No picture no sound

[nemopvr]

Hey guys, girls,

• I've setup NPVR with my Hauppauge DVB-T stick.
  
• I've scanned and configured channels successfully.
  
• I can switch channels.
  
• I've disabled the firewall.
  
• The services start and stop fine.
  
• Live TV does not show any picture or sound. It's just black.
  
• I can record and the recorded files can be played back with VLC, WMP, Zplayer no problem.
  
• I didn't manage to playback with NPVR.
  
• The log shows something about being unable to access Direct X - but I have the latest Direct X 9.0c for XP installed.
  
• The Hauppauge WinTV 7 program works. In fact, every multimedia program I used usually works.
  

I hope you find something revealing in the logs to help me...

[Graham]

Have you chosen values for MPEG2 Video and for MPEG1 Audio decoders in Settings --> Decoders? http://www.nextpvr.com/nwiki/pmwiki.php?...n.Decoders

These are for standard definition broadcasts. You will need additional decoders for HD.

Edit. In some countries SD is broadcast using H.264 ... I don't know about Germany.

[Reddwarf]

Did you install the DirectX runtime mentioned in prerequisites? Can cou post a screenshot of your settings->Decoders page?

[mikeh49]

It is looking for ffdshow audio and video decoders, but not finding them. Have you installed ffdshow? Is it selected or selectable on the setup screen for decoders? MPEG2 needs to be enabled in the ffdshow configuration, it is disabled by default. You could also try the SAF codec package developed by user hoborg on this forum.

Do you have any other decoder choices, audio and video. It looks like for Germany you need MPEG2 for video, and MPEG 1 for audio. The others can be left disabled. Set your audio renderer to default and video renderer to VMR9 for XP.

You should fix the DirectX problem. I don't know if it affects playback. You may need to download and install the entire 100MB DirectX package, rather than just the runtime. I had to do this as the runtime would not install correctly.

[nemopvr]

It is looking for ffdshow audio and video decoders, but not finding them. Have you installed ffdshow? Is it selected or selectable on the setup screen for decoders? MPEG2 needs to be enabled in the ffdshow configuration, it is disabled by default. You could also try the SAF codec package developed by user hoborg on this forum.

Actually ffdshow was installed before NPVR. It is selectable for mp2 and selected. Screenshot is attached.
In "ffdshow video decoder configuration" under "codecs" MPEG2 is configured with decoder libmpeg2. Other options would be libavcodec resp. deactivated.
Edit: I found an option "only use ffdshow with these applications" and unchecked that. Now I have video!

Edit2: And audio!
In "ffdshow audio decoder configuration" under "codecs" MPEG1 is configured with decoder mp3lib. Other options would be libmad, libavcodec resp. deactivated.
I switched it to mp3lib. Is one of the others preferable?

You should fix the DirectX problem. I don't know if it affects playback. You may need to download and install the entire 100MB DirectX package, rather than just the runtime. I had to do this as the runtime would not install correctly.

Did that, too. The DirectX error seems gone.

Thanks a lot for that help!

[mikeh49]

I don't use ffdshow, but many others here do. If you click the ... button next to the decoder selection box, it "should" bring up the set-up for the decoder, in this case ffdshow. It has been a long time since I tried ffdshow, but I now think perhaps you have to enable npvr in ffdshow, "whitelist" it. Info is here:

http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/...page_3.cfm

A pretty good guide. Set MPEG2 to use libavcodec and then enable npvr.exe.

Try this.

If you can't bring up the settings from within NPVR as described above, try accessing them through the ffdshow menu.

[hoborg]

Hi.
I am not recommending to use FFDshow video decoder for MPEG-2 live TV, stability (ability to handle errors in stream) and picture quality is not so good comparing for example with PDVD decoder.

[nemopvr]

I don't use ffdshow, but many others here do. If you click the ... button next to the decoder selection box, it "should" bring up the set-up for the decoder, in this case ffdshow. It has been a long time since I tried ffdshow, but I now think perhaps you have to enable npvr in ffdshow, "whitelist" it. Info is here:

http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/...page_3.cfm

A pretty good guide. Set MPEG2 to use libavcodec and then enable npvr.exe.

Try this.

If you can't bring up the settings from within NPVR as described above, try accessing them through the ffdshow menu.

Ah, our postings crossed, I found that whitelisting (through ffdshow) and edited my post to reflect that. Sorry for making you work more than necessary.
Still valuable information, I totally missed the ellipse next to the ffdshow entry. Many thanks!

[nemopvr]

Hi.
I am not recommending to use FFDshow video decoder for MPEG-2 live TV, stability (ability to handle errors in stream) and picture quality is not so good comparing for example with PDVD decoder.

Thanks. I'll try that. Picture quality isn't that crucial on my Thinkpad, but stability I like.