No recorded programs in my view

[Ries]

Hi all,

After the first day I work with MP, I am still in the process of fine tuning the system. I have a dedicated server with the PVR-500. A second tuner (the Hauppauge WinTV 88x single tuner) is seen by MP but is not getting any channels. I installed all under WinXP MCE (2005 all updated).

All over I am impressed by the whole system and I am really exited to get it all smooth working. So first a big THANK YOU to all who made this happen!

There are currently three items which I have a problem with:
1 - I recorded some TV programs but the view of the recorded TV programs remains empty!
2 - The quality of the TV on the client(s) are a bit disappointing. I still have all set to standard settings from the installer so this could be improved by selecting better codecs. I hope that some have experience with this and can give me some advise.
3 - The second card (WinTV 88x) is seen but not getting any channels. Is a second card not supported?

Again, over all I am very happy with the first impression. The server separate from the client(s) is a good option and I was looking for just that in my situation.

I hope that the quality can be improved of the TV channels and that I can add more tuners. If this is happening I am ecstatic!

Thanks all!!

Ries

[coopers]

Hello, and welcome.

Originally Posted by Ries

There are currently three items which I have a problem with:
1 - I recorded some TV programs but the view of the recorded TV programs remains empty!

Are you sure they are recorded - maybe they failed to record!
You should go check the folder you have configured to put recordings in, and make sure they are in there.
I have never seen a successfully completed recording fail to show up...

Note that you can set up which TV cards can be used to record, and which ones can be used to watch TV, so maybe your un-configured card is set to be the default one that records? (which would explain it).

Originally Posted by Ries

2 - The quality of the TV on the client(s) are a bit disappointing. I still have all set to standard settings from the installer so this could be improved by selecting better codecs. I hope that some have experience with this and can give me some advise.

This is almost always codec stuff.

I recall some great advice in this thread: Is this really as good as live-tv gets?!?

Look, really you need to try different codecs, and then try with/without HW accelleration (if your CPU is fast enough, you probably don't need to trouble yourself with hw accel), then try the different anti-aliasing modes.

Also, if you use ffdshow you could consider post-processing the image (too much trouble for me though!).

I find cyberlink codec works the best.

There are some other things you can do like making sure that your screen refreshes at the same speed as broadcast tv frequency. E.g. for me, my screen is at 50Hz, because Australia broadcasts in PAL 50Hz.

Originally Posted by Ries

3 - The second card (WinTV 88x) is seen but not getting any channels. Is a second card not supported?

[/quote]

I don't know, is it on the supported cards list in the documentation? Any card with BDA drivers should work ok though.

Have you explicitly gone into the TV configuration, and selected this card and scanned for channels (I assume this is what you are talking about).


(is the aerial plugged in!. )

[wazmau]

I have the same problem! I have been using media portal for a while to watch recorded shows and then about 4 weeks ago I decided to add a TV card. I did a complete rebuild and all was working great. I could record TV shows perfectly. I decided to take the plunge and upgrade everything and build from scratch with 2 TV cards. just before I stated the rebuild, I recorded a show that went for something like 2.5 hours at 2am. When I went to look in the morning it was not only not in the list, the other shows I had recorded weren't there either!

I checked the folder and theye were all there including the latest one which was round 7gb in size. I tried everything I could think to get them back into recorded programs but with no luck. I watch everything in the folder and then deleted them. The next time I recorded, there it was listed in recorded programs.

Since then I have rebuilt and everything has been going well (for the last 4 days anyhow), with recorded programs showing us they should. Then I recorded the GP on Sunday night and in the morning everything was gone from the listing but there perfectly in the folder.

Is it a size issue? It seems that when I record a 2 hour plus show the listing disappears.

Any ideas how to get round this would be greatly appreciated!

Warren

[Bumnut]

I've got a similar issue after a reinstall of windows; Stuff that I record is recorded, and turns up in the folder which I can watch by navigating to it in my videos, but the 'recorded tv' display is empty.

It may be related to a stuff up I made during install. Here's what I did:

Install windows, drivers etc
Install .net, vc redist, MSSQL
Install Mediaportal

However, when I set up SQL, I was using a crappy wireless keyboard, and the sa password wasn't entered right, so I couldn't set up the tv server. (ie some letters were missing from my password, but I didn't know which)

Knowing nothing about SQL, I uninstalled it and reinstalled it, making sure the password was rightm then re-ran the tv server setup.

Everything works except the 'recorded tv' menu.

Also, I had a bunch of recorded tv from the previous install in the folder I'm using (on a separate drive), which I imported with the tv server setup. That might have affected it too.

Any suggestions?

[wazmau]

Bit of an update that may shed some light for someone.

Last night I moved all of the files in the recorded programs folder to a temp folder and then I recorded about 15 mins of a show. It displayed in recorded programs perfectly. I copied all of the old files back in and there was nothing displaying. I took all the old ones out again and the new recording once again appeared. I copied one of the smaller programs files back and it also displayed. To me this shows that at least one of the recorded programs is causing the problem. Is it possible for the accompanying xml file of a recording to cause the abort of the display? I will try copying them over one at a time till I find the offending recording(s).


Warren

[jontyb]

Hi

If you can no longer access your recorded tv (nothing or only a few things there) then try the following:

1. Open the database on the TV server
2. Find the table dbo.recording (this in in SQL Express - dont know about mySQL)
3. look at the idChannel column
4. if there are any entries with a -1 then change them to something else - wont really matter as long as it is a positive integer
5. open MP and there are your recordings

It seems to be related to messing with the TV tuner cards and or channels. I accidently hit 'clear' on the tv channels (could do with a warning here) and it wiped them all. When I re-tuned, I lost the recorded tv.

even deleting the database and re-importing the recorded tv did not work. I suspect there is something linking the recording to the card, and if the card pid has changed it dumps in a -1 which at some point caused the reading of the table to bomb - if idChannel < 0 then movenext

[wazmau]

Hi,

I think you are correct about it being a database corruption that is the problem, however I think mine may be a different cause. It happened again at the weekend and after thinking about what I did prior, I believe it may be something to do with stopping a recording early. I am going to see if I can duplicate it. In the mean time, can you tell me what you used to view the records in the database please. I have all sorts of programs to access mysql but nothing for SQL Express (kind of the reverse of you).

[Paranoid Delusion]

TV-Server/install-SQL-Management-Studio - MediaPortal Wiki Documentation

Nice and easy, especially if you want to backup or delete.