Multiple TV Tuner Problems (1 Viewer)

[fiseor]

I have 3 tuner cards installed, a Hauppauge 1800, ViXS PureTV-U card, and a Hauppauge 1600. When all three are installed, I get random problems with viewing/recording multiple channels at the same time. Lately it has been giving me a "no audio/video found" error when the first two tuners are in use and I try to view a channel with the third. I originally though the Hauppauge 1600 might be defective, but I disabled the other two tuners, restarted the TV Server, and the 1600 card can tune properly. Maybe some sort of conflict between the cards?

I have attached two logs. The first log "MediaPortalLogs_04_10_11__11_22.zip" has all three tuners enabled and has the no audio error. The second log "MediaPortalLogs_04_10_11__11_36.zip" has the first two tuners disabled and only the 1600 card enabled, which worked properly.

Any help is appreciated.

Btw, not sure how to get my system specs to show up in this post, as I did set them in the usercp.

 

[mm1352000]

Hi and welcome fiseor

First, regarding the system spec thing: you have to enable them to be seen somewhere in your profile.

Now about these tuners of yours. I think the "Hauppauge WinTV 418 Tuner" (I guess this is the 1600) does have a problem as the conclusions that you've drawn from your second test do not seem to be correct according to what I can see in the logs. In the second test all 3 tuners are still enabled (you have to untick them to disable them), it is just that the 1600 seems to have been prioritised above the other two. You attempt to tune a channel on the 1600 twice and both attempts fail with the audio/video error. Because other tuners are available TV Server falls back to tuning with them. To be clear, what happened is:

1. TV Server asked to tune a channel with the 1600.
2. Tuning succeeds.
3. TV Server waits for audio and video to arrive.
4. Audio and video haven't arrived after 15 seconds so TV Server gives up and tries the next available tuner (the 1800).
5. Tuning succeeds.
6. Audio and video arrive within about a second.

So to I can't see any case where the 1600 actually works. It seems to tune alright, but video and/or audio never seem to arrive. This might indicate that it has an encoder issue. Have you got other software that you can try it in?

mm

 

[fiseor]

Thanks for your help mm.

Yes, the Hauppauge WinTV 418 Tuner is the 1600. That is strange about disabling the cards. I went back and checked, and they were definitely disabled (unchecked) in the Server config. Just to be sure I stopped the TV Server, and disabled the two cards in the device manager of Windows. Retested tuning with the 1600 and as you assumed, it did not work. Same error about no audio arriving. So I installed Hauppauge's crappy WinTV program and it gave an error about not getting a signal with the card. I re-enabled the 1800 card and WinTV worked, so again, it does appear to be a problem with the 1600 card.

When I was in the device manager I noticed the two cards had two different driver versions installed, which I thought was a little strange, as the Hauppauge driver setup program installed both at the same time (maybe the two different cards require different driver versions? who knows). At any rate, I'm pulling the card out of the current WinXP box and putting it in a Win7 box to see if the different environment/driver gives any different results, or maybe the card is just screwed up. If it is, that is what I get for buying it on ebay.

 

[fiseor]

So I put the Hauppauge 1600 card in my Win7 box, loaded MP 1.2.1, and it worked fine. My XP box does only have MP 1.2.0, but based on what I can tell from the change log, I really doubt this has any bearing. It appears the tuner card is functioning properly, so there must be something else going on with it under the XP box. I'm thinking driver related, but not sure. I'm going shelve this card until I make the jump to Win7 on my MP box.

I've completely removed the Haup 1600 and now my XP box only has two tuners, but I'm still having a problem. The current tuners are:

Haup 1800 - Analog WinTV 885 Tuner - id 3 and Priority 8
Analog ViXS PureTV Tuner - id 6 and Priority 7

I've attached the log of the problem. This is what I was doing:

1. Set Channel 11 - CBS to record Let's Make a Deal
2. Tuner id 3 WinTV 885 starts recording it properly
3. Change the channel to 37 - Discovery
4. Tuner id 6 ViXS tunes and shows channel 37 properly
5. Change the channel to 33 - ESPN
6. MP freezes while still on the tv guide screen. I wait about 2 minutes and finally kill the MP process

I do not know enough to understand what the logs are saying at this point, so any ideas?

Thanks again for the help.

 

[mm1352000]

Hi again fiseor

I'm afraid there isn't enough information in the logs for me to be able to trace exactly what is happening in the code. Are you able to reproduce this issue consistently? If so, then I can provide you with a debug DLL to try and find out what is going on.

mm

 

[fiseor]

Yes, I can consistently replicate the issue. I'll do whatever debugging will help possibly figure it out. Thanks

 

[mm1352000]

Okay

I'll put together a DLL as soon as I can find the time - hopefully this weekend.

mm

 

[mm1352000]

Hi again

Well, I can confirm that I am *not* able to reproduce this problem with my analog tuners. I'm attaching a debug DLL for you to try. Instructions:

0. Delete your TV Server logs (open TV Server config, click "open log directory" in the top left corner, delete all the files that you find there).
1. Stop TV service.
2. Take a backup of the TVLibrary.dll in your TV Server install folder.
3. Download and extract the attached TVLibrary.dll into your TV Server install folder.
4. Start TV service.
5. Perform the test.
6. Provide your logs again using the watchdog.

Cheers!
mm

 

[FloMann]

AW: Multiple TV Tuner Problems

Hello,

Your DXDiag.txt in the Log shows Psisdecd.dll, Psisrndr.ax, Mpeg2data.ax is Version from SP3 (5512).
Have you Install the DVB Fix Required for XP?? In the past I have also Problems without this Fix, especially with
Multituner. I dont know it solve your Problem, but give it a Try.

Flo

 

[fiseor]

@mm, logs attached.

Flo. It has been quite awhile since I originally set this up, but the dvbfix files are in the proper folder at c:\dvbfix and I'm pretty sure I ran the bat file to register the proper files prior to installing mediaportal