No sound when tuning the same channel on one tuner (1 Viewer)

[PJM]

Hello,

I'm a long time Windows Media Center user, and have switched over to Media Portal because of issues with WMC crashing. I'm very impressed, however I'm having a strange issue.

3 of my tuners work fine - however my ATI Theater 550 Pro loses sound when tuning the same channel in a row. For example, I can tune channel 13, then tune channel 12, and it works fine. If I tune to 13, stop TV, then tune to 13 again, I get no sound.

This also occurs with recordings, if I was watching channel 7, then turned TV off, then a recording starts on channel 7 for example. Or if there are two recordings in a row on the same channel, the second one will not have sound.

I have tried the various tuner settings (pause/stop/preloading) with no success.

I would really appreciate any help you can give me, I really don't want to go back to MCE, as MP is so much more flexible and tweakable.

I have attached the logs from the debug mode log collector.

Thanks!

 

[mm1352000]

Hello and welcome PJM

I've checked your logs (thanks for them - perfect ) but I don't see anything obviously wrong. My suggestion would be to try a different MPEG/AC3 audio codec:
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_...nfiguration/9_Codecs_and_Renderer/1_TV_Codecs

...or check the LAV audio codec settings are compatible with your receiver (or whatever you're using to decode and amplify the audio).

mm

 

[PJM]

Thanks for the very quick reply!

Does the TV server even bother with codecs, or does it just write the stream from the tuner to disk? I didn't think this was a frontend issue because it affects recordings as well.

I have already tried a few different codec options just in case, and had no luck. I am using a Yamaha receiver to decode/amplify, and when using AC3filter for TV it shows a normal Dolby Digital stream (I have AC3 filter set to encode everything to DD), so I know that the audio is getting to the receiver and being interpreted correctly. Actually, when this problem occurs (and I have LAV selected for audio), if I click on the speaker in the windows tray, I don't see any green line showing the output - but when the audio IS working, the output is visible. So I'm guessing the audio isn't making it out of mediaportal for whatever reason.

Thanks again.

 

[mm1352000]

Hmmmm, interesting...

Does the TV server even bother with codecs, or does it just write the stream from the tuner to disk?

Write to disk. No codecs... though encoders (ie. the MPEG encoders on your tuners) can make a difference so it is interesting you only have this problem with the ATI tuner.

I didn't think this was a frontend issue because it affects recordings as well.

Technically recordings and live TV are played in a very similar way, so unless you've tested the recordings in an alternative player (ie. not MediaPortal) there is a chance it would be a playback codec issue.

if I click on the speaker in the windows tray, I don't see any green line showing the output - but when the audio IS working, the output is visible. So I'm guessing the audio isn't making it out of mediaportal for whatever reason.

Mmmm, yes.
From my perspective the server logs are saying that both video and audio are being delivered by the tuner. Whether the audio is okay (ie. not silent, playable etc.) is unknown - not something I can determine from logs.
On the client side it does look like audio is not being rendered (played)... but I don't think this really narrows the problem in any way. My understanding is that symptom could be caused by a source (ie. tuner encoder), splitter (ie. TsReader) or codec issue.

Could you please post a short recording (~15 MB) that doesn't play audio and I'll see if deeper analysis reveals anything.
Also as above, please make sure you try the recordings in some other player (VLC, mplayer, MPC HC, XBMC... lots of free choices).
One other thing you could try with MediaPortal is changing the file extension from TS to MPG. That will cause MP to play it using video settings rather than TV. Different splitter could make a difference.

mm

 

[PJM]

Just re-read and noticed you said change the file extension Tried that, but it didn't show up in recorded tv, so I had to play under "videos". Same result, no sound [DOUBLEPOST=1404409441][/DOUBLEPOST]Here is a short recording showing the no sound issue. I have tried it in VLC on the HTPC as well as my laptop, still no sound.

Thanks again for the great support. Please let me know if there's any other information you need.

 

[mm1352000]

Audio stream data is present in the recording, but it looks like garbage to me... and de/re-muxing doesn't help. I think this is some kind of tuner encoder compatibility issue.

 

[PJM]

Very interesting. I'm not surprised it's a compatibility issue with the tuner, but it's strange to me that it works as long as you don't tune the same channel twice in a row

 

[mm1352000]

The server won't apply a tune request when it detects that you're tuning the channel that the tuner is already tuned to. That's done to minimise/optimise channel change times. It would be strange for that optimisation to only affect audio and not video. Further, the tuner is reporting that it is tuned to the same frequencies:
[2014-07-03 13:07:25,895] [Log ] [8 ] [INFO ] - Analog: Tuned to country:2 video:211250000 Hz audio:215750000 Hz locked:True

[2014-07-03 13:07:43,142] [Log ] [17 ] [INFO ] - Analog: Tuned to country:2 video:211250000 Hz audio:215750000 Hz locked:False

*Ignore the locked status.

You could try the attached patch to force analog tuning all the time and see if it helps.

1. Open TV Server configuration.
2. Go to the manual control section.
3. Click "stop service".
4. Close TV Server configuration.
5. Take a backup of the TVLibrary.dll in your TV Server install folder (typically c:\Program Files (x86)\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal TV Server).
6. Replace with the attached DLL.
7. Open TV Server configuration (click "yes" to start the service).
8. Test...

mm

 

[PJM]

I managed to test this for a minute or two, and so far it works great! I'll monitor for broken recordings over the next few days, but I'm pretty sure that did it.

Thank you very much for the amazing support.