Lengthy channel changing for 1 station (1 Viewer)

[zanlation]

I recently installed a new DigitalNOW dual DVB-T PCI card into my system with a hybrid Leadtek 3200H card. I split the TV antenna cabling into two using a powered splitter. I scanned the channels on the 3 available DVB-T tuners using the latest TV-Server SVN. All the usually channels were scanned properly and I could view all stations in TV Server ok.

The problem occurred when I started to change channels in mediaportal. When I switch to SBS (Australia) it hangs and usually crashes (no response when I try to switch back to a new channel, or any other command or mouse movement). I can view SBS without a problem in TV Server and all other channels are clear without stuttering.

The analogue SBS station reception is usually pretty poor. However, TV server does not have any problems viewing the HD or SD SBS channels.

Any ideas?

 

[een_mq]

Hi there,

The problem sounds familiar, however before I try to diagnose it, can you clarify a few things?

- The problem occurred when I started to change channels in mediaportal.
Do you mean the problem occur on a client machine (one that is different from the tv server) or do you mean using mediaportal on the machine that tv server resides on?

- I can view SBS without a problem in TV Server and all other channels are clear without stuttering.
Again, when you say that you can watch SBS on TV server, do you mean watching it on Mediaportal that resides on the same machine that TV server is on.

It's just that we might be using different terms here.
TV server is a program that provides tv service not TV viewing, you need MediaPortal or MPTVclient for that
There is the single seat where MP is installed where TV server is installed on
or multiseat where mediaportal is installed on TV server machine and different machine.
If you can also describe your machines, i.e.
-spec of TV server, hard disk used (separate for recording, windows, etc)
- spec of tv client
-network setup (wireless, wired, etc)

Hopefully I can help you resolve this problem

 

[zanlation]

The installation is all on the one client machine (single-seat). I can preview SBS channels from TV Server, which uses mediaportal codecs?

The hard drive has 50Gb free with timeshifting in folder c:\timeshifting (note E drive is windows installation and boot partition) The machine is:

TV-Server Version: RC2 (latest SVN)
MediaPortal Version: RC2 (latest SVN)
MediaPortal Skin: PureVision 1.2 4:3
Windows Version: Windows XP Pro SP3
CPU Type: AMD Althon64 4800+
HDD: Samsung Spinpoint 500Gb
Memory: Patriot 2048MB PC2-6400 800MHz DDR2 RAM
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H R1.0
Video Card: Sapphire HD3450
Video Card Driver: Catalyst 8.8
Sound Card: onboard
Sound Card AC3:
Sound Card Driver:
1. TV Card: Leadtek Winfast PVR-3200H
1. TV Card Type:
1. TV Card Driver:
2. TV Card: DigitalNOW Dual DVB-T PCI
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: ffdshow (build 20080909)
MPEG2 Audio Codec: ffdshow (build 20080909)
h.264 Video Codec: ffdshow (build 20080909)
Satelite/CableTV Provider:
HTPC Case: Silverstone GD-01MX
Cooling: AMD Standard
Power Supply: Seasonic 430W
Remote: Logitech 525
TV: JVC CRT
TV - HTPC Connection: S-video

 

[een_mq]

OK,

So, previewing the channel using tv server is fine, but the minute you use mediaportal to watch sbs it is slow/not working.

A couple of things to try, in the past I have issues changing channels, and these things helped me:
-turned off anti virus (enable later if doesnt help) and reinstall media portal. My norton likes to delete bass.dll file on the mediaportal directory that causes these issues even though I tell it not to scan the mediaportal directory
-latest directx redistributable from microsoft.
-uninstalling any codec pack if applicable
-if you can get a copy of coreavc, test it, as I have issues too with ffdshow for h264 decoding, it seems to stutter sometimes.
coreavc for h264 fixed this for me...
-try to run mp in windowed mode and check your cpu utilisation under task manager to see if it is maxed out...
unlikely since you have good hardware, but you never know
-get latest graphics driver, try the beta one if you have to
-make sure your windows is fully up to date and you have installed the tuner fix patch, this is automatically installed if you have mce and install the update rollup 2.u
If you have xp pro, make sure you install the following
GeneralRequirements - MediaPortal Wiki Documentation


let me know if this makes any difference at all.

 

[zanlation]

I replaced the ffdshow video codec with PowerDVD Ultra 8 and turned on HA. This solved the problem of channel changing times. However, I do experience problems with PowerDVD. The problem seems to occur randomly. The Hard Drive light starts flashing heavy and I get major stutter in the video. This only occurs when I am using the PowerDVD codec. I still use the ffdshow audio codec to eliminate sound dropouts when changing channels.