Live TV keeps stuttering on Windows 10

[mdailey]

For some background I have a HP pavilion desktop that is about 4 years old that I recently upgraded to Windows 10 and is just using it as a glorified DVR. I only run NextPVR on it. I used HDHomerun Prime as my tuner. I can watch live tv using either the HDHomerun View app or Windows Media Player with no problem. When I try to watch live tv using NextPVR, the picture is find for a few seconds then stutters and gets pixelated. It will return to normal for about 20-30 seconds then do the same stuttering. It repeats this over and over again on all of the channels, no matter if its HD or SD. I thought it was a video codec problem. I tried different combinations of video and audio codecs. None solved the problem and some gave me sound with a black screen. The LAV decoder didn't work at all for me. I'm currently using the ffshow mpeg 2 video decoder with the Microsoft DTV-DVD audio decoder for mpeg 1 audio and ac3 audio. I've tried downloading other codecs like K-Lite and a LAV decoder pack with no success. I even purchased a MainConcept video decoder pack but NPVR doesn't recognize it. I've tried playing around with the settings on the HDHomerun Prime, reinstalling NPVR, and installing a trial version of PowerDVD16, all with no success. I don't know what else to try and I'm running out of ideas. Does anyone know how to fix this?

[mikeh49]

I think it's almost certainly the decoders. Skip the codec packs. Check the forum for Hoborg's SAF decoder system. After installing you should PM him for the unlocked version. It seems many decoders now are locked from use by 3rd party apps, so NPVR cannot use them. For ffdshow, you have to enable it for MPEG2 (in the settings) and also whitelist NPVR somewhere else in the settings.

You could revert to Win7 and use the very good MS DVD-DTV video decoder and AC3 filter for audio.

[mdailey]

I think it's almost certainly the decoders. Skip the codec packs. Check the forum for Hoborg's SAF decoder system. After installing you should PM him for the unlocked version. It seems many decoders now are locked from use by 3rd party apps, so NPVR cannot use them. For ffdshow, you have to enable it for MPEG2 (in the settings) and also whitelist NPVR somewhere else in the settings.

You could revert to Win7 and use the very good MS DVD-DTV video decoder and AC3 filter for audio.

Thanks for the help. I decided to revert back to Windows 7. I figured it was the best choice considering the PC is over 4 years old and I only plan on using it as a DVR. The stuttering has gone away but now I have no sound. I think it has to do with the warning in the Settings menu saying 'directx runtime is not available on this machine'. I'm going to try to manually install directx from Microsoft's website.

[mikeh49]

The sound problem is almost certainly the audio decoder. Many of us use AC3 Filter, a free download. Find it, download and install, and select it in the NPVR Settings for the AC3 (virtually all US TV) decoder and the MPEG1 (maybe for a standard definition channel) decoder. Win 7 does not include audio decoders that can be used with 3rd party apps like NPVR; the MS video decoder can be used, however.

In my experience, Win 7 is the sweet spot for TV in the US.

The DirectX runtime is needed for some of the menu display functions of NPVR, it is not required for video playback, if I understand correctly. I think there is some info in the sticky at the top of the support thread about this.

[mdailey]

The sound problem is almost certainly the audio decoder. Many of us use AC3 Filter, a free download. Find it, download and install, and select it in the NPVR Settings for the AC3 (virtually all US TV) decoder and the MPEG1 (maybe for a standard definition channel) decoder. Win 7 does not include audio decoders that can be used with 3rd party apps like NPVR; the MS video decoder can be used, however.

In my experience, Win 7 is the sweet spot for TV in the US.

The DirectX runtime is needed for some of the menu display functions of NPVR, it is not required for video playback, if I understand correctly. I think there is some info in the sticky at the top of the support thread about this.

You're right it was the AC3 Filter. I found a HDHomerun troubleshooting guide where it provided a AC3 Filter download link: http://www.ac3filter.net/wiki/Project/1/releases. It did the trick.

For those who get the directx warning here's the download for the directx runtime web installer for Windows 7: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download...35&nowin10