Calling all MP New Zealanders (Both of you!!) (9 Viewers)

[rlevis]

There are no known issues with the 4400, but before you go down that route... have you tried switching the tuners in your hybrid cards?

Since installing 1.2 I hadn't thought about doing that again, but that was one of the problems. They were around the wrong way after I swapped in 1.12 to try fixing the FM problem.

After switching them back, it appeared to be working perfectly initially...

But there are still problems. I was listening to FM, had 2 TV channels start recording on different muxes (if that's the right word), which stopped the FM playing as expected, then stopped both TV recordings, and tried to listen to FM and the same "unknown error" occured.

After restarting the TVService, I had both tuners busy recording 2 TV muxes, then stopped one recording. Then tried to listen to FM and it said "no free card available". Double checked that only 1 program was being recorded.

I've attached the tv.log for the latter issue, but here is the problem...

card:4 type:Analog can tune to channel
card:4 type:Analog users: 1
card:5 type:Analog cannot tune to channel
found 1 card(s) for channel
card:4 type:Analog is not available, tuned to different transponder
found 0 free card(s)

card 5 can tune to the channel, so why is it saying it can't?

Cheers.

 

[mm1352000]

card 5 can tune to the channel, so why is it saying it can't?

Have you mapped all the analog/FM channels to both analog tuners?

 

[rlevis]

Yes. I just checked and both analog tuners (card 4 & 5) have the FM radio stations mapped.

 

[mm1352000]

rlevis

Something strange is going on there - it is like both analog tuners are grouped with your first DVB-T tuner in one of the hybrid card groups. There is simply no other explanation that would make sense. I recommend that you completely delete both your hybrid cards and all your regular tuners (if you know SQL then wipe all the records in cardgroup and cardgroupmap) then restart and do a fresh set up of the tuners and mappings. See the attached logs for proof that it can be done!

Now, since you've got 1.2.0b installed you'll be wanting my patch. I'm actually going to provide you with 3 patches in 1:
1. Fix for FM radio buffer issue (actually this issue is about radio being detected as video).
2. Fix for switching analog -> DVB-T -> analog. See here.
3. A personal fix for switching between analog TV and FM radio issues with SAA716x based cards.

To install:

1. Stop TV Server.
2. Take a backup of the TVLibrary.dll and MPFileWriter.ax in your TV Server install folder.
3. Download and extract the attached TVLibrary.dll and MPFileWriter.ax into your TV Server install folder.
4. Start TV Server.

You should be golden after that.

mm

 

[rlevis]

I've installed those patches.

I deleted the hybrids, re-set them up, and I definately selected card 2 & 4 for one hybrid, and cards 3 & 5 for the other. But same problem. No free card available when tuner 2/4 is busy.

I don't know SQL well enough to do the wiping in the database.

I don't think it is a hybrid issue as the line "card:5 type:Analog cannot tune to channel" doesn't indicate the card is busy. Card 4 is in fact busy as it's hybrid tuner 2 is currently tuned to dvb-t. That is indicated in the log a few lines down. So card 5 should say it can tune to channel, even if it is busy.

To me it looks like it's in the code that determines if a card is capable of tuning to a specific channel. It seems to think that the channel (an FM radio station) is not mapped to card 5, but it definately is.

 

[mm1352000]

To me it looks like it's in the code that determines if a card is capable of tuning to a specific channel. It seems to think that the channel (an FM radio station) is not mapped to card 5, but it definately is.

Well in that case, please post the two analog tuner configuration XML files in C:\ProgramData\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal TV Server\AnalogCard (note: that is a hidden folder, so you'll have to enable viewing of hidden and system files if you haven't done so already...).

mm

 

[rlevis]

Ah, well rather than attach both files, I can report the only difference is
card 4 has <radioMode>1</radioMode and
card 5 has <radioMode>0</radioMode

Both analog tuners should be the same shouldn't they? Or perhaps the card is designed to only use one of the analog tuners for radio.
I deleted these files but they were re-created the same.

If this is the card design, I'll change the priority so card 3 has a higher priority than 2 and then generally if only one DVB-T channel is being recorded we should be able to listen to FM radio. Not the end of the world.

 

[mm1352000]

Ah, well rather than attach both files, I can report the only difference is
card 4 has <radioMode>1</radioMode and
card 5 has <radioMode>0</radioMode

Both analog tuners should be the same shouldn't they? Or perhaps the card is designed to only use one of the analog tuners for radio.
I deleted these files but they were re-created the same.

Ahhhhh, I see. Well radio mode works like this:

0 = no support for radio
1 = supports FM radio
2 = supports AM radio
3 = supports AM and FM radio
(note: MP does not support AM radio)

That information is populated by querying the tuner to figure out what radio modes it supports. If the tuner says it doesn't support radio then that is what will be written to the XML file. Deleting the files and having TV Server recreate them was exactly what I would have asked you to do. The fact that they get recreated the same as before is at least good because it is consistent.

If this is a card design, I'll change the priority so card 3 has a higher priority than 2 and then generally if only one DVB-T channel is being recorded we should be able to listen to FM radio. Not the end of the world.

It does seem strange that only one tuner would support FM - maybe you should ask Hauppauge because it could be a driver issue. Of course you could try and set both values to 1 and see what happens. Note that I have no idea what the outcome would be - I don't think there'd be any risk of damaging the tuner, but you never know. Your priority change would be exactly what I'd do in your position...

mm

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

rlevis

Nowhere can I find that the HVR2200 has dual fm tuner, standard version does not even have fm ability, so looks like the New Zealand\Australian version is a bit unique.

Even info here, say nothing about being able to listen to one radio station, whilst recording another, so it really does look as if only one fm capable tuner on card.

 

[rlevis]

You must be right. After changing radioMode to 1 in the XML file, I get "no signal" attempting to listen to FM, so I'll unmap the FM stations from this card. Once I get a 2nd TV card, I shouldn't have any problems with tuners in use.

Now we know. Thanks all.