe...
Possibly should clarify that by "live TV" I mean selecting the channel to watch from the EPG.
Cheers Chris

You could try the DivX HE-AAC decoder, I'v har good experience with it.

[johnsonx42]

Hi, spent some time last night on TV3 (NZ), after around 20 Mins, blips were possibly 10-15% of the audio. Paused and resumed, blips went away, but came back in similar timeframe...
Possibly should clarify that by "live TV" I mean selecting the channel to watch from the EPG.
Cheers Chris

Interesting, your symptoms are a little different than mine, but possibly related. I get 'blips' or drops in the audio on some channels, but they don't seem to worsen with time. Pausing for a moment resolves the issue until the next channel change. This indicates that playing LiveTV 'live' via shared memory has the problem, but playing a few seconds behind live via the disk buffer file does not. In the old GB-PVR program, this issue would mean that <LiveTVPreDelay> needed to be increased, but no such setting is available in NPVR.

I wonder, what if you pause LiveTV for a full minute, then resume playing and don't skip forward to catch up to live... do the blips ever come back at all?

[lemming]

You could try the DivX HE-AAC decoder, I'v har good experience with it.

Have used divx in the past, saf works fine, as long as no mpeg1 decode selected...

[lemming]

Interesting, your symptoms are a little different than mine, but possibly related. I get 'blips' or drops in the audio on some channels, but they don't seem to worsen with time. Pausing for a moment resolves the issue until the next channel change. This indicates that playing LiveTV 'live' via shared memory has the problem, but playing a few seconds behind live via the disk buffer file does not. In the old GB-PVR program, this issue would mean that <LiveTVPreDelay> needed to be increased, but no such setting is available in NPVR.

I wonder, what if you pause LiveTV for a full minute, then resume playing and don't skip forward to catch up to live... do the blips ever come back at all?

Will have a play later and let you know..

[lemming]

Right, 1minute pause,and sound seems ok... But both instances I tried it, ended up with a black screen with small message saying encrypted content?? Pause & resume just locked it all up till escaped to main menu.
Still struggling to understand how enabling a decoder not even in use causes this issue ??

[Reddwarf]

Have used divx in the past, saf works fine, as long as no mpeg1 decode selected...

You mean LAV decoder? Do you get the same blips with the DivX decoder?

[Lao Pan]

Still struggling to understand how enabling a decoder not even in use causes this issue ??

NPVR loads all the audio codecs in the settings screen so that if you change channel to one that uses a different codec that will be loaded already. That is why you should only have the ones that you actually need in the list. There are 2 settings in the LAV codec that may or may not help - Synchronize Video to Audio check box - I have mine set off and Audio delay - I have mine on 80 ms, but my graphics processing & more important Plasma need that to keep mouth and sound in synch. I do occasionally get slight glitches but only ever when there are Titles and solid colour on screen - I have often thought it is just a smidgen too little memory allocated for video and multiple audio codecs.

Can't seem to remember any since upgrading from vista to win8 2 weeks ago though.