Playback is choppy and playback of recording crashes MP and sometimes entire computer (1 Viewer)

[henrik4223]

TV-Server Version: TVEngine3 16789
MediaPortal Version: Mediaportal - 16795
MediaPortal Skin: BlueTwo 0.2.3.0
Windows Version: Windows XP SP2 - all updates
CPU Type: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+
HDD: RAID Samsung spinpoint 180GBx2 - Promise 2+0 Stripe/RAID0 SCSI Disk Device
Memory: 1 GB Dual Channel Kingston RAM
Motherboard: ASUS A8V Deluxe
Motherboard Chipset: VIA K8T800Pro + VT8237
Motherboard Bios: A8V Deluxe BIOS 1017
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS
Video Card Driver: 9.1.4.7
Sound Card: HDA Digital X-Mystigue 7.1
Sound Card AC3: no AC3
Sound Card Driver: C-Media Inc 5.12.1.46
1. TV Card: Pinnacle Dual USB tuner diversity
1. TV Card Type: DVB-t
1. TV Card Driver:
2. TV Card: Pinnacle Dual USB tuner diversity
2. TV Card Type: DVB-T
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: NVIDIA Purevideo decoder 1.00.0000
MPEG2 Audio Codec: NVIDIA Purevideo decoder 1.00.0000
Satelite/CableTV Provider:
HTPC Case:
Cooling:
Power Supply: Chill 400W
Remote: Logetech Harmony 895+USB-UIRT
TV:
TV - HTPC Connection:

When watching TV it sometimes gets choppy and totally unwathcable as if the DVB-t signalt is very poor. However, if I change to another channel and back again the chopping dissapears, so it suppose it cannot be a bad signal. I have not repoduced this issue yet. But, I have found out that when trying to play a movie which has a VERY bad chopping MP crashes and often I see the blue screen of death and the computer reboots. I have attached a lot of an MP crash when trying to play a choppy movie.

 

[henrik4223]

I have now found out that this chopping occurs when whatching one channel and MP starts the recording of another channel. I will try to reproduce this and upload an error log.

 

[Paranoid Delusion]

Sounds very similar to the problems with the hauppauge diversity range, ie a weak signal.

All fine until 2 channels are in use.

What kind of aerial are you using, roof mounted with maybe a booster by the antennae good, indoor or in loft suspect, and thats if they are in good condition.

Do they actually work perfectly well with the pinnacle software, is usually a clue of signal quality\strength.

 

[henrik4223]

I used to have a Hauppauge nove-t 500 but with this the signal was to weak (with just one tuner in use) and periodically it was chopping (but this dissapeared when zapping). Changed to the external Pinnacle which has better quality.

I have a rooftop antenna whic has a signal booster.

I will try to use the pinnacle software and post results.

 

[henrik4223]

I have not tried the pinnacle software and no problem here. Also, I have not been able to reproduce the error by recording to shows at one time. However, the issue remains and the recording mentioned above still makes the computer or MP crash. My signal strength is 75 and quality between 60-80.

I found this in the mediaportal.log. Does anyone knows what this means?

2008-01-06 19:02:16.750000 [Debug][14]: On TextSubtitle called
2008-01-06 19:02:16.750000 [Debug][14]: Text subtitle (page 437) discarded: useBitmap is True and activeSubPage is 0
2008-01-06 19:02:17.156250 [Info.][MPMain]: TSReaderPlayer: current pos:7205,8636667 dur:8337,31
2008-01-06 19:02:17.359375 [Debug][17]: SubtitleRenderer: Bitmap: bpp=32 planes 1 dim = 720 x 131 stride : 2880
2008-01-06 19:02:17.359375 [Debug][13]: Skipping packets, buffer over full!
2008-01-06 19:02:17.359375 [Debug][13]: Skipping packets, buffer over full!
2008-01-06 19:02:17.375000 [Debug][13]: Skipping packets, buffer over full!
2008-01-06 19:02:17.375000 [Debug][13]: Skipping packets, buffer over full!
2008-01-06 19:02:17.375000 [Debug][13]: Skipping packets, buffer over full!
2008-01-06 19:02:17.375000 [Debug][13]: Skipping packets, buffer over full! [this continues a few 100 times]

Last post should start with: I han NOV....

 

[ziphnor]

I have not tried the pinnacle software and no problem here. Also, I have not been able to reproduce the error by recording to shows at one time. However, the issue remains and the recording mentioned above still makes the computer or MP crash. My signal strength is 75 and quality between 60-80.

Does the recording in question play okay in for example VLC? It might be a good idea to upload that recording here:

ftp.team-mediaportal.com
login:tsdump@team-mediaportal.com
pass: mpuser88

I found this in the mediaportal.log. Does anyone knows what this means?

That is simply the old teletext subtitle packet buffer that is overflowing (meaning something is wrong). If the problem is related to this (as opposed to the problem causing this), then you can solve it by updating MP to the latest SVN. Or you can try to disable dvbsubs and see if that helps.

 

[henrik4223]

The recording also stops in VLC, but nothing crashes (not VLC or any blue screen of death).

Do you have nay suggestion to a program to cut the file in question into smaller parts, as the file is very big?

 

[ziphnor]

The recording also stops in VLC, but nothing crashes (not VLC or any blue screen of death).

Most likely the stream is so messed up that some part of the MP code (possibly teletext) chokes on it Of course this shouldnt happen if at all avoidable, so it would be great to see that file.

What happens when you disable dvb subs in Mediaportal.xml?

Do you have nay suggestion to a program to cut the file in question into smaller parts, as the file is very big?

You can just cut it on the binary level to an appropriate size(ie just copy the first X megabytes of the file), just make sure that the crash is before it reaches the end of the cut file

I am not sure what the easiest way to do that is though

 

[henrik4223]

I stopped mediaportal and changed the <entry name="dvbsubtitles">yes</entry> to <entry name="dvbsubtitles">no</entry> and restarted mediaportal.

It does not seem that this helped, as I saw the blue screen of death again after some heavy chopping of the sound (no video) about an hour into the movie before the computer restarted. I only saw that the blue screen wrote "Bad pool header" before it restarted. Window has made an error report. Would that be helpful and in that case, where do I find this report?

I am sorry to say that I do not know how to cut the file on the binary level ;-)

 

[ziphnor]

It does not seem that this helped, as I saw the blue screen of death again after some heavy chopping of the sound (no video) about an hour into the movie before the computer restarted.

I had missed the fact that you were getting a BSOD when i read your post earlier, sorry. A BSOD is pretty serious and really shouldnt be happen no matter what goes wrong in MP. My bet would be that this is a driver&codec issue. Could you try using MPV + MPA as video and audio decoders instead and try to play back the file again?