Intermittent "no sound" - live TV and recordings - Sydney, Australia

[craigparris1]

TV-Server Version: RC1 with last SVN
MediaPortal Version: RC1 with last SVN
MediaPortal Skin: BlueTwo
Windows Version: XP SP3
CPU Type: AMD LE-1600
HDD: Plenty
Memory: 2 GB
Motherboard: Gigabyte
Video Card: 8500GT
Video Card Driver: 175.16
Sound Card:
Sound Card AC3:
Sound Card Driver:
1. TV Card: Leadtek DTV1000S
1. TV Card Type:
1. TV Card Driver:
2. TV Card: Leadtek DTV1000S
2. TV Card Type:
2. TV Card Driver:
3. TV Card:
3. TV Card Type:
3. TV Card Driver:
4. TV Card:
4. TV Card Type:
4. TV Card Driver:
MPEG2 Video Codec: PowerDVD 7
MPEG2 Audio Codec: PowerDVD 7
h.264 Video Codec: PowerDVD 7
Satelite/CableTV Provider:
HTPC Case: Antek 2480B
Cooling:
Power Supply:
Remote: Leadtek CoolCommand
TV: Analog
TV - HTPC Connection: S-Video

Hi guys,

I'm in Sydney, Australia. To be honest, I haven't had a chance to fully investigate this problem or review the logs, but the problem I'm having is that - intermittenly - there is no sound when watching live TV.

Originally, this would primarily happen when changing channels, or sometimes when turning live TV on for the first time after a resume from standby. Generally, changing to a different channel, then changing back would mean that the sound would come on OK. Up until yesterday, there'd been no problems with any scheduled recordings, but yesterday a show recorded and when it played back, there was no sound - I even tried playing the recorded file in PowerDVD and it had no sound in there either.

Does anyone have this sort of problem from time to time? If so, what is the likely cause? Is it a broadcast signal problem, a configuration, or a TV-card / driver problem?

Cheers,
Craig

[Paranoid Delusion]

PDVD7 is not a good sound codec, by far the best one that i know is FFDShow, which i use for everything, including ac3 (enable in config).

Running the files through gspot will confirm which codecs are needed, or even if there is sound in the file.

[craigparris1]

Thanks Ray,

I'll give that a crack!

Can I happily run the FFDShow audio codec along-side the PDVD7 video codec? I still want to be able to use PDVD7's hardware acceleration for my video card, but all the MediaPortal doco recommends using the same video and audio code provider.

Cheers,
Craig

[5teve]

Craig

I have had the same issue, and like you not had much time to investigate the issue, it seems to be the changing of channels that kicks it off, or maybe the spike of some interference... i have found tho that using MPA for audio seems to solve the problem and i still get dolby D from the HD channels. i also use PDVD 7.3 video codec and have no real issues with tv playback, using mismatching codecs.

now all we need is australia to free up the damn epg..

Thanks

Steve

[coopers]

Hi guys,

I have the same issue. And it started not too long ago when the HD channels finally started sending out proper dolby digital.

I notice if you skip back 15 secs, or change channel, you can get it to work fine. It seems therefore to be an issue when you change channels (or skip ahead) to a dolby digital soundtrack.

[charli181]

Same here, get the same issue even when watching same channel and showes goes into an advertisement. (god send really). Again changing channel and back again resolves it. Only happens once or twice a day so no real big issue from my end.

I am using ac3 filter as my ausio codec output to SPDIF. Interesting, the amp still show Dolby Digital when this happens. Not much further testing done as usually when happens , wife is in control and too dangerours to override here decision....hehehe

[coopers]

I notice the OP reported this with RC1 - is anyone up to date with RC2?

[charli181]

yes - RC2 no svn though

[craigparris1]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the replies. Yeah, I haven't had an opportunity to go to RC2 yet, and probably won't until the Olympics is all over and one with, and maybe once I've read an SVN thread that doesn't seem to be full of bug reports. Good to know that at least it doesn't seem to be just me that's having the problem. I did try Paranoid Delusion's suggestion of using FFdshow for sound, and doing lots of test channel changing tonight (SD -> HD -> SD, etc.) didn't throw the problem up. (doesn't mean that's necessarily the fix though - I'll monitor over the next few days).

Cheers,
Craig

p.s. MediaPortal still rocks!

[coopers]

Originally Posted by charli181

yes - RC2 no svn though

Although it does look like moving to FFDshow could be a viable workaround...

Do you think you could grab some mediaportal logs? Then we could ask a dev to see if it's an MP issue, or just crappy audio codecs...