Audio winks out (1 Viewer)

[susd]

I have MP running well except every once in a while the audio seems to just winks out and it happens at any time. It doesn't seem to follow any pattern. I did move the time shifting folder to a external 300 gb drive in hopes that would help but it has not. Are there other changes/adjustments to eliminate this issue?

thanks.

 

[mm1352000]

Hello

Since you mention timeshifting, are we to assume that this issue only affects live TV? ...or does it also affect recordings? ...and what about video files?

Does the problem only affect certain channels?

Could you please describe your audio setup. I mean: do you have an AV receiver? If yes, is the audio connected directly to the receiver, or does it go via a TV?

How is the audio connected from your set top box to your Colossus?

It would be ideal if you could post debug-level log files covering a period where the audio "winks out" so that we can see (a) what codecs you're using and (b) what format the audio stream is.

Without this information it is difficult to help you.

Regards,
mm

 

[susd]

Here are my details
I have Direct TV and connect my stb via an HDMI cable between the stb and my colossus capture card. I also us an HDMI connection between my LG smart TV and my AMD Radeon 5450 card. The Computer is a Dell i3-4150 3.50 ghz with 8 gb of memory. I have a 1 TB hard drive for the os and an usb 300 gb external hd that I use for recorded tv, movies and time shifting. Today I recorded some live tv and played it back. No audio issues were noticed.
I've tried to upload the zipped logs but keep getting an error. I will try again later to see if I can get them uploaded.

thanks
susd

 

[mm1352000]

Thanks

Could you please answer these two questions:

Since you mention timeshifting, are we to assume that this issue only affects live TV? ...or does it also affect recordings? ...and what about video files?
Does the problem only affect certain channels?

...and also, could you please specify the date and time when the audio last "winked out". The logs are good, but finding such problems can be like trying to find a needle in a haystack... unless we have dates and times.

 

[mm1352000]

Ahhh, one more thing which might help.
In your log files I see that you're using the MediaPortal audio renderer. I'd recommend you switch to the default DirectSound renderer. MP audio renderer can work with TV, but my understanding is that it doesn't always work 100%. It works better with video files.

You can find the TV audio renderer setting in MediaPortal configuration here:
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_...nfiguration/9_Codecs_and_Renderer/1_TV_Codecs

 

[susd]

I made the change to audio as you suggested and the audio skip seem to happen only once during the
tv viewing. I'll post a new log listing for you to look at. Please check the time slot around 8:59 (PC time) for any issues you might find.

 

[susd]

wait. in the above post I said that I changed the audio to DirectSound but in future review I did not change it in the TV tab of that screen.
Let me run a test on that change before you look at the logs.....[DOUBLEPOST=1425233803][/DOUBLEPOST]ok so under MediaPortal - Configuration Codecs and
renderer TV Codes Audio renderer MediaPortal - Audio Renderer is the only one that gives me audio out on TV.

 

[susd]

So far I have moved my time shift disk location from a USB drive back to the "C" drive. That has not corrected the issue that I'm having.
I have also run Task manager to see if there is any spike in the cpu or disk performance that might account for this issue but it doesn't seem to relate.
My AMD card has 1g of memory on it and when I play recorded TV it seems to work fine.
Also, if I'm watching a sporting event (Hockey) at times it seems that the video even stutters. I'm wondering if this is a related issue.

 

[mm1352000]

Sorry, I missed your update.

ok so under MediaPortal - Configuration Codecs and
renderer TV Codes Audio renderer MediaPortal - Audio Renderer is the only one that gives me audio out on TV.

If that's the case then something is not right. The MPAR is using this audio output:
AMD HDMI Output (AMD High Definition Audio Device)

The corresponding DirectSound option should work, and I strongly recommend you use it because the MediaPortal Audio Renderer can be problematic with TV as explained previously.

The other thing that I see in your log files is a bunch of these kinds of entries in the TsReader log:
[2015-03-01 08:58:49,619] [15554dd0] [383a8] - audPin : Audio to render late= 0.192
[2015-03-01 08:58:50,201] [15554dd0] [383a8] - audPin : Audio to render late= 0.186
[2015-03-01 08:58:50,388] [15554dd0] [370c0] - Pause 195 mS renderer clock to match provider/RTSP clock, A/V = 8/16

This means TsReader is running out of audio data. To try to resolve this you can increase the TsReader buffer size:
https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/threads/experimental-tsreader-development.102693/#post-811296

New feature: Registry key added to adjust data buffering time - HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Team MediaPortal\TsReader, set "BufferingDelayInMilliSeconds" to a (decimal) value in milliseconds (range is 0 to 2000, default is 0). Note - this will add delay to live TV channel changes since it needs to build up the buffer before play starts.

So far I have moved my time shift disk location from a USB drive back to the "C" drive. That has not corrected the issue that I'm having.

Yep, won't make a jot of difference for this problem.

I have also run Task manager to see if there is any spike in the cpu or disk performance that might account for this issue but it doesn't seem to relate.

No, I wouldn't think you'd see anything in there.

My AMD card has 1g of memory on it and when I play recorded TV it seems to work fine.

With the greatest respect, the video card memory is not relevant to the problem.

Also, if I'm watching a sporting event (Hockey) at times it seems that the video even stutters. I'm wondering if this is a related issue.

Perhaps... but also perhaps not.
I take it your Colossus has adequate cooling, and that your source (cable TV) has good signal strength/quality?
Additional log files with date/time details would be required to look into this.

Regards,
mm

 

[Owlsroost]

I have MP running well except every once in a while the audio seems to just winks out and it happens at any time. It doesn't seem to follow any pattern. I did move the time shifting folder to a external 300 gb drive in hopes that would help but it has not. Are there other changes/adjustments to eliminate this issue?

thanks.

Could you describe in plain english what the audio problem is - 'winks out' doesn't tell me much (it's not exactly a technical term....)

Are you talking about very short interruptions to the sound ?